My Worst Mistake

My little sister Anita was born at the time and having a baby sibling around made me feel like a big kid or a parent. I loved holding her and feeding her with a bottle my mom taught me to do while she worked at a night shift (maturation). My fourth grade year is probably the time I went through the most out of my elementary school years. I found out things were getting hectic between my parents. I would see them fight almost every day about money, cheating, and where did they go in their free time. One night when my mom came home from grocery shopping they were verbally fighting and yelling at each other. I heard it from the living room and I went into the kitchen to see them. All of a sudden, I just saw my dad pushed her into the ground and started beating her. She eventually escaped from his grip and ran into my sister’s room. She called the police and they came and arrested him for assault. I couldn’t do much because I just stood there witnessing in shock. They divorced in October while it was the beginning of my fifth grade year. I started to go through depression since the whole thing happened. I grew bitter, unmotivated for school, and even crueler towards my family and animals. I had terrible grades in my report card and I tend to get embarrassed with my teacher yelling at me. I cried over the smallest things that would happen in class. People started giving me sympathy but then got tired of it because it happened often. Around the winter time my mom started to

From the ages of 8- 14, I lived in a very volatile home. Coming home from school, I never knew if it was going to be a quiet day in my house or if the entire house would be engulfed in screaming. I dreaded the weekends, that meant that everyone was going to be home. Everyone home meant that things could easily go up to flames in just a millisecond. I tried my best to never be home, I would spend the days with my friends. I knew that when I got home there was a 90% chance of everyone fighting. One day in the summer of 2012, things got too heated, and my mom finally decided to move. We packed up everything in a few hours while my stepfather was at work. We moved into my best friend’s home for a few days until we found an apartment within the school district to move into.

The truth about mistakes is that they’re a part of life. We can’t avoid faults but we can look back at them too prevent ourselves from doing the same mistakes, again. Sometimes, many will look back and realize that their mistake caused more good than bad. They’ll realize that maybe their mistake isn’t really a mistake, and they’ll become proud of what they have done. I’m one of those people because I have struggled to convince myself that what I did was right. After a giving a lot of thought, I finally came to the conclusion, that making my dad choose between us and alcohol, is and will always be my favorite mistake. Sometimes I wonder if I could’ve done things differently and, other times I wonder whether or not I’m satisfied with the results, but I have yet to tell myself again, that what I did was wrong.

I came home one day to see both of my parents sad. As a third grader, I didn’t completely understand at the time, but my father had been laid off from the job he’d had since his teenage years. My father had started at the age of eighteen as a student worker at Southern Miss, and after years of hard work he had been promoted to the manager of shipping and receiving on campus. When the recession struck, the need to save money resulted in his position being terminated. My father was without a job. My father loved that job and when he lost it, he changed. He found a new love, alcohol. He let his love for alcohol become an addiction. He would do anything for alcohol; he even had secret stashes when my mom had removed all the prior alcohol from the house. Quickly my father became a violent drunk and began to routinely beat my mother and me. He became unstoppable; no person could get him back on track so my mother, in an attempt to keep me safe, removed him from the house. Even my mother’s best efforts weren’t always enough, as my father constantly broke into our house. One day my mother and I came home and my father was waiting in our den with a gun. We walked in, he pointed the gun at us, and then back at himself. He couldn’t decide to kill my mother, himself, or just all of us. He had more hatred in his eyes

He would come home wasted after weeks of not being home; of me wondering where my father had been all those weeks. Staying up late on school nights just wishing for him to come home and tuck me in bed, to tell me he loved me, to ask me how my day was, or just tell me that he was there to stay. As a first grader it is hard to explain to your friends why they can not come to your house to play just knowing that if he is there that he will be drunk yelling at my mom for nothing. It got to the point to where he would come home after a few days and grab a suitcase and leave to go with his new girlfriend for a few days or even weeks. Right before he would leave I would always have hope that he would tell me where he was going or take me with him. I just wanted a father. My mother always told me that he would be back and to have hope; to always trust in her and that she would always be there for me. She was always my rock when I was younger. Until one day she finally told me what a monster the man I called my dad was. He was an abuser, physically and mentally. She told me the truth about the man that I wished was in my life for so long. He never wanted me. I was the youngest out

My dad cheated on my mom when I was five years old my youngest sister was only four months old. At the time I obviously did not understand what was really happening. My grandmother told me a few years back about the day my dad sat down with me and told me that he was leaving our house. She said I called her and cried and said that I didn’t have a family anymore. She said that broke her heart and knowing how I felt about this at only age five breaks my heart today. Although my parents did split up my dad went to live back with his mother. We were able to see him every Tuesday, Wednesday and every other weekend. He actually used to be my hero. When I was in third grade both my parents found new people to be with. My dad actually was dating the women he cheated on my mom with. My mom was dating some guy she met online who became my step father. This affected my life greatly. I hated moving back and forth from house to house, I have been afraid of my dad my whole life I could say he had this tone of voice and everything he did was yell and scream. He used to hit

I lived in military housing a little distance from base with my father Richard, mother Susan, sister Jewelia, and brother Ryan. When Richard got deployed to Iraq and Kuwait, Jewelia, Ryan, and I were left in Fulda with Susan. Due to being young, knowledge of what was going on escaped me. My only thoughts were the absence of daddy and the world changing around me. Jewelia was three and doing what toddlers do, but Ryan was nine, going on ten, and starting to rebel. Ryan developed a behavioral problem, started showing signs of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, also known as ADHD, and depression. Ryan would terrorize the dogs, Jewelia, and me. During the time of Richard's deployment, Ryan would abuse Jewelia on a daily basis by slamming her fingers in the door or shoving her down. Susan would ask what happened, and Ryan would always blame me. Half the time Susan would believe Ryan, and the other times she wouldn’t. You could say that it was almost always a pull of the straw day, lucky one day but not so much the next. Ryan started stealing and sneaking out of the house. He even stole money out of Susan’s purse on Mother’s Day to buy her a Mother’s Day gift. Susan was so angry, but Ryan’s excuse was that “It was the thought that counts”, and he ate her chocolates. As we got older, Ryan worsened. He was in and out of juvenile detention for smoking weed, stealing, and destroying Richard and

As there are many cultural differences in the world, working all together can sometime be

I understand your situation is very serious and I just need you to stay calm and take my advice. I think you need to approach a trusted adult at school and describe in detail your situation, just as you did here. Tell the adult everything you have experienced over the past years. Also, make sure the adult does not let you go back to your house one more day and does not talk with your mother until you're in safety. Nobody wants you to be hurt one more day. If the adult you approach does not do anything of the things I mentioned above try another trusted adult until they listen to you. You are too young to handle this situation all by yourself, don't be afraid to push for help until you get it.

For as long as I remember I my father’s parents treated my mother like trash. They always felt that my father married beneath his social class. So because we moved so close to them the disrespect they dished out to mother became a daily ritual. I now realize that the stress of this problem led to my parents yelling, fighting and violent behaviors that ruled our house. I was only five so this is the first house that I really remember from my childhood. The strongest memories I have from that time is the way my sister would grab me and run with me to the next door neighbor’s house when my parents would start their yelling and hurting each other. The neighbor man was a police office in our town and he would take us into his house, clam us down and then go over to stop my parents from beating each other up. No one ever pressed charges; my dad never left the house. My mother would laugh it off it was like they were trapped in a vicious cycle that could not be broken. Later we would go home and pretend that everything was ok even though every dish in the house was laying shatter and broken on the floor. Society told us it was ok, because this kind of behavior was going on all around us and no one said it was wrong or bad it was just the way things were. When I married the first time I found myself in the same cycle of domestic violence that I had witnessed my whole childhood. But I did not leave or ask for help because I

When Dad came home, he and Mom argued. Dad asked mom to ask her mother for money to help develop the ‘cyanide-leaching process’ he was working on to separate gold from rock.Mom said how her mother had told her that we could live with her if we needed help and that made dad mad. Their argument continued the next day and dad said that mom could find work because she had a teaching degree,mom told dad that she was an artist. Dad had mom hanging out of the window dangling with my holding on to dad so she wouldn’t fall. Mom accused dad of trying to murder her but dad responded with him saying he saved mom from

It all started before I was in school, so I was probably about three or four I can’t remember exactly how old I was. I know that I remember my mom and my dad always fighting. I would be playing or doing something with my mom or my dad until the other got home from work. Then I would leave and go to my toy room to play with my toys so I could get away from the arguing. They did try and make my life as best as they could while I was with them both, but I could tell that it wasn’t easy for them. Eventually they ended up getting a divorce. They both dated people here and there, but they didn’t really have anyone very serious for a couple years. My mom found her person she would marry first.

June 10, 2017, just a fun summer night, or that’s what me and my cousin thought it was going to be. Little did I know, that was going to be the worst mistake of my life. My dad was out of town for a rock concert and my grandma was gone to help my Great grandpa because he had cancer. So that left us with just our grandpa. Around 6 o’clock my best friend called me and invited me and my cousin over for a BBQ. He came to pick us up and i was told to be home around 12.

Majority of the time I would live with my mother in Chestermere because my dad would be gone for one month then be back for five to seven days. When he would go we wouldn’t skype anymore because of excuses. Eventually this really caused a divide in the family. After my dad doing this for over a year and a half my mom had soon found out during this that my dad was cheating on her. My mom almost every night after school lock herself in her room and completely ignore Simon and I. Simon and I were in charge of making our lunches and also making dinner, practically taking care of ourselves and each other instead of having a parent looking and taking care of us. Soon our family became very anti social towards each other and people around us. Almost every night my mom would be drinking alcohol. One night at two in the morning I heard very loud yelling coming from out in the hall/ my moms room. I automatically had assumed that my dad had came home or my parents were fighting. Eventually I decided that I would go check out what was happening. Almost every light was on in the whole house and about five police officers were in my house. Frantically I had tried to figure out what was happening by myself but a woman police officer had noticed that me and my brother were out of our rooms and quickly came to assist to us. “ Your mom has

Never did I think a horrible mistake would positively impact my life this much. During my short 17 years of life, I have overcome many obstacles that have now shaped me to who I am today. One of the first obstacles life ever threw my way was the changing of schools multiple times. I transferred schools three times in my life, which made keeping friends rather difficult. I first transferred to a new school when I was going into the 5th grade. I found this challenging because I was at my former school from 18 months old till 10, so it was all I knew. I was scared to acquire new friends, which now I find was the silliest idea to be afraid of. Once I found my niche at this new school, I made a huge mistake in life that altered my path forever.