The “love” of a family

It wasn’t until recently that I realized I struggle with an eating disorder.  As a teen, it was much much worse, but now I find myself thinking about it.  Thinking about what drove to feel the need to harm myself in this way.  

As I have stated previously, my adopted mother was a big woman.  She was constantly on different diets, but nothing worked.  I guess out of a way to try to make herself feel better, she would regularly comment on our weight. 

I was a tall skinny kid.  I weighed like 110 and I was 5’6”.  My mom would comment any time I was bloating.  Telling me that I was getting fat.  That would lead me to not eat for a few days.  If I did eat, it would only be enough to make me no hungry.  There were times I forced myself to throw up.  I only forced my self to throw up a couple of times.  It was too painful.  

One time my mom called my two sisters and I into the living room.  She had a sewing measuring tape in her hand.  We had to line up.  She measured our busts, waists and hips.  She wrote down the measurements and told us to tell her who was the smallest.  We were all basically the same size even though we were different heights, but my shortest sister was the ‘smallest’ by the standard that my mom had set.  She told “Breanna” to get dressed, she was going to buy her new clothes. Patience and I wondered why we wouldn’t get new clothes.  We were told it was because we were too big. 

There were many times that I had to take the shirt off my back and give it to Breanna because she looked better in it.  There were times that Breanna could borrow my things, and she wouldn’t have to return them.  Her closet got bigger while mine ant Patience’s was dwindling.  Breanna told me multiple times when she borrowed my things that I had a week to come get it or it was hers.  Our mother agreed.  However, I could not borrow Breanna’s slip when my skirts showed a pantyline.  I was always told to take my skirt off and give it to her because I had outgrown it.  

My mom always let my siblings pick on me.  I picked on them back, but I would get in trouble.  My brother “Moses”.  Got into wrestling.  When he was still a toddler, I would wrestle with him all the time.  Once he got stronger than me, I had to quit because I kept getting hurt.  That didn’t stop him from trying to wrestle me. His favorite thing to do was put me in an ankle lock.  Well, it was extremely painful because he didn’t know how to do it right.  If I cried, he put more pressure on it.  If I screamed for help, I would get grounded.  He would just be told not to play with me because I couldn’t take a joke. 

One specific incident that sticks out in my mind that he did this to me was one of my last weeks at home.  I had packed my suitcases and headed home.  I was dreading having to live out of suitcases because I knew my mom would complain that my suitcases were on her dresser that she had in the hall closet.  I get home and my brother Moses keeps taking my stuff.  He keeps punching me and he was a big boy.  He was a preteen and he was big.  He would punch me as hard as he could and laugh about it.  My dad would laugh and tell me to toughen up.  Well, I got tired of the beatings, so I took his prize blanket.  Yes, he was 11 or 12 years old with a blanket that he dragged around everywhere.  So, I took it and hid it under his bed.  My plan was to wait until he was looking for it then put it back on his bed like he had over looked it.  We played these types of jokes all the time on each other.  

Moses went looking for his blanket and mom asked each of us if we knew where it was.  I said no.  I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.  My mom had played that same joke many times.  I went to our bedroom and was pulling the blanket out and my mom walked in.  It caused a huge uproar of where I was called a bald face liar.  I tried to say that we played that joke all the time, but no one would listen. 

The next day, Breanna lost her MP3 player.  To this day, I have no idea what it looked like other than it was white.  I was playing “Dean’s” XBOX when Moses and Beanna violently came into the room.  They ripped my controller out of the console and flipped my video game chair over and pulled my hair.  Moses puts my ankle in a hold and I start screaming.  (The year before Breanna tricked me into getting on her horse bareback.  I was thrown and I hurt my ankle, knee, and hip really bad.  My mom refused to take me to the DR, but when she broke her ankle, but ambulance couldn’t get there fast enough.) So, Moses had me in an ankle hold and I was screaming.  Breanna was yelling that I stole her MP3 player.  I had my own, why did I want hers?  I was in so much pain I couldn’t breathe.  I denied I took it.  I didn’t, but because my parents called me a bald faced liar the night before, I was a liar in their eyes.  I tried to defend myself to my dad, but for days he told me I needed to give it back.  I found out that Breanna had went through my suitcases.  So, in anger, I pulled them out and dumped everything on the floor.  She went through it all and said, “You didn’t take it, it isn’t here.” By that time my dad had came back and apologized for thinking I took it.  I felt better.  But then he said, If you took it, you need to give it back.  “If you don’t stop them from treating me this way, I will leave and never come back.” I said.  The verbal and physical abuse lasted until I ran away for my wedding.  

After the wedding, I switched to being vegetarian. My parents loved that.  They would constantly offer to bring me fried chicken.  It was so hard to turn down.  So, instead of trying to help me with this dream of being a vegetarian, they constantly were telling me that it is stupid and wanted me to fail.  Well, it has been almost 3 years since I had fried chicken.  

I went home after the wedding for a visit and my parents made fun of my husband. They went on to talk about how I had gained weight and I told them it was normal when a person starts eating healthier.  They didn’t care.  They told me how much happier and peaceful things were without me there.  

I know I wasn’t the perfect kid.  I didn’t tell my siblings that I loved them.  I know I picked on Patience so much when we were growing up.  I admit that it was wrong and I am so so sorry for it.  I don’t know if my parents let her read this, but I wanted to tell the world. 

I was so wrong for picking on you.  I was so wrong for not being a good big sister.  There is no excuse.  Please forgive me.  

“Some friends don’t understand this. They don’t understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you’re wonderful just the way you are. They don’t understand that I can’t remember anyone ever saying that to me. I am so demanding and difficult for my friends because I want to crumble and fall apart before them so that they will love me even though I am no fun, lying in bed, crying all the time, not moving. Depression is all about If you loved me you would.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, Mistral’s Kiss

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If you see something, say something

I keep thinking about if one of the people that I had to show my “Battle” wounds too, had told the authorities, I may not have ended up in further abuse.  If one person had stood up to my mom when she was screaming in my face.  If one person had cared enough to say this isn’t right, would I hurt as bad as I do now?

Knowing the pain that I bear from child abuse, I don’t know how an adult can stand by and watch a child be hurt by their parents and do nothing.  It takes a village to raise a child, but one person to wreck them for life.  I hate when people tell me to just let it go.  I can’t.  No one can just let go of child abuse.  Some one hurt you when you trusted them when you had no choice, it is the ultimate betrayal of trust.  There is no way that I will sit idle by and watch a child be hurt knowing the pain it caused me. 

 I was not a bad child.  I was quiet.  I had straight A’s.  I loved to read.  Reading was my escape from the hell I lived in at home.  When I wasn’t reading, I daydreamed about being rescued.  I know, typical teen girl.  I wrote poems.  The themes were clear that I felt like something was keeping me from God’s love. (I will post some here one day.)  My mom never read any of my poems. 

When I was 15, I submitted a poem to a contest.  A few months later I got a letter in the mail that I could have it published because it was in the top 300 out of like 10000.  I was ecstatic.  My dream was to be a writer and I was achieving that at 15.  Well, I made my corrections to my poem, just minor typos.  I gave the letter to my mom to send off.  I begged her to buy me the book that it was going to be published in.  It was thirty dollars, so she refused.  To be honest, I think she sabotaged me, I found the letter in the letter drawer a few months later.  I don’t think she ever sent it off.  She knew how much it meant to me and she refused to even pay the postage to send the letter back. She could have helped make my dream come true, but she refused. 

My mom could be excused by saying she had only gotten a 6th or 7th grade education.  She hated living at home with her mother and drunk of a father, so she quit school and got married at 16. At 19, she was divorced and pregnant.  She had to work to provide for her daughter.  Then she met my dad, an insurance sells man, who was taking care of a foster kid that was a distant cousin.  He was just coming out of an abusive relationship, or so he claims.  He told me that his ex tried to kill him.  I don’t know if it is true or not.  Well, after a turbulent dating relationship they got married. Turbulent because my mom was paranoid that he would cheat on her.   

They moved the two girls in together and they became friends.  We shall call them Jeanie and Mae.  Jeanie was my mom’s daughter and Mae was the foster kid.  Well, one day, Mae gets into trouble and my mom decides she is going to whip her.  Mae starts jumping on the beds to get away from her.  My mom laughed that she was able to beat her anyways.  We came into this home as unsuspecting, vulnerable children. 

Another story that we heard growing up was one of my dad’s mom.  She was an old lady that would take care of Jeanie and Mae when mom and dad were at work.  One day, the girls got the giggles like pre-teen girls do.  Apparently, the grandmother didn’t like it.  She started telling them to stop giggling and when that wasn’t working she started hitting them with a stick.  That made the girls stop laughing, but the grandmother told them to keep laughing or she wouldn’t stop hitting them. My dad would tell us that story like his mom did the right thing. 

Time went on.  Mae’s mom tried to get custody back.  They went to trial and my dad lied on the stand.  The lawyer caught him in the lie and Mae went back to her mom.  Like many mothers who wanted their kids back, Mae’s mom courted her with ice cream in the middle of the night, late night movie nights, and etc.  Well, after the custody was settled, Mae called my parents. 

The conversation was heartbreaking.  As an early teen, Mae was forced into prostitution and drugs by her mother.  She called my parents for help.  They listened to her sob on the other side of the phone and told her they couldn’t help her.  They had to protect Jeanie.  If they could turn a blind eye to Mae, why did I think they would help me.  All of the decisions they ever made was to protect Jeanie.

So, a few years later we were put into this home after Jeanie was married and had step kids.  In the beginning of our stay, we would all be sitting in the living room being read a story.  The story our beloved mother read to us was A Child Called It. Basically in our minds, we were in heaven compared to that boy.  We would pour praise over her for giving us a home and she relished it.  We never asked for any of the stuff that happened to us.  I firmly believe that all children should be given a home.  They deserve homes because they are children. 

There were times when she was mad and would get this look in her eye.  It was a look that was pure, unbridled anger.  Fear would strike my heart when I would see that look.  Anything could bring it on.  Mostly, it was because I read and loved to learn.  My mom would pile on my chores to try to make it to where she thought I couldn’t read. I still managed to crank out over 400 pages a day.  My secret was to sit in the back next to the dryer when I had laundry and read for the hour it took to do the laundry.  

When I got caught doing my reading next to the dryer, I would get grounded for hiding.  My books were taken away and I turned to music to fill the times I wasn’t allowed to read.  I never read anything bad.  I like classics like Jane Erye, Of Mice and Men, Native Son, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Good Earth, etc.  However, I guess that intimidated my mom.  

Part of me wonders if she knew I was being abused by my Uncle.  Lately, I have been wondering if I was supposed to be a surrogate mother for his wife.  She loved babies and couldn’t have any.  With a monster like that for a husband, I am glad she couldn’t.  But out of love that I hold in my heart for her, it is also heartbreaking.  I don’t blame her at all.  She knows my mom.  She knows the wrath that comes after going against her. She was just caught in the crossfire and was able to be talked out of doing the right thing.  If she is reading this, I want to leave her a message. 

After the talk, that we had in your car, you know the tears I cried.  You held my hand and told me that you understand.  You said if you could do something you would.  You hurt me so deeply.  I thought if anyone would be on my side, you would.  You know what he did, he told you what he did to me.  I am begging you, if you love your children, if you ever loved me, do the right thing and turn him in.  No one would blame you.  How could you even look at him knowing what he did to me?  He isn’t sorry.  He just got away with it and he won’t stop.  Now, you are an accomplice.  You are helping him.  You know it deep down in your heart.  I know you do, I could hear it in your voice the last time I talked to you.  Turn him in, before he takes you down with him.  He isn’t worth it. 

Like the rose budding on a Spring day, my hope that the end of abuse is near.  The only way to end the tragedy of any abuse is to speak out.  We should not let abusers hide behind the cloak of silence.  What if by speaking out we can save others?  What if by my speaking out, I am protecting some children from him?  Then, I will shout what he did to me from the rooftop.  Never again will I suffer in silence and allow him to walk in the sun hunting for another victim.  I am not ashamed, because I was a child.  My parents, him and every adult that had an inkling that I was being abuse should be ashamed.  Never again will I stand by and see a child abused and not say anything, I will stand up.  I will say, “No More.” 

My Innocence, Never To Regain
© Ellen
If God granted me one wish
I know what it would be.
To return the child’s innocence
That you stole from me.
You said it was all right
All Daddy’s play this game.
I felt that it was wrong
And thought I was to blame.

Daddy can’t you see
The shame you gave to me.
There’s so much guilt inside my soul
I never will be free.
I used to think that God was blind
For me, he had no love.
I was told that he was watching,
All of us from above.

If so, why did he let it happen?
Why bestow me so much pain?
My soul, my being, shattered
My innocence, never to regain.
Daddy, you took away my innocence
I’ve loved and hated you for years,
As I sit here writing
I’m holding back the tears.

The Bible says to Honor thy Father
But, I doubt he meant this way.
I’m gaining back my self respect
I pray for it everyday.
I’m older now and found my faith
There’s only one to blame.
I know now that God loves me
He loves us all the same.

The Abuse
© Melissa Marie Young
When I was five and I remember
when a person became my dad.
His name was Bob and he was rough,
and I heard that he was bad.

First came all the yelling,
when I cried, He’d look and smirk.
Then came throwing me across the room
when he saw that it didn’t work.

When I wasn’t hungry
for not even a piece of bread,
the rule was “eat it or wear it”
and I had gravy on my head.

My parents always slept all day
which I thought was really cool.
I didn’t worry about the beating
when I first came home from school.

In school the kids made fun of me
but they didn’t even know.
That compared to life at home
it didn’t make me low.

As I thought, but should have known,
how much worse that things could get.
I never heard of this before
and it’s something I won’t forget.

Sometimes I would try to run
Somewhere where I could hide,
but then came the metal handcuffs
and in no person could I confide.

But I am happy about one thing
one thing got finally stored.
My hands were no longer tied
behind my back with the cord.

This is really bad enough
but there is plenty more.
I was handcuffed to a chair and my bed
as well as the knob of my door.

Bob’s dad would take advantage
while I wasn’t moving free,
He would go on with the touching
and he started molesting me.

This happened for 6 years
the secret kept so silent,
even though I had the marks
of a childhood so violent