September 5, 1983

I was 13 and my mom held her promise of leaving… I stayed with my father.  A few months before she was about to leave, my dad quit his drinking habits by joining the AA fraternity in our community; a group where people meet and help each other to get rid of their alcohol habit.  He got into it in April 1983.  My dad changed a lot. He became a better man, taking his responsibilities and working hard to fix the past and take care of us... But I guess the damage was already done for her… She left him anyway.  But what I think she didn’t realize at the time is that she also left ME…

So I came to finally have this huge hole inside of me because I didn’t say to anyone how I was hurt, and how I wanted her to come back.  My dad was so sad, I didn’t want him to see me cry, so I made my strong little girl and reacted like an adult who understands because of what my father had been in the past.  I didn’t say a word and I became that strong little girl that everyone wanted me to be.  I didn’t want to disturb anyone so I said I was OK, but I wasn’t.  I was missing her.  She didn’t call me, she didn’t come to see me, she didn’t write me…  I lost my mother and I met a new man…my dad!!!  I’m not sure I was ready for that.

Anyways, I stayed with him.  He kept the house we had and I was going to school in that area, and plus my mom didn’t ask me to leave with her.  There was no place for me in her life anymore.  At the same time, my sister was 19 and left the house to live with her boyfriend.  So, we came to live me and my dad alone.  He wanted to be a good dad and wanted to learn how to handle the life with a teenager.  And let me tell you, I was not an easy one…

I started using drugs once in a while before my mom left the house.  The first time it was at age 11.  I smoked hashish and didn’t really like it at the time.  It took a few months until I tried it again.  But I came to like it because the only thing I remember is that from age 12 to 15, I was smoking hashish, taking LSD pills (acid) and chewing mushroom about every week-end.  I started taking alcohol at a young age too, but I don’t remember when.  I probably took my first sip when picking up a beer in the fridge for my dad when I was a kid.  So every week-end, every party, every dance at school, I was taking something to get me high.  I thought it was normal, since every kid which whom I was hanging with was doing the same thing… We were lying to our parents pretending we were sleeping over at somebody else’s place and would finally hang outside the whole night and then come back home early in the morning… Even with that behaviour, I was doing well in school. Don’t ask me why… Probably because I was a good student and had it easy. Anyways, my dad couldn’t say a word about my work.

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