Couch 159: Aemilia, a Couch on the Asteroid Belt

So last night, around 4 a.m., I woke up to hear someone pounding on our front door. Not knocking, pounding. Made me nervous at first, then was like, "OK, surely they'll go away in a minute." When I heard them turning the knob, trying to get in (I always make sure it's locked, including keyed deadbolt, before I go to sleep), I started to freak out. I grabbed the home phone, so I could call 911 if needed, and woke up H. He started heading downstairs like he was going to answer the door! I was like, "Are you crazy? Don't open the door!" I mean, I've watched enough police/crime shows... They were still pounding, so I was starting to dial 911 when H said to wait. He opened the bedroom window and screen, stuck his head out (as I nervously cowered off to the side), and was like, "What are you doing man? What's going on?" The guy said something back in Spanish, and H yelled, "You've got the wrong house, this is the wrong house." The guy then went down the steps and up the street. I was shaking...and H was like, "Well, that's all the sleep I'm getting tonight..." We suspect he did in fact have the wrong house, that maybe someone was expecting him, so he didn't understand why no one would open the door. Still, in the case of something like that...don't you try calling the other person? Not keep pounding on the door and trying the handle... I did manage to go back to sleep after an hour or so, but it was tough. I hope the guy was just going to visit someone and didn't mean any harm--if he did end up hurting someone, I'd feel really awful for not calling police. But then, if he was just at the wrong address, wouldn't have wanted him getting arrested either...

I was on a skype call with my mother two days ago. Something happens on her side a and she calls my 17 year old sister. My father calls her an idiot. She tells him to f*** off and throws something at him and he shouts back at her. This is nothing new. I don't believe that they ever really had a real marriage. She always said "that she stayed for us". It was normal for our father to beat our mother whilst we tried to stop him and cried. To watch her sit and cry on the stairs whilst she was talking to a police officer. But she would never leave him. He was unpredictable- the smallest thing could set him off and we just learnt to saying nothing in case he would "flip". I have no memory of my father playing with me. But I do remember crying in public at a restaurant when he snapped because I changed my order at the last minute. I remember crying on the way home after being called a failure when I didn't get an A* in a particular A-level exam (4 marks away). Others things include: being called a prostitute,a w***e, and told so many times that I was no good. A mistake, that he told my mother to have an abortion.

Why didn't she see that she deserved better? Why didn't she protect us? She would get frustrated and beat my brother and me. Then cuddle up with us, kiss us, cry and tell us that she was sorry. There's a reason my first child part is 4 because I remember the shock of being slapped for the first time. I had my first panic attack at the age of 9- I always thought that I've always been mentally ill since I was a child, but it was all just a response to growing up the way we did. I fell in love with the first boy who noticed me but he was someone who played mind games. Nothing but hot and cold with me."maybe I was just testing you". I kept going back to him because I was in love and I didn't know any better. But love is not supposed to hurt. I knew the final straw was when I told him that I was suicidal and taking a year out. He just commented on my grades.

I could get over it if it was "the best that they could" but it wasn't their best. We've always had pressure to succeed academically. They demanded so much from us but provided us with so little. My 23 year old brother struggles the same way with severe depression and I worry about him every exam season and I expect both my two younger sisters to end up crying in a
therapist's office. We all deserved better.