Growing up I only had one parent, my mother. She used to be my best friend, but I know she missed the feeling of someone holding her and telling her she was beautiful. My mother was never really the same after my father left us, she started drinking to help her feel better over everything I figured it was her way to escape reality. She started dating and I hated it because I felt like my best friend was being taken from me. I was terrified that I was going to be forgotten. I made it a habit to drive all her boyfriends away because I was terrified of being forgotten. I would behave like horrible and make their lives more difficult.  I even though I was far from a bad kid, I made sure to be perceived as one.

Then one day she met this guy who wouldn’t leave no matter what I did. My world started to crash around me and all I could do was stand back and watch it all happen. My poor behavior and little outburst did nothing with this new guy in her life. Instead it all came back to bite me in the ass, her new boyfriend was my babysitter when I would get out of school and when she was out at work. I quickly learned that I was no longer messing with just a guy who couldn’t handle kids, but a guy that was used to kids behaving poorly, seeing as he was a bad ass himself and had no problem correcting them. I had to learn to protect myself; I had to learn how to be invisible. I hated my life. I hated my mother. I hated her boyfriend. I wanted to run away. At least once a day my arm would get bent backwards and get pulled up almost to the point of having my shoulder dislocated, or with a little more pressure and my arm would have cracked. My wrist would get pulled and twisted, and I knew better then to squirm and fight him off because if I did my wrist would have snapped like a twig. On other days when he didn’t feel like putting too much energy in snatching me up he would casually walk over to me and sit on my stomach and cover my face with a pillow. I would scream and kick, trying to fight for the ability to breathe I was too little and weak… He was bigger, stronger, what felt like forever was a matter of seconds and just when I would start to feel a heaviness of my last few seconds of grasping for some type of air he would uncover my face and allow me to breathe. He would beat me with belts, his hands, left me covered in bruises up and down my thighs, arms, sides of my waist, my back, even behind my neck where he would tighten his grip to whisper how I was worthless in my ear and tell me no one loved me. That I was alone… and served nothing, but a memory of the man who used to once love my mother. He punched me one day and knocked out my back tooth and claimed he was only playing around with me, but that I moved when he swung and it was only to be a joke nothing serious… told me and my mother that I was to blame for my tooth being knocked out.

I dealt with this for years and everyday I never forgot to mention to my mother how much I hated her boyfriend. She never did question why she just figured I didn’t want to see her happy. It only got worse because he was no longer just physically, mentally and emotionally abusing, but sexually molesting me up until I was almost nine. I can remember him holding me down and scraping the back of my neck with car keys and credit cards to make the hickeys he would leave me disappear. As I cried and pleaded for him to stop, he would always tell me he couldn’t stop because he couldn’t let anyone see these. I finally broke down one night an told my mother, she called police, but right before the phone call was made he grabbed me an told my mother he would kill me, chop me up and bury my body so no one would ever find me. I could tell looking at my mother that she was hurt by the way he was acting, but I could also tell she was terrified of being alone forever. He was arrested and put in jail where he was bailed out a couple days later and back in my house. My mom ended it though quickly.

     As for my mother she was upset and depressed. There’s not a day I don’t remember going to the liquor store with her since I was four, and I was her way to release anger. There were days I would sit around by myself in the bathroom until 5am crying asking God why he gave me this life, where no one loved me, where I felt so alone, where I honestly thought I would die before I was able to get out. I thought the worst was behind me or so I thought. I thought things could only get better from here on out and then… I met my father at nine. I saw my mother get physically, mentally and verbally abused. I always jumped in front of her to protect her from any thrown punches or slaps in her direction. From years of protecting myself already and teaching myself how to fight I quickly showed my father to stop thinking he could beat on her. He learned the day he chased me to beat me and I crushed his arm multiple times in between a door almost breaking his elbow. I was made to play messenger when they fought and heard the awful things my parents had to say to each other. I was nine and had to deal with my father’s family not liking me to much, I was innocent at nine and yet here was my aunt telling me I was a whore and a slut, telling me I wasn’t that beautiful and always giving me dirty looks. I had always been more or less confident with how I looked… I started to hate the way I looked, I hated the fact that I was related to any of these humans who had no knowing of love and affection who yearned and thrived off of anger and hatred.

 After my brothers were born it only got worse, my mother an me left with the boys to go back to have a “normal” life, I still struggled with everything that had happened and would have nightmares weekly. Wake up crying, shaking, screaming to look around only to see that I was safe. That soon stopped because I stopped sleeping mostly, her ex boyfriend was back. I was twelve and here was this man that sexually molested me, and physically abused me. Here he was back for more, always trying to touch me, always watching me, trying to get alone time with me. I started cutting myself; I started hating my life and everyone in it. I became overly depressed and started getting boyfriends. I tried to feel some type of love I wanted to feel protected. I was suicidal, but couldn’t bring myself to end my life. I couldn’t leave my brothers; they were my joy the reason that I’m still here. I never spoke about my problems, I pretended they didn’t exist I went about life pretending I had never gotten raped, pretending that all the cuts weren’t real, the scars from past abuse weren’t there, I acted happy and people believed it. Finally at fourteen I had a mental break down, because her ex was back. Back in my life, back trying to hurt me and control me. I had to put a stop to it, and I did I broke down in school. I broke down and told someone everything, EVERY SMALL DAMN DETAIL of what had happened to me. I was still cutting and still suicidal, I was extremely depressed and I didn’t think I would get any better. By fifteen I was dating older guys and I was looking for protection from someone, love from someone. What I got was raped. I got pregnant at fifteen and lost my child. I dealt with this pain for years and years, I stopped trying to hide how upset I was and let it take over me. I became this miserable, disconnected person. I stopped believing in love, I stopped thinking that happiness was real. I was giving up on life; I could no longer see any light at the end of the tunnel.

I finished high school with a 3.63 GPA and was ready to leave for college. I hated everyone and everything in my life. I wanted to be as far away possible from everyone and everything that had been in my life. Yet, I had a problem… I started drinking before I was even 12 and started smoking by the time I was 14, my problem only increased once I was in college. It was slowly destroying my life so I decided that it was time to move back home and start to get help once I got kicked out of my house. That was 2 years ago. It took a while, but I can say I’ve never been happier with my life. I get mad and I still have nightmares of my past, but that’s something that I’m still working on. I’m still working on being a happy person, but I’m getting there. My story isn’t a happy one and while there are still things I left out of it, it’s because they’re still wounds I can’t talk about. I’m not perfect, but neither are you. Everyone has different problems; everyone has different things to deal with. I thank God everyday I’m getting better at coping with the things that still bother me.