I didn't have the best child hood growing up, you can pretty much say I raised myself along with my siblings. My father went to jail when I was 4. Though the amount of time he spent there didn't fit the crime. My mother suffered from major depression. Because of her depression she drank....a lot! She wasn't a good drunk either. She had a way of telling my siblings and I just how she really felt about us and seemed to get joy out of hitting us which she did everyday. Out of 5 children I'm the baby. Even though I was the baby I was more like the mom. I helped with homework, cooked, cleaned, and even took care of my mother when she was too intoxicated to take care of herself.
I never had a stable home. We were always moving around because my mother couldn't keep up with the bills. Just before my 8th birthday, we were all placed in foster homes. As scary as it was a part of me was glad that we had gotten take away. Maybe things would be different, maybe now I can be apart of a family who loved me....that was short lived.
My sister and I were placed in one home while my brother was sent somewhere else. We lived there for almost a year when we were placed in a home all together. (Some of you maybe counting the children and asking where the other two are, they had passed before I was born). The foster home we were placed in was horrible! She abused us and made us entertain her dog who was bigger than I was at the time. I remember being kicked down the stairs because I wasn't taking the laundry down fast enough. I cried so may nights not understanding why a person could be so hateful. How could this person take in children from a bad situation and place them into another bad situation? I'll never understand...
Right after my 9th birthday, we were sent back into my mothers custody. She was living with a man who at the time seemed to be a pretty nice guy. She too seemed to have changed and I felt so relieved. Maybe this time away from us made her see what was really important in her life.....that too was short lived. He was a worse drunk than she was and was even more abusive to her than the other guys she brought into her life. Why she married him....I'll never understand....
I feared my mother for years. I wouldn't dare stand up to her or tell her how I really felt about the situations she would put us into. I feared her so much that to this day she still doesn't know I was raped as a child by two of our neighbors. No one really knew and that made me feel alone.
When I was 12, I started to suffer from major depression. As a way to get that depression out I would self mutilate. I wanted to scream out to the world and tell them what was going on but lost all faith in anyone. My family had already failed me,the system had failed me, and I was too ashamed to tell my friends. By this time I had become really good at hiding how I really felt, at hiding this deep dark secret from the world. Though through this, a part of me started to change. Sometime after I found a voice and my mother did not like it. I was tired of being hit, I was tired of being told how much she hated me and wished I was dead. Even though I prayed every night that would come true it made me so angry to hear it coming from her mouth. I started telling my mother just how I felt and that of course never made the situation any better but it felt good to finally let it out. All those years of it eating at me and to say how I really felt....as bad as it probably sounds....it felt GREAT!
When I was 15, I ran away from home. The summer I ran away my uncle had made me stay with him and was trying to make me live there permanently. He was always touching me and every time I told him to stop it only made him more angry. There was no way I was going to continue letting someone do this to me. I knew I had to leave.
The self mutilating never stopped but I did it less. Even though I was away from my "family," I still was so depressed. I cried myself to sleep almost every night I was away and every night I prayed that it would be my last and that tomorrow would not come. Not because of anyone else, but because of what I was still fighting with within myself.
A few months before my 18th birthday, I tried to hang myself with a cable cord. I remember standing on the chair holding that cord feeling so terrified but a sense of relief at the same time. This was going to be the day I would stop hurting. I grabbed the rope, placed it around my neck and closed my eyes. As I stepped off the chair it fell back and that was it. That is until the cable cord didn't hold and came loose. I fell to the ground and cried for what seemed like a life time. I prayed and told God, you win....you win. I packed up my stuff and headed back to the place that use to be my home.
When I returned home, I was placed into custody and sent to the local DCFS (Department of Child and Family Services) office. My mother and grandmother came up there shortly to meet with me and lets just say, it wasn't a welcome home visit. I was once again placed back into foster care and was placed in the girls' home. That's where my life started to change.
In the girls' home, I was surrounded by other girls who had been through similar situations as mine and for the first time in my life I didn't feel alone anymore. I was able to speak out about what had happened to me and not feel ashamed or think I did anything wrong to create it. I no longer felt broken. While I was there, I got my GED and finished the program. From there I was able to move on with my life knowing I was a different person. I was me but a stronger me. I found an understanding, I guess you can say with who I was and who I saw myself being.
After a year in the girls' home, I moved out and lived with a friend and her family who are now my family. I am very blessed to have them in my life. My mother passed away March 4th 2010, and my grandmother just 5 months later. It hit me hard when my mother passed. I felt sadness and so much anger towards her. I guess a part of me always hoped she would change but some things in life can't be changed. You can only move forward and that's what I continue to do with my life.
What I do understand is I am not my mother. I also understand I am not any of the abusers who have come and gone in my life. What I am doing is ending that cycle with her. What I have gone through in my life has helped me reach out to others and relate to them. Help them in the same way I was once helped. Because of what I went through, I know what a real mother isn't and I try every day to never become her. I know a part of her will always live in me but I refuse to ever let it affect me or my children.
I'm not sure why I'm sharing this with you. I have never been one to open up like this and let people in, but I hope that maybe if you are fighting a demon inside of you, you'll know that you are not alone and it does get better from here. Don't give up on yourself. Don't be afraid to speak up and say something.
It only takes one action, one voice to change the world.
