The I Never Act Up

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

Unlike most people, I did not get to be a carefree child for long. Even though I always said that I could not wait to grow up, now I wish that it all did not happen so fast and early in my life. From eleven to twelve years old—that would be the period I describe as the time I had to put my big-girl pants on and face the real, cruel and unwelcoming adult world. In that time period, I can specifically pinpoint two major events that ended my childhood: my move from Russia to the United States and the birth of my baby sister Toma. To some those might not seem significant enough to change someone’s life to the extent that they changed mine; however those events molded me into the person I am today.

Growing in a tiny family, I was raised with my brother who is 6 years older than me. My father was always away and my mother was very protective. My mother used to not let me play with kids outside thinking I would get hurt and if sneak out sometimes my brother would follow me and hit me and tell me to go back home. I was never allowed to talk to him. I was always shut down whenever I have a question to ask either him or my mom. When I grew up I started ignoring to ask questions. When I started going to school my teachers used to yell at me and say why I am so quiet and not answering any questions. And in my country hitting students in hands and legs is considered

Although I had an older brother and sister, I felt alone a great deal of the time I was growing up. I never "acted out" my need for attention. I did not get bad grades in school. On the contrary, I was a quiet child who made the honor roll. I was always given my sisters hand-me-downs which I resented. My grandmother was very strict and often cold. There were never hugs or kisses and not once do I remember an I love you. My father still came to visit, but remarried when I was eight. His new wife was like something out of a horror novel. The mental torture that I endured was a million times worse than what Cinderella went through. My grandmother along with my brother and sister came up with a nickname for me. They called me dog and taunted me every time we passed the pet supplies in the grocery store. At the age of ten my beloved paternal grandmother Memo, the only light in my otherwise dark world, died in her sleep while I was in the next room. I sat and watched as the paramedics tried to revive her with no success. On the car ride back home, my stepmother screamed at my father to "shut me up and stop my crying," as if what I had just been through should not have affected me at all. She left my father a few years later. At fifteen I ran away from my grandmothers house and went to live with my dad. I was receiving survivors support which I never saw once I moved in with my father. Although I did not know it

occasions casted out emotions of a younger age, due to obstaclas in life that hit me.

It felt as if I was surrounded by freezing water while on the inside being burned alive. I let my grades drop I did not care, all that mattered was being an adult and supporting my sister. My teachers did not care, I was invisible. Easy to lose in the crowd.The kids in my grade avoided me because I was “ abnormal” because I did not speak. The people who were supposed to be my guardians did not have enough money to feed both my sister and me. So I did not eat except for what was left over from dinner. I became pale and skinny. I looked like sick all the time. The only time I ate good was every other weekend when I went to my great aunt and uncle's house. This was the very best that life was going to get from me. I believed I was going to end up like my mother a drug user, and have no life. A few years later, my sister and I moved in with my aunt and uncle. They took my sister and me and gave us a great home. We both started to do a lot better. I got healthy and not so sickly looking, I started to talk a lot more, and I got my grades up. Unfortunately, my little sister did not like the fact that she wasn't entitled to anything anymore, and moved back in with our old Guardians.

We lived in the ghettos for all of 2 weeks before we were taken to a camp. My family was split up so my mother, my sister, and I were together and my Father was alone. The work camps were terrible they forced us into hard labor my mother and I knew how to sew so we were put into a work group to sew up soldiers uniforms. I ber one day my mother pricked her finger and got blood on one of the uniforms she was beaten by an S.S officer and yelled at continually. If I ever made a mistake or did something wrong my mother would take the beating for me. I objected every time but she would never let anything happen to me. My older sister was not good at sewing but luckily was put near us she helped cook for everyone in the camp. I will always remember the day of the selection my mother was not chosen but I was my mother tried to talk me into believing that getting picked this time was good and that we needed to say goodbye because she was leaving. I knew the truth though. The next day an officer called out the names of the chosen people my name was called. We were told we were going to take a shower. When they stopped us we were in a big room I did not see any shower heads “Gas chamber” I heard someone mumble. I knew my last breath was going to be soon. All at once gaas entered the room coughing came from all around. I said my last goodbye and said a silent Kaddish for myself and the people I was with. I then took my final breath while many

On a Sunday morning of March 15 1998, we woke up super early to the phone ringing on the other side was my dad. My grandmother answered the phone her face paled as she heard the words “mom I shot myself.” After talking to him for a bit my grandmother rushed out of her room to get my uncle up and they rushed to the house to see him up walking around with a hole in his stomach. Ambulance came to get him then rushed him to meet life force. He flat lined once on the helicopter. They were able to bring him back and stabilized him, and kept him stabled till they got to the hospital. They rushed him immediately into the OR, it was around 15 to 20 minutes into surgery that he had passed away, they were unable to bring him back due to the major loss of blood. My mom soon remarried and I gained two annoying step brothers and a step dad. One step brother didn’t bother me to bad, the other one poked and picked on me trying to pick fights. My step dad had episodes where he was violent and threw things at me and my mom. I withdrew more and more until a few of my friends literally grabbed me by my arm and told me to wake up that they were not going to let me push them away

Mylan over heard me crying and rushed in the room with a frying pan and beat my step-dad senseless. My mother learned of the ordeal and threw my stepfather out, she spoke to Mylan and I and whispered " You two put warmth in my heart to see that you protect one another". My mother always said she rather we go against the world before we go against each other. My brother knew I was gay, but when I try to say it vocally he would just say "I know big little brother". After Hurricane Katrina we evacuated to Fayetteville, NC. The following summer when Mylan was 15 and I was 16 there was an incident that involved Mylan almost drowning. When I answered the door to see our neighbor crying I knew something had happened. I ran as fast as I could to my neighbors house I ignored the police and other emergency responders. Mylan was laying on the grown unconscious and not breathing. I broke down crying and did my best to get right next to hime but the police wouldnt let me get near Mylan. He spent the next two weeks unconscience and I spent the better half of that week worried sick. Mylan woke up july 22,

Many underestimate the power that a singular event possesses and the extent at which it can alter one’s mindset. Often times a shift in the method of thinking and processing information, the act which drives our entire being, signifies a “coming of age”. Reaching a pivotal moment in time where not only do those around you recognize the transformation, but you also fully embrace the alteration. In layman's terms, transitioning out of childhood conjures thoughts and ideas that evolve from the foundation of one’s life. For me, the potent mixture of a short-lived period of blissful innocence and a pressurized home environment led to the culmination of a desire to succeed.

In my youth, I was like every other child, completely oblivious to the world round me and the hatred it contained. I was a happy little girl who was a little to clingy to her mother, all though that didn’t last long. I have no memory of my dad between the ages 2-4 considering he was never home. I had quite an imagination so I was always daydreaming which gives me trouble today considering I can’t remember what of my early childhood was real. My parents split when I was two so I don’t have much of a concept of how my parents’ relationship was, although now I’ve come to know that it wasn’t at all good.

It was a great time in my life because I remember James always taking me to the toy store, bringing us out to dinner, and taking us on vacations. He treated my mother and I well, and we got everything that we desired, or so I thought. One day I heard yelling coming from their bedroom, so I did what any naive child would do; I walked into the bedroom to find James holding a gun to my mother’s face while she cried. This would be my first time experiencing violence. After that incident things started becoming increasingly worse. James would hit my mother in front of me and would constantly use his guns to threaten her. I only recall him beating me one time, but I am not sure if it is because I was too young to remember or if I subconsciously block those memories. Eventually, she moved out one day while he was at work, and we never heard from him

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

I got the worst spanking I have ever got in my life, but I really thought that my mom had abandoned me forever. I was terrifically frightened of being alone, and the thought of the people I loved and who took care of me leaving me was even scarier.

One of paternal aunts, Aamna, noticed that I have plucked some hair from my eyebrows, and started cursing me and throwing things at me. My uncle Abdul Rahman learned about it and came to hit me as hard as he could with a car aerial indiscriminately all over my body. I could not bare the pain and I screamed my lungs out cursing him and my family. I went out running to stop him from beating me. The blood was covering