I still cannot believe the things children are forced to do just to survive inside their own home. When I look back on my childhood, there is one month of my life that feels unreal. Sometimes it feels like a fever dream and sometimes it feels like the only peaceful memory I have from that entire time. My father was a raging monster when I was growing up.

He yelled at us every day. He told us we were worthless. He beat us over the smallest mistakes. It was the kind of abusive environment that changes the way a child’s brain develops. It turns you into a quiet, scared version of yourself. It makes you feel like safety is something other people get to have.

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Eventually my mother hit her breaking point. She told him that he either got psychological help or she would leave him. Somehow those words scared him more than the damage he caused us. He actually went to a doctor.

He came home with a prescription for an antipsychotic medication. And for a short time, he changed. It felt like a miracle. There were no more beatings. The yelling stopped. He spoke to us like we were human beings with feelings. I remember thinking that this must be what a normal family looked like. For the first time in my life, I felt what peace could be.

Then he stopped taking the medication. Apparently the side effects bothered him. My mother explained it to us with that exhausted voice she used when she had nothing left to give. And just like that, the monster came back. The yelling. The rage. The fear. It was like watching a nightmare crawl back into the house.

I do not know how old I was, but I know I was too young to be thinking the thoughts I had. One day my mother accidentally left the prescription bottle out on the kitchen counter. I do not know if it was truly an accident.

Sometimes I wonder if it was her quiet cry for help. My sister and I looked at each other and our eyes said everything. We did not need to speak. She grabbed a spoon. I crushed one of the pills to powder. We mixed it into his orange juice like we had done it a hundred times before, even though it was the first time.

That day was peaceful again. No screaming. No slamming doors. He even asked us about school. It felt like we had stepped back into that short window of safety. So we did it again the next day. And the day after that. We drugged our father every morning for an entire month. It sounds awful when I say it now, but at the time it was survival. It was self defense. It was two children trying to keep their home livable for as long as they could.

When the bottle finally ran out, the peace disappeared with it. The yelling came back. The violence came back. But for that one month, we knew what it felt like to breathe without fear. And I will never apologize for that. Not then and not now.

People talk about childhood trauma like a story you walk away from, but it stays with you. I still carry the guilt and the relief. I still carry the confusion and the sadness. Sometimes I wonder who I would have become if that month had lasted longer.

Sometimes I wonder who my father could have been if he had cared enough to stay on his medication. Mostly I just remember two scared kids trying to build a tiny safe place inside a violent home. And I know that I would do it all again if it meant even one more peaceful day.

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