My earliest memory of being beaten is from my father. I was around 11 years old. That also happens to be one of my earliest memories of my life. My father used to get mad at me, chase me all over the house to hit me with his belt. I will admit I was a trouble child. Not many kids could live with mental abuse from one parent and not be a trouble child. My mom drank very heavily. She would lose control and call me foul names, and degrade me. She never did it in front of others. I will give her credit for that. I can still smell the stink of moonshine as I cleaned up her vomit from the floor as my mom and dad slept. My dad never did drink. I guess you could say I got tired of it so I acted up. I would yell, scream, and break things. Then my dad would step in. My dad's form of punishment was at the end of a belt. I would be so embarrassed to go to school with all the bruises. I would be in gym class and there was no way they couldn't be seen. All the other kids would giggle and point at me. The teachers just ignored me. Back then they weren't obligated to report abuse.
I don't know when the abuse from both parents started. I can't remember but small bits and pieces before my eleventh birthday. But I do remember how mom would call me names when she was drunk and how dad would get mad and swing his belt at me like a mad man. It's funny but I don't even remember my other family members before then either. My brothers were never younger than eight years old and my other family members one day were just there. I might remember a family vacation briefly before then but not enough to tell about the experience. I just in the past year or so started caring for them like they are family.
Before I never really knew how I was supposed to care. No one in my parents home really cared about each other. I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. I was distant and withdrawn. But mostly I was afraid of them all. I thought they had to know what was going on and it was okay.
For years my mom screwed around on my dad. I knew it was happening, I don't remember when or how I knew but I knew. When I was eleven my mom took me with her to meet him. After that she took me every time. I was a good excuse for dad. He didn't think she'd take me if she was cheating. Her and her boyfriend used to buy me a bottle of wine and they would leave me alone in his trailer while they went into the bedroom and took care of business. This went on for years.
I do remember one time when I was about fifteen my mom got an abortion, she was pregnant by her boyfriend and not my dad, and I was supposed to get the mail and hide the bill from my dad. Well the bill came addressed to my dad so I didn't get it. Boy did I get it after that. My mom and my aunt were furious with me. I remember thinking, how was I suppose to know? I'm only a kid, why did I have to do it? I never understood how they could blame me.
I only remember bits and pieces until I turned 18. Mom and dad divorced soon after that. In a way I was glad they did, not for the reason everyone thought though. I was glad for my dad. He was a good man even though he hit me. Mom caused a lot of it. I think now that he was so mad at her and I the one that was always there for her and not him that he would explode on me. But I blamed him for not seeing what she was doing to me and for allowing it to happen. After all, she was always drunk, he was the one that was sober and should have seen it.
I married 4 days after I turned 18 and moved out of my parents' home. I of course married a worthless bum that didn't want to work and support me. I was pregnant one month after I married. Things went on like that. We lived with his parents and I did what I could to raise money. Then when my daughter was 8 months old I left him, moved back in with my mother and divorced him.
Things were okay for awhile. I met and started dating what would soon be my second husband. Mom still drank heavy and still degraded me every chance she got. I suppose I was her co-dependant. After I married my second husband things were perfect. We didn't have a lot of money but we were very happy. Then I got pregnant with my second child. I was about maybe 5 months pregnant when my husband's ex-wife took off with their son and fled to another state. She had heard we were going to take her to court to get custody because her boyfriend beat their son.
After that my husband was never the same. He started drinking very heavily, seeing other women, and treating me like shit. I was under my mom's degradation again, only this time it came from his mouth not hers. I started losing bits of my memory again I guess to protect myself. I don't remember a lot of the beatings but there were a lot of them. I use to cower in a corner as he kicked me trying to protect my stomach so I wouldn't loose my baby. He would punch, kick, pour beer over me and tell me how worthless I was and that no one would want me. I believed him for many years.
I guess I was lucky in that I never lost a child from the beatings or that he never broke anything. I never had to go to an emergency room and I wouldn't have. Who would believe me? I couldn't leave him, how could I make it on my own with 2 children? Who would ever want me? I was too scared to even try. He always told me I could never run or hide far enough to escape him. I believed him.
The beatings went on until our son was a year old. He moved to Arizona and I moved in with mom until I got on HUD and AFDC. I had started dating someone and found out I was about two months pregnant when my husband started calling me from Arizona. He wanted me to come out there and live. One day after I had told him I was pregnant he started yelling and screaming at me. I was so scared and upset. He was 3000 miles away and I was still scared. I miscarried that night.
He finally talked me into moving. I got onto a plane and lived there for several months. We stayed with his mom and stepdad. She and I didn't get along. He started to take us to a shelter to live while he stayed with his mom and found us a place to live. Well, we didn't stay, we got a motel room and the next day he rented us a place to live. I stayed there for several more months and the beatings kept on. I finally asked my dad to get me and the kids a plane ticket home.
He did and I was back again under my moms' control and mental abuse. My husband moved back a couple of months after that and I was back with him after he laid the sweet talk on heavily. In 1984 I was pregnant with my third child. I kept telling him I was pregnant and needed to see a doctor. He told me I was crazy, that I wasn't pregnant and only wanted to be pregnant. Even when he felt the baby move, he didn't believe me. He never let me see a doctor.
Several months before I was due I received a certified letter where he filed for a divorce in which it said I was not pregnant. I confronted him about it. He said he would drop the divorce. I believed him. Two months later he packed up and moved to Arizona. Three days after that I got the divorce papers in the mail. Two days after that I was back at mom's.
I finally got to go to a doctor. The one I saw at the emergency room when I started bleeding severely. I was placed on strict bed rest. I went to the ER several more times after that because of bleeding. Finally my doctor placed me in the hospital, told me he wanted to keep me there about two weeks, then do a c-section. My youngest son was born in October. He weighed five pounds when he was born. Four days later I took him home weighing only four pounds four ounces. He was so tiny.
One month after he was born his father came back and talked me into getting back together with him. Hell began again for another two years. I finally got the courage to leave him again. The beatings from him went on every week for a total in all of six years. I was one messed up lady. During this whole time my mother never let up. I think I was called everything but a black person. Can you imagine being eleven years old and hearing your mom call you a slut, whore, lazy, when you didn't even know what some of the words meant? I remember that during some of this time my mother worked at a fast food restaurant and they would call late at night because mom would be passed out and I would have to come and get her. So I would get her, take her home and put her to bed. While she screamed obscenities at me of course.
After I left my husband I went back to mom's and into hell again. I started drinking heavily. I married my third husband who drank a lot and later I found out he was into cocaine really bad. That went on for a few months. I left him and turned custody over to the two youngest ones' father and my daughter to my mother. Stupid move huh? But I didn't know what else to do. I joined the navy. I stayed in for four years and two months. I paid child support, saw the world and I learned that I was a good person. I learned how to take care of myself and others. I learned to stop drinking, to stop crying, and to stop being afraid. Most of all I learned to love, to love myself and others.
When I had two months left to get out I sweet talked the boys' dad into taking me back. I knew I wanted to get custody back and I would have to show the courts I could care for them. My mother had stopped drinking and was taking good care of my daughter and she decided she wanted to live with her father for a while and get to know him. I lived with him for a little over a year.
I got into college and was doing very well with my classes. The hell started right after I moved in. After about a year and a half I left him. I stayed in a motel with my sons for two nights, found us an apartment, and stayed in school. We lived there for two years before I moved out of state. I took him to court and got joint custody. My oldest son decided to stay with his dad and he had so much anger built up I couldn't control him. My youngest son and I have been together away from his dad for over four years now. He's happy and doing good in school. It took over a year of therapy for him to get where he's at now but it was worth it. I haven't regretted a day since.
This is only a very brief idea of what I went through. Most of my life is lost locked away somewhere in my head. I remember only short bursts of things before the age of eleven. My family members as far as I know didn't exist before then. They were only stories or pictures I had seen at one time or another. I think that's where some of my memories do come from: pictures I've seen and stories I've been told. After the age of eleven I only remember bits and pieces of my life. Once in awhile something will pop into my head or someone will talk about something I'll remember, but mostly I just smile and when they ask me if I remember I just say, I'm not sure or I don't know.
Only two members of my family know small bits and pieces of how my life was growing up. How can I tell them what I don't even know? I've had therapy and my counselor feels that it's better to let sleeping dogs lie along with my lost memories as long as I am happy and healthy with my life now. I agree to a point but I still wonder what I lost, bad or good. Sometimes I feel I would like to know what happened to make me lose those memories. She feels it would cause more harm than good. So I keep what I do remember to myself and go on with my life. It isn't the greatest life and I'm not wealthy but I am happy and I guess that's all that counts. Maybe one day I'll get my memories back or maybe I won't but I'm not going to dwell on it. I will go on and I will live a good life.
I miss my mom. She past away in February of 2000. The past four years we had grown very close. She was so giving even when I didn't want her to be. We could talk for hours. She had finally become the mother I had always hoped she would be when I was a young girl. I forgave my dad about three years ago and we are slowly working on getting close. I will admit he still scares me and I'm afraid to really talk to him. He apologized for not realizing what I went through. He still doesn't really know what I did go through. How could he? I don't remember a lot either.
I wrote this so that maybe another woman or child may read this. If I can get just one other person out of the hell of abuse it's worth it. Women need to know they can go on, they can live their lives without a man in it that beats them. Each child should know they don't have to go through what I did. They are special and shouldn't be beaten or called names all their lives. You don't have to live with abuse. When I went through it they didn't have shelters, the police couldn't do anything when a child called them because they were being beaten. Believe me I know I tried. I called the police on my parents at least twice but they didn't see it or others didn't see it so they could do nothing. They wouldn't even make the drive to make sure I was all right.
This isn't by far everything that happened to me and I remember a little more than I'm telling now but this is what is important. I just gave you a summary of things I remember. Don't live this way. Get out, get help, get strong!
This story was taken from Domestic Violence Personal Stories
http://www.mental-health-today.com/ptsd/domestic/stories.htm
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