Today’s powerful guest blog comes from Alexandra Pilson. 

Miserable, I was constantly sad, frustrated, and lonely. I felt alienated from others as no one would have believed me. My father was seen as a pillar of the community and such a wonderful man. I carried far too much responsibility and an enormously heavy burden. My school life suffered as I became more and more withdrawn, this made me an easy target for bully’s that just didn’t understand why I was different, why I was not like them, and why I wanted to be alone sometimes. My home life suffered as my mother needed to work longer hours to clothe and feed us as that was her responsibility and I, being the eldest of 3, was responsible for my siblings and my father. I had no social life or friends to speak of because I could not bring them home or tell them what I was going through.I took it upon myself to bear the brunt of my father’s drinking as it, for the most part, spared my siblings until they were older and then I was helpless to intervene.

Some days my father would be a father and when he was, he was loving, funny and kind but those days were few.

Other days he would shout and scream, throw his dinners at the wall and physically, verbally and mentally abuse us, making us believe that we were the most horrible and badly behaved children that had ever lived.

He had lost the ability to see the line that no adult or parent should ever cross, especially with such vulnerable and impressionable things as children.

My adult life, for a time, was no better as I didn’t value it as I should have. I survived but that was mostly out of habit and shear will. I felt that I was to stupid and not deserving of a better life so I just didn’t strive for one.

When my father died, even though we had been estranged for 5/6 years, I felt a huge loss for the father I didn’t have and the waste of a life that could have been so much more.

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