How I Found Happiness

i realize this group is just about dead and nobody's probabbly gonna read this.
but that's okay. i'm writing it for myself, to let it out.
All my life i have been seeking happiness. ive got a pretty messed up story, i'm not someone that smiles much.
my father was very abusive growing up, but only to me. yeah, just me. i had a little sister and a twin, but he liked them just fine. i never understood why and i suppose i was too scared to ask. but i can't say i hated him. no. i remember the evenings where he would let me watch dirty movies with him. i loved it. i know thats messed up, but it was always one of those few times where he would he happy and calm. wen he wasnt beating or raping me or getting his friends to do the same. i never respected my mother all that much. despite all the **** my Dad would put her through, she would always come crawling back. i think its because she wasnt financially fit to live on her own. so shed rather live with a crazy alcoholic. that is why i decided at an early age to become a biophysicist. it pays quite well, so i figured id never end up like my mother, going throught hell just to have some a**whipe let me stay at his place.

when i was 8, one night my dad got mad at my mom. i dont remember what it was about, but he got very violent and went in his room. my little sister (6 yrs at the time) ran off to the garage. my dad came back and i heard two gunshots. when i looked around, both my mom and dad were on the floor. he had shot my mom but it took me a sec to realize my little sister had shot him. thats why she went to the garage, to get a gun. thinking back on it, we could have saved them both. but we waited too long before getting the neighbors. but what if...

my life went on after that, my moms best friend and her bf adopted all the three of us. i dont think they liked us all that much either but oh well they werent as bad as my dad. but when i was 12 i remember my sisters and i were playing out in the front yard and a van pulled up and a man asked if we had seen his dog. my twin started to back away slowly but my sis and i were too stupid. i don't remember what happened after thatm but then i woke up in this cold concrete room that had a bunch of other little girls there too. i can never forget the look on their faces, so....hurt. like they were silently pleading for help. a man walked into th room and untied my sisters and i he grabbed my twins arm and she started screaming and squirming. he got out his gun and pulled the trigger. that moment, those few seconds, were the worst of my entire life. because everything happened so quick and inside i was screaming and fighting but outside i froze. i was fighting to reach out but i couldnt move.
and my little sister, she was terrified. she hated me after that. i dont blame her though. i should have done something. what if i had?? what if i had payed attention and noticed that the van was a trap in the first place?? what if....

we were there for 2 months before my sis and i (along with a couple of others) managed to escape. i dont remember how exactly, but sometimes i have flashbacks that im running and someone is shooting at me and i trip on something and siter helps me up and we keep going...running on and on.

i was kidnapped again at 16, but by myself. i don't like talking about that. i am sorry. but what annoys me the most is that oth times it happened, when we finally escaped and the police got a hold of us and we went to the hospital and so forth, when our stepparents finally got a hold of u, they scolded us. SCOLDED US!! after all that crap, they had the nerve to yell at us. it's amazing how some people are just blind to certain things. theres a lot i regret about my life. and id like to say that nowadays im over the past, but it all left me with multiple personality isorder, paranoid personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder (this is debatable because my therapist disagrees with my psychiatrist about wether or not i have shown all the symptoms) and borderline personality disorder.

a year later, at 17, my stepmother died of breast cancer. a little after my 18th birthday my stepdad commited suicide and shortly after that,my little sister was taken off to a mental hospital. i absolutely blame myself for this. i hadnt noticed how bad she was hurting because we both have a terrible habit of keeping things inside. well thats not very smart. she was there for almost 4 years, and i would visit as often as i could. she would never talk to me. she just stared, her glare filled with hatred and pain. at some point i couldn't take it anymore. so i stopped comimg. when she was finally released, she came to live with me. i was so glad to see her again that day, i remember i ran up and hugged her. she pushed me away. 3 days later i found her down on the floor of her room with an empty bottle of pills. i cried so hard at her funeral, i kept thinking what if i hadnt left her home by herself, what if i had noticed sooner that she wasnt ok, what if...

Yesterday, 7:24pm. i was watvhing my cat play with my hamster. he kept pawing at it, and then grabbing it. at some point the hamster had had enough, and it jumped out of the cats paws and landed on his face, scratching furriously with its tiny little paws. i smiled. in fact, i did more than that. i laughed. i was alone at home, it was just me and my pets but at that very moment, i felt pure happiness. i hadn't needed to get a bf or drink wine or watch a movie or anything. i just had to stop and admire the world around me and appreciate the little things in my life.

sometimes, thats all it takes to be happy