Thursday 14 July 2016
Growing up for me: Roses from concrete
Growing up for me: Roses from concrete: Im starting to write a bit about what i went through as a child. I feel better when i write about it, and I want to share with others my suc...
Roses from concrete
Im starting to write a bit about what i went through as a child. I feel better when i write about it, and I want to share with others my success of beating the odds.
I grew up in many foster homes.
My parents are drug addicts and unfortunately I spent a lot of time around them before being taken out of their care.
I have one older brother, Nicholas.
People say we beat the odds against us.
While being a child was easy for some, it wasn't for my brother and I.
We were drug around Canada with our parents that were both sadly addicted to drugs that couldn't keep up with their bills and responsibilities that left them fleeing from province to province. We were never involved in school activities and were more often then not absent from our classes and activities. While most parents were at their child's soccer games, driving their friends and team members and just being a part of their lives, our parents couldn't make it out of bed. It was Nick and I's responsibility to make it to school when i was as young as 7 years old. If we slept in, we missed the whole day. Our parents never woke us up for school or packed us a lunch. We would get calls from school, worried teachers and confused parents.
My brother and I spent a lot of time by ourselves. We learned that comfort didn't come from the security of where you're sleeping at night or knowing where you parents are when you come home from school, I became my own comfort. As long as I had myself or my brother with me, I was at home. We grew up teaching each other, experiencing life at its worst and sometimes what we thought was its best. We learned to appreciate the smallest things, like what lived in the stream beside our temporary home, the sunset in trees we would climb. We never spent time with our parents even though we lived in the same house together. They would often lock us out of a bedroom in the house, and they would stay in there for days on end. Smoking, drugs, whatever else.
We didn't bother them because it never worked when we did. They made it clear to us that they couldn't play with us, teach us, sign our homework. We had people often in and out of our home. Strangers, unfriendly faces that soon became faces that we thought were "normal". My brother and I had always thought what we were living through was normal because we lived it for so long. Its like being huddled away since birth in cave and you think everything is suppose to be the way you've seen.
There were a lot of absolutely terrifying incidents where I was left to deal with them by myself. I saw my parents fight over drugs, hurting each other. As I would stand crying being completely ignored and invisible I would watch them grab for each others drugs, call each other names. Then it would cool over after an hour or so and they would go back to the bedroom and leave us alone.
One particular incident i remember I was 10 years old. My mom told me she had to run out but she would get me Macdonalds which is so rare for her to do. I usually ate raw spaghetti noodles from the food bank because i didn't even know how to boil water yet. I was excited i was getting Macdonalds and i patiently waited for her to return (I was home alone). When I heard a Taxi cab pull in my drive way i ran out. I saw my mom freaking out at my dad, and she slipped and fell in the snow. She has a really bad back. I went to help her up and she came into the house. She was angry and chasing my dad down for drugs, yelling and smashing a window as she went by, cutting the main tendon in her thumb. I remember my dad leaving. I remember the kitchen being completely covered in blood. Seriously! Blood was everywhere and I thought my mom was going to die. I was terrified. I called my grandfather and he came and picked me up, mom went to the hospital. He kept me at his place for a couple days. I returned back to my house the day of my birthday. Mom and dad were in their bedroom and there was still dried up blood in the corners of the floor and walls. My mom never explained to me what happened, said sorry, comforted me. Things just went back to the way they always were.
I grew up in many foster homes.
My parents are drug addicts and unfortunately I spent a lot of time around them before being taken out of their care.
I have one older brother, Nicholas.
People say we beat the odds against us.
While being a child was easy for some, it wasn't for my brother and I.
We were drug around Canada with our parents that were both sadly addicted to drugs that couldn't keep up with their bills and responsibilities that left them fleeing from province to province. We were never involved in school activities and were more often then not absent from our classes and activities. While most parents were at their child's soccer games, driving their friends and team members and just being a part of their lives, our parents couldn't make it out of bed. It was Nick and I's responsibility to make it to school when i was as young as 7 years old. If we slept in, we missed the whole day. Our parents never woke us up for school or packed us a lunch. We would get calls from school, worried teachers and confused parents.
My brother and I spent a lot of time by ourselves. We learned that comfort didn't come from the security of where you're sleeping at night or knowing where you parents are when you come home from school, I became my own comfort. As long as I had myself or my brother with me, I was at home. We grew up teaching each other, experiencing life at its worst and sometimes what we thought was its best. We learned to appreciate the smallest things, like what lived in the stream beside our temporary home, the sunset in trees we would climb. We never spent time with our parents even though we lived in the same house together. They would often lock us out of a bedroom in the house, and they would stay in there for days on end. Smoking, drugs, whatever else.
We didn't bother them because it never worked when we did. They made it clear to us that they couldn't play with us, teach us, sign our homework. We had people often in and out of our home. Strangers, unfriendly faces that soon became faces that we thought were "normal". My brother and I had always thought what we were living through was normal because we lived it for so long. Its like being huddled away since birth in cave and you think everything is suppose to be the way you've seen.
There were a lot of absolutely terrifying incidents where I was left to deal with them by myself. I saw my parents fight over drugs, hurting each other. As I would stand crying being completely ignored and invisible I would watch them grab for each others drugs, call each other names. Then it would cool over after an hour or so and they would go back to the bedroom and leave us alone.
One particular incident i remember I was 10 years old. My mom told me she had to run out but she would get me Macdonalds which is so rare for her to do. I usually ate raw spaghetti noodles from the food bank because i didn't even know how to boil water yet. I was excited i was getting Macdonalds and i patiently waited for her to return (I was home alone). When I heard a Taxi cab pull in my drive way i ran out. I saw my mom freaking out at my dad, and she slipped and fell in the snow. She has a really bad back. I went to help her up and she came into the house. She was angry and chasing my dad down for drugs, yelling and smashing a window as she went by, cutting the main tendon in her thumb. I remember my dad leaving. I remember the kitchen being completely covered in blood. Seriously! Blood was everywhere and I thought my mom was going to die. I was terrified. I called my grandfather and he came and picked me up, mom went to the hospital. He kept me at his place for a couple days. I returned back to my house the day of my birthday. Mom and dad were in their bedroom and there was still dried up blood in the corners of the floor and walls. My mom never explained to me what happened, said sorry, comforted me. Things just went back to the way they always were.
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