'The Hike' - Chapter Twenty-One - Climbing High Just to Face the Abyss

One of my biggest fears is still becoming the monster my father was when he abused alcohol and used my mother as a punching bag. One of my earliest memories is of me standing in the corridor on the first floor of our house, crying. I had just seen my father slap my mother with animalistic speed and aggression.

I admit, my mother can be a handful — I know this now, especially when I talk with her. She has a special talent for getting on people’s nerves. But she never deserved the horror stories I came to learn once I was old enough to hear them. Her ribs were broken. Her jaw. She was kicked and punched in front of guests.

Once the town understood what kind of "entertainment" my father offered to visitors, the visits from friends and family stopped. But his beatings didn’t. He only stopped when she left him. They're not divorced — so technically, I'm not a child of divorced parents. I'm a child of escape, of anger, and of shame.

I first realized I might become like my father during a fight with a girl in the sports hall at my second school. We were in fifth grade, a year before I started abusing drugs or alcohol. She came at me swinging. I pushed her. I punched her. But she was solid and kept coming. The shame of hitting a girl still haunts me at night when I try to sleep.

The second time I felt my father's shadow within me was after drinking at a club with my best friend and her cousin. We were having fun — dancing, laughing. After leaving the club, something happened. I can't remember why, but we had an altercation. And the spirit of my father — and of the alcohol — took over. I started pushing my best friend, aggressively, for a reason I still can’t recall. And then she left me. I'm glad she did. It was raining hard. I found a chair, sat down, and let my out-of-control body collapse under the downpour. And then, with the audacity only drunk man can create, I went to her house. And with the biggest heart, she let me in — even while I was still angry at her.

Can you imagine what a stupid, ugly person I was back then?

The next morning, I woke up and saw mud on the ceiling and on the lamps. I immediately started apologizing. I acknowledged the possession — not by ghosts or demons, but by my genes and the nasty  alcohol spirits. It’s hard to believe how someone can go from such a fun party to physically pushing the one person who would give anything for you. It was terrifying to realize I had become my father. And yet, even after that incident — I couldn’t stop consuming the substances that led me there.

Shame dragged me deeper into addiction. I just switched the substances.
When I wanted to lose control, I drank.
When I wanted to numb the shame and regret, I used amphetamines.
When I wanted to feel better, I used ecstasy.

Weed was out of the question. Whenever I smoked, I had to control every function and thought in my body and mind. It showed me how much of my life was lived on autopilot. Smoking brought a kind of semi-awareness, that grew often into scary convulsions. My body shook, my blood pressure dropped, and the thirst and hunger crushed every attempt at getting in shape. It wasn’t control. It was just awareness of the dysfunction. And that awareness spiraled. I began to hear more — sounds that played with my mind, especially when I was alone in my mother’s apartment. I miss weed — back when it meant relaxation and laughter with friends. But more than that, I missed attention from my parents, who to this day don’t know how to deal with a gay child.

I’m older now. And bit by bit, I’m taking control of my life. But it took twice as long compared to the kids I knew — the ones whose parents had their fingers on the pulse of their child’s soul.

My father was always drunk. Sometimes I’d head out to meet friends and run into him zigzagging home, unable to look me in the eye. Not from shame, but from the sheer amount of alcohol he had absorbed.

And my mother? She was nowhere to be found. She left Bulgaria when I was in the fifth grade. I saw her once, maybe twice a year — sometimes even less. She knew I was gay. She knew what she was doing. But she chose a better life with her then-lover.

They really did their best. I know that. With all my regrets, I know they tried. But the realization that they were not powerful parental figures — just ordinary people with traumas of their own — still haunts me. They were never around. Once I was born, their problems and lovers took center stage.

I was supposed to be Silvia. But life gave them me — Iliya.

I found escape in fantasies and imagination. My brother tried to pull me out of that world by offering me weed. We smoked weed together when it was still fun. But weed made me lazy, and up here in the mountains, I needed a kick. So before I came here, I made sure I packed a big amount of speed.

I made myself another line from the ever-shrinking ball of amphetamines I brought with me. The dry, dusty road and the star dust in my nose made the last kilometers to the hut bearable.

I came in Eagles nest as the Sun started slowly getting down 

There was no escape from who I am here.

Iliya Badev

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