My background

An Italian girl from upstate NY. I have one older brother. We lived with our nana and nano on and off a lot of the time. When we weren’t there my mother stayed home living off the system, even though she coulda been a hairdresser. My father was a painter, he painted houses when he wasn’t binging on drugs and alcohol. There was a lot of fighting but I loved my father. He was the one I felt the love from. My brother and mother were the close ones. At some point my mother left my father and we ended up at my grandmothers, on my fathers side. There we were left alone a lot. Too much. Too much time spent with my brother at a young age. Made for an awkward relationship with him, looking back.

The parents somehow got back together but he wasn’t around long. If it wasn’t for the fighting and my mom kicking him out, it was for being arrested for murder. Imagine one day you’re sleeping when you’re in the 3rd grade and the cops come raid your house. Kick you right out of bed, then we had to go to school. The news told everyone, we were bullied and had eggs thrown at us because our father was a murderer. It was pretty awful. Now the only one in the house that I really felt love from was gone. Yes the father that may have murdered. Now it’s just my mother, brother and I. I was lonely right away. Luckily I made a best friend in the neighborhood that my nano and nana lived by so no matter what I was close to her. I basically grew up eating dinner every night there. That’s how I had somewhat of an idea of what normalcy was. Dinner on the table every night kinda thing. I shared a lot with her but she, to this day, had no idea what I was actually talking about. But letting it out helped back then. How I learned to cope with the way my mother made me feel about myself and how I felt ganged up on by my mother and brother. She was young and addicted to all sorts of drugs my father had her on. He was gone and things were better but she was still a mess. To be continued…