By Mexican_man
Reminiscing
It’s not something new for me, but once in a while my head likes to open my memories and show certain parts like a film. I was probably six when I was sitting in the back of a Chevy truck with an officer questioning me about my family. I stared back at my father and then my sister, they looked at me scared, I glanced back at the officer and said “Everything is okay” and smiled. Seeing my father taking a deep breath of relief was slightly unsettling.
My next memory was when my father, sister and brothers were outside while my mother was talking to strange men in suits. My mother takes my hand and I enter the big car, but I don’t question my mother because I get Mcdonalds and we enter a building that looks like a hospital. My memory blanks out for a second then I appear in a playroom, eating scooby snacks while talking to a young lady asking if I was okay and if everything was alright at home.
Then flashing to a bedroom where my mother and father started to have “quiet arguments” leading to furniture being thrown around and little children seeing their father raise his hand at the mother of his children.
To visiting the hospital way too often for each of my siblings and I. To my parents going their own ways— they were barely adults– I think even with each other it was just worse to be alone with either one.
I watched my mother start to take substances to find some relief, somehow I sympathize for my mother—a young woman whose eyes started slowly losing the purity of motherhood. To watching my father leave for parties, prison and lastly deported. Quite devastating, right? But this isn’t about having the worst trauma, I’m not asking for your sight with indifference or sympathy. Just the hard truth for young children.
Fortunately enough my father’s family provided refuge on the behalf of the four children and over the decade of tears and laughter, I’ve learned you have to convey yourself to healing. People can support you in the process but they cannot do it for you. You don’t have to live a vulgaring life because of the trauma. At the age of 14, I was done living in the body of a lifeless heart. Things don’t get better on their own, getting better is based on YOUR choice and action. Unfortunately, effects like anxiety, depression or disorder exist and you will struggle with those over the years. Yet, I’ve never leaned towards alcohol, substances or even self harm because I’ve seen the consequences and understand the temptation. Instead I took isolation for the longest time till I was ready.
Though many children and I have suffered the struggles of trauma and to start up again is to relearn your steps as a baby. I forced myself to learn the acceptance of my life, I yearned to get back up, to fight for my willingness to thrive. When I couldn’t change it, I learned how to subdue it. It was always better than taking eternal rest and I understood that there will and there won’t be people to support you. But like a baby they are helpless in the beginning stages of walking, they stumble, fall and cry but eventually they. will. start. to. walk. When the film comes to an end, I smile at the little girl, wiping her tears away because she struggled so far to get where she's at today.
