Trigger warning – the following essay discusses topics including abuse, suicide, and self-harm. 

I was never his. Not by blood; not by association. The man who’d been one of my father figures since I was two never really took me as his. He treated me the same as a coworker he’d known, or a random man he’d gotten into a bar fight with. Out of place. For 15 years. In my own “home”. The one place that was supposed to shield me from any harm – but within came the harm.  Through trying so hard to get affection from someone who should be giving me unconditional love, and through healing from all I’d been put through, I found myself. 

One of the first times I realized I didn’t belong I was about 12. He’d screamed at me saying “You’re just a Martin*, I hate the Martins”. From then on, I knew my place. That overwhelming feeling of not belonging in the one space you’re supposed to belong is crippling. I always wondered what was wrong with me – what had I done. I felt so lost I didn’t even know where my heart and mind were at. They had floated away with the rest of the things who made me me. The things that’d been ripped from my grasp. 

While I’d already known I didn’t belong, the worst night of my life took place. 

“Hey Daddy!” I said as I’d gotten home from a long weekend at my dad’s house. 

Silence.

What did I do? Did I say something wrong? Was I rude? What did I do?

I made my lunch for the next day at school in silence as he drank the gold, fizzy liquid that only causes trauma and terror. 

“Do you want a hug?”

“No.”

“Okay, well goodnight! I love you!”

That shun only instilled in me more what I already knew; I didn’t matter. 

As I walked downstairs in pain, I wept. My heart fell – mangled – to the ground as it was ripped from my chest. I decided to listen to what he had to say about me from the bottom of the stairs – which was the worst decision of my life. 

“Why are you being like that? She just got home,” my mom inquired.

“She’s a little bitch – I hate her” he explained through clenched teeth.

I listened with tears already streaming down my face. The man I unconditionally loved, hated me. 

He began listing everything he hated about me, and everything he’d never do for me again. 

“Cunt.”

“I’m abandoning her, she’s not my daughter anymore.”

“I’m never doing anything for her ever again.”

“No car, no college, I want her out of this house.”

And all I had done was come home from my dad’s house. 

As I witnessed everything he’d said, I tripped over his words like large tree roots sticking out of the ground as I ran to my room in unbearable agony. I realized that I didn’t have control of my life anymore, I’d completely let him take over – and this was the last night.

I took that scarf and thought of all my life had been up to this point, I noticed that there was no point. If he didn’t love me, that meant there was no reason to continue my desolate being. I wrote a letter to the only person I could think of who’d really care; my real dad. I apologized profusely for what I was about to do, and told him how much I loved him. Even though I received so much burning love and support from that man, I couldn’t get the dark, empty, evil thoughts that had sprouted from my stepdad to creep my mind. So I let them take over. 

Sobbing, I fit that magenta, sparkly scarf over the top of my door. When my cowardly attack on myself proved unsuccessful, I sat there in anger. Angry at myself for even thinking of doing that; angry at the bubbly liquid for having my parents’ love and not mine; angry at my stepdad for how he made me feel; angry at the scarf for not doing its job. Was that selfish? Was it selfish of me to take myself from my dad’s arms? Yes, it was; however, I needed to do that to realize exactly how much this life means to me – and how much the people surrounding me do care.

That was two years ago, and I’m still healing. More events have taken place, and taken a piece of me with them, but I know that one day I’ll be better. I will never be the person I was before everything had happened, and I will never be “normal” again, but that’s part of living with traumatic events. While I hate him for putting me through that, and gifting me with trauma, I hope that I’ll eventually be okay enough to talk to him again. 

I’d survived that night – despite my best efforts, and I’m glad I did. Hurting myself wasn’t new to me, but being on the verge of death made me understand that this life is precious – and you really only have one. Even though he didn’t love me, I still had so much love and support coming from other people. I really didn’t need him. 

*name changed for anonymity