Life of Fear

by Kinga
(Location Undisclosed)

I used to have night terrors and wake up in cold sweats and panic attacks because I had dreams about when he broke my nose. Once, when he took my hair and slammed it against the door... Sometimes I just remember the ringing I heard after that and I shut down...


School was f**king hell. I couldn't concentrate. All I could think about was how scared I was to go back home. It made all my school work terrible quality, which made me more scared to go back home, which made my school work worse, and it was a downward spiral which ultimately led to—


F**k.


You don't f**king tell your child that you love them more than anyone else, right after or before you break them down. Because then they'll start thinking that if that's the most genuine love life has to offer, it's not worth sh*t.


Christmas was the worst.


Every single Christmas I got the same thing: a lack of punishment.


"Don't make a scene during Christmas babe." My mum used to say.


That was the best f**king thing I got.


Not getting bruises.


I looked forward to Christmas.


Not like other kids: not because I was getting cool presents, seeing my family, eating good food, or playing in the snow.

I wasn't excited. I was relieved. Relieved because I knew that I couldn't get beaten up during Christmas.


When I was 14, I was going to kill myself. Not because of my abuse: I could deal with the physical pain, and whatever insults or threats thrown at me didn't f**king mean sh*t. But I can't and couldn't ever imagine hurting someone I loved. And to think that I'd have a child and would end up doing the same thing that was done to me... I didn't want to take that risk. Telling myself that I would never do that to a child wasn't comforting me when one of my best friends would to repeat to me: "You're gonna end up like your dad. You're gonna end up abusing your child."


Would I?


Would I?


I didn't want to find out. I didn't want to find something like that out.


'Yeah, but you can just NOT have children…'

It doesn't matter if I was gonna have children or not, I didn't want to be that kind of person either way.


There's no conclusion.
There's no solution.
This is a fear I'll always have. That's just it.