Fake It

By:  Ada Z.         

        I have a colorful past.  A childhood filled with drama that a kid shouldn't have to go through.  The weird part is, that when I was a child, I was able to see past the trauma.  I was able to compartmentalize.  I would fake like everything was perfectly normal while I was at school or with my friends. 

        When I was in 8th grade, my mother was dating a man.  He was her second boyfriend after my father and I hated him.  I did everything I could to get away from him and my mother.  When I was forced to stay at their house, I would run away.  I would call the police.  I would call my father crying and begging for him to pick me up.  This boyfriend was scary and he hated me just as much as I hated him.  

        One Monday morning at school, after staying at my mother's house the night before, I opened up my folder to prepare for my first class.  When I opened the folder the words "F*cking Die, F*cking Cunt" was scrawled in red marker on my lined notebook paper.  A series of similar notes followed every week and he would find new ways to torment me for years to come after that.  

        From the time that I was about 8 years old, I had to fake it.  None of my friends knew that I was receiving death threats from my mother's boyfriend.  No one knew that my life was "normal" when I was at my dad's house and a living hell when I was with my mom.  I just faked like everything was fine and eventually, it was.  It soon became my "normal".

        One of the reasons that I wanted to start our podcast was to help people.  Maybe eventually share some of my experiences in hopes that people with trauma in their past could relate.  Lisa and I never truly knew what we were getting ourselves into when we started this podcast but we decided to fake it until we figured it out.  Everyone has to start somewhere so you just need to learn as much as you can, get it started, and fake it till you make it!