This blog is about me and my life as an ArmyWifeToddlerMommy. That’s all each of you really know about me except the few people that read my nlog and know me personally. Today I have decided to let you a little more into my personal life and who I really am and how my life growing up shaped me into the person I am today.
Growing up my mom and dad faught, a lot. I would wake up hearing it, go to bed hearing it, and many times get sent to my room because of the fighting. My dad who I don’t refer to as dad is a very big 6″ 300lb man. Very strong and very angry. I never understood why he was so angry. He took his anger out on everyone that was around him. I watched him throw things at my mom, get in her face and scream at her, push her up against walls, and hit her.
When I was 12 years old my mom left. I guess she had all she could take. I don’t much blame her. After all she had been through with this man I would have left too. But what really got to me and broke me; she left her kids with this man. Knowing how he was and the anger that was within him. He began beating us kids. I guess this was a stress relief to him. I really don’t know. I didn’t hear from my mom for months. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive. I never really understood anything going on around me. I would pray that God would take good care of her wherever it was she may be and pray that he would bring her back home to me. I would try my hardest to be strong for my little brother and sister, I knew I was their only hope. I stood by them while they cried, looking for words to comfort them. There were no words. I knew exactly what they felt. They don’t know I ever cried because I wouldn’t cry in front of them. At 12 years old I took on more responsibility than most adults I knew. I had to make sure my little brother was bathed. I had to get both my brother and sister ready for bed. I was responsible for the cooking and cleaning. I was responsible for getting up early of the mornings, making breakfast, getting everyone ready for school, and getting everyone on the bus. You would think my dad would have took on this responsibility seeing how he was the adult in the house and our dad. Instead he stayed locked up in his bedroom, watching porn, and drinking moonshine. I resented my parents. I absolutely hated them. I didn’t understand why they could act in such manner. I had to become mom to my brother and sister. My dad quit his job and lived off of my mothers child support and food stamps. There were many nights the only thing in the house to eat were Ramon noodles and crackers, now you know why I can’t stand either. We couldn’t wait to go to school just so we had something else to eat.
At 13 my mother began calling and coming around. We would stay with her every other weekend. My dad hated it and soon put a stop to it. He didn’t want us to have anything to do with her. He recorded phone calls and would listen to each of them just to see what we had talked about. He began filling us lies so we would hate my mother and not speak with her.
Things remained this way until I was 15. I will not say they got better because they didn’t. I had to get a full time job to help raise my brother and sister. I worked at a local Little Caesar’s. I would go to school and then go to work. I often worked on weekends so I knew I would have money to pay whatever bill was due. My dad still didn’t have a job. I was doing it on my own. I got use to it eventually. Buying things everyone needed, buying Christmas for my brother and sister, along with birthday gifts and other holiday gifts. I often played “tooth fairy” for my little brother. All the financial responsibility became my responsibility.
The week before my 16th birthday we got an eviction notice. I was horrified. I didn’t know what to do. We were fixin to be homeless. My dad informed me that he had been talking to a woman on the internet and we were moving 5 hours away to live with her. I couldn’t stand the fact I had to leave all my friends to live with him and this woman 5 hours from home! We began loading everything on a U Haul a couple days later. We got the last little bit on the truck the day of my birthday. We were off to Wytheville. I have to say that was by far the worst birthday ever.
When we got there my dad went straight to her bedroom. My brother, sister, and I sat in the living room of this strange womans house. Soon they told us that we had to clean the house and start unloading the U Haul. This was the first time we have ever stepped foot in this house and met this woman along with her 3 children. Why was it our job to clean house? Soon we realized her children were hellions and she was just like my dad. She lived off of her ex husbands child support and food stamps. She was lazy. She never cleaned house, she let her children run free, and she stayed locked in her bedroom smoking pot and watching porn. No wonder her and my dad got along so well. They had so much in common. My sister and I cleaned the whole house, unloaded the truck, and put everything where it belonged. Even my dads stuff.
Soon I moved in with my mom. It took getting beat to convince the judge that my mother was more of a parent than my father. My sister had met friends, got on drugs, and was running free along with my dads girlfriends children. She decided she didn’t want to go to our mothers. She didn’t want the discipline she would receive living at my mothers house. After several months of her living with my father she began hating it. My mother picked up my brother one weekend and he had been beat because he smoked a cigarette. My mom then called social services and got custody of both my brother and sister. My father couldn’t stand the fact we lived with our mother and lost contact with each of us.
Its taken a lot for my mother to be able to discipline each of us after all we had been through. Afraid we may hate her for it. She became a little more firm and her and my step father has helped us get on the right paths to where we need to go. Its taken a lot from both of them and a lot of patients but they have done a great job.
My father went to jail in 2009 for child neglect, child abuse, animal cruelty, and many more charges. While he was in jail he wrote each of us many letters of apology and begging for forgiveness. We forgave him through many letters. He said he had finally found God and when he got out of jail he was going to start going to church and spend more time with his family and change his ways. He got out of jail on good behavior in May. I had hope he had changed. He hadn’t. All the promises were lies. I haven’t spoke to my father on good terms since I moved out in June 2006 other than when he was in jail. I have sent him several emails asking him why he told us so many lies. I received emails full of hatred and mental abuse. He told me he hated me and that he was not my father he was not my dad and not to refer to him as either. I now refer to him as my ungrateful sperm donor. Its taken a lot to be nice to him after all the things he has put me through over the years and the hurtful things he has said to me but I continued to try until I received the last email. Now I just grit my teeth and smile when I hear someone talk about him.
Child abuse is not a joke. It really messes with someones mind and shapes them into the person they will become as an adult. I was lucky to get out of it. Some are not so lucky. If you or someone you know is a victim of child abuse speak out. Don’t take it, don’t let them take it. There is help out there.
Child Abuse Hotline – 1-800-4-A-Child
1-800-4-1-14453
The hotline is open 24/7 and is open to all of the United States and Canada. They can provide assistance in 170 languages. All calls are anonymous and confidential.
ArmyWifeToddlerMommy
