Day 3- Your parents

My parents. Jeez.
My parents are the people who've brought me up, who've made me the person I am today. And I don't know what I feel about the person I am today, and so I'm not completely sure what I feel for my parents.
My mother is perhaps the unintentionally funniest person I know. She's very quirky, and she can make people smile and feel welcomed usually no matter what.
She does have a temper, but that's obvious; she is my mother, after all. I am not aware of one teenager who has ever not argued with their mother. However, this isn't something I often discuss, so people I am close to might be among these rarities...
I love my mum immensely. She's always there for me, even though I know I can be a sharp stabbing pain sometimes. I rarely take advantage of that, and I think she's a little hurt by it. But when we get talking, she's a great listener, and she's incredibly compassionate and empathic.
She can however be quite stubborn, and she isn't necessarily the smartest of people. We clash sometimes, because we have very different personalities.
But she's my mum, there's a family bond between us, and I love her dearly, for her faults and her strengths. She's fantastic at being a mother, that's something I couldn't do. And I most definitely have more flaws than I could name of her, and bigger.
My father is someone I don't spend much time with. I see him every Friday and Sunday, for about six hours apiece. My family have been separated since I was eight, and the only contact they've had with each other is dropping off in the driveway of their respective houses.
Oh, and in the first few years, my dad came over and they spoke like civilised people, and then he took us out for walks.
That is, until in the last house I lived in he got... mad. He picked up our Ovaltine mugs and threw them at the wall. With Ovaltine and milk still in them. They smashed, splinters of ceramic pieces embedded in the wall and shards all over the floor.
That was not the first time I was deathly afraid of my father. Mind you, I was ten at the time.
It wasn't the last either.
A few of you will know I had a counsellor for about 6 months at one point, to help me get over depression. The only reasons I'm here right now is due to a guilty conscience and the efforts of a few friends.
I broke down in the middle of school one day in year nine. Burst into tears three times throughout the day, was taken to see the nurse. I'd almost committed suicide the night before. What stopped me was the thought that my brother and sister would be left alone and that either of them would be left to bear the brunt of my dads anger.
The second night I tried to commit suicide was on my dad's birthday, four days before mine, just before the Christmas holidays of 2008. A diary entry of that night. Describing the day-
"I bounced a basketball against my head to stop myself crying, to which Callan let a stray giggle escape before he realised I was serious. I must admit, at that point I felt a little glee. I don't know why. Maybe because I realised at my worst, I can make people laugh. Even at me. Even if they are sadists.
I just kept crying, all the while fiercely whispering to myself to shut up shut up shut up. I kept on trying to say what I was scared of but it just wouldn't come out."
I was scared of turning into my dad. See, even though my dad can be a horrible, sexist, racist, hypocritical, terrifying bigot, he is the only person who has similarity to me in personality. He is the person most like me in this world. I recognised that, at the age of twelve. It was the worst realisation I'd ever had, and I haven't really recovered from the revulsion I felt towards myself since. It's definitely died down, but it's nowhere near disappeared.
But that night was the night I can pinpoint a lot of my thoughts changing. That night was the night I know I grew up. I haven't been the same since.
I was in a tent in the backyard because we had friends over from England and I was giving up my room for a couple of them for a month.
"I like being alone in the tent like this. It means I don't have to stifle my sobs. There is quite a wind blowing, like a massive hand is trying to uproot it. I'm, for once, safe and shut in, even if I am crying my eyes out.
It's almost like I'm the only thing keeping this tent here... I'm afraid to leave in case it gets blown away. I feel like that in my head too. Like, if the stronger one leaves, the weaker one, the one that gets the headaches, will fade.
But I've got to leave the tent sometime.
And the stronger one can't always back the weaker one up."
I saw my mind in two different parts when I was that age. I had a stronger one, that was holding up a wall so that my emotions wouldn't get strewn everywhere, and a weaker one, who'd dealt with the emotion enough times that they'd recognised a need for a wall. I kept myself locked up to almost everyone apart from my diary.

This is why I'm not sure about my parents. I love them both. But dad put me through the worst experience I've ever had. And I haven't entirely forgiven him. I wanted to stick a knife in his back at some of my worst points. I don't think you could hate a person more fiercely than I used to. I cried myself to sleep at least once a week because of him.
He's better at not letting his anger out on us children, and I've gotten better at dealing with it. We have a laugh sometimes. He's the most like me and he can teach me how to deal with myself. But I can't separate who he is now from who he used to be.
I still cry myself to sleep a couple of times a month because of something he's said, and I still think it would be much easier if he buggered off to Thailand like he keeps on threatening. But there's no denying I love him, and that I'd miss him.
My parents are my parents. I love them both to death.
I hope this hasn't been too detached emotionwise. When I get this upset, I write objectively generally. I don't think that would have lent itself to this post.

Thanks for reading.