Growing up, my father was abusive, both with his hands and with his words. He said things no child should ever hear. He told me he regretted having me and asked what use I was on this earth. He even questioned why God had wasted time creating me. It did not take much to provoke him. Sometimes my mere presence was enough to annoy him.

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Whenever I thought of running to my mother for comfort, she chased me away just as quickly. On some days, she joined my father and together they rained curses on my head as if I were their enemy instead of their child.

I would shrink into a corner and ask myself if I had been adopted. I called on God to save me. “Are they my parents? Did You bring me into this world to die? If You are real, come and show me my parents. Let my parents come for me.” I would pray to God, make the sign of the cross, and kiss my hand.

I knew it was going to affect me, but I did not know the depth of its effect until I started hallucinating and was wheeled into a psychiatric hospital some days later. The doctors diagnosed me with depression, put me on medication, and that became my new reality.

My parents, who were at the hospital almost every day with food and smiles, were the very people who resumed the insults and curses the moment I was discharged. Nothing changed at home. If anything, it got worse.

I reached the understanding where I think my father genuinely enjoyed tormenting me because he did it so effortlessly and without the slightest trace of guilt. He would look at me and say, “Are you even human? Look at you. Is this what God created?”

If I dared to respond or defend myself, everything escalated. He would call my mother, my siblings, and anyone willing to listen and announce, “The thing has started again.” Before I knew it, they had bundled me into a car and driven me back to the psychiatric hospital. They took my father’s word for it. He would tell them about my episodes and compare them to what he read on Google. “Today, she is happy, tomorrow she is sad, the next day she is angry.”

From clinical depression, I was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Even more medication was added to the growing pile on my table.

With time, I stopped fearing my father. I met him with the same energy he gave me because when you are never allowed to speak, you eventually learn to roar. I rebelled against him. If he came near me, I pushed back at him. I no longer feared him at all. I do not know where I got the audacity from. He thought that I was turning into a mad person.

Even now, because I refuse to let him intimidate me, he still goes around telling people that something is wrong with me. He keeps threatening me that one day he will drag me back to the hospital and have me injected again.

Those medications and injections came with unbearable side effects. I was constantly sleepy during the day, my menstrual periods were heavy with large blood clots, I started producing breast milk even though I had never given birth, and my muscles became painfully stiff.

Today, I understand that my father’s abuse was often the trigger for my emotional breakdowns. Since I no longer allow him to control me the way he once did, I made the difficult decision to stop taking the medication. I have been doing well, and I feel more like myself than I have in years.

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Right now, I am in Level 300 at a media school, and my biggest goal is to build the right connections before I complete national service. Going back to that house after everything I have endured is simply not an option. I want to find a job as quickly as possible, become financially independent, and finally build a life where I feel safe.

How do I start building those connections while I am still in school?

— Patience

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