I try to act normal want to be normal but I don't know what normal is. Isn't normal the place where I live? Aren't my parents normal? If what I am surrounded with is my normal why doesn't she likes me? She keeps yelling at me. She says I am not normal. I do everything she asks except smile. I do not know how to smile. I can not relax. My body feels like stone. I feel frozen if she arrives if I hear her or smell her. I don't know what is worse. Her voice or her smell. Her smell makes me gag and I cannot hug her. It is torture to be in one house with her. The perfumes she uses, all those expensive creams only make it worse. Her scent cannot be covered. She will never smell nice.
Grandmother does not smell. Her smell comes from a bottle of pink body cream. She only uses one cream and no makeup, no perfumes.
My nose is very good and so is my hearing. Both make me suffer. It's hard to smell what other people can not smell and to hear everything. It is impossible to shut it out. To not smell all those different odours that make one person. The sharp odour is the worst next to the rotten scent of hate, infection and death.
Getting out of bed this morning was hard. My bedroom is cold. It's even cold underneath the blanket. I have a yellow woollen blanket. It's itchy. The sheets are white. They always come back white from the laundry no matter how much blood was on it. I wonder if the laundry checks if it's clean or their machines wash better. If the sheets are back from the laundry my mother checks and fold them again. It has to be in her way. All sheets are folded in the same way, the same size. Neat and perfectly folded in the linen closet.
School was okay I guess. In the classroom with the teacher is fine. At the schoolyard, I rarely play. Dirty and damaged clothes will make my mother angry. The children don't really like me so I wait till I can go back to school again. Sometimes I wait in the sun, sometimes in the shadow. The children who play with me after schooltime never play with me at school. I feel lost at school. Lost and as if I am the only child who doesn't know how to play. I am the only child who cannot see the fun, feel the fun.
The crowded hallways at school I don't like to cross. The chairs are herded too. The children push and you have to take care. They are loud and in a hurry always in a hurry especially if it's time to go home.
Home isn't the place I like to be. I don't feel at home at home. It's not a safe place to be.
Monday
September 20, 2021
The pain in my head is still there. She held a bunch of my hair in her hand and kept it in front of my face. She grinned and smacked me in the face, against my ear. I heard a strange sound in my head before it touched the floor.
Tuesday
September 21, 2021
I am grounded or called sick. The door is locked and I have to stay in my bedroom. I hear voices but they do not talk to me. No one will talk to me, no one will ask for me, ask how I am doing, why I am not at school. Perhaps they don't care because they don't like me or because I am a girl. Not all girls go to school. Girls have to get married and behave. Obey and behave. My mother isn't a good example. She went to school, she works day and night and doesn't obey. People find me strange, children find me weird and my mother hates me. I live in a world where no one likes me or cares. There's no need to be here, to stay alive. It doesn't matter how hard I try, I do my stinky best but it's never good enough. So this is what I think. If I am alive for a reason it is so others can beat, hit, kick and humiliate me whenever they feel to it. Perhaps they think I don't feel it, I don't care just like they say fishes don't feel pain, animals can't feel pain. I think people need a scapegoat. I am the scapegoat. They need someone to blame, to punish. It makes them feel better just like Jesus made bad people feel better about themselves. I don't feel better though.
Babies, children are born innocent they say. All people I know say so only Catholics not. It was said at Sunday school and in church. Catholics say babies are born sinners. That's why they are baptized in the back of the church. I don't know if this is true. I do wonder who made these rules, who changed them but I do not wonder why. The why is easy.
The why are people like my mother. With a scapegoat around she can do as she likes. She can scold, curse, steal, lie, hit, kick and kill people and so can others. A scapegoat is an innocent person held responsible, that's what the teacher said. The scapegoat is punished for others their sins. It is not about justice but about fooling people, distracting them. The people do not care about justice, real justice that has to do with the truth. The truth only and nothing but the truth.
The teacher is right. Bullies always get away with what they do no matter what it is. Even if people know they lie the bullies are untouchable.
The housekeeper did not come upstairs, didn't knock on my door, did not ask how I am doing. I know I would even in this house filled with fear and terror.
I heard the dogs bark and in later children outside. School is over.
Wednesday
September 22, 2021
I try to remember what I did today but I can't. I was in my room. No school, no gym, no food, nothing to drink. I haven't seen dad. The curtains are closed. They are orange and let the sunlight through. There isn't much light but the day isn't over yet.
Thursday
September 23, 2021
She dragged me out of bed as if she suddenly remembers I still exist. I had to take the sheets off my bed and take a bath. You stink she yelled and roughly pushed me out of the room. I no longer count the spots on my arms, legs and body. I don't look into the mirror to say my face. The mirror is above the sink and too high anyway. I don't think I stink not this time. I have no wounds that smell rotten, I do not take pills or use the smelly cream the doctor gave me. My skin doesn't smell. It doesn't stink like hers.
While I sat in the tub with hot water and soap I thought we have something in common. I mean my mother and I do have something in common. She never liked me. It shows in my baby photos. She never really held me close but I think I never liked her either. There's a photo of me a few months old. She holds me straight up sitting on her knees with both arms stretched forward. I look frozen. Not many more photos are made of me after that one. I was never interesting enough or loved.
I have my own camera now but I don't take photos of myself.
I didn't know what to do, where to go once in bath. She yelled to hurry up and clean up the mess, come back to my room. She gazed at me, inspected me and told me to stay in the middle of the room till my hair was dry. The window was wide open, the bedroom door was. I felt the cold, the draft. I can't stand the cold. She knows I feel cold, so cold.
Don't you dare to move, she said, or you stay here the entire night. I know her. I know she will do it. She did it before. There's no God and family is not precious. Family is worse and more dangerous than anyone can imagine.
Friday
September 24, 2021
No hiking club. Perhaps I never need to join them again? I had to clean the house. Dad did his part. He did not ask how I am doing. He never does. He sang while he cleaned the bathroom and kept singing while he cleaned the kitchen and after that, he left outside. He acted normal. He knows how to be normal.
Saturday
September 25, 2021
They locked me inside my bedroom again as they left. A child is a burning, a punishment. Especially a girl. My mother wanted a boy. If I was a boy I don't think she would have liked me either. She would have treated me worse than a dog, way worse than our dogs. Our dogs she takes on her lap. She washes them and they need to be brushed endlessly. She buys baskets and all kinds of stuff but they are not always allowed to be inside and if only in the kitchen. It's the same with me. The kitchen or my bedroom. The living is for rare occasions. The weekend or celebrations and visitors.
Sunday
September 26, 2021
I am a burden. That's what she said. The best thing to do is stay away from other people. I don't know if she will let me go back to school again. If I hear her leave, hear her car I quickly go to the bathroom. My pee is brown. I drink some water not too much. I cannot brush my teeth. She will notice the wet brush.
I try to read while I sit on the floor with my back against the door. If I read I forget the real world. I forget the danger around me. I know I do not always hear her come back. My back against the door will warn me too late but at least it's a warning. I still see her face shown through the small window above the door. I will never forget what her face looked like. That's why I won't stay in my bed and dare to sleep. I have to keep myself awake. At least till everything is back to normal our normal. A normal with me outside this room, with school and tea time with the housekeeper.
Monday
September 27, 2021
A kid's diary
Thor fights back
Me being born made her hate m
They scare me
You are fat
I read some of your diaries, how old are you? Your mom doesn't deserve you, your mom really don't have a heart. I feel your pain 😢