Child Abuse Story From Amanda
by Amanda
(Flagstaff, Arizona, USA)
My Memories:
I am now 24 and probably realized for the first time that my childhood was different when I looked back to the earliest memory I had of my childhood.
My earliest memory explains a lot. I was about 4 years old and was living in Minnesota....my older sister and I were sleeping in our room and I remember hearing the door open, two people came in and didn't say anything or even turn the lights off. They didn't have to I guess because I knew it was my parents. I was on the lower bunk so they went for me first I had not comprehended what was going on but I do remember getting hit that first time, the pain of the belt buckle hitting my back is something I will never forget. All I could do was cry and scream "What?" over and over again. At this time my sister had woken up but my dad was standing by the ladder for the top bunk so she couldn't run and get away. She was screaming hysterically. When they were finished with me, it was her turn. She had pressed herself against the back wall so it would be harder to hit her. My parents tried to grab for her and pull her closer, and while doing that they would let the belt buckle whip around to try to strike any possible part of her. She would kick at them but was only able to fend them off for so long. I didn't do anything to help her. All I could do was lay in my bed and sob, trying to not make any noise thinking they would forget I was there.....I hated myself for a long time for that
That night was never spoken about again...to this day I don't know what we did, but that was unfortunately just the first in what would become a terrifying routine in my life. It was always my mother, I am convinced my father was always too scared to stand up to her so he would either hold us down or just sit in the other room and ignore us. I distinctly remember a time when my mother was beating me because I hadn't done a good enough job with my chores. She had me on the ground and was beating me with her fists, then she ripped off all of my clothes and made me redo my chores naked in front of my father....I was in the 6th grade. I remember looking at him hoping he would help me but nothing was ever done.
I always believed my mother suffered from OCD or something like that....everything always needed to be perfect and she would freak out if it wasn't. Ever since an early age my sister and I would do chores around the house my mother was raised that way where the kids did the work so that is how she raised us. I know we tried but being in the second grade and having the responsibility of mopping, vacuuming, doing dishes and cooking meals was hard to live up to. Those were usually the reasons we would be beaten, nothing was ever good enough. I remember having to wake up at five in the morning and get my parents breakfast ready and making sure that we made their lunch the night before. We would make their coffee put it in the thermos, and get all of their things ready and laid out on the dining table so my parents could grab them on their way out the door. We would then go and make my parents bed, collect their laundry and start some wash, we would then have to get ourselves and our little brother ready for school. We had a list of chores we had to accomplish before we left for school and then my brother would get the bus for elementary school and my sister and I would start our walk to middle school around 7:30. That was our daily routine.
On good days we would get home, do homework, finish chores, and get dinner ready before our parents came home.....but we had only few good days. On the walk home from school we would turn a corner and you could see our house down the street about 5 houses down. Our world would crumble when we would see my mom's car in the driveway. We would stop walking and freeze in horror because we knew she would not be in a good mood. The walk up to our house would heighten the pains in our stomach and any joy and happiness we had from that day would be gone. Walking into the house we would see piles on the house made up of things that were not cleaned or put away properly. Our rooms would be trashed, homework would be ripped up, dolls or items we had kept were usually destroyed.
We would be yelled at and told we were stupid, worthless, lazy, and ungrateful. She would threaten to take our animal and gut them in the backyard with a kitchen knife because we were too irresponsible. I particularly remember one day I was getting ready for school and it was my job to empty the container from my little brother toilet trainer in my parents bathroom. I had forgotten to do it that morning. My mother began to scream at me and had trapped me in the corner of the bathroom and poured the container of my brother urine over my head and would not let me shower or change before school. She had also tried to drown my once by holding my head in a bucket filled with pine sol and water because I was not scrubbing the kitchen floor well enough. I think she made sure to do stuff like that just with me because I had always had a fear of water growing up and this was the best way to teach me a lesson. When I was about 15 she had kicked me out of the house for the night but I had nowhere to go so I sat on the front porch and she would walk past me and call me names and threaten me and say I was trespassing and she would chase me away with a knife but I would always come back, I was too stupid and scared of what would happen to me if I ever tried to get actual help. The night would usually end with me pleading to stay in the house begging them and saying I would be good from now on. One night she said that they wanted to drop me off in a foster home so I they would finally be rid of me. I begged them to let me go and find people who wouldn't hurt me and would help me and that I could find people to love me, My moms response was one that defined my childhood....she looked right at me and said that no one would want me to I had to stay with them because it was the only choice.
I had opportunities to tell teachers, friends, doctors and police, but I never did. I was always scared of what life would be like without my mom, of what would happen because no one would want me. When I had gotten older I had started standing up for my self, she would yell and threaten to hit me and I would beg her to hit me so I would have a reason to hit her back. I could never get the strength of my own to just hit her with what I felt was no cause. I could never hit someone for no reason. A lot of anger built up inside of my that I still deal with today and I take it out on myself I punch brick walls non stop and only quit when I cant feel my hands anymore because they are so swollen. I know it's her I should be mad at and hate, but all I can do is hurt myself. The beatings finally ended when I moved 4 hours away for college. At that point I guess my mom had started getting help and talking to someone but I had never known she was seeing someone for her problem. One day she came to me crying, asking me to forgive her and I sad yes and let her hug me knowing that I could never forgive her but I didn't want to hurt her.
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