This one time...

at camp...

My father asked me to stay with him the summer of my 11th year. He lives in the middle of a bunch of nothing and the summer was quite boring and stressful because my father is an ass. He would not let me in the house during the daylight hours except to use the bathroom and eat. His girlfriend was living with him, but moved out, apparently because she didn't like the way he was treating me... tho if she REALLY didn't like it shouldn't she have stayed and tried to make my life more tolerable? They were married after I finally left.
Anyway, when summer vacation was over he said I was going to stay there and go to school. Just try it out for a period. I had no choice and felt like a prisoner. I went to 7th grade at Wyle Middle School in Dexter. It was a difficult time for me. He didn't know what he was doing and he was fucked, so I super stressed. I went through puberty that summer. He was not speaking to me except to bark an order like "get in the truck" and I would only get a dirty look if I asked where were going. I think her was afraid that I would have weight problems like he did, so he restricted my diet. I lived on peanut butter on wheat toast. I was allowed shredded wheat bricks for breakfast, but no sweetener. I was average weight when I arrived and pretty thin after a year and puberty despite the fact that I started buying food with my babysitting money and hoarding food in my dresser. Anyway, off track again.
The school offered our 7th grade class a week at a camp. I packed poorly. I didn't bring - much of anything. It was OK. It was somewhat enjoyable. We had campfires and contests.
What sticks in my memory more than anything else was what happened when I came home. I didn't realize how stressed I was until I got away from my father. I would cry at the drop of a hat. Literally I would cry if he said a word to me. When I came back from camp I felt... normal. It only lasted a couple days but it made me aware of how fucked up my life was at that time. I had been through a lot previous to living there with my father, but I was loved and I felt unconditionally loved before. At my fathers I had no one during a most confusing time in a girls/womans life. I felt deprived of love and food and happiness. I used to call my gramma at night when I was left alone for days at a time and beg her to get me home, to Florida.
Finally the day came. It was after a whole year of school. He said I had to see what it was like to spend a whole year in one schools. I remember feeling so... weird around my gramma and uncle Don that first day back in FL. I will never forget my first meal home. Gramma made me all the comfort food I used to tell her I longed for during those late night phone calls. She made roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls and veggies. I sat there feeling stressed and awkward and practically whispered "can I have another glass of milk?", something my father would have given me a dirty look for. My uncle Don said "of course you can, you can have anything you want any time you want". I felt something in my brain pop and a great weight lifted from my body. I gained 50 lbs that summer.
Many years later I told him that that was the worst year of my life, but I forgave him. I don't wish him dead or even illness. He is self absorbed and still a bit "off". He is a "psychic healer" now and lives life childless. Works for me.