Hello. I'm a girl in 12th grade.
I wrote this a month ago and I always postpone seeking help in the hope that the situation will improve, but it is getting worse and I had to write.
My parents divorced when I was 13, and I stayed with my father. I kept in touch with my mother, we talked, we saw each other as many times as we could, but in time we moved away. She found a new husband, they got married, they even had a baby. Somehow I got used to the idea that she had a new family, and I think it was because of my father's constant support.
He is a wonderful person and he has never deprived me of anything, even if he was a single parent of a girl.
But two years ago he had to go abroad because his job was not going well here and a "parachute" was opened for him there. At first he was determined not to leave me, but after much persuasion on my part, he left. He's much better there now than he was here, and he's much calmer, the only thing he doesn't like is that I'm not there, but we've agreed that I'm going to do my master's degree there.
So a little over two years ago, I moved in with my mother. Before I did, we all got together and discussed, because my other option was to stay with my grandparents (which my father didn't agree with, and he would probably quit his job), but that didn't happen because my mother and her husband completely agreed. They made my own room to my liking (her husband had personally taken care of it), helped me move to the new school, and so on.
My father left shortly after I started school (he wanted me to live with them first so he could be absolutely sure I would be fine). I was really sad, I cried all the time for a few days and called him every few hours.
My mother and her husband saw this and tried to cheer me up. Every day they asked me how I was, how it was at school, if I had any friends, what they were like, etc., they told me that the four of us were a family.
Gradually I got used to it. At one time I was even fine, but then it all started slowly but surely to fall apart.
At home, we had various disagreements about some small things, such as the arrangement of my room, my evening hours, and the like, but although small, they were gaining strength and it was only a matter of time before they exploded. And that's what happened - one day I was almost two hours late for my evening because we were out of town. I know I did very badly then and learned a lesson, but it was clearly not enough. My mother and her husband were angry with me for a while. My mother stopped at first, but I could feel her husband being more reserved with me.
Meanwhile, Ralichka was growing. To put it mildly, I adore this child, I loved watching her grow, how she walked, how she frowned at the carrots, how she fell and stood up as if nothing had happened, how she laughs when I tickle her. With each passing day, I was amazed at how quickly she learned things, how she was very perceptive, how she jumped around, laughed, made us dance with her, and painted us on the faces. It united us. I thought I was teaching her some things, but in the end, it turned out that she was teaching me so many others.
But then my mother went to work and the responsibility for Ralichka fell on both hands. Not that my mother's husband didn't look after her before, but it's one thing for an hour while my mom is around and clean, and quite another for almost a whole day and alone.
At first, he played with her. I came home from school and found them playing, she was painting (she really likes to paint and touch her ears), but gradually I started to notice how only she was playing while he was watching TV or ticking his phone.
Summer vacation came and I went to my father (hurray). I had an unforgettable time. He took me everywhere, we were constantly together and made up for lost time. I talked to Rally almost every day, we talked in the video chat and I hadn't noticed anything other than that she had grown up. I returned to Bulgaria and despite all the euphoria from my arrival, the many gifts and unpacking of luggage, I again did not notice a difference in it. I went to visit my grandparents for two weeks and only when I came back in horror did I discover what was different about her - I had bought her a doll and she played with it a bit, but then she went to her father, asked for his phone, he gave it to her and she started playing with it. I stared, but I thought it didn't happen that often. I had no idea how wrong I was. Since then, Ralitsa has been on someone's phone or tablet every day. She changed completely - she was constantly nervous, she tried to hit me several times, but I scolded her and she didn't try anymore, she almost stopped playing - she no longer admits almost any of her toys or she plays a little and gets tired of it. and she goes to the tablet, she laughs almost only at him, if I go and tell her to play or tickle her, she tells me that she is watching her children's movie now and she doesn't want to go anywhere else if I keep insisting. The children's laughter echoing all over the apartment is gone, and it's as if while I was gone someone came and replaced the previous cheerful Ralichka with a zombie. Literally a zombie.
Now, when I come home from school, I see her watching a child on the tablet, and her father watching a game on TV. My mother also uses the tablet, but she also deals with it, less than before, but not at all.
Every time I saw her on this tablet, I literally had a heart attack. I tried to wean her off the habit, but then her father came and gave her his phone and it all went to hell. One day, while we were having dinner and she wasn't eating again because her tablet was in front of her, I couldn't stand it and told them it couldn't go on. I had hinted to them before, but they stubbornly refused to look. Of course, my whole speech led to a scandal, and it wasn't long before we quarreled with each other, or rather, the two of them with me. Was I going to teach them how to look after their child, did I know what it was like for them to go to work and feed us, did they want to rest, what would happen to her on the phone, etc. I continued to show them what's going on, but it's hard to see what's in front of your eyes. Ralichka got scared and started running around us and begging us to stop, then I gave up and decided to talk to them when she was in kindergarten so that she wouldn't be unnecessarily scared.
They insulted me again, this time my mother's husband - finally. Our conversations with him are already limited to "Hello" and "Go and buy bread from the store". On some days, when I'm more uncomfortable than usual, he watches me over everything and says, "Why did you leave this plate here? Won't you wipe the table? Wash your dishes?" And at the same time - if I wash the dishes - I get annoyed with the table and vice versa.
It's clear to both of us that we can't look at each other, and I'm looking forward to counting the days until I'm out.
Honestly, my relationship with him doesn't excite me much (even at all), it excites me between him, my mother, and Ralichka. And without that, I have long felt like a guest "at home" and as a stranger among my "family".
And there were more and more cracks in the family in question - for a while, the relationship between my mother and her husband became strained. There have been quarrels before, it is normal for another scandal to arise from time to time (as long as it is small and resolved), but for several months quarrels have been almost a daily occurrence. My mother is too tired from work and when she comes home she has to take care of two other people. I help her as much as I can, but I don't have the opportunity to cook and clean thoroughly every day. It happened that her husband was on vacation, she came home exhausted and he said something like: "Pour us to eat!" And she put them to eat, then raised the table, washed the dishes, dried them, put them away. taking care not to make a noise, for His Royal Highness her husband had been looking after his own child all day, tired and lying down. Or she goes home and goes to their living room (Ralitsa is on the tablet again), and tells him how her day went, etc., and he interrupts her and tells her, "Okay, okay, as long as you explain yourself. that I'm watching the match now. "At such moments I see how she wants to cry. I call her and Ralichka to talk to me, but she doesn't always want to - normally after he cut her so badly.
I don't want to tell my father because he will worry a lot and completely unnecessarily - right now I can't move out, and I still don't want to leave Ralichka.
The atmosphere here is more than intimate and my only salvation is the textbooks in my room. Every day I study with the goal and hope to succeed in life and my situation will not be like that of my mother. I want to get out of here faster, but at the same time, I don't want to, because I'm afraid of Ralichka. And will she become one of the millions of children in the world with attention deficit? And will she suffocate because of her parents' scandals and barely cope with depression? For some it may seem extreme, but this is what children who do not have time are. How am I expected to study far from here, when my mind will constantly wander between different scenarios how she is on the tablet all day, has already stopped playing completely and every night she witnesses the fierce scandals of her parents?
Even now this is difficult for me. Because of the pandemic, we study online and they give us absolutely every subject at home. If we have 7 hours today, we have 7 homework. Some teachers give us two days, but some want them by the end of the day. The school is constantly engaged and our homework is sent to a Facebook group. Therefore, I have to constantly monitor it, but in the end, it turned out that I was just clicking on Facebook. I took a bottle of water and headphones and when I sat on my laptop, I didn't get up for several hours. That's why every day my head is ruined because of that. When I'm in a lot of pain, I get up and walk around the apartment or play soft music on my phone to rest. But that day I couldn't stand it, because I had been like that for about four hours, having only gotten up two or three times, for the toilet and saltines, and I felt very sick. I went to bed to get some sleep and just then my sister came in and woke me up and her father came to get her out, but when he saw me asleep, he looked at me mockingly and asked me "Are you studying?", And I told him I was resting. and he said "Aha" to me and laughed. Then I got up and sat down to study again, but Ralitsa kept coming to me and he called her, not her. Then my mother came home from work and we sat down to eat and Ralichka asked me if we would play when we ate, but I told her that I couldn't and would go to study again and he started again "Ralice, how can you not is busy with you now because he is studying on his laptop on Facebook! "and he said it as if I just click all day and do nothing else. I was very angry and sick, because how can I explain to him that I have 5 problems in mathematics, a project in the world and personality, an essay in English, an essay in Bulgarian, two more in French and too many homework and if I don't do them in term and as it should I will not have the required number of grades and therefore next year I will stay on my own and repeat the 12th grade or I will totally fuck my diploma, on top of that I have to study for my matura, candidate, canceled the preliminary ones, no wonder cancel the preliminary exams, and there are 300 other things that are currently on my head and totally crush me with their weight?
I am getting tired. I'm very tired and I don't want to deal with scandals, as they form here every day.