My story might be sorta long, but here goes. It'll probably be long.
My childhood was pretty rough. I grew up in a slummy part of Brooklyn, New York in the garden floor of one of my uncle's old apartment buildings. My mom and dad both struggled with light drug abuse and there was a lot of domestic violence, so I would usually spend my time wandering around the streets most of the day. The feud between my mom and dad got so bad at one point that she ended up leaving and moved to california while my little sister and I stayed with our father. After she left he began to dabble in harder drugs, moving up to Meth and abused that regularly around us. He tried to get into the business of selling, and there were times when he wouldn't come home for days and I had to run the house. I was six around that time, and my little sister was about four. So I'd get us up in the morning and walk us to school ( I believe I was in first and she was in pre-k). I'd need to walk to the store to buy stuff to eat using neighbor's money, and stuff like that. My dad rolled with the wrong crowd, and eventually got in to a lot of trouble with money involving some dudes. My dad would often take his anger out on me, whether it be in the form of verbal abuse or physical abuse, which of course I never really understood.
Random, huge dudes would come knocking on our door asking for money or drugs, and my dad would always refuse and get into fights. I'd always try to shove my sister somewhere she couldn't see, and I would stand watch until they were finished. They'd always go until one of them had enough, or one was knocked out. I remember my dad got tired of people harassing them, and always talked to himself about what do to about it. One day a guy broke our door down looking for my dad, and per usual I hid my sister and waited for them to be done. The guy approached my dad with a knife, which naturally freaked me out. I remember my dad yelled at me to look away, he pulled out a gun and shot the dude in the head i believe. Regardless it killed him. I remember I was surprised because the gun didn't make that much of a noise, more surprised than I was about my dad just shooting somebody which is weird looking back on it. I remember just seeing the man lying on the floor in disbelief. My dad started sobbing and I believe he took him down to our s****, but I don't know the specifics of what ended up happening to him.
I went too in detail on that I think so moving on, police caught wind and came to our house a few days later. I remember my dad shoving my sister and I under a sink (like in the cupboard spot under a kitchen sink) so we wouldn't be seized by child protection services. They retained him and investigated the house, and ended up finding us under the sink. We were taken to some place overnight, and in the morning we got adopted by a temp child adoption lady. She was one of the MEANEST people I have any recollection of meeting. She was african american, and had three other african american adopted children. She'd shove food down our throats, she forced us to go to a christian church, and she cut my sister's long hair while she was asleep (which is a really big deal in arabic culture). I don't remember how long we were there, felt like months, but one day we got driven out to some random center and sat down in a room with no idea why we were there. After sitting there for a few minutes, our dad came into the room and said he was here to pick us up, so of course we were beaming.
Even though we went through a lot and saw a lot under his roof, we still had an emotional attachment to him as our father. I don't know how he was released, maybe there was a lack of evidence tying him to whatever the detained him for. Either way, on the ride back home he started breaking down and crying, saying that he was sending us to california to live with our mom. So my sister and I flew from New York to California, to meet up with our mother. I'm now about seven or eight, and my sister is about five. My mom still had trouble with drug addiction, and did some time in jail before being able to take us from new york. We ended up staying with our grandparents,my mom, my sister and I. My mom would randomly disappear for what seemed like days, but I had my grandparents so it wasn't a big deal to me.
My uncle also lived with them, and he was on a lot of drugs at the time and took money from my mom in order for her to let us stay there. I remember one time she was late on a payment to him, and he wouldn't let me inside the house, so I had to sleep outside and stay out on the porch for like to days, which sucked.
After a few years, my mom got completely sober and didn't get into any trouble with the law, so her probation ran out and she was clean. She got a job as a cashier for some gas station, and worked there for years. She was able to afford her own apartment for her, my sister and I and we lived there for a while. My mom would get a yearly raise, so eventually she earned enough to rent a house, which was really nice and life was just generally very positive.
Eventually my dad tried to contact me on facebook, but when I turned him away he called me all sorts of things, from the devil to an arab pig, you name it. That was very liberating for me, because I got all of the skeletons out of my closet. So yeah, that's more or less it. Fast forward to senior year, I moved out of my mom's house and into the cushy house and lifestyle of my aunt and uncle, who together make about 100k+. They really helped me grow up and put my priorities in order. My dad died recently, I was told it was in prison but I'm not entirely sure. That's where I am today.
Yeah, I guess I was right about that lol. This was a pretty condensed version. I wasn't going to share my childhood, but I figured I might as well since everyone is openly sharing theirs. Just to clarify, not looking for a pity party, because these experiences shaped who I am today and I wouldn't change them even if I could.
