Growing up without a father is like music to someone born deaf—you just don’t know what you’re missing. I’m not whining. I had two uncles, a grandpa, and a grand-uncle who did their best to fill the role. And I didn’t even notice what was missing & the look on other people faces with pitifulness until I had Isaac.

The look, security, joy, and confidence in his face. Every time I play with him, stand by him, and even fight back for him against his strict mother, his face lights up. I didn’t even know what that was until now. It was like a system that never noticed missing core functions, looking at the kernel every day and asking, “What the fuck is wrong with this?”

I haven’t spoken to my uncles or grand-uncle in more than a decade, and I’m pretty sure I never will again. It’s not that I don’t appreciate their role in my life. But the system was fucked from the core. In a child’s life, there’s a need for connection—a belief that they can tell that person anything, no matter how terrible or unbelievable it is. I used to have that with my mother until the night everything happened.

I’ll never forget an electronics brand called Konka. Toshiba, LG, Sharp—those are recognizable in Myanmar, but back in the ’90s and early 2000s, Konka was a strange brand. Things like that, you mostly forget along the way. But I remember the night that TV showed up at my house because my mother was starting a business. The rest is how I became someone who can’t sleep without meds like a normal human being.

Anyway, since that time, the road has been pretty hard. It got harder when she remarried. The man wasn’t necessarily a bad guy, just another stranger my mom decided to share everything with, and the connection was broken. The monster see an opening and she came every night, put my hand between her legs, and poked me with thousands of needles. No one would have believed me—they would’ve just thought I was a pervert—so I kept it all inside and found the fix. It started with allergy medicine, then stealing strips of Diazepam from my grandma’s cabinet. When you’re passed out, you don’t have to live through the monster.

Those who did their best really did, but some things are just irreplaceable, and they were surprised to see the monster I had become. I remember one night—it was during my last few days before I left them forever—I was high, couldn’t even speak well. Just Diazepam mixed with amitriptyline. My great-uncle looked at me with disgust for the monster I’d turned into, talking about my addiction. I wanted to beat the shit out of him and tell him where it all started just to shut him up, but instead, I took some more pills and went to sleep. A few days later, I left all of them and left a mess.

I’ve been sober (still on a small amount of legally prescribed antidepressants and other medications because I still have no idea how to sleep like a normal human being) for five years, starting the day I found out about little Isaac. I decided to clean myself up. And these blogs aren’t for everyone; I couldn’t give a fuck about everyone reading them. I’m trying to hang on for as long as I can for little Isaac, but a shit ton of drugs a day couldn’t keep my kidneys alive for long.

So when I’m gone, and when the world tells him what a monster I was and that it’s in the genes like everyone said to me before, I just want him to read these words and know I wasn’t born like this. I wasn’t born a monster, and it’s not in his genes—not in his blood. I was created by the other monsters. And I want him to know how much I love him when I’m not there to tell him that anymore.

That’s all, and you all can fuck off.