My Haunted Years: Chapter 2

UNCONSCIOUS

Story written by Gurpreet Dhariwal.

The following chapter contains descriptions that may not be suitable for younger readers, including discussions of physical abuse. Reader discretion is advised

My mother didn’t ask my father any questions about the burnt certificates. She visited the shop of the neighbor who asked us to update her about my father’s visit. When she arrived there in the evening, he handed her over our certificates. My mother thanked him and it was a huge relief for all of us.

On weekends, my mother asked my brother and me to visit the flour mill to get whole wheat flour. We didn’t realize that my sister wasn’t at home, and it wasn’t a safe option to leave my mother all alone with my father. At this time, I was studying in the 6th standard, my brother in 8th, and my sister in 10th.

When we reached the flour mill, one of our friends from the neighborhood was running towards us. He told us that my father hit my mother with a brick over her head. I started running back home with my brother and we ran so fast that I lost my slippers on the road.

I didn’t stop nor did my brother. We ran and reached home barefooted. My father was standing on the first floor with a brick in his hands, and my mother was unconscious. There was blood on the brick and we didn’t know what to do.

Meanwhile, the neighbors approached us and one of them brought his car out. He took my mother to a doctor’s clinic because those days, it was a huge task to visit the hospitals and if the hospital saw my mother unconscious, they would have involved the police.

At the doctor’s clinic, my mother was operated on for one hour and got 22 stitches in her head. I was standing next to my neighbor and cried inconsolably because I was under the impression that my mother would never wake up again.

While going to school, playing with friends in the evening, and coming back to my abode, I was always nervous and scared. Thankfully, there wasn’t a time in my life when I blamed myself for the abuse. I could see none of the other family members were causing this hell at home other than my father, but I wasn’t strong enough to stop him.

The situation was the same with my siblings, too, because they knew everything that went wrong but didn’t have enough strength to fight against it. We started hiding a lot of emotions, showing signs of terrors and disturbance in the house. I am not sure if my father has ever given it thought, but I can vouch for one thing— all three siblings were emotionally and mentally damaged.

As a child, I felt helpless, agitated, and hopeless. All the emotions were making me so weak. I tried my best not to focus on my family and instead invested a lot of time into studying. 

Expressing what I felt wasn’t difficult, I just wasn’t ready for it. The abuse I witnessed and endured made me form the impression that everybody was on a mission to hurt me. I kept my walls so high that they would eventually crumble and destroy me. That’s how writing happened. I had to share my feelings somehow or else I would have been dead long ago.

I wish I could change this with some magical wand, but destiny had some different plans for me and my siblings.

On hearing the news of my mother’s head injury, my mother’s brother came to our home in the night. He reached along with my two cousins. One of the cousins stayed with us after my uncle left. He used to take care of my mother and kept an eye on my father. But this couldn’t go on for long. Ultimately he had to leave, and my mother was alone again.

We never wanted to live at home with my father, but we weren’t financially strong enough to go anywhere else. My uncle once proposed that we live with his family, but my mother denied that proposal. She knew nobody would have looked after us like my father did in terms of financial stability. She wanted us to be educated in the national capital of Delhi then move back to the village.

Read chapter one of My Haunted Years

When she recovered from her head injury, my father hit her again and this time her left shoulder was dislocated. This happened about a year after her recovery, but it was truly a terrible experience to see my mother in indelible pain.

I realized the kind of pain she was in when she was combing my hair and wasn’t able to move her arm. All of a sudden, she stopped and cried and ran towards the bedroom. When my father took her to the doctor, her x-ray was done and she had a major fracture in her shoulder.

This time my sister helped her with the household chores and me and my brother weren’t allowed to ask questions in return on why this shit took place at all. 

It wasn’t long before my father hit my mother again and this time her right shoulder was dislocated. They again visited the same doctor, but I believe even the doctor was a jerk and he never informed the police.

I would have had my father arrested if I was her doctor. Maybe that doctor was doing the same shit at home and pleasing the public in his normal working hours. I cannot believe that not even once he tried to help my mother with all his right intent. What a burden he was on the face of the earth.

We were threatened to continue our schooling and focus on books rather than asking questions about why my mother was injured again. I can recall the days when we used to sit in our room and cry ourselves to sleep. We weren’t cowards, but we didn’t have any idea how to get ourselves out of this continual abuse.

Given a choice during those days, I would have loved to be a fatherless kid rather than living with the devil.

I have seen people preaching a lot about a father’s presence in a kid’s life, but I certainly believe one good parent is far better than being raised by a damaged and violent father. It took me years of traumatized childhood to realize that all fathers are not like mine. But even now, an ounce of me still doesn't trust fellow beings completely.

This affirmation followed me so far into my adulthood that after getting married, I never wanted to have kids. I realized long ago that giving birth to a child is not a big deal. What you do with that child afterward is.

In  2015, I got married to someone whom I chose for myself. I thought things would be different as I already knew this guy for a good three years. I was 29 years old, but not wise enough to choose the right man for myself. He started showing me his true colors after three weeks of marriage. The first time he hit me so hard I couldn’t stop myself and I hit him back. I wasn’t prepared for more abuse in my life.

I won’t deny that he did show some red flags in the dating period, too, but I wasn’t prepared to leave him thinking that he would change. He didn’t. He used to raise his hands on me and abuse me in front of his parents and I couldn’t cope with his stupidity. I didn’t want to lose my sanity living with another demon for the next thirty years. 

I walked out of my marriage and the domestic violence in one year. Sometimes I wonder why it took me that long.

My siblings and I wanted to lead a normal life. But seeing my mother going through what she did for unending years of pain and agony, my elder sister never married. My brother married when he turned 24 and is blessed with a good wife and two sons. I have never visited them in New Zealand, but I am happy that they made something worthwhile out of this experience.

I started writing when I turned 16 because I felt suffocated and trapped, but I had to vent. Once I wrote a rap on my father’s wrongdoings and wanted to publish it, but I lost it somewhere.

I wasn’t blessed with amazing English writing skills and grammar used to scare the hell out of me. While other students were being taught at home, I was taught to be silent while going through domestic abuse. 

He may not have ever realized it, but my father has damaged us. I can look at myself in the mirror and face the demons he left surrounding me. I feel anxious and depressed because I have seen the same in my father while growing up. 

My parents come from a background where they wouldn’t completely believe in the concept of depression and anxiety. They believe nothing like this exists, but I can confirm, even without conducting medical tests, that my father has bipolar disorder. I have seen him in extremely weird moods from being super happy to super depressed.

I feel happy about the times when we scored good grades even without revisions at night because my father didn’t leave any stone unturned to keep us illiterate.

Even though he used to exaggerate a lot while standing in his friend’s circle that we were studying in a good school, only we knew how we were being threatened, trampled over, and beaten up at home. We paid a very heavy price for being his kids.

When I look back at my family pictures in the album, I always wonder why this man beat us all black and blue. What was he trying to teach us?

Looking at my mother’s pictures, I get teary eyes because she was so stunningly beautiful and still is. How could someone raise hands on such a pretty lady? She didn’t study a lot, but she is one of the bravest souls I have ever come across.

We have been best friends for five years now, and every time I look at her I wish I could’ve saved her from all the miseries in this world. I never express this in person, though, because she would believe I am living more in the past than the present.

When my siblings were leaving school and moving on to college, they started giving tuition to students. That was my siblings’ way of earning some part-time income because my father left his government job. Our family was financially crunched and my father didn't want to work again.

We were surviving on the rent from the two floors and two flats in Delhi. Some money was invested in the cab business, too, but it failed in two years. My father had to sell the cabs.

We couldn’t pursue extracurricular activities or any hobby of interest due to a lack of funds. But that never discouraged me or my siblings. Our main aim was to get ourselves educated enough to leave my father’s abode and live somewhere else peacefully.

Looking back at that time, I only could assume that my siblings were equally as damaged as me. I became way more expressive of my feelings, but I still believe they hid their demons. I had to let everything out or else I wouldn’t have been strong enough to live my life. It hasn’t been a journey that I have cherished, but then I hold no grudges and guilt.