One Night

After shortly moving into the new home the abuse began again. It only took a week for my prayer to be forgotten. I had a new room, it was light yellow. Just how I had asked for it. The room was what this young girl dreamed off. I pink bed with a canape on it. I true fairytale. I believed it would be come my safe place. It did not become a safe place for me.

One night I was not feeling well and could not fall asleep. My father had come in the room and yelled at me and slapped me hard against the butt. I cried and he screamed that I should shut up and go to bed. A few minutes later he returned, this time taking away my blanket. The blanket was thrown into an above head storage area in my room. I could hear my mother from the top of the steps yelling at him to stop. He stormed off and I heard him run up the stairs after my mother. I heard her run down the hall. I tried to fall asleep so the abuse would stop. I heard the crash and the bang of the activities from upstairs.

He returned and I tried to act as if I was asleep but there was no tricking him, he slapped me again. It felt harder this time, maybe because it still stung so bad from last time, he took my pillows away again. I heard my mother screaming. He chased off to deal with her. I lay there, in a beautiful room with tears down my eyes. Hearing my mother being hit over and over. My bed has nothing, as I lay alone in it.

I am safe as he does not return anymore that night. Once I know he will not return, I go into my closet and I hide. I fall fast asleep. I am quickly shaken and I learn it is my mother. I open my eyes and the sun shines in. My eyes are puffy from crying myself to sleep and my mother’s one eye is black and blue from last nights abuse. She gets me up quickly and tells me to shower. I must have soiled my self last night.
She leaves the room and I realize last night was night a nightmare but it was the truth.

I race to gather myself, I see my father in the kitchen and I do not look at him. My mother and I never speak of what occurred. I hurry back to my room to dress and think of what I can wear, what will cover the marks on my upper arm. Which pairs of pants will comfort my bruised butt.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was always a time when we went to my grandparents growing up. It was my father’s parents. Which means the abuse would always be over looked and the beatings could still occur on this holiday.

This year we had a peaceful holiday with my loving family. No shopping for me today. I would share more memories but not for today, I will let today rest.

Why Does Daddy Sleep So Much

As you may have learned in my first post that many times in life I was hurt. As a young child, living in the first house I ever remember daddy sleeping a lot. Years later I learned daddy slept so much because mommy was drugging him. Yes, I said it correct. Mommy was drugging daddy on the days he was home and did not work. She did this so the abuse would stop, the beating and screaming.

This also made him not sleep at night. At night he would crawl into bed, he would tell me to hush. He told me this was our special secret and I was special to him. Then his hands would slip up my tinny five year old legs, to my special place. I remember hugging my teddy bear and fighting back the tears and the pain.

This occurred at least twice a week. I would pray that daddy would one day never come home and forever leave. One day mommy would be smart enough to leave daddy, one day this would all go away. It would be years before my prayers would come true.

I do not remember much more than beating and abuse in this first house. A big yard where I was home schooled for a long time, as a way to keep the family secret. A way to hide all the bruising and awkwardness which formed from the extensive abuse.

We soon moved away from that place, I remember the hope of the new house and hopefully the situation would change. The yelling would stop, the drugging would go away and we could be a family. This was my wish at the age of six. That I could have a perfect family. The kind I would see on TV or the kind I would see my friends having.

The decades since this all passed I learned there is no perfect family. All families have their problems but some how my family had more than it’s share of problems and high level of dysfunction.

From a very young age I learned my older brother had a strong hate for me. A hate which is stronger than I ever knew. Why he hated me, this I to this day do not know. I know that my family has been forever broken, each and every one of us had our demons. Some are able to handle more of it than others. Each of us has learned how to deal with our demons.

My father remarried and to this day admits that he did nothing wrong but still tries to form a relationship with me. He was never caught or reported to the police for the sexual abuse. He was caught on the physical abuse but it was always dropped. My mother ran from the problems and I believe she had never confronted but continues to run. She has went to a life style of dependency. Dependent on drugs, drama and abusive relationships to name a few. My brother ran, ran away from the direct problem but at the same time our problems follow us. I myself went to the life of drugs and men. At the same time my life fell apart. It was by the grace of God that my life was saved. It was an intervention by a higher power. I believe it was from God, for those who may not believe in God you can call it a special placement of greatness in my life.

My Childhood

My youngest memory is living at the first home with my mother, brother and father. It always seemed to be nice and homely but never somewhere I wanted to be. I remember yelling and screaming, crying and things breaking. I learned at a very young age that this is how home was. Never to be safe. School was always about hiding. Hiding why you looked so tired, when the truth was that you stayed up all night listening to your father beat on your mother. Hiding the fact that you had marks on your body and in the middle of summer you are wearing pants and long sleeves. Hiding why it hurt so bad to sit down in kindergarten at story time because the welts of your butt still hurt so bad from last nights beating. I believe the most painful experience is learning that to try not to be hit, beat, and slapped you must lie.

Lie, to lie was the one thing that I had to save me from the daily rounds of abuse. I remember my father coming home was the worst part of the day. Good day or bad day for him we knew to hide in our rooms, to sit silent in order to survive the hours until we had to go to bed. Lie about anything which went wrong for the day, this way we knew that he hopefully would not have a reason to raise his hand to us. My mother at a very young age started helping out at our school. Helping in order to hide our lie. Our family secret. People would wonder on why she would stop volunteering for about a week every few months. I would lie and say I don’t know. The truth is I did know, I knew my father had gotten to mad. I knew he go upset and hit my mother to hard, make up would not cover it that time. This time she would just need to be silent and wait until the marks dissolve, then she can return to school to help hide the family secret.

The secret I am sure wasn’t much of a secret to the teachers. They must have known. I asked permission for everything. I asked permission to blow my nose, to use the bathroom, to play with a toy. I was an odd child, always apologizing when I made a mistake. When I dropped something, when I made a mistake, when I didn’t get a perfect grade on something. Day after day and hour after hour, my life was all about apologizing for every action which was not perfectly correct. It became exhausting over time, tiring for a small child under the age of five.

At the age of five, I never had a broken bone but I had seen more brokenness than most would see in their lives. I feared my father, I saw the fear in the eyes of my mother and the pain of the life in my older brother. Decades later my mother informed me that I was the one who suffered the most abuse from my father. I was hit the most, beaten and slapped the most. I was the punching bag. What my mother never admitted was if she knew when everyone was asleep, that my father would crawl into bed with me. Did she know of what happened then?

Who Am I?

I am someone who will remain unknown but the stories of my life will be told via this blog. It may become a national hit or no one may read it. It is out there so that what has occurred in my life does not go in vain. That people may hear that you can overcome trials in your life. You can become a productive member of society and interact with people. That what happens to you in life does not cause you to be the person of your past. You can rise above it and move forward.

Living Quote…

Living Quote

“But even when I stop crying, even when we fall asleep and I’m nestled in his arms, this will leave another scar. No one will see it. No one will know. But it will be there. And eventually all of the scars will have scars, and that’s all I’ll be–one big scar of a love gone wrong.”
― Amanda Grace, But I Love Him