About My Dad

by Jodie
(Newcastle, UK)

most mornings and nights (especially on weekends) I would see my mam have to suffer, she would be punched and kicked to the ground. I would have to get me and my little brother somewhere where we couldn't hear or see any of this happen. This has happened ever since I can remember.

When I got to about 12 my dad got worse, he thought it was time for me to suffer like my mam did. I was bruised and scared many times. The mental abuse was as equal pain to the physical.

He would always put me down and say I was ugly, I wouldn't get anywhere in life, I had no one cause no one wanted me etc. To this day them words still haunt me.

Anyway all of this happened for about another year and a half until my mam caught my dad cheating so we had a good enough reason to tell people why we had to leave him. So we left.

The aftermath of leaving caused me and my mam to have no one but each other and my grandma, even my brother who I protected from a young age preferred to be with my dad than mam.

In 2014 I decided to give my dad another chance so I started going to see him at his house and everything seemed fine except the mental abuse hadn't changed. He asked me to go on holiday to Mexico so I managed to convince my mam to let me go, I was so exited since we were going for two weeks in a big fancy hotel but when we got there everything changed. He showed only anger towards me the whole holiday and one night I was out with my friends that I had met and he came and dragged me by my hair back to the room. I didn't understand what I did wrong so I assumed it was that he had too much to drink. When we got back to the hotel room my step mam and step sister were in the room but he got me by my neck and pushed me up against a wall so I couldn't breathe and he punched me in the face as I fell to the ground (bearing in mind he has done boxing since he was 13 and he is now 46). I ran to the bed and asked him to leave me alone and let me sleep. He seen I was crying and that annoyed him so he grabbed my hair and threw me to the floor and kicked and punched me repetitively. My step mam managed to get him off me and calm him down. I forgot to mention he took my phone and iPad off me as soon as I got their so I wasn't able to have any contact with my mam but my friend had her old iPod and I got to oovoo my mam and tell her what had happened. I had never seen her breakdown like that in my life. She told me to just be nice to my dad and to tell him to forget about it so I did and the holiday carried on quite well from then onwards.

On the last night we all shared champagne and he told me I was his world and he is so proud of me and who I am. We went home the next day and on the airplane he would always hold my hand and be all kind to me but when we got to the airport my mam was waiting for me. She seen my dad and ran towards him screaming at him. He had nothing to say back to her and just walked away since it was in public.

It had been about 3 weeks since I got home and I bumped into my step mam down the street and I was thanking her for getting him off me. She starting denying that my dad had done anything to me and that I was lying cause for my mam. Because of her I then lost contact with one of my grandmas since she believed her cause she was older. Even though I had bruises to prove what happened but that clearly wasn't enough. 6 months later and I still haven't spoke to any of them and I can honestly say I hate my life, I'm so lonely, I have no one. All I want is someone like my dad back. No one would think we were so close before all of this happened. He was my BESTFRIEND, we did everything together. I loved him so much. I miss him.

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