In Honor of Child Abuse Prevention Month

The fight started over food.  I was a "fat" little "wetback" who had no business eating this prestigious white man's food.  I remember thinking that I just wanted to go home.  Home to my biological grandparents.  Home, where I was safe and had enough to eat and no one called me names (other than "smart" and "beautiful").  The homesickness combined with the unfamiliar ache of hunger brought tears to my eyes.  They over flowed.

My mom sat there next to me and tried to hug me.  He didn't allow that.  So he hit her.  This was not an uncommon scene with her.  My piece of shit biological father got off on the same kicks.  Her mental illness made her an easy target for wolves in Christian clothing.  And boy did they feast on her weakness.  With the way they both kept lapping it up - it must have been delicious.  This particular blow brought out a pained whimper.  I couldn't stand to see her suffer.  I wanted to kill that son of a bitch.  Being 6 years old didn't hamper my acute awareness of what was going on.  I don't think I have ever been naive.  Not even was I was 3, watching her get her face stomped in.  I knew what that bastard was going to do to her and I knew what this one would do too.  The blood from her lip was bright against her skin.  My instinct was to hug her and when I tried, I got a matching wound.

This man was nothing short of a calculating, sadistic fuck who thoroughly enjoyed his role.  He knew how much it hurt the both of us to watch the other writhe and he used it against us.  I tried to understand what he was thinking.  I asked him why I wasn't allowed to eat.  My insolence led to more slaps.  My crying from said slaps resulted in punches.  My mom would try to comfort me and she'd endure more hits.  You lose a lot of the sense of time when you're sitting there like that.  Really, you have no idea if minutes or days pass.  At the same time, it escalates quickly.  After my final attempt to be with my mom failed, he made sure that I wouldn't try again.  His belt was already off, because nothing drives points home quite like leather, so he wrapped it around my chest and secured me to the spindles of the wooden chair.

He loved to hear himself talk.  I imagine that delivering racial slur filled hate sermons to a little girl was empowering to him.  He soaked up that power and it energized him.  I was so scared.  At this point, pain was really non existent.  You grow numb and callused after a while.  I was more so scared of the unknown.  He could walk away right now and leave me here or he could keep this up all night.  He chose the latter on this particular evening.  Then, when he'd had enough, he went to bed, dragging my mother along.  I stopped crying, maybe that's why he walked away.  But I was left there, alone, in the dark, still attached to the chair.  This was only the introduction.

Those memories are ingrained in my head.  They are like physical scars all over my soul.  Those, and the ones after.  While they are no longer abscesses, they remain present.

Child abuse happens to kids of all walks of life.  It comes in different shapes, colors, textures, and varieties.  If you get to survive, you are rewarded with trust issues where you walk around flinching for years to come, whether there's a threat or not.  You get to carry with you new self esteem issues that you didn't have before or self abuse to put control back into your own hands.  The aftermath is almost harder to endure than the abuse itself.  You grow accustomed to knowing where you stand - on the lowest rung.  You become comfortable with your position - submitting to someone else's sick commands.  You can't fall any lower.  The ground is stable.  It's when you climb out that Phase 2 begins.  The light of Freedom shines and most would think that this is a dream come true.  And it is, just not for a long time.  It freaks you out.  You start to come to grips with what happened to you.  You get to this safe place and after a bit it starts to sink in - what happened is not normal, it's not okay, and now you're really fucked up.  Now you're like a wild animal being tamed.  You bite the ones who are trying to help because you forgot (or were never shown) what good people really are.

Every year for the last 5 years or so, I've used Facebook to educate people of facts of child abuse.  But, after a while, people just scroll on.  It's a bunch of stale % signs and "1 in"'s.  So, I thought I'd share an incident from my life to personalize several facts.  Child Abuse is real.  Child Abuse can be stopped.  Child Abuse doesn't have to be the end of a life.  Child Abuse has consequences (a 1.5 year prison sentence in my case).  Child Abuse has lifetime impacts.  I wish someone would have stopped it that night.  It was a busy apartment complex.  I wish someone would have called someone and spoke for me.  If you know that a child is being abused (physically, emotionally, sexually) and you do nothing - please remember this and : and The Bright Side is Suicide.

If you need help or need to report abuse, please visit one of the links below.

Rainn

Report child abuse

Child Abuse Prevention Month 2015

1 (800) 273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline