My Story

I want to tell my story mostly just to get it off my chest. I have spent the last 34 years trying to pretend I came from the perfect family. I thought if I created the illusion of perfection someday it and therefore, I would be perfect. I obviously was misguided, alone, and afraid. I have finally realized that I am not perfect nor will I ever be. However, I am happy with myself and my life. Frankly, that is all that matters. I was born on August 7, 1973 to two parents who had married out of high school because my mother became pregnant with my sister. I was the second child and about 4 years after my birth along came my little sister. We lived in a tiny trailer in a small rural community in central Oklahoma. My father was a long distance truck driver and my mom was a clerk in a government contract. The earliest memories I have of my father were disgusting at best. He was/is a child molester. He would touch my private areas with both his hands and mouth. He always tried to say I was special and everyone would be jealous of our relationship so we couldn’t tell anyone. (Thanks, dad for forcing me to have such a “special” relationship with you that it has taken me 34 years and thousands of dollars in therapy to begin to deal with it all.) I remember riding home in the front seat of his pick up after going to the skating rink and him slipping his hand down my pants to cop a feel. Or even the time he wanted to go outside and look at the stars and he laid me across the hood of his vehicle and ate me out. If he weren’t molesting me (I assume he did similar things to both my sisters but I do not know), he was beating my mom or bringing home his “friends” who were always young adult girls. He would sleep with these girls in our home. Strange yes. I endured the pain like a turtle escapes harm. I would just run away in my mind. I knew that no matter what happened, he or anyone else could/can not get into my head unless I allowed it. This from what I have read is the same way prisoners of war survive. Unfortunately, this technique can be of hindrance as an adult when dealing with persons in positions of power over you. I also learned the art of lying from my mother. She would write hot checks for clothes and dining out, pretending we had the money for such luxuries. She would lie to our neighbors and friends. She made us girls put on a happy face, pressured us to do well in school, and attend church regularly because we looked the normal family. Much of my childhood is a blur; thankfully, because I am sure I couldn’t deal with all the pain. I remember tidbits etched in my mind for all eternity. Even when my mom finally decided she’d had enough, I didn’t want our family to split. I thought we were normal and every other family was just like ours. If my parents divorced, we would be different. I wouldn’t have a dad and frankly the abuse was at the time easier to face than a class full of kids whose parents were all together but mine. In the end, lucky me, I got to face both a divorced family and a molesting father. Classmates can be so cruel. One day a classmate came to school and announced to the whole class that her mom had read in the paper that my parents were divorcing. Of course I lied and said her mother was wrong. Lying was the only way I could keep up the appearance. The lies were so much better than the truth. Even to this day I catch a glimpse of my overweight self in the mirror and I lie and say it is in the light or the clothes. Everyone from my father to my cousin to my brother in law had also let me down and treated me like my father had – using me for their sick pleasure not ever thinking of the enduring pain that I was and am trapped in. I didn’t know (and frankly still don’t) who if anyone I could trust. I have always felt that it was me against the world. Not to mention when it is just me I can create me own reality and I don’t even have to work at it. I can be whatever I can convince my mind I it is. Healing and overcoming are words I hear a lot when it comes to abuse. These words represent goals I wish I could achieve. However, I believe recovering is a better term. I don’t believe I will ever completely heal or overcome the past. I do believe that I recover a little more everyday. Everyday I don’t have to endure the actual abuse and every time I see the innocence in my children’s eyes knowing the abuse stopped with me I get more confident and recover bit by bit and day by day. Some days it seems like it wasn’t bad and I wonder if that is still myself lying. Yet other days, it feels like it is too much to bear. Why did I write my story down? Quite simply, because it is my story. Although, I am not proud of my past, I am who I am because of it. I am very proud of me. I am proud that the abuse stops with me. I am proud of the family and life I have helped create. I am sure the night mares, flashbacks and dysfunction will creep back every now and again. I will take comfort and shelter knowing that although I can’t change the past or cover it with lies, I can impact my future.