M.E.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had to go through something I hope no one else has to endure. Every year, my dad and some of his buddies go to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl, but in 2015, my mom got a call that my dad was in the hospital because he hit his head. At the time, he was fine because he had just fainted and was going to the hospital to get checked, but while in the hospital he suddenly fainted again and this was caused from a broken skull and brain bleed so he needed to go into emergency brain surgery and after was kept in a medically induced coma. This all was happening while I was sleeping back home in Riverside, CA and my mom was driving to Vegas at 1:00 a.m. When I woke up in the morning my grandma was there to fill me in and we immediately left for Vegas and I spent the next five days sleeping on a hospital chair in the corner of a room while my dad would wake up every five hours like clockwork because the drugs would wear off but he was still hooked up to millions of wires with IVs everywhere and a tube down his throat helping him breathe so he woke up confused and scared not even able to recognize his family. His fingers were too swollen from all the fluids so they had to take his wedding ring off and I remember wearing it around my neck with a piece of string, waiting for the moment that he’ll need it again. I’ll never forget the day that he finally passed his breathing test so they could take tubes and IVs out. They woke him up and my mom and I needed to calm him down enough to breathe so they could prove that he was capable of breathing on his own. He was scared and confused until he saw me and my mom, and I will never forget the look of fear and terror in my own dad’s eyes.
It was a rough two weeks after that of trying to get my dad to remember things about his life and get him stable enough to be transported to a rehab facility closer to home. But as soon as he was transferred, he refused to go, claiming he was well enough to go home. That night, on Valentine’s Day, he came home and the first thing he did was go into his room, look in his dresser and pull out a gift wrapped in red wrapping paper. The last thing my mom ever expected that night was a Valentine’s Day gift and by some miracle, my dad planned ahead of time and managed to make my mom smile for the first time in two and a half weeks.
However, my dad was a different man after his injury, he wanted to live every day like it was his last. This meant that he came to the realization that he was not in love with my mom anymore. My dad discovered his high school crush was also in a rocky relationship and when they reconnected, they began a long distance relationship across the country. As a high school senior, it was hard to be supportive of my dad while being there for my mom at the same time. Divorces are hard when they don’t end well but it’s even hard when your caught in the middle between your parents as well as trying to apply for college.
When my dad had his injury, that was the night that I was forced into adulthood. Ever since then, I had to be able to handle everything on my own because there was no way that I could rely on either of my parents. My friends at the time were no help because whenever I talked about my parents, everyone thought that I was using my dad’s accident as an excuse for things so that’s why I never told anyone about my parent’s divorce. So when my mom would come to me crying and screaming, heartbroken over her sudden divorce after 20 years, I had no one to turn to and the only thing I could do was hide away in my room. All of senior year I remember finding myself alone for hours on end, staring at the ceiling or hiding under the covers. Nothing seemed to make anything better, not therapy, medications or any form of meditation, making everything seem hopeless.
It wasn’t until I came to college and I got to live on my ow, taking on only my own responsibilities, not anyone else’s. I found true friends, friends that wanted my happiness and found myself getting into a good routine of working out, eating better, and staying on top of homework. I am finally in a place where I have become truly happy and confident even though it is sadly without my family by my side.
The hardest part of this time was not being able to tell anyone about it. Since everyone at my high school believed that I was using my dad as an excuse for every time I slept in late or didn’t go to a function, I had it engraved in my brain that it is not a serious problem and that I do not even have it that bad. I still feel that way to this day sometimes, which makes it hard to talk to anyone about the constant feelings of sadness and anxiety I have when it comes to my family.
This is one of the hardest things that girls in my generation go through. We all experience such unique and painful hardships yet we feel that it isn’t “enough.” According to the world around us, we should be totally recovered and move on with our lives after only a week. I say that we need time and support to recover. We need each other.
I believe that if I had shared my story more on social media, I would have been told that I was exaggerating, being dramatic, and that I should have “gotten over it.” But I know that I would have also helped others. There are other people like me that witness their parents going through bad divorces or family injuries and we need to be there for each other. If I had shared my story more I might have been able to find the support system that I needed in order to get my life back together sooner.
