Girl With a Purpose
My mother walked out of my life when I was around the age of four months old. At the time, my father was working two jobs trying support my sister and me. One was delivering fliers on the weekends, and the other was a computer sales shop. He had been forced to learn how to balance two jobs and take care of his daughters.
At one point, he was told that he needed to find another job because the computer sales store was going out of business. He left that place and was left with one job that only paid $200 per weekend. It wasn’t enough to help us make it through. He applied for many things but nothing ever gave us enough money. He had almost given up, until he met another woman.
I was two years old when they got together. She had a one-year-old son, a great home, and lots of money. My dad ended up getting back on his feet and after three years he was engaged to her. My sister and I were young, we didn’t know what “engaged” meant–so we thought nothing of it.
After a couple of months passed my father got a better paying job and went back to school. While he was at school and work she had decided on methods of punishment. She would say we were ‘naughty children’ and ‘her son is much better behaved’. My sister and I were woken up for school by a slap, a kick, or a bucket of water dumped on us. If we got mad from being drenched we were punished. Some days she would make us face a wall and stand there for anywhere between one and fifteen hours, other days she would slap us until we were black and blue, sometimes she would even sit on us. When my father got home she acted like nothing happened and told my father we were perfect little angels.
This went on for a few years until she got pregnant with my little sister. During the pregnancy she punished us but it wasn’t by beating us…. Instead she would send my sister and I out into a snow storm while we were wearing our pajamas. We were in shorts and a t-shirt with no shoes or socks. My sister ended up with frostbite on her toes, fingers and ankles, and I ended up with nightmares and permafrost on my toes which caused my toenails to become permanently black.
We ended up receiving more and more abuse. Finally at the age of 14, my older sister stood in front of me attempting to protect me from her slap. As soon as my step-mother slapped my sister, my sister started hitting, kicking, biting and using absolutely anything against her in self-defense. After my sister unleashed her anger on my step-mother, my step-mother called the police. The police took my sister and I to live in a temporary foster home. When we got there we stayed up the whole night explaining everything that happened, from start to finish. We explained in great detail, and finally got her out of our life. We were put into the foster home until they believed it was stable enough for us to come out. In total we were in for 11 months and two days. We were finally released back into my father’s care.
We happily moved into an apartment, he has a steady paying job and he is fighting for custody of my other little sister.
I am sixteen years old now. I live every night with nightmares, depression, and panic attacks. I can’t handle being around too many people, I don’t like loud things, and I stick closer to family and I am trying to become less anti-social, but that takes time.
I am now bringing up a court case against her for the abuse I underwent.
Everyday of my life I continue to tell myself I will get my justice, she will be served, and I do have potential. I fight everyday of my life for perfect grades. I strive to win. Because, in reality, I am a girl with purpose.
2010 Bloggie Awards
I’m not gonna say much here because I’m pretty speechless. So I’ll keep this short and sweet.
Violence UnSilenced is a finalist for Best Community Blog in the 2010 Bloggie awards. It’s a huge honor, and regardless of the outcome of the voting, it’s already a priceless victory in terms of exposure. So many people will learn about VU now.
Most of all, I can’t imagine a more appropriate category.
This site belongs, and has always belonged, to all of us.
Thank you so much.
(and, if you’re so inclined, you can vote here.)
More importantly, please read and support the survivor below this post, and survivors before her, and the many, many survivors to come.
Kimberly
Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Please let me die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take.
I prayed that every night. EVERY night. And every morning I would wake up and I just knew that God hated me. He had to. Why would he allow me to survive the night just so that I could go on being miserable, abused and lonely?
Most of the physical abuse has been forgotten, blocked out for my own sanity. I do remember the rage. I remember seeing such hatred as that belt would come down on me. Or the hand. Or the brass rod. Or the sticks, pans, shoes, laundry basket. Whatever she could get her hands on. Most of the physical abuse is remembered by my brother. My near broken nose at age five, the stepping on his neck to kill him at 10, the time the neighbors had to pull her off of me when I was two (and NO the fuckin’ neighbors did shit to help). Her attempted suicides.
It’s the mental abuse, that emotional mind fuck that I endured that has been seared into my memory. The “I wish you were dead” or the “I should kill myself for having a daughter like you.” All the you’re stupid, you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re worthless, your nothing… that is what I remember.
I didn’t dream of being a princess, or a teacher, or a nurse. I dreamed of being an adult, living on my own, far, far away from her. I dreamed of death. Oh how I wanted to die. I wanted the pain to end. I wanted it all to be over. I would cry myself to sleep begging God to have mercy on me and just kill me. Take me away. It obviously did not happen. As I’m still here.
How do I still have room in my heart to love her? How is it that I can forgive her for all the wrongs? How is it that I still wish and pray for her approval? How does a human mind survive??
I don’t have kids because of her. I’m too afraid of becoming the monster she was when I was growing up. I’m too afraid that the monster lives inside of me. And to keep it hidden and in slumber I refuse to have kids. I will love my nieces and nephews but I will never know what it is to love my own children. I’m too scared.
My brother is sober now and I’m not in therapy as I should be. But we survived because of each other and in spite of her.
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Kimberly blogs at For the Love of Twinkies.
Shauna
When I first met him, I was immediately smitten. He didn’t like me, though. He liked my friend. I’m not even sure he realized another person was standing there as he chatted her up. They exchanged numbers and I remember watching him as he walked away. I wished it was my number he’d taken. In hindsight, the universe was probably doing me a favor. I never thought about that until now.
A few months passed and for whatever reason the two of them never hooked up. It didn’t seem to bother my friend—she had lots of guys interested in her. Then one day while on a date, I saw him again. This time he walked right up to the guy I was with and shook his hand. They had gone to school together. I thought what a small world. The feelings I’d felt when I saw him all those months before came flooding back. My heart ached—my belly, full of butterflies. It was the worst and the best feeling. My date introduced us and as he reached out to shake my hand I knew I’d met the man I would marry. At least that’s what I was hoping.
Better be careful what you wish for. That’s what my grandmother always said to me.
After that night, I ran into him again. This time, he approached me, asked if I was still going out with so-and-so. I shook my head no and felt my heart racing. I tried to act cool so he wouldn’t think I was complete lunatic. But I was crazy about him. And I didn’t even know him. I didn’t know that behind that smile was an insanely jealous, possessive, verbally abusive sociopath.
Not until it was too late.
He called me the next day. I was over the moon with excitement. On paper he was perfect. He had an outgoing personality, he was beautiful, he was smart, he said all the right things…
People loved him. He was popular and well liked, the life of the party—in public. My best description of him now? A snake charmer.
It wasn’t long before I saw glimpses into his dark side. Any time another man so much as smiled at me, it must have been because I wanted to sleep with him. He began to control me—told me what to wear, what TV shows I could watch, whether I could answer the phone when my mother was calling.
I get angry now when I think back at my life then. HOW did I let this happen? WHY didn’t I pack my bags and run as fast as I could in the opposite direction?
The answer is I don’t know.
After a few months of dating we moved in together and things got worse quickly. He was no longer handsome to me. He was ugly and hateful and most days I wished he would die. I fantasized the police knocking on the front door and telling me he’d been in a tragic auto accident and that they were sorry but he didn’t survive. I remember practicing in the bathroom mirror my facial expression upon hearing the news. I had to be convincing—I had to make them think I was saddened by what they were telling me. I couldn’t let them see that they’d released me from my prison.
But that never happened. He came home every day at the same time without a scratch.
After an especially awful weekend of him berating me and telling me I was worthless and stupid and how no one else would have me, I decided to finally leave him. I was going to load my things in the car after he left for work and leave a note on the kitchen counter telling him I was never coming back. The very thought of it terrified me.
And then Monday morning I realized I was late in getting my period. I begged God, “Please don’t let me be pregnant.” But I was. It was the worst news I’d ever received. I was pregnant and 23 years old and beat down to the point that I thought I had no choice but to stay with him.
Girls can be so stupid.
The next day I told him the news and he seemed happy about it. He even treated me nicely for a few days. The name calling stopped, he doted on me… he even said I looked beautiful pregnant. I thought maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe having a baby together would change him.
But the niceties didn’t last long. Soon he was back to his abusive self—telling me I was stupid because I didn’t finish college, calling me names like “fat ass,” questioning every penny I spent, monitoring my daily routine.
“What’d you spend $7.44 at the convenience store on?” He asked once.
“Um, I think I bought a Coke and a Snickers bar.”
“So you think that’s a smart idea? You know they jack up the prices at the convenience stores. But I guess since you’re stupid you wouldn’t know something like that. DON’T DO IT AGAIN!”
I apologized and then locked myself in the bathroom and cried. I cried a lot.
I couldn’t let him see me though because that would just make things worse. He’d get angry, tell me I was a baby, and throw things at me.
I shut down.
I built walls.
I moved into self-preservation mode.
I focused on my unborn child. The one I vowed to protect.
We got married. Because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you find yourself pregnant out of wedlock? But I knew at the reception that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. During our “first dance” I said something like, “Let’s really work on getting along. I know we can do this.”
And that’s when I saw it. There was evil in his eyes. He pulled away from me, grabbed my arms really hard and said, “Why’d you have to ruin a perfectly good moment?”
I cried. Right there on the dance floor with 100 people looking on. I couldn’t stop.
My life sucked.
I lost most of my friends after I got married. I didn’t and I don’t blame then. I wouldn’t have been friends with me either. They couldn’t stick around and watch the horror unfold before their eyes. I felt alone in my prison cell. The only thing that kept me going was the growing fetus inside me.
I wasn’t allowed to find out what I was having. He went with me to every appointment to make sure of that. I wasn’t allowed to use disposable diapers even though I would be the one changing them. I couldn’t go to lunch with my friends. I couldn’t spend time with my family. I could go to work and that was it.
I know what people are thinking. “Why would you go along with this? Why didn’t you leave? Why would you let someone treat you like this?”
And the answer is simple. When you’re told you’re worthless and stupid long enough you start to believe it. I didn’t feel I had permission to do anything, say anything, be anything, without his approval.
After another year, I got pregnant with our second child—a second daughter. And things only got worse. He shoved me a couple of times. He pinched. He grabbed. He mocked. I still wanted him dead, but no longer in an accident. I wanted to kill him myself. And when I started having those thoughts I knew I had to get out. I had to find a way to be strong enough for me and my two young daughters to say “you know what? This isn’t OK.”
Remarkably, miraculously, I did just that. One day I DID load up the car and I DID leave a note saying I wouldn’t be back.
And it was the most liberating day of my life. I took control. I found me again. And you know what? I’m awesome. And I’m strong. And I’m smart. No one would ever tell me differently ever again.
He didn’t make it easy for me. But it didn’t matter. I could do anything. THIS was easy compared to the hell I’d been living. It was the hardest year and a half of my life—getting the divorce. But I did it. And I never looked back. And I never will.
Does it make me sick now, thinking back to how my life was then? Absolutely. But, I wouldn’t be the person I am today had I not gone through this experience. That’s not to excuse what he did to me –not at all. But you know, he was a great teacher. I learned a lot about myself during those three years. Mostly, that I love myself too much to let someone treat me poorly. I was abused. There, I said it. It was mostly verbal, but the punches left deep scars and tender wounds.
They’re mostly healed now. And I’m a better wife to my new husband (well, 8 years new) and my four children because of it. That may sound a little strange that a person would be better after an experience such as this, but it’s true. It’s my reality.
And I will never again be the girl I used to be.
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If you know who Shauna is (as so many people do), please note: it is not safe to leave any comments on her blog. Please leave them here.
