"I was gone for a month when I got the call that my dad had committed suicide." - Anonymous

For The Hayters · 2019-02-05T19:34:10.288Z

I grew up in a "normal" family, at least that's what it looked like from the outside looking in...I had siblings & parents that were still together. Growing up I knew there wasn't something right with my dad, I was too young to understand for a long time, I didn't really know what depression & bipolar disease really was. I was around 14 when I started catching on to what it can do. At that young age I witnessed my dad's first suicide attempt, i witnessed him telling me he was going to kill me out of anger. I witnessed him being physically and emotionally abusive to me. I spent many years terrified of him, terrified what he was capable of doing to me, and to my family. In a way, we all lived in fear. I started to hate him, I started to resent him, I started telling him to just kill himself already and to do me a favour and to get out of my life. At 17 I found my love for alcohol and drugs I was getting drunk and high all the time to forget what was going on in my life. I got myself into a really bad relationship, I wasn't taking care of myself, I was failing myself. When I was 18 I came out to my family, and lost over half of them because they didn't agree with my "decision" and I wasn't allowed around a lot of my family because I was a "bad example". At 19, I decided to move away from everyone and everything I knew to try and better my life. When I left my dad told me he was proud of me, and that was the first time I had ever heard him say it to me. I was gone for a month when I got the call that my dad had committed suicide. Fast forward to today, I'm still dealing with feeling so much guilt from not helping my dad, for being so clueless and careless on the way he was feeling and the battles he was facing. I was able to overcome my addictions of alcohol and drugs, but I feel like I'll never be able to forgive myself for not being able to help someone who felt so helpless. Lost.

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