Once my psychiatrist asked me what it was like living with my dad when I was a kid. I didn't know how to answer him. He just looked at me.

"that must have been really tough for you"

And that was it.

But tough for me doesn't even begin to describe it.

I love my dad so much. He is one of my best friends in the entire world and I don't know what I would do without him.

But I am so fucked up because of him.

Because of this stupid disease that has taken everything in my life that was supposed to be good and robbed me.

Being a kid is supposed to be the best time of your life.

Being a kid was the worst part of mine.

The kids at school that tortured me. Because I was "different". I was "different" because my dad was living in a mental hospital. But my mum made me swear I would never tell anyone. There are things, she would say, that good families don't tell anyone. So everyone just though I was weird.

At home I was alone, it was terrifying. The fights, the screaming, the alcohol. My brother yelling at me in the kitchen for pouring my dad's vodka down the drain while my mother wailed in the driveway for my dad not to go. Then his tires screaching away.

And at school the next day the kids chased me around the playground trying to make me cry.

I was ugly they said. I was scum.

And no one was ever on my side. It was always the world vs. me and me vs. no one.

All I ever wanted was for someone to stand up for me.
And I'm still waiting.