My Broken Shell

I have been thinking about what led me to start drinking excessively. Now that I’m an adult, with too many damaged organs that I actually need, I ask myself: Why the hell did I do that? I wrecked myself—for what?”

I started drinking when I was twelve. At the time, I did not understand what made it appealing to me.

 My mom once told me I have a deep level of perception.  I never understood what she meant when I asked, “What do you mean?” She said, “You will know when you grow up”.  That conversation left a dark hole in me because, even now, I still don’t know what she truly meant.

Looking back, I can still remember my very first heartbreak as a child. I must have been around seven or eight.

We lived in a big rental house—large enough to fit our family of eight siblings, two aunts, and in-house housekeepers. I knew I had siblings, but I could not figure out who was who. And honestly? I never really tried. Two of my older siblings were already married, so to me, whoever was kind to me, I assumed they were my siblings.

And then came the most painful realization of my childhood.

The brother I adored, the one who was always there for me, who taught me how to swim, who showed me how to be happy—was not actually my brother. He was my brother-in-law. And the estranged woman? She was my real sister.

When they separated, it broke my heart. I cried for a long time, confusion mixing with the pain of feeling lost. It sucked. No one was there to comfort me, so I had to deal with it on my own.

I never received proper guidance, I learned self-preservation the hard way, and over time, I became defensive—so much so that right and wrong blurred into one.

Heartbreak after heartbreak piled up. My older brother who was second to my eldest sister eventually married an unpleasant woman. Whenever he left for work with my parents, I was stuck at home with her since she never worked.

One day, two Christian missionaries knocked on our door. As soon as she opened it, they started talking about the Bible. They were good-looking men, and I watched as her entire demeanor changed—giggling, fidgeting, acting all jittery.

When they left, I asked, "Why were you laughing and giggling so much? Did you find them cute?"

She snapped.

Furious, she started yelling at me, and I ran. She chased after me, screaming. My aunt heard the commotion and rushed in to stop her, but she was still fuming. In her rage, she grabbed her slipper and threw it at me. I ducked behind a table lamp just in time. The slipper hit the lamp instead of my face.

My older aunts came rushing in and held her back.

Her attitude did not bother me much. What did bother me was what happened afterward. When my brother came home and found out what had happened, he was not mad at her. He was mad at me.

I was only eight. Eight.

And at that moment, my disappointment was not for her—it was for him.

She was who she was. But if my own brother would not protect me, who would?

As I look back, the questions piled up.

Why didn’t my brother have any love for me?

Why were my siblings always fighting?

Why did my mom and dad never talk to us about family problems?

Why did they never make us feel like a real family?

My dad was the keeper of our family. He wanted us to stay together, to remain whole. But what good was that if love did not exist between us? A family needs to talk. Bottling up problems only makes them worse. They need to rise to the surface so we can see what is really going on.

Otherwise, a vulnerable child like me—left to make sense of the silence, the fights, the disappointments—will drown in their own shell, broken.

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-to be continued-