A mothers way of coping. Alcohol.

Being a single mother of three girls she had more hurdles than she could handle. 

My mother worked three jobs to make ends meet. When she wasn’t working she was drinking. She blamed it on a lot of things. Our father who left. Our family pressuring her to give us up. The fact that she failed us several times when we were young. No matter what excuse she used everyone knew she had a disease. 

You know those crazy stories you hear about the things drunks do. Well my mother was at the top of those lists in our home town. When I was a baby she had fallen asleep with a cigarette in her hand and burnt down our apartment. Apparently she crawled into a closet and the fire department thought that us children had been abandoned but after rescuing us they found her passed out inside of a closet. She thought she was crawling out of the house but was too intoxicated to realize what she was doing.  We were often taken by family members to give my mom a break but we always went back home.

 Her parents tried to convince her that we would all be better off if she gave us up for adoption. They had wealthy friends who didn’t have children and could give us a really good life. My mother wouldn’t have it. At one time she fought for us. Looking back I don’t know why.

We were neglected. Abuse. She didn’t know how to care for us. Give us the affection we deserved. We were spanked daily. Yelled at. Put down. CYS was called often. People thought we were underfed. They thought her screaming and spanking in public was out of control. Over the years it just got worse. 

We were left home with babysitters over the years. One pulled out our bed slats to spank us with. One would torture me because I was a crier. She would make me go to bed hours before my sisters. She would call me out to the living room and then scream at me for being out of bed. If I would stay in my room when she called for me to come out to the living room she would curse at me and say if I didn’t get my ass in there she was gonna beat the f*ck out of me. So I would again come out and she would scream at me to go back to my room. 

One sitter also liked to torture me. She would make me wear the most rediculous things and go out into public. Once she took us to the park and made me wear this hideous coat that I knew everyone would make fun of. She told me that I couldn’t play because I fought her on the coat. So I sat while I watched my sisters play. Later she said I could play but I had to take the coat off. While playing a boy pushed me down into a mud puddle. I was soaked. She just laughed and laughed. A young girl took me to her house across the street from the park and dried me off. I didn’t know her. I was lucky she was just a nice person helping a child. This sitter also kicked me. We would be walking down the street and we would come to a cross walk. If I didn’t stop she would kick me in the back side. If I stopped in front of her for any reason she would kick me.

One sitter had an abusive partner who became physical with her while she was watching us. We had to run to the bar that our mother was at to get help. Not long after that incident she was killed in what was ruled as a accidental fall down her stairs.

Once we were old enough to care for ourselves we never saw her. We would go to the food bank and get our food for the week. We would carry garbage bags full of dirty laundry to the laundry mat. We were kids running a household. She always struggled to pay bills because she was too busy drinking to care. 

Alcohol made her angry. When she would come home she needed to sleep. If we woke her up she would hit us, kick us or throw things at us. She threw a large ashtray at my head…kicked a chair my sister was seated in…and slap our faces if we talked too loud. I was afraid of her. She told us we ruined her life. She said she never wanted us. She said she hated us. As teens we told her to choose. Choose alcohol or us. And she couldn’t make the choice…she made her choices…the wrong ones…

She didn’t protect me. (Trigger warning R word)

My mother blamed herself for the early molestation. When I was little she told me how to protect myself. If a man or woman touched me and It made me feel uncomfortable I was told to kick them between the legs. We spent most of our days going to work with my mother. We would see customers and even called some family. Like there’s uncle such and such though they never were. 

One day a man was complimenting how pretty I was. He kept brushing my hair off of my cheek and twirling it behind my ear. He had his hand on my shoulder and when his fingers slipped inside of the collar I panicked. I kicked him as hard as I could between the legs and he dropped like a ton of bricks. 

When my mother found me I was huddled in the corner booth rocking. I would rock and rock because it made eveything else go away. He was cursing and yelling. He said a little girl as pretty as me is just begging for attention. He said I enticed him. Because I smiled. He took that as an inviting cue to go further. 

What is it with small towns in the middle of nowhere…are men breed to touch children? I was seven. I was punished. When I went to school his girls bullied me. They called me names that I couldn’t even comprehend at that age. They called me a tramp and a slut and a whore. All I knew was that their father touched my nipple and even though I was undeveloped and a child I knew it was wrong. So then why was an adults word taken over my own…because no one asked me. Again.

Good touch vs. Bad touch (Trigger warning R word)

http://www.victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-abuse/child-sexual-abuse-statistics

Did you know that nearly half of those children molested in return molest later. After the initial abuse I was molested by my own sister who was also abused. 

I remember feeling left out. When my sisters would have sleepovers in my big sisters room. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I begged to have a sleep over too. As we lay in bed trying to sleep I felt her hand slip between my thighs. As she began to stimulate me she then took my hand and placed it on her own privates. And as a small child I knew I liked the way it felt when I would orgasm but I hated the return stimulation. I would pretend to sleep while she used my hand to masturbate with. We would never talk about it. We just did it and went to sleep. After a few of these sleepovers I started to feel ashamed. 

My mother had the good touch bad touch talk with us. We knew that masturbation was wrong but it felt good. So why was it wrong? It was wrong because I was 6. At 6 years old I had orgasmed more than 1000 times. I could orgasm in under a minute with just a little touching. I even found myself masturbating during class…no one knew I was doing it I just put my hand between my legs and grind into my wrist. 

If your actually reading this I can imagine what you must be thinking. This person is probably in jail, a psych ward, or otherwise dysfunctional in society. The truth is that once I decided that it was wrong I never let it control me. I live a perfectly normal life with a normal family. The things that happened to me as a child make me a better person. I am a survivor. I hide these things from people because no one can understand because they didn’t experience it. 

When I was young I was a statistic. I was sexually active in my teens. And when I went to college I was raped. I thought that this boy really liked me. I wanted a normal relationship not just friends with benefits. He didn’t like hearing no. The louder I screamed it the more it excited him. Because of my sexual history no one would listen. I was one of those girls. A girl can’t be sexually active with another man and claim rape with another. I had casual sex the night before I was raped…so I was the girl who cried wolf.  Life seemed hopeless…but it was only just beginning.

Where did she go? When a child is molested… (Trigger warning R word)

That child so innocent…where did she go? 

Loony tunes was on the television and I hadn’t seen it before. I kept telling him that I liked Marvin the Martian. Please let me watch. But he forced his tongue into my mouth. It was dry and rough. He quickly pulled away when his mother entered the room to ask if I’d like some icecream. I was 5. Just starting kindergarten. This boy was 16. 

It had been two years since it all started. Started with the touching. The kissing. The mutual mastrubation. This is what I thought was “normal”. But one day he said was special. He described it like ripping off a bandaid. It hurts a little but you get used to it. He layed me down and put his finger in my backside. I vomited. And I cried. I cried for days. 

I felt so alone. I had no idea that both of my sisters were also being molested. When the boys came over after the weekend I told them I was sick. I was so scared that he would do it again. He said I would get better at it. I hated him. I hate him.

One day they stopped coming. I remember my mom yelling at my grandmother. She kept pleading. She swore she had no idea. When the boys raped my older sister my family finally listened. My mother…became a drunk after that…

I remember my mom shaking my sister. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why?” She simply replied “because I liked it until it hurt.” No one ever asked me if I had been touched or kissed or raped. But I was. I was 5…

I was molested. For years. (Trigger warning R word)

When it started I was three. I remember being told that I was beautiful. “Such a beautiful little girl”; Strangers would tell my mother and I would look up with the biggest smile on my face. Now as an adult I find my beauty a curse. Average women “usually” aren’t targeted. Average women…I tried so hard to be that average girl with this dark secret. Women with mystery are more attractive…except when that secret is physical, mental and sexual abuse. 

Why do families feel like it’s better to hide these things. To make the truth feel so shameful? Why would someone tell a child “if you weren’t so pretty this never would have happened.” Let me tell you, as a survivor I would kill anyone who ever touched my children inappropriately. Because I know first hand that molestation and rape STEAL away a child’s life… Their innocence. Those memories haunt them for the rest of their lives. They relive the abuse every day.