"Every time I look at my mom, I have the feeling that she wants me to die. I wish I could live without my mom. That is what I've always wanted. If my mom was nice to me, I would be happy."

"I ran to my room and cried because every day, somebody gets mad at me. I try to be nice, but I can't. When somebody gets mad at me, it hurts my feelings a lot, and nobody knows how much it hurts..."

The above are direct quotes from a diary I kept at the tender age of 8 years old. As I read through the worn out pages between the beaten covers, I feel a surge of emotions that sends the dark memories to come flooding through my mind. It has taken me years to leave them behind, yet they have returned in seconds. The awkwardly formed letters, sentence structures and limited vocabulary represent the child's innocence, yet the words are wise beyond her years. In her first eight years of life, she's seen enough violence, hatred and confusion to last her the rest of her long life. She's been forced into maturity long before she was originally due, and missing out on the childhood that has been snatched from her weak grasp.

Love is an essential part of anyone’s childhood. It leads to trust, friendship, family, and the majority of the necessities of life. Love is shown through hugs, kisses, kind words, and certain special moments that seem so insignificant, yet create the longest-lasting memories. She was shown love through beatings, insults, and a constant fear that her mother has instilled into her. She was robbed of her childhood, yet blinded due to the fact that she never knew any better… leading her to believe that it was normal; something else that every child had to endure. She would leave for school, only to be greeted by insults by her peers, careless teachers and feelings of loneliness. She would return home to beatings and insults, and more feelings of seclusion. As she screams under her own mother’s strikes, her father and brothers watch in all normality, ignoring the sounds of her mother’s strong hand against her skin, and the screams that will haunt her for years to come. They have never felt a hint of guilt, only looking through it as if it were as normal as the Earth’s rotation.

As a child, your surroundings are the most important lessons you will ever learn. This later forms your personality that will represent you for the rest of your life. A mother is a child’s primary source of comfort and love, and is supposed to lead the child through these essential lessons of life. When this important character is showing nothing but hate and pain, the child will eventually come to wrongfully believe that this is normal in any household. This, as well as her family’s neutral reactions, will lead to self-hatred and blame that should be non-existent.

Where can a person go, without a childhood? As you are learning your ABC’s and how to count, you are also learning the very essence of what life truly is… Taking your surroundings and personal experiences to formulate what will be your personality, and building the foundation for what will be the rest of your life. Without a foundation, what can you build? Any structure with no foundation will be weak, and can easily be broken down. You can try to rebuild, time and time again, but will get nowhere without this essential first step. You will end up with numerous disappointments, and will get nowhere.

I don’t have that foundation for my life, and I will never have it. Am I trapped in this state of mind forever? Will I keep staring failure in the eye, unable to look away? What will become of me, without this essential first step? At this stage of life, it is expected of me to know where my life is heading, be certain of who I am as a person, and be the most focused. I am more confused than I have ever been in my life.

Studies have shown that a child will develop his or her personality within the first 6-8 years of life. Putting it into perspective… A little girl was told that everything she does is wrong. She is beaten for the most insignificant reasons, yet the person beating her is telling her that she is loved, and will magically transform back into the mother figure that she is expected to be. The child is waiting for someone to save her from this pain, yet she looks at her surroundings, and realizes that the world keeps turning, without a single care.

This has all hit me within the past few days; ever since I found my old diary. I am still trying to rebuild my life, time and time again, yet it is proving difficult. I am still uncertain of who I am, and am still wondering where my life is heading. The past is haunting me, the future is unclear, and the present… Well, it is what it is. I don’t know what to make of it, and I am a little scared.
Maybe this will be the first step towards self-discovery? Who knows...