* Please be advised that some of the information in this post are graphic and disturbing and if you are squeamish, you may not want to read them. But know that they are all true. This will be one of several posts where I discuss the nature of abuse. I write this with the hope that someone who had a similar experience or worse, realizes that there are good people in the world and help is given to those who ask. You are not alone. Don't stay silent. Speak to someone who you trust and get help. If nothing happens, tell someone else. Tell as many people as it takes until you find the help you need.
Some things just need to be resolved and if we don't get things out in the open, they eat away at you and ruin the precious things you hold most dear. I have been holding a lot of resentment for someone and I need certain things to be brought out into the open. If I hold on to these hateful feelings any longer, they are going to eventually destroy my marriage to my beautiful wife and to my children. If my brothers and sisters ever read this, please know that I have no ill-will towards you and love you dearly.
I was abused as a child from the moment my new step-mom's 1st son was born, when I was seven, until the day I stood up to her and threatened to disappear off the face of the planet at age seventeen. When my first brother was born, I was so excited. I finally had a living relative that was my brother. Even if by blood he was only a half-brother, in my eyes back then (and still to this day), I saw all of my siblings as my true brothers and sister. But something happened after Brother #1 was born. My step-mom seemed to have lost her mind and see me as a threat now that her "new" son was part of the family. Immediately, she became more aggressive and assertive and time consumed everything I did.
Every task began to with a timer and if the task was not completed on time, punishments were doled out. Now, I can understand a parent trying to motivate their child to complete their chores, but for a 7 year old to clean the entire house from top to bottom is a bit excessive.
When my step-mom decided that new chores wasn't motivating me enough, she turned to her abusive behavior. At first, she started using wooden spoons and swatting me with them. When that didn't work, she coaxed me to hold my hands out in front of me by beating me over the head with a metal lined ruler. I was terrified! The thought of being hit over my hands brought tears to my eyes and I began crying before I was even hit, because I new the type of pain these wooden instruments brought to me before, but I had no idea just how badly they would hurt on my sensitive hands.
WHAAAAACK!!! The pain shot up from my fingers and registered in my brain almost instantly and as a natural reaction, my hands withdrew to clutch the afflicted fingers to my chest to nurse the pain away. I cried out in pain and shirked away, hoping making my self smaller would make myself less of a target.
"Put your hands back in front of you right now," she said as she hit my ear with the wooden tormentor. This was followed by another yelp from my mouth.
I put my hands out again, the pain filling my body with adrenaline. I flinched when I saw the spoon come hurling to my hands and watched it as it struck the table, snapping the evil instrument in half. I watched, unable to move, as my step-mom went to the counter and grabbed another wooden spoon from the mug on the counter where kitchen ladles and stirring devices were kept.
She rushed back and towered over my tiny frame, glaring at me in a spiteful manner. "Put your hands out again, you retard," she yelled, waiting impatiently for my hands to slowly inch forward and then whacked them again, even harder.
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This became our new routine. A task given with an unreasonable time frame for completion. Abuse, taunts and slander pronounced at how slow I was. At how stupid I was. At how retarded I was. I'm such an idiot. I was never going to amount to anything and if she had any say in it, she hoped I would rot in Hell.
I dreaded teachers who gave homework because that meant the timer and more abuse, so I began to hide it. In the third grade, my blue coat with the fuzzy liner had a hole in the pocket that became wide enough for me to stuff all of my homework assignments into the coat itself. My grades began slipping because of it and I knew I'd be beaten some more, but I didn't care. That was a far off date and if it kept me from being beaten today, that was all that mattered.
My already skinny body looked emaciated because I was unable to eat the food on my plate before the timer went off. No one else in the family had a timer, why should I? I shouldn't worry about that, because I'm retarded.
At night, I would go to bed, hungry and in pain. I would pray to God and my deceased mother and demand to know why I was being hurt so much. Why did I have to have these pains in my stomach all the time? Almost every night for ten long years, I prayed that God would end my life and let me be with my mother again, so I would be safe and free from the pain. I shouted and told him I hated him for allowing these abuses to continue.
To be continued....
