I will try to share in time order. However, I may jump back and forth. Especially in the beginning. I’m known for ramblings…and I sometimes write as though I’m rambling as well. What I will tell you now is that it wasn’t just touching once or twice. Not that someone who may have only been touched once by an adult shares less pain than I do. I've learned that everyone’s worst pain is equal. because its the worst they've ever known. So to be fair before I move forward, you should know the sexual abuse was pretty extreme and frequent. My mother worked graveyard for so many years...and especially during those times it was daily or every other day.
Today I want to share the friction I received from my family at the age of 16 when I spoke up. Instead of receiving support from my family. I became the burden everyone passed around (well not everyone. Some family didn’t want anything to do with me).
Honestly I feel I've had to keep everything inside because of how my family handled the situation back then ..... I feel like I'm supposed to pretend the first 16 years of my life didn’t happen. Because the few times it has been brought up, someone will appear irritated with me that I haven’t gotten over it. I cant count the number of times I've been told "it happened so long ago"...or "you need to get over this and move on". It makes me feel either they don’t care about me. Or really don’t get what I went through. Because not 1 person from my family ever asked me what I really went through. But when everything came out, I had relatives upset with me because they said I was hurting my mother and everyone was falling over there feet to protect my mother...but not protect me. All I heard was how I was given anything I wanted as a child, my own room, a TV my own phone line. Nice right? I had everything. However, my stepfather had a switch next to his bed that he could switch on and off. This switch controlled the power to my room and my private phone line. we had deadbolts on our front and back door that was locked from the inside with a key, not a latch. I didn’t have a key. There was a latch on our refrigerator that had to be unlocked with a key...why I needed to ask to get something from the fridge at age 13 was beyond me. was I eating to much? In the family room behind the large TV there was a lock box which is similar to the old metal boxes that held the keys to the cars on dealership lots. he would lock the plugs to the large TV and the stereo in those boxes. Because I could only watch the house TV or listen to the house stereo was If someone else was watching or listening to them. I was only allowed to use the TV and radio in my room. insane things that he did within the house to make it a prison for me. So everything I had was not for me. It was for him. As I got older he would search for other ways to control me to keep my mouth shut. but he didn’t need to punish me to keep my mouth shut. I kept it shut because my mother had heart problems. Growing up my mother was in and out of the hospital because of medical issues. I remember one time we went to the hospital and we were told that her heart stopped beating for a few minutes in the middle of 1 of her surgeries‘. I was conditioned to believe that not only was the abuse my fault because I let it happen for so long and now he needs me(please keep in mind I was only 2 years old when this started). but if I were to ever say anything, my mother would die of a heart attack and I would be taken to jail. as I got older the story turned from jail to a foster home where I will be raped by black men. I'm not a racist but I was raised by one. So even though I was the victim. I was blamed for causing all this turmoil.
I had previously confided in other relatives about the abuse and moved out for a while. But they sent me back home because my mother convinced them it wasn’t what I was making it out to be, I was exaggerating. It's a misunderstanding and something about we were going to get counseling. I went home and had to pretend like everything was normal...not 1 word about anything. The last time I ran away that eventually lead to his incarceration was at age 16. I went to my Uncle and Aunts home and told them what he did to me. We didn’t call the police. But my step father went to turn himself into the police and gave some lame story about there’s a misunderstanding and I’m telling my family lies and I’m troubled and he doesn’t know why I’m doing this. He tried to control the situation from the beginning. making me look crazy and like a liar even though I just wanted to get away. someone told my parents where I was staying. my step father gave the police the address. I was so scared when they came because I thought they were going to take me away to child services. I didn’t want to talk to them. But they finally convinced me to go to the station and tell the truth and they wouldn’t take me to child services as long as I was with family. I spoke to one of my aunts who advised me to not worry about anyone else. She told me to stand up for myself and tell the police everything that man put me through.
...A few days later another aunt called to speak to me. Her exact words were "why are you doing this to your mother? you know if you lie in front of a judge you will go to prison for perjury". I will never forget that. I hung up the phone.
While my step-father was in Prison, his leg was getting amputated because of his diabetes. I had aunt's coming to consol my mother, crying with her because her husband lost part of his leg. No one cried over what he did to me like that. Here’s the worst part, they felt the need to let me know he was suffering and I was just moving on with my life...poor him. Then they got mad at me because I didn’t give a crap and was kind of happy that he was suffering. What were they thinking? That I would have compassion? I really don’t know. Forgiveness or getting over it was more important than What he did to me. My aunts and mother had conversations with me about. I have to get used to the fact that he is coming home in a few years and that’s just something I'm going to have to accept. And that he is part of the family and will be at family functions and I would have to choose if I would attend or not because that’s my mothers husband. My mother went behind my back and sent my abuser a family photo I had taken with me, my son, my brother, and my mom for my sons first picture. I found this out because I was invading my mothers privacy and reading the letters in her drawer that they used to mail back and forth to each other. when he would send her back the photos and photos his other relatives used to send him. I was so devastated and hurt. why would she send him a photo of me? or my son? He's not only a sick pervert but he did perverted things to me...but she saw it as, this is a photo of his family. I know that I'm making my mother look pretty bad here. But she was completely brainwashed by her husband. He conditioned her to. To believe that she was crazy. That the few times she stumbled in on something happening to me...nothing was going on, it was something else, her imagination. He also kept me and my mother apart. Now she realizes it. But back then she thought. This man loves me and my daughter and treats her like his own child and he is just being a good dad. And the 1 time she did question me...I must of been around 7 years old. she said. Tell me the truth and she asked me a few times. I told her no that nothing was going on. I was scared to say anything. I thought it was all my fault and I’d go to jail and she would die. She also had other issues from her past she hadn’t dealt with, that kept her seeing it for what it was. My mother is a survivor as well. She survived his abuse. He betrayed her in the most sickest of ways.
I'm not going to pretend that between the ages of 16 and early adulthood I wasn’t off the hook causing as much destruction as I could. I was going to make everyone suffer for not caring about me. The only thing that was real to me was pain. I used to get drunk wasted with my cousins and get high with my friends. I didn’t keep it secret...I was dying for any type off attention positive or negative. I just needed to feel something because my spirit was dead. I know that there are members of my family who do love me and have been there for me. And maybe they just thought I wouldn’t want to talk about it. I've been accused at this point in my life that I keep to myself and tend to push others away without a second thought...Its because I don’t trust anyone. It's hard to trust anyone after I went to speak at my step fathers court sentencing with only my mother and my aunt who sat next to my mother (my mother was there for her husband). I sat on the next Isle with my therapist (that I was paying for myself at age 16). The rows behind my step father were filled with people that I had called aunty, uncle and cousins. They were there for this pedophile. not me. they didn’t care what this man did to me. They loved him so much, they didn’t care he stole my life and made me his live in sex slave. I know I'm using extreme words here. But I don’t know how else to put it without saying it like it was. Each year I got older...and the abuse became more extreme. When I needed family to comfort me. Because I was just a young girl, younger than my son is today, I was alone. I don’t understand this. I had 1 aunt who believed me the minute I told her, she didn’t question me or go to my mother first to try to work it out privately. She believed in me. And she was the only who didn’t put my mothers needs first. she put me first. She was the only one.
To be fair to my Mother. I know I’m making her look pretty bad here. She was prepared for this and doesn’t want me to alter my story in anyway. I know some of you cant imagine how this went on for so long. My mother has agreed to answer any questions anyone may have. I know I just started posting yesterday. So I’d like to wait a month to see if I get any readers…and I will interview my mother and post the audio file to my blog. So if anyone has any questions for my mother please email them to reclaimingmylife76@gmail.com
