InsomniacMandie's Journal

People have been sending messages, asking about my entry from a while back. Instead of replying to all of you with the same thing, I thought I'd just clear it up in my journal.

The reason I was afraid of water for so long.

I don't really like talking about it. I know it's pathetic, but It's a sensitive subject for me.

When I was young, My family was very poor. My dad had many debts and a dead end job, and my mother was never home, she worked full time for the government, so I was never very close to her. My dad was naturally very upset about everything, and he always had an anger disorder, but he never really did anything to hurt me, me being a little kid and all.

But one day, at the pool, I was playing around. I was about four, and I didn't know any better. I splashed him playfully, and he exploded. At first, I thought he was just playing, but then he grabbed me and held my head under the water. I was old enough to know that water was not ment to be inhaled, so I held my breath, but I ran out of air, thankfully soon after he let me go. My waterwings propelled me upward and I coughed all the water out of my lungs. He kneeled down next to me in the shallow water and whispered 'Never. Do. That. AGAIN.'. Little me started bawling, dad told the lifegaurd I scraped my knee and dragged me home. I remember it way too clearly. After that, he was just never the same. He wasn't my dad any more, and he hasn't been since. He'd yell at me constantly, he'd grab me by the arm and throw me in my room for no reason, other abusive things that nobody never seemed to notice, and my mother always took his side(and she was just as bad with the yelling a few years later when I was about 10). 

For a while, I tried to take the things they'd say and learn from them, change the things they didn't like about me. It took years for me to finally realize that the people I loved, my parents, were no more.

Continuing on- We used to have a little pool in our back yard. whenever my dad was REALLY angry, and I did the slightest thing to annoy him, even if I just walked into the room and the floorboard creaked,  he would drag me outside by my long blonde hair and hold my head under the water until I could hardly breathe. This continued until I was about 7-8. My teachers started getting worried when I would scream annd jump if anyone touched me, and I'd always flinch at running water.