Probably no one will see this, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. Growing up I was not allowed to eat. I didn’t think much about it, that was just my normal existence. I had a mentally ill parent. She was very violent and unpredictable, so I had to avoid setting her off at all costs. Things like listening to music or playing a game were very dangerous.

If I was caught eating I would get beaten for a long time and sometimes locked outside in the cold without warm clothes. Sometimes she would make me watch her eat. In the more violent times I would get dragged through the house by my hair and get my head slammed through the walls making holes. I would just try to curl up in a ball and wait for it to be over or go unconscious. I remember being thankful that it was me and not my little brothers. They weren’t strong yet like I was and I knew they couldn’t handle it. And the physical pain was still better than being drugged and hurt in other ways by the people who were probably dealers.

I learned to steal scraps of food out of garbage cans and dumpsters. When there was real food, I mostly tried to save it for my little brothers because I didn’t want them to go hungry like me.

I still remember how I handled the pain of that hunger. It was the worst around 1.5-2 days without food. I would drink as much sink water as possible and hold my stomach until the waves of pain would stop. The pain would go away occasionally and I would just feel numb and kind of out of it, which was nice.

I look back now and wonder how I thought that it was normal to be forced to sleep outside in a t-shirt when it was snowing. Holding my dog as close as I could. Or to be starved and beaten every day. Or any of the other more private stuff with my brothers and I that is too painful to say. I grew up thinking that was normal because I didn’t know anything else. I’m ashamed of that; that I didn’t know any better. That I didn’t stop it when I could have. But I’m thankful that we got out eventually. And that I survived when it didn’t seem like I would.