"I Don't Know"

I wrote this story during my treatment at Predná Hora, near the end of my journey there.

It was a moment when, after weeks of therapy and confronting myself, I finally began to see things differently.

Not through rose-colored glasses.

Not as something easy.

Not all at once.

But truthfully.

"I don't know."

The words left my mouth almost automatically, the way you answer a stranger's question without giving it much thought.

But this time, it wasn't just a habit.

It was the truth.

I didn't know.

I genuinely didn't know.

I was sitting in the car.

My father was beside me, his hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

He said nothing.

Yet I knew there was a storm raging inside him.

I could feel the tension.

It was so thick it seemed almost tangible.

Even the engine hummed quietly, as though it too understood that this was not the moment for words.

We were driving home from the psychiatrist.

A man who had never met me before, yet somehow understood more about my life than I did.

My father had made the appointment.

I would never have gone on my own.

Back then, I still believed no one could help me.

I wasn't sick.

I simply needed a little luck.

One winning match.

One successful bet.

One chance to pull myself out of the hole I had dug with my own hands.

Then my father finally spoke.

Quietly.

Clearly.

"What now?" he asked.

"How are you going to fix everything you've done?"

I looked at him.

At the gray hair that had appeared during the weeks I spent lying, stealing, and manipulating everyone around me so I could keep feeding my addiction.

At his hands, trembling almost imperceptibly.

Then into his eyes.

Eyes filled with anger.

Eyes filled with pain.

"I don't know," I answered. That was when it came.

His outburst.

Not the kind that explodes into shouting or blind rage.

My father was never that kind of man.

His anger was quiet.

Cold.

Sharp as a knife.

Every word cut deep.

Every sentence struck me harder than a fist ever could.

"I don't know... I don't know... That's all you ever say."

"You don't know how you're going to repay the bank."

"You don't know how you're going to pay back the loan companies."

"You don't know how you're going to repay all your debts... your phone bill... the money you stole from us."

"You don't know anything."

"Nothing."

I said nothing.

I couldn't move.

For the first time in a long time, I felt something I had been trying to bury.

Shame.

The kind of shame that tightens your throat until you can barely breathe.

The kind that burns through every part of your body.

I lowered my eyes.

Not because I was afraid of looking at him.

Because I could no longer bear looking at myself.

I was a thief.

I had stolen from my own family.

I had deceived friends who had trusted me when I promised I would pay them back.

I had gambled away money on matches I had not even watched.

I had bet on the lives of complete strangers...

while destroying the lives of the people who loved me most.

"I don't know."

Those three words had become my identity.

I didn't know how I had ended up here.

I didn't know when I had become a liar.

I didn't know when I had become a gambling addict.

I didn't know what tomorrow would bring.

I didn't know whether I would ever be able to live without placing another bet...

without telling another lie...

without stealing again.

But one thing was painfully clear.

I no longer knew who I was. My father fell silent.

After his outburst came a silence that felt almost unbearable.

It seemed as though time itself had stopped.

A crushing weight settled in my chest.

Something between anxiety and despair.

And beneath it all lay something even worse—

the certainty that I had done this to myself.

When I was a little boy, my father taught me how to ride a bicycle.

I still remember him running behind me, one hand holding the back of the seat.

"Don't be afraid," he would call out.

"I've got you."

Whenever I fell, he would pick me up, brush the dirt from my knees, smile, and say,

"Again. You'll get it this time."

But I was no longer a little boy.

This time, I had fallen so deeply that no one could catch me.

And the hardest part was believing that no one wanted to.

I had betrayed their trust.

My mother no longer believed me.

Whenever I walked into the room, she would lock her handbag.

Perhaps it really happened.

Perhaps it only felt that way.

Either way, I understood why.

I felt as though my sister could hardly bear to look at me.

As if I had become a ghost in my own family.

One of my friends—the one I owed six hundred euros—sent me a message.

He wrote that he no longer wanted the money.

He wanted only one thing:

that I would never contact him again.

And still...

I kept believing I would win everything back.

That one day I would hit the perfect odds.

Pay back every debt.

Buy gifts for everyone I had hurt.

Return as the hero.

It was nothing more than a fantasy.

A lie.

An illusion. The psychiatrist looked at me and asked a simple question.

"Why did you start gambling?"

I couldn't answer.

Perhaps it began as entertainment.

Perhaps out of boredom.

Perhaps because I always wanted more than I already had.

But the truth ran much deeper than any of those explanations.

I was empty.

And gambling gave me the illusion of control.

Every bet felt like a promise.

Every win felt like proof that I wasn't completely lost.

But every loss...

became a quiet voice whispering into my ear:

"You're worthless."

And little by little...

I began to believe it.

That day in the car became a turning point.

Not because a miracle happened.

But because, for the very first time, I admitted something I had spent years trying to avoid.

I truly didn't know.

And perhaps I never would...

until I found the courage to return to the very beginning.

Later came treatment.

Not because I wanted it.

Because I needed it.

And, with time...

it began to make sense.

I stopped lying to myself.

I stopped making plans to win my money back.

Instead, I began making plans to win myself back.

There are things I will never be able to undo.

Some of the people I betrayed may never forgive me.

But I want to live in a way that I never again have to answer "I don't know" to the questions every man should be able to answer.

I want to know how to take care of myself.

I want to know how to apologize.

I want to know who I am once every mask has been stripped away.

This is my postponed story.

A story set aside by the life I was destroying.

By the pain I had caused.

By the man I had learned to hate.

And perhaps...

if I endure everything I brought upon myself...

one day I will finally be able to say something other than,

"I don't know."

Perhaps I will say:

"I'm sorry."

"I've changed."

"I'm back."

And perhaps, on that day...

my mother and father will look at me once again with trust in their eyes.

And perhaps...

that will be the day I finally forgive myself.

– JK –