My parents used to drink a lot. My mom had an alcohol addiction. They didn’t get along which I didn’t understand as a kid. My sister told me that my dad became disabled after a failed back surgery, which left him in constant pain. This forced my mom to go from being a stay-at-home mom to working full-time to support us, putting immense pressure on her. My sister said my mom had an affair, which he was never able to forgive.

Their fights were intense and terrifying, with screaming and physical altercations. Sometimes, we had to stay with our neighbors or grandparents until the police came to take our parents away. No one in our family talked about it. My mom dismissed it as normal couple arguments. This led to my sister and I growing up pretty isolated. At (primary) school I used to worry a lot about my parents wellbeing.

During high school there were still many fights, mostly verbal. When I was 16, their final physical fight occured, I go more in depth in the podcast episode, I prefer to not do that here.

There were numerous relapses including alcohol combined with morphine or codeine.

I remember feeling like I couldn’t confide in my parents about anything I was going through at school because home wasn’t a safe place for me. So I would keep everything that happened at school to myself as well.

Apart from this situation my parents still tried their best for us. They always tried to make sure we didn’t have to miss out on anything because of financial difficulties, like school trips, music classes.

My childhood wasn’t black and white. There were many beautiful moments too.