| CARVIEW |
I am 34 years old. I still feel afraid, sometimes, that my parents are going to barge through my door dishing out their personal blend of reprimand & guilt.
I feel, sometimes, that I am not capable of doing anything right by any standards. I feel that I am the flaw.
Most days it’s hard to convince my soul that I am worthy of life with love. Other days I demand to much love and feel frustrated with my selfishness.
Jim was a tall scrawny string bean of a man. He wore wranglers, flannel shirts and insulated water-proof winter vests with the shiny snap ups proudly displayed. The thickness of his eye-wear suggested he didn’t see to good without glasses, his beard appeared concave against his cliff like cheekbones. My mother found him to be incredibly sexy and good looking. I would always hear her tell people playfully “…and, um … not to mention the sex is outstanding.” I was only in 5th grade, I knew what that meant but it wasn’t important to me so it didn’t matter (yet). Above all things there is only one truth to Jim, he is a vicious evil man. He hurt me more then anyone has ever hurt me physically, emotionally or mentally. Jim is what makes a demon real. On the outside he appears healthy, fun, adventurous and sincere but underneath his mask is a monster of violence. He fed on my soul for nearly 5 years. Jim tortured me day after day after week after year. I remember, everything. Jim was an invader. He didn’t enter our life with the gentle appreciation for our delicate hearts after a messy and violent divorce that he probably should have had. This is how I met the monster:
It was Christmas, you could tell, all the decorations were smashed on the floor. It all happened so fast I thought I dreamt it; We started at Grandma’s for dinner and midnight mass (raised catholic), my parents began to bicker at dinner and called it an early night after dessert, despite protest. We piled in the car with our new toys from the Grandparents and drove away. I watched out the back window as Grandma’s house grew smaller and smaller until it was a mere spec of light, I blinked and it was gone. I felt an overwhelming amount of sadness in that moment, something in the air was not right. Something about my parents silence was dangerous. No one spoke the entire ride home, Chris and MaryEllen fell asleep on each others shoulders, I was sitting on the floor between the driver seat and the backseat. I liked it there, curled up in a ball, it felt safe. I fell asleep.
I thought there was an accident. I woke to a scream as the seat above me trembled like and epileptic seizure. Chris and MaryEllen continue screaming. I scurry to the seat in a panic to see my father, Peter, slamming my mothers head into the dashboard. Her feet are hanging out the door, she is trying to get away but he has her by the hair on the top of her head. Mom howls a blood curdling cry for help, Chris and MaryEllen continue screaming and I am sitting there, perfectly still and silent. I didn’t know what to do, my father could have killed my mother and there was nothing I could do.
As fast as the fight broke out it ended and a chase ensued around the house in the snow. Mom and dad abandoned us in the car while they hunted each-other. I gathered up my sister and my brother, locked the car doors and headed for the back door. We stood on the back step for at least 15 minutes waiting for mom and dad to quit fighting. Exhausted from running dad returned to the car for his wallet, mom laying in the snow with a bloody nose crying and the kids on the step shivering. I had been a good girl, the car door was locked, what I didn’t know was that the keys were on the floor by the gas pedal, my name erupted from the depths of my fathers diaphragm in a tone that would frighten God herself. “Because of your irresponsible behavior and total disregard for the family you have locked us out of the house on Christmas eve you stupid fucking little bitch!” I sat on the step, my sister in my hands watching my father drudge like a monster across the yard toward me with hands of intent. I didn’t cry, I didn’t run, I just sat there watching him walk towards me, watching my mother cry and yell after him to leave me alone, watching my brother cry ‘run’. Our neighbor, Mrs. Shannon, called from across the yard “Peter, Mary. Is everything ok?” My father turned from ice to butter in a split second, smiling at me with a look in his eyes that said ‘you’re lucky kid’ he turned to Mrs. Shannon and explained we were locked out of the house but everything was just fine Merry Christmas and gave a ‘fuck you’ wave to finish off the conversation. Dad broke into the bedroom window and sent us all to our rooms so they could continue the fight in the kitchen.
Pots, pans, knives and forks, it didn’t matter what it was, if it could be picked up it would be, thrown. By the time I got to the kitchen my mom and dad had migrated to the living room to tear apart the Christmas tree. The kitchen looked like war. I could hear my dad’s fists striking my mothers flesh in the other room, it sounds the same from the inside when he strikes me. I could hear my mother screaming that my father wasn’t a real man, she knew what buttons to push and she exercised his temper.
Rounding the corner I saw what was once a beautiful tree laying across the couch in shambles, presents bashed in as if they had done something to offend my parents. My father had never been so mad before, trust me, I’ve seen him mad – this was beyond my domestic experiences. In one foul swoop he collected my mothers brown winter coat and her boots and tossed them out the door, he then collected my mother and tossed her out the door, locking it behind him. Where there was once just me, there now were 3 – Chris and MaryEllen stood behind me trembling, Peter turned on me like a surprise and tossed me like a frisbee, back first, into the wall knocking the wind out of my fragile almost 5th grade body. Dad erupted, “If any of you open this door to that whore I will kill her, then I will kill you!” As he left the room he paused again beside me, without acknowledging me, he kicked my hip – that left a mark.
I ran to the window to see if my mother was still in the snow but she was gone, I could see her walking down the street. It was beautiful to watch her walk away, the pockets of light against the snow filled street reflected her slender silhouette like a shadow against the sparkling night storm. I could tell she was crying, it was the way she held herself as she walked, she looked broken. I felt ashamed.
We spent the next day at Grandma’s pretending to have a normal visit, acting as if we didnt’ have a care in the world. Mom picked us up after supper and told us on the drive home that there would be no more Peter, no more father, she was divorcing. I didn’t speak, I understood.
It wasn’t until we got home that my temper flared; my oldest cousin was already at the house, she was always a sight for soar eyes (more like an aunt then a cousin, she was my mom’s age). I was doing my daughter best to hold and comfort my mother. I just wanted to be with my mom, I just wanted her to look at me and acknowledge me and all the pain we were all going through when suddenly, and quite unexpected, a man arrives to the back door. As if my nightmares had come to fruition, this strange man walked in the door took my mother in his arms and kissed her – WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? My stomach turn into jumping-beans, my face burned white hot, I ran to my mom and threw my arms around her hips and yelled “Let go of my mother you!”. I was sent instantly to my room for a time out. Jim slept very comfortably that night, in bed with my mother. I didn’t sleep at all.
No one took time to explain to me and my brother and sister what was going on. There was so much confusion and crying everyone just forgot to tell us what was happening. No one asked us how we felt, it hadn’t even been 24 hours since my parents had their fight – I began to suffer from anxiety. I could tell my life was shifting and it was very uncomfortable, mostly because my mother kept pushing me away. I would go to her for a hug but Jim was there, any further interruption from her children were unwelcome and inconvenient, for them both. I was so confused:
Why was this man sleeping over?
Why was he more important then me?
Why did my mom buy him a kitten when he was sick but told me I couldn’t have one?
Why did I have to do as he says?
Why does he get to spank me?
Why can’t I sit next to my mom?
Why can’t I sleep with my mom?
Why are we moving out of state to be close to his family when my family is here?
Why did I have to be nice to his family when I wasn’t allowed to be with my own?
What do you mean I’m not allowed to celebrate my birthday anymore?
Yes that last one is real …. Jim convinced my mother to move to Michigan shortly after they began dating. He wanted her kids to have a decent family around and he wanted his family around so they packed us into moving trucks and vans and we wagoned from the east coast to no-coast middle America where I was not allowed to celebrate my birthday. I was born in winter nearly one month after Christmas, Jim’s brother had a daughter who would have been my same age – she died on my birthday of complications due to a brain tumor. Because she died I was no longer allowed to be happy for being born.
(I’m taking a break, will be back with more in the next 2 days)
A LETTER TO FATHER
(by Ladybugg, December 2006)
I have no talents
of this I am in rage
I am not as smart
as other kids my age
If you ask me for proof
I’ll tell you right away
I built a paper boat
but it sank in the bay
I built a paper whale
it simply refused to swim
so I built a paper dog to fetch
but I haven’t heard from him
I built a paper plane
it flew and I felt proud
but when the rain fell from the sky
it crashed on to the ground
I have no skill or trade
but one thing you should know
I’ll press & press & press & press
to make success
of purple paper snow.
* ONE OF MY MANY LEAST FAVORITE MEMORIES.
I don’t remember how old I was to be honest. I know I was young, however, with this memory I see through these eyes. The eyes of a woman, set upon the face of a woman, managed with the precision & instinct owned only by a woman, the comprehension of a child.
It is of my strong personal belief, that the way a parent loves will affect the way a baby loves in life.
It is proven, scientifically (Rock A Bye Baby), that a creature raised without love will perish. In my opinion, there is no way to survive without some small glint of love. The tiniest hint of love gives birth to hope, hope encourages dreams and regardless of disclosure or environment all people have dreams. Dreams, by my experience, are our greatest talent. Upon the darkest of hours humans have relied on the power of dream to escape intense pain, we speak of dreams so that others may be encouraged, we pass on dreams in order to breed more dreams – dare to dream! Dreams are love discovered. Love is why we exist.
If you are willing, as an experiment in relating; close your eyes and remember … truly remember as a child, how you felt when you witnessed affection between parents. Mom and dad steal a kiss in the kitchen, maybe they were holding hands and walking side by side while you ran playfully around the park. Did you ever catch a glimpse? Maybe you have a favorite memory of your parents ‘just being’ together, talking or watching tv together. That memory of the two of them ‘just being’ feels like the definition of love, they are a childs first impression experiences. They have provided you with a visual definition. When you have that visual clear in your mind, that feeling of love and warmth, witness to your mom and dad in love, continue with this journey:
___ . ___ . ____
Peter, my birth father, was a US Postal worker in a small east coast town. For some reason, when your a child, the Mailman is like a celebrity! The Mailman (back then it was rarely a she, at least in my small town), he wore a sleek looking uniform that demanded he was a person of authority. The mail came at the same time every day, how did he do that? Peter kept his black shoes shined like a military man, his shirts never wrinkled, pants pressed crisp. He was a good looking man, looking back I’d say he probably traded his soul for looks to the man in the shiny red suit. I was proud of my dad’s job and one day he took me out for a drive on his route in his truck.
I know what you’re thinking, awwwe … that’s such a sweet dad thing to do! But, seriously, I earned this drive.
My dad went through a phase; every night he demanded his family pick him up from work – no matter the time, his kids would be woke, if it was late and they’d ride with mom to get him in their PJ’s – no matter.
During the drive home, Peter would ride shot-gun, mom would tell him all the bad things that the kids, now huddled in defense in the back seat, did that day. Bad things like eating cookies without permission or fighting with each other over a toy. Poor Peter was always exhausted from his hard day, desiring only rest and a joint, if it wern’t for his bad kids who disappointed him so he would have received his precious reward without interruption. He worked all day so we would have food in our stomaches and a roof over our head, AND THIS IS HOW WE REPAID HIM!
I really think he hated us. He would line us up in the kitchen like soldiers, we had to stand at attention. Peter would sit at the right side of the kitchen table blocking the escape to the bedrooms, Mom sat to the left of the kitchen table discouraging the escape routes to the basement or backyard. The beatings were always severe. Peter would take off his belt and take his time deciding who got beat first. There were three of us so he’d really play up the dramatics, he was good with the fear of god. Sometimes I thought I was gonna pass out just anticipating the beating.
He liked to use the buckle on our legs and ankles in winter, I didn’t mind that as much, I fucking hated being taken over the knee. It sounds sick to admit that I would prefer one beating technique over another but, there is a stragegy to taking a beating! Better to be attacked in a way you can protect yourself undetected. I was a natural at ballet (I’ll write about it some day) so when he’d strike us with the buckle it was while standing at attention, an ackward punishment but you could jump and dance through the assault – I’m telling ya, I only recieved like 70% of the blows. Over the knee is more relaxing for the parent, they can go longer and with greater force = physics my friends, physics.
Excuse me, I chuckled for a second over my imagery and ramblings.
I, on the line up the night before, did not receive a beating. When the law pointed it’s cold hardened finger my way, she couldn’t think of a damn thing I had done wrong. The Warden was so proud that he invited me to join him after lunch for a ride on his postal route and I went to bed spank free!
It was a really beautiful day on the road sitting in the back of his truck, I had to sit down so I wasn’t spotted because he wasn’t supposed to have me there. I just hung out in the bags with the smell of ink on paper and the lingering pasty tongue-licked envelopes. At the end of the day we stopped off to a diner for my favorite – chocolate milk shakes! I was such a happy little kid, just floating on cloud nine, I was feeling like my dad was really a good guy.
We strolled together up to the counter to sit on the stools.
I loved sitting up at the counter, it just felt so grown up! If I close my eyes I can almost see the menu’s and the maroon shade of the pleather booths. The waitresses wore cute pink and white uniforms with name tags and pony tails – their faces resembled my babysitter and the way she would look at me once my parents car had disappeared down the street. This one in particular waitress is really starting to fucking annoy me! Pardon, my France’ but I don’t like the way she is talking to my dad. I asked him, “Can we please go, I miss mom.”, without breaking eye contact from the skirt behind the counter he laughed me off and muttered, “Mom who” which earned him a giggle from the skirts pressure filled head. I wanted to grab her lips and stretch them thin like a balloon to see if she’d squeal while the air tried to escape.
The slut tries to bribe me off with extra whipped cream, no doubt the indulgent cause of her thunder thighs and rumble buns, I hate her! My mom is thin and more beautiful then this girl.
The slut is now on our side of the counter sitting to my left, to my right sits my father. They talk over my head, I hate him!
“I want to sit in a booth.” I declare and take action alone. Looking back to see my heart shattered on the path to my new seat. Behind me, Peter, my father, is kissing the strange waitress on the lips. He doesn’t kiss my mom that way ever.
My brain is S C R E A M I N G ! I want to scream but there is a bubble in my throat. I want to bash this girls fucking face in but my arms are aching, my fingertips hurt. My face is burning. My stomach is spinning and my knees are locked. Why can’t I move? Why didn’t I slap her in the face and tell her she’s a disgustingly unforgivable whore and I hope she dies a slow violent painful death! And to Peter; you are scum! You are the lowest of the low. An evil selfish little boy in man’s world. You let me down, you failed me, at a time when I needed you most. You were supposed to be my hero, the man I look for in my future was supposed to be shaped in your image. Do you know how long I have been suffering and for what? For you? Because of you? I am so ashamed. If you read this ever, I want you to know that I will protest to God and picket the Pearly Gates of Heaven for you. I will secure your eternal souls rest in Heaven among the angels, I will see you there and I will smile love in your direction, for I can see no greater reward for a demon then to sit in heaven without his sin to claim.
Eventually my protest broke the mood and we abandoned the bitch. It’s obvious I am crushed by what I saw but Peter acted like nothing happened. Before pulling into our neighborhood he announces casually that should I decide to be dramatic about today he’ll beat me so bad they won’t recognize me when they find me. I didn’t ask who ‘they’ were, I could only imagine that once translated from Asshole, ‘they’ were someone I didn’t want to find out about. I kept my mouth shut.
I began to suffer nightmares. Dreams of strange men showing up to my house, making out with my mother. Dreams of women I’ve never seen before in bed with my father. Dreams where I am trapped watching and I just want to run but my legs won’t work but when I look down I don’t have legs and everyone is laughing at me.
Music began stirring up random emotional outbursts. My parents would get so angry with me when I’d ask to change the radio station. The Fleetwood Mac song ‘Hold Me’ freaked me out inside. I knew that song was about a guy/gal who wanted another gal/guy and didn’t care what was going on her/his life or what time it was:
“I live just around the corner, if you’ve got a minute to spare, I’ll be waitin’ for you If you ever want to be there”
… I didn’t need the album cover to understand what I already knew they were talking about.
The words conjured up very physical sensations that made sense to my heart and broke it slowly. I was mad. It all bubbled to the surface after a long car ride with the family, a Billy Joel song called ‘Christie Lee’ was on the cassette that we had been listening to for the last 4 hours. I was so sick of hearing about this whore who led on a talented sax player only to break his heart when she refused to leave her man. The musician was an idiot and the woman should be shot – end of song, can we please listen to ‘I’m Movin’ Out Instead’ ? Peter threatened to back hand me if I didn’t quit my bitching about what songs we listen to and what songs we don’t. He reminded me that the world, his world, didn’t revolve around me. I called check mate and announced to the entire family that I was sick of listening to music that reminded me of the day I watched my father kiss his slutty waitress girlfriend at the diner. All my mom heard me say was ‘his slutty waitress girlfriend’ and ‘kiss’ – she didn’t hear the underlining fact that I was hurting inside. I don’t think she’d have cared even if I tried to explain it in layman’s terms.
Peter came after me like a tornado in a trailer park, if you’ve ever lived in a trailer park then you know exactly how real that analogy feels. He pulled the car over and before he could put it in park, I was out the door, running as fast as I could – away from the car, into a field. My mother intercepted his charge with fists of fire and a mouth that could further silence total silence. She protected me because she needed more fuel for the war she’d wage as soon as we got home and marked me as territory before God, in a field on the side of the road.
FORGIVE AND FORGET, EVEN WHEN IT DOESN’T FEEL FAIR . . .
In my 20’s, after one of my attempts to end my life, my birth father and his wife attempt to have a heart to heart with me. We are discussing memories that hurt in order to heal. I tell him about the waitress and the kiss, the music and the hurt I felt. As I sat there drowning in tears of pain and confession he looks me in the eye and says, “I don’t know what you are talking about ladybugg, that never happened.” He proceeded to educate me on the makeup of exacerbated childhood thought patterns and fantasy filled memories. He warned that childhood memories can’t be trusted, for they are the exaggerated, an overly dramatic result of half truths influenced by sensory overload in the learning process of life, but it rolled off his tongue like this,”Kids have wild imaginations and there is no way to tell what is real and what is an active fantasy from the mind of a stupid kid.” He was certain he has been to diners with me on several occasions and swore that he had never flaunted an affair or even so much as flirted with another woman in my presence.
Some day I may employ a hypnotherapist.
Since I started this blog I’ve had swinging fits of painful memories that have depressed me and severe moments of doubt. My cousin expressed loving concern about my decision to stir up the past. She brings up a good and valid question: Once you’ve moved on from a violent past, can you get help but avoid having to live it again? Is it worth the relapse?
I found it hard to defend a “Yes, it’s worth it” argument, even I feel like it’s crazy to conjure up the nightmares. However, I don’t feel I can evolve spiritually or emotionally until I face the demons that plague my life on both conscious and subconscious levels.
In a strange way that pain has been comforting, I have lived my life in repression – it was beat into my brain by all guardians of this physical world starting at a very young age.
“WE DO NOT TALK TO PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS HOUSE”
There was always the threat that if we dared to consider ourselves abused and chose to report our parents we would be responsible for breaking up the entire family. We’d never be forgiven.
Acknowledging the pain is empowering. Admitting that I was helpless, afraid, sad, struggling for want to survive, struggling to fit in, fighting for any form of love or understanding. All these simple things I wanted, all these simple wants condemned me. What I know today is that despite awful people & unacceptable violence, I was and have always been ‘only human’.
Good road – bad road, we are all uniquely searching for the same simple wants in life. I know now, in my heart, I’ve done the right things.
Regardless.
Always.
(you’re a dirty whore, for a virgin cont’d)
When I gently announced the passing of Tim’s stepfather my mother whisked us warp speed to Joanne’s home for condolences and support. I did my best to act as if nothing was different, but everything was was alien to me now. I felt angry and disappointed in me, why hadn’t I been strong enough to protect my body? Why didn’t I fight harder, no means no! Right? The only relief I had in this day was the fact that Tim was no where to be found by anyone (remember, this is WAY before cell phones were a society staple).
There is a song from the 50’s that says breaking up is hard to do, breaking up with Tim was impossible. I told him I wanted to end our relationship and he took it really well at first, he said he had met someone from another school that he wanted to go steady with, I was ecstatic! My goal was no more boys, I just wasn’t ready for all the drama relationships seemed to require.
My freedom lasted 2 days.
Tim began stalking me, breaking into the house at night and threatening me with knives, threatening to kill my family while they slept and continuing to assault me in my own bed – across the hall from where the demons slept. One day Tim showed up to my high school, asking if he could drive me home so we could talk, fearing confrontation I said yes and got in his car. He took me to an abandoned house, locked me in a room for 30 minutes and told me this would be where I died if I didn’t wise up. Fearing that he was planning to kill me, knowing that I was no longer strong enough to deal with this terrorist, I turned to my mother. I had no one else.
I didn’t know how to approach her, my entire body was trembling from shame. Mom was sitting limp in the dining room next to the phone, in front of the big country window, looking out over the three acre back yard and veggie garden, sitting motionless, stale and drunk.
I stood in the door looking at her for a moment thinking, this is the right idea.
Mom turned to see me staring at her and puffed up like a blow-fish en’ guard! Annoyed she asked me what my problem was, shaken I explained I didn’t know how to tell her. Her response was “If you don’t tell me what the fuck your problem is I’ll beat it out of you.” My head was light, I swear I was seeing stars as my mouth grew fuzzy and my ears began to hum. I blurted it out before the fist could strike me, “I think I’ve been raped.”
The fist found me and brought back up; my mother jumped off her perch and smashed my head to the ground with two fists. I watched the blood, my blood, as it dripped down the corner of the wall that just penetrated my temple. Her screams hit my ears like a train slicing through darkness, “You fucking whore! You fucking bitch, you think you’re so grown up, you think your so fucking big and tough! You think you’re a woman now? You like to suck cock? Suck and fuck that is all my daughter is good for!” I laid on the floor numb, motionless and dead inside. Mom kept punching me, pulling patches of my beautiful long brown hair from my skull, screaming obscenities.
When she exhausted herself she sat back on her perch and took a swallow of wine, lit a cigarette and instructed me to stand up. I was a snotty, bloody, trembling, teared up mess and I was being blamed for my own sexual assault. I stood like a solider against the wall, locked inside my head safe while my body absorbed the blows, running on auto pilot.
Next, my mother made me call my birth father, Peter, and tell him that I had become sexually active, that I was out of control and addicted to sex. I was to tell him that I need a man in my life to tell me what to do because I don’t know what I am doing and if he doesn’t send money I might end up pregnant. It was a confusing and difficult conversation, ever been forced to tell a story that wasn’t true with a gun to your head? After a wild conversation, with a father I didn’t know well, I was instructed to call my step-father, the demon of all demons, the most volatile child abuser I’ve ever know, Jim. My mother got Jim on the phone and forced me to say that I was sorry for being such a bad kid, she made me apologize for driving him away from the family, I had to tell him that I now realized I deserved all my punishments. My mother made me promise Jim that if he’d take us back I’d be an angel. I had to tell him that I was a whore and have been sleeping around at school, I had to convince him that if he’d take my mother back all this would end. I think it was the most humiliating day of my life, standing there for hours – calling myself a whore. Maybe she was right, maybe I did do this. I started to think I might be schizophrenic, living two lives yet controlling neither. Nothing made sense to me anymore.
My mother decided that I wasn’t going to just whore it up with anyone, I was to continue to date Tim, he was welcome to the house anytime he wanted and was never confronted for forcing sex on me. Tim’s mother was now very wealthy having inherited her 2nd husbands money and property, my mother wanted to pass me off on Tim for marriage (no joke, she wanted me to marry this man and I wasn’t even finished with my first year of high school). Tim had total control over me and he had my mother to keep me in line. His break ins became more frequent and his assaults more vial – he even began to molest and abuse me in front of people he knew. Suddenly I was thrust into a world of sex that I didn’t welcome. The very definition of sex meant me laying on my back dreaming about running away, becoming a famous actress who had success, power, beauty, brains and money – no one from my real life was allowed in.
A few days passed and I broke my “no friends at the house” code. A friend from school, Tammy, drove me home from school on a Friday. I wasn’t allowed to get rides home from anyone but, my mom was rarely in a good mood and invited Tammy to stay over. I accepted their invitations, mom had a way of looking like she was the coolest mom any kid could hope to have, she’d sit around talking to my friends about boys, booze, parties, class, sex … then when my friends would leave she’d use what they talked about against me, it was an excuse to beat me. Later Tammy and I found Tim was hiding under my bed. He must have been waiting for hours because Tammy and I watched 2 movies that night. He startled us both when he crawled out from under the mattress like a troll climbing out of a hole in the mud, claimed he had to ‘check up on his girl, make sure she’s being good’. He asked Tammy if she wanted a three way and she slapped his face, this didn’t dissuade him. He decided to spend the night with us. I laid in the middle with Tammy to my right and Tim to my left. Tim began to try and feel me up under the covers right in front of my friend! I started to panic, fighting his hands but he just bend my fingers in an awful direction.
Tammy turned to me looking for an answer, I could tell she was worried about me, tears stained my pillow with salt and humiliation. Tim wouldn’t let Tammy leave the room, pulled her hair to keep her from getting up. I barely whispered to her “I’m so sorry, please just turn your head the other way.” Tammy never selpt over again, and I was grateful that she never spoke to me or anyone about that night again.
I focused my energies perfecting the art of ‘Blacking Out’.
‘Suck and fuck’ became my mothers log line when referring to me, I was just a whore who liked to suck and fuck – just to remember, just to hear those words makes me sick to my stomach. It couldn’t have been farther from truth. I was afraid of boys, they were still kinda icky to me; I didn’t want this, I didn’t plan this, I didn’t ask for this. I hated boys, men, brothers, fathers . . . anything with a penis was filed in my “DON’T TRUST” box. I hated sex, I didn’t understand what the big deal was about it or why so many kids at school were in a rush to discover it. I was a prisoner, everywhere I went I felt like eyes were watching me, like I was branded. I didn’t know what I had done to deserve this, but I was sorry – if someone would just listen, I was so sorry for what ever I had done.
The boy was the son of my mothers newest best friend, Joanne, his name was Tim. Ironically Joanne had started a ‘Yellow Ribbon’ Campaign that represented a group that spoke out about violence against women. Joanne’s sister had been murdered by an ex-husband while he was on a day pass from prison where he was serving time for beating his wife. Joanne was now the self-appointed ambassador for women against abuse – my mother was a loyal follower. I guess it made sense to my mom to push me to date Tim, she thought he was just a saint (hell, compliment her, get her drunk enough and she would have fucked him herself . . . that’s another story though).
In the beginning he was a nice enough guy. The main problem with me was that I didn’t really care much about guys physically. I was almost 16 and would still get grossed out listening to my friends talk about making out with boys, I wanted to go hiking in the woods or camping or dancing. I liked boys enough, I let them kiss me and I got butterflies if they were cute but I didn’t even consider much beyond that. This was really frustrating to Tim. He started getting mean after about a month, he would constantly pick random fights with me over a look some guy would give me from the car next to us (stupid shit) and he wouldn’t quit until I got upset enough to cry and want to go home, then he’d turn around and drive back to my home. I would sit quietly while he yelled at me about being a tease, leading him on and being a snob … what ever he could to make me feel this (.) big. Then just before we’d get to my neighborhood he’d find an excuse to pull over and pretend to be hurt or heart-broken. He’d sob that he is trying to understand me because he cares so much about me and knows that I am a great gal who has had a hard life so far and he just wants to be closer to me etc. etc. Inside I’m totally confused and yet happy to know he’s not mad at me, one less fight I have to deal with. In the end he’d always settle for not yet. It’s that ‘yet’ that always keeps the crazy ones around. Then we’d kiss and make up and go on about our date.
Around the 3rd month, Tim had begun making a habit of breaking into our house and hiding. Waiting for me. (My house was occupied by evil – all the abuse that took place in those walls make that house feel haunted to me. It must have fed on violence and encouraged abuse) I never knew where Tim was going to pop up or if he was going to pop up, he would always just appear. I’d come home and go to bed and he’d be in my room hiding waiting for me to get home, he’d hang out until everyone went to sleep and he’d sneak back out. It always horrified me and I would set my mind at ease by telling myself this is what teens are supposed to do. I couldn’t go to my mother for help, she would have killed me if she knew he was sneaking in the house under her nose! It wouldn’t have been his fault though, in her mind she would have twisted reality. She would accuse that I encouraged him somehow to do bad and sneaky things – trust me, she was like a crack whore in need of a fix and I was her mouth, she’d sell me out to ANYONE! Many nights after her 2nd husband left she could be found sitting on the couch wrapped up in a blanket drunker then a pirate lecturing me on why so much of her life is my fault and how she was going to pay me back for destroying her life. (that never got old, I’ll tell ya!)
But I digress, on this particular night he was not hiding in the house. I was sleeping safe in my bed, I woke to rocks hitting my window gently, and then not. I raced on tiptoe to the front door when I saw him out the window, scared he was going to wake someone and score me a cool new insult and some hand to face contact.
Tim seemed upset tonight, so we went in the living room (farthest room from the upstairs where demons and children slept), he shared that his step-father, who apparently was a good man, passed away from a massive heart-attack in front of his mother. He was sooooo choked up, I didn’t know they were that close! He decided to hug me, that’s what people do when they are grieving right? Yeah, you know the drill – now a hug, then a sigh, then a touch on the cheek, ok a kiss, some tongue too? ok. So he starts to kiss me and he’s getting really forceful with me, I’m rejecting his usual attempts to feel me up and he’s holding my hands down and crushing them under his weight. I was really afraid someone would wake up now, I asked him to please stop and he put his free hand over my mouth, he looked me in the eyes and said “It’s about time snob.”. He explained that there would be no one that would ever love me as much as him but, if I wanted to make it difficult he would go there for me and promised it would not be pleasurable. It’s funny, to me, how differently people gauge definitions – in general. I didn’t know what to do, I shut down and zoned out. He canceled all decisions to cause audible protest reminding me that my mother was sleeping and if she came downstairs and found that I let him in, it’s late and we’re making out? HA! He promised he’d lie mom, swear he wanted to wake her to tell of his dad passing but I seduced him and now he feels ashamed. (he had her wrapped around his finger that way) Then I remembered all the times my mother told me I was a dumb bitch and a whore or Tim called me a tease or the girls at school talked about it and say it’s not a big deal and I just closed my eyes. He hurt me, I sobbed the entire time and he threatened to kill me if I didn’t just shut the fuck up. When it was over he got up, told me not to forget to tell my mom about his dad in the morning and he left.
I climbed the stairs and crawled into bed feeling like I no longer cared if I survived.
One night my father was beating my mother so bad she had a bloody face. I don’t know why it happened. All I heard was “Fuck you” and the pounding of adult bodies hitting walls like a bull in a china store. He was slapping my mother in the face and spitting on her, kicking her in the ribs and calling her a bitch whore. She was crying for him to stop but he refused, her plea encouraged his power display. Gripping a handful of her curly brown hair from the back of her head he threw her into my brothers bedroom like an unwanted doll, she landed on her knees and slumped in a ball screaming through tears as he lifted my mother by the throat and hung her with both hands above his head, her feet dangling at his knees, he was choking her – I could see it in her eyes.
I was frozen in the door with fear, unable to decide what to do next. I ran at his legs with fists and he punched me straight in the chest screaming that if I wanted to die with my mother I should touch him one more time. I yelled at him, I don’t remember the exact words but I believe it was something like “I’m going to call the police if you don’t put her down!” He invited my bravery so I ran to the phone and began to dial. My father then dropped my mother to the floor, crying I ran to her to hold her and make sure she was breathing. He kicked her in the stomach one more time claiming she shouldn’t be allowed to give birth to anymore asshole children, then he looked me in the eyes and told me I was a bitch just like my mother. He watched me for a moment as I struggled to protect my mother then he spit in my face and left the house. As soon as he was gone I called my Grandmother, his mother, crying. I told her what happened and how scared I was but she did nothing.
Two weeks later, after the air cleared from the fight, my mother let my father spank me with a belt and send me to bed without supper for being ‘overly dramatic’ about their fight when I called my Grandmother for guidance.
I was in 1st grade.
The abuse being dished out to me and my brother, Chris, was overwhelming. There were days that we didn’t go to school because the bruises on our bodies were obvious, even at a glance.
(( NOTE: I am the oldest of 4. My siblings in order of birth: Me, Chris, Mary Ellen, Katie. My birth father is Peter. My mother is Mary and her 2nd husband was Jim.))
My only prayer was that the violent beatings would stop.
We were in middle school the day I decided it was time to take a stand against my parents; I was in 8th grade, Chris was in 6th grade.
My homeroom class had a speaker in class months earlier talking about child abuse. He told us about kids who were beaten by their parents; their ears burned on hot stoves, hands broken in doors, faces scarred by stray belt buckles and bruises that covered their bodies so completely it seemed their skin would never return to a natural shade of flesh again. I wouldn’t have thought twice about my own situation at home until the speaker taught the class how to look for signs of child abuse. Even then I thought, “What right do I have to complain? My parents don’t burn me on the stove, I have that to be grateful for.”
In my mind it made sense that if my parents had enough sense to beat me so the bruises didn’t show then I was safe. What I didn’t realize was that my stepfather chasing me through the house wielding a knife stabbing walls because I didn’t weed the garden the right way was abuse. My mother punching me in the face for not closing the cap tight enough on her wine bottle was abuse. My brother, locked in his bedroom for weeks writing 5,000 sentences that said “I will do as I am told and I will not ask questions. I am a bad kid and I pray for God to save my soul.” – that is abuse. Beatings with any object until I pass out, being thrown down flights of stairs, choked until I pass out, starved until I can’t tell what day it is, blamed for financial hard times, blamed for bills that would come to the house like power or water, being told that life would be better if I had never been conceived – all abuse.
I was wrong, I wasn’t safe.
I reached my breaking point and suffered my first nervous breakdown just before Christmas in 8th grade. I took a huge leap of faith in the system and it’s power to protect the helpless, I turned to my school counselor (the speaker in class said that was the first step to ending child abuse).
For 2 weeks I visited the counselor, allowing him to document my bruises and log my stories from home. I cried constantly about my brother, I had wished they would beat me more and leave him alone. It broke my heart to hear him scream when they hit him and cry when they locked him in his room again. To know he was suffering broke my heart, he didn’t deserve the beatings he recieved. The counselor went to the city and then the state and charged my parents, anonymously, of child abuse.
Don’t cheer yet.
My mom was beyond furious and oddly offended when she received the summons to appear before the court, she couldn’t believe someone would dare to call her a child abuser. Worst of all she was ready for revenge against the son-of-a-bitch that reported her. All I could do was site quite and play dumb, like mom always said “Fake it til’ you make it” (yes, that was the life advice I was offered as a child). She gathered her children and in a very gentle way she described how she would personally beat and kill her children if we dared to speak out about what happens behind the closed doors of our home. Mom was sitting before us drunk, cursing her best friend, Tammy, assuming she was the one that reported our family to the state (Tammy was a neighbor who lived 3 houses down, I used to babysit her kids every now and then and she was very close to mom). We were no longer allowed to speak to Tammy or any of her children (not easy considering location and the fact that her kids were our friends and rode the same bus to school, but my mother had ways of forcing impossible circumstances to evolve into life ordinances), should we disobey her wishes she would punish in a way that she swore we would never recover from. She explained that our life is not our own, it belongs to her and her life is no ones business. Then it was told that if we thought for one second that we had it so bad at home that we would side with Tammy and talk to the state about our home then we were in for a nasty wake up call because when the US got their hands on us they would own us. We were told the government would seperate us for the rest of our lives, toss us in foster care where caregivers not only beat but also had sex with children, mom told us we’d be forgotten until we were 18, if we were lucky enough to survive the system. I was living in total terror by this point, I felt the speaker in class lied to me – they wern’t going to save me, they were going to feed me to their petofile foster families. The state was going to take me from bad and toss me by my toes into worse. I couldn’t even think straight, dizzy spells and nausea kept me from eating, I couldn’t control the tears, I couldn’t sleep ….. I wanted to erase myself from the face of the earth.
When we got to the office where the meeting was to be held each child was ushered into a different cold grey office, alone with a court appointed consult. The office dress code appeared basic; slacks, button up shirt and a tie. The only thing that separated one person in the office from the next was pant color and shirt pattern.
We all lied. Everyone. The Court Officials pretended they didn’t know I reported my parents, I pretended everything was fine at home. We all said that we were living a normal life with normal parents and that very rarely did we get so much as a spanking.
I know what you’re thinking … show them the bruises. I’d like to say that was even a possibility, however, my mother received her court summons and rescheduled for a later date (one month later) as per her ‘attorney’ friends advice. The court honored the request and warned her that if she didn’t show up for the appointment she would be held in comtempt of court blaah, blaah, blaah. All that transulated to a 8th grader is we don’t get spankings for a little while, and no shit, those assholes didn’t lay a hand on us! Punishments were restricted to grounding to our rooms, writing thousands of sentences and heavy household chores without rest or food. This I can deal with. This was vacation.
When my mother and step-father walked free from all charges I became very sick. I knew that if my mother ever found out what I had done she would never forgive me, she would say I didn’t love her or my family and that I was ungrateful. Then she’d do one of two things; send me to the state, tell them I was a difficult child and let them deal with me OR she would kill me. I was so afraid of the truth I taught myself to live the lies with precision. Even if mom found out, I would be so good at the lie that she’d actually believe me. I lied to EVERYONE! I became obsessed with lies. I started making up lies just to lie to someone. It was my new game and I controlled it alone. I started telling friends that my mom’s friend Tammy was in love with my mom and jeallous of her family so she reported my mom as a child abuser in hopes to split up the family. I used the case as an excuse for not being able to concentrate at school and teachers actually passed me! I went and tried out for color guard for high school without permission, made top 3, went home and lied to my mom, said it was a part of band class prep for high school and my mom said “Ok.” . . . . Ok? You’re ok with this? As in go ahead and be in the color guard, ok?
Wow! This lie was working out for me.
Just over one week from the court date, I was riding my bike around the neighborhood. It was quiet, the sun was going down and you could smell dinner in the air. The normal families were washed up and watching tv waiting for mom to call dinner. I was enjoying the silence and the private tour around the block.
I was far from view of my house, I noticed my mothers ex-best friend, Tammy, walking toward me. She stopped me to talk, my heart was screaming at my brain! Fearing a beating I apologized and explained as fast as my lips could move that I couldn’t talk to her anymore, I told her that I knew she didn’t reported us and that I was sorry my mother was so convinced.
Tammy said:
“I know it was you.” I froze and started to cry. “I am not stupid, I know what happens in that house, I see the bumps and bruising on your skin,” unable to move I kept crying. “I want you to know that I am never going to tell your mother, I don’t care if we never speak to each-other again, she’ll never know.”
I’m 34.
My mom doesn’t know.
Hello and welcome to this daughters search for love in a life full of fear.
I don’t know what to tell you to expect here.
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 | themusicologist on SOMETIMES . . . |
| themusicologist on SO THIS IS IT, HU? |
 | ladybugg on SO THIS IS IT, HU? |
| ladybugg on THE DAY I TOOK A STAND. |
 | mountcope on THE DAY I TOOK A STAND. |
IN THE NAME OF THE DAUGHTER