The young mind is often subject to alterations based on the environment in which it is placed. A child in a happy environment is more apt to have a positive outlook on the world while a child in an environment filled with sadness and hatred is more apt to have more of a negative outlook on the world around him.

In the first 8 years of my existence, I grew up in a generally happy household with my mom, my dad, and my younger brother. This all changed when I started to realize that my parents were not as happy as they always seemed to be. They started to fight over things that no child my age would understand and, even worse, my father ended up moving out of the house. I was young. I was foolish. I didn’t understand why dad only came home on certain nights but wouldn’t be there in the morning. Eventually, it came to decision time for all things regarding my brother and me so our family sat down to have a family discussion. My parents explained to us how they would like to split the schedule emphasising that it would be best for all of us. Naturally, our opinions are altered by those we trust so there were no objections. I was young. I was dependent. Everything I did, I needed a parent around so I knew I would never be alone. Seems absolutely fine, right? No. We started to grow up and favoritism started to strain familial relationships. The desire for independence and consistency start to come into play as we developed less easily swayed opinions. I turned 13 and I felt like I knew, in detail, everything I wanted but there was just one problem. Everyone else was satisfied with the current conditions. My decision came down to a few factors: familial relationships, consistency, independence, and happiness. I decided it was time to live with dad 100%. It was  extremely difficult to finally make this decision for my life and how I wanted to live. I knew that it was still a priority to have a relationship with my mother but I didn’t know how. Here I am 4 years later and I don’t regret my decision.

In terms of emotions, I was a wreck for most of it. Throughout the whole process, I learned to bottle up my emotions because I felt that I couldn’t really talk to my parents because they were going through a hard time too. Everyone was sad and, to a degree, full of hatred. This started to be reflected in my outlook on situations I would encounter at school. I  would find myself retreating to the library at the sound of talk about “one big happy family.” All of these bottled up emotions led me to explode leading up to one of the toughest decisions of my life. I was young. I was easily swayed. Now, I am more confident in my own decisions than ever before. In this whole process, I could say that I played both the role of the suspect and the victim. But, in the end, it was a choice to find a healthy balance between my happiness and the happiness of those around me.