Alcohol

Not much had changed in my day-to-day upon moving back to Alaska and I entered into my preteen years. My stepdad had left me alone for about a year as I was going through puberty. I was breaking out and gaining weight and my emotions and moods were all over the map, some of that attributed to hormones. Once puberty ran its course and I really started to fill out and become a woman, his interest once again piqued.

Another dramatic shift occurred at this time as well. My parents, who had drunk alcohol only occasionally, began to drink to excess. It started with my stepfather knocking back can after can of Budweiser and verbally abusing my mother. Soon, my mother started drinking Franzia box wine and fighting back with words. It didn't take long for this dynamic to quickly turn to physical violence between the two of them.

My parents had bought a two-story house with an unfinished basement on Keyann Court that year. My stepfather finished the downstairs bedroom and I finally got my own room. I was thrilled at this new room with the pretty new carpet, a window and privacy. This joy was short-lived.

As their alcoholism grew and their interpersonal violence increased, my room became the place that one or both parties ran to. My mother would run down the stairs late in the night and wake me up, crying and drunk. My stepdad would be there soon after, and usually something in my room would be broken before they both calmed down, went upstairs and passed out, leaving me to try to go back to sleep, alone and wondering what the hell had just happened. My personal physical space had never been off limits and now my room wasn't either.

The strangest violation of my room was when my mother, sister and I went to Hawaii. My stepfather was going to come but they had gotten into a huge argument a few nights prior and he refused to go. It was a blessing. Kind of.

My mother was so excited to go to Hawaii. She had saved for this trip for two years and had never been to Hawaii. We were looking forward to it too-it was the middle of winter in Alaska and we had never been anywhere outside of the state. We went to the beach, a sugar cane farm, shopping and restaurants. I had never been to a beach before. I felt rich and adventurous.

My stepfather harassed my mother from a distance the entire trip. One night, they had gotten in an argument over the phone and she had hung up on him. For the next five hours, the phone rang off the hook and she refused to answer it. She also went into the bedroom with my sister as I slept on the fold-out couch, listening to the phone ring over and over and over again. I never understood why she wouldn't just turn the ringer off.

When we got back from Hawaii, my parents got into a drunken and violent argument almost immediately. My stepfather ripped the undeveloped film from our Hawaii trip out of the camera, ruining all of the pictures. He was at the top of the stairs, raging for what felt like hours; ripping things off of the wall and yelling "she's got a dirty shirt on!". I listened to this episode with indifference as I put my room back together. He had trashed it while we were in Hawaii. As I was putting it back together, I found that he had cut all of my bras in half at the fabric connecting the cups. I never told my mother and never understood what the hell that was about.