Unraveled

A four year old girl hunkers in the dark corner of her closet, clutching her cat Max tightly. Her parents are at each other's throats, again. She sobs silently into the cat's soft brindle fur. The cat moves uncomfortably in the girl's arms, but he doesn't run. Even as the girl sinks her face deep into the cat's side, as though she could somehow escape the hell of her surroundings by doing so, Max patiently stays put.

A six year old girl runs through the forest, her imagination runs wild as she controls an invisible army against the forces of darkness. How she loves the forest, and the feeling of freedom that comes with it. Here, she can explore and ignore her torment. Here she can get a taste of what life could be. Then she is called home; dread descends upon her like a dark storm cloud as she makes her way back to the house. More yelling, more crying in the closet. Wash, rinse, repeat. This little girl's life was never more than this, and slowly she was learning to accept that.

Now 8, the little girl goes to school. Technically, this is 4th grade, but the girl was home schooled until now. An extremely isolated only child, this is her first experience with others her own age. She is unprepared for how cruel other children could be, She had thought that this toxic behavior was reserved for adults. She didn't fit in there was no doubt. Nonetheless, she enjoyed school because it was an out from the hardships she felt at home.

The girl's parents were divorcing. She was 9 now, and though she was relieved that there might finally be an end in sight to all the fighting that she had known her whole life, she now felt a new emotion-guilt. Why did she feel this way? She couldn't shake the idea that somehow, she was responsible for her parents splitting up. This was of course absurd, but the feeling had burrowed deep down in her gut, and having nobody to talk to, she couldn't dig it out.

At 12, the girl has figured out that school drained every ounce of creativity and individuality she had ever felt. This was partially due to the disconnect that she felt from her peers, but also from the lack of caring teachers. There wasn't a person in the world that she felt resonated with her soul. This girl had been a creative, imaginative child, but now she felt hollow, bitter, and resigned.

When the girl was 13, she met a boy. He was several years older than her, and he lived far away. As time went on, the two got very familiar with each other. For the first time, the girl felt as if there was someone in the world who understood and accepted who she was.

They dated long distance, although over the course of a couple of years, this fell apart. It was not because the two lost any feelings for each other, but because the girl had been seeing the boy behind her parents' backs. She hadn't felt as though she could trust them enough to tell them about the boy. They proved her right by forcing her to quit seeing and talking to him.

Heartbroken and devastated, the girl, age 15, went through the motions of life for a few months before spiraling downward hard. She made a slew of bad romantic decisions, although her parents didn't see the harm being done because she had tightened her dating pool to only include people her own age. She became more and more depressed, and spiteful towards her parents and her life.

The girl's parents got into a custody battle, her father dismayed by the reckless way that her mother was allowing her to behave. Her father, who allowed her no autonomy, lost custody thanks to the judge taking her mother's word over his. It was questionable if either one was telling the truth, but the father certainly had the girl's best interests at heart. The mother, on the other hand, had been making up for lost time as a single woman. She had many hookups, with excessive drug use and alcohol now commonplace.

Many failed suicide attempts cloaked the girl's existence between the ages of 15 and 17. Then one day, as she sat in the basement of a boy that she was calling her fiance, whom her mother had for some inexplicable reason allowed her to move in with, she got a message from her first love. He was in a relationship, but he wanted to see her. Emotions flooded the girl's heart, a welcomed event after having felt calloused for so long. She decided to see him.

Many events that would continue to both haunt and exhilarate the girl for years to come unraveled over the next few months. She left her "fiance" and began to date the boy that she loved again. Physically together for virtually the first time in their entire relationship, they fought, they broke up, they got back together. It was a very tumultuous period in the girl's life, though from her perspective it was no worse than the first 17 years.

As the two were finally learning how to appreciate each other's actual company, the girl got pregnant. Still only 17, she was incredibly nervous, though she knew she wanted the baby. It was not meant to be, two months in, she had a miscarriage. Again she was heartbroken. She had no time to grieve or to find comfort in the boy's presence, for her mother had figured out where she was.

She was returned to her mother that same fateful night, in handcuffs. The handcuffs were overkill in the girl's opinion, but defeated from having lost her baby, she made no objection to the ordeal. At this point in her life, she could honestly say that she hated her mother, she felt as though every good thing she had ever had was ripped away from her by this woman. Truthfully, from her own experiences, her mother was trying to protect her from making the same mistakes that she had, but the girl could not see it this way.

The girl was now biding her time; she would be 18 in mere months, she would be free. She went to live with her father in an attempt to escape her mother's overbearing grip. Her father, who desperately wanted her around, made no attempt to control what the girl was doing, and shortly her and the boy were back together again.

When the girl turned 18, they got married, and over the course of the next few years they had a couple of children. The sting of losing the first baby never left the girl's heart, but with time it was subdued. Her two surviving children, both little girls, warmed her heart.

Now she had a new fear; she was terrified she was going to break their spirits the same way that everyone she had ever known had broken hers. It was her top priority to make sure that they never felt as alone and hopeless as she had spent most of her own life feeling, but she knew that this was much easier said than done. She would spend the next two decades of her life navigating this path of motherhood, and doing everything she could to not make the same mistakes that her parents had made with her.

This is not a story of happily ever after, but rather one of a wounded heart trying to figure out its own reality after a life of trauma.