Child Abuse Story From Clara G
by Clara G
(Winterhaven, Florida, USA)
I live every moment with that childhood memory engraved in my soul!! It don't ever go away but I can deal with it now. I'm 44 and it took me until now to have the courage to write this so that everyone can know what I kept inside so long.
I was 3 months old when my mother ran off and got married to a man three times her age. He promised her the stars and she fell hook and sinker for his promises. I always knew him as Daddy. Daddy made promises and never kept one. See, before Mom married him, his third wife had shot him. Came one inch from taking his life, but it did take his left arm! Now he wore a hook made of steel that he used as an arm. He could control it very well! I know cause he used it on me.
I don't know exactly when he started but my earliest memories I was 6. He'd sneak in like the dark snuck in on day. He'd hold my neck with his hook just tight enough so I could breathe but not scream s he entered my very being. My pain was real. His smell was of booze and cigarettes. He'd use his hands at first and I'd have to play with him til he was satisfied, then I'd go clean myself up and he'd stand and watch to make sure I did it right then he'd make sure he hadn't left any bruises that you could see and he'd warn me shaking that hook of what could happen if I talked.
By the age of 8 he seemed to get worse. It was an every night thing. Mom had become a drunk along with him just so she didn't feel the beating any more. I always wondered if she didn't know or even want to know what was happening. Then as time went on he had a friend that offered him a home for me when I turned 15. He was happy. We lived rent free for at least a year. Mom always thought he was just being nice. I was happy because there for awhile he left me alone and his friend would bring food and goodies for me! I wasn't allowed to have sweets until then. His friend never tried anything. I didn't even think he knew. Then one night when they were drinking they started fighting because Dad had beat Mom up and so he got beat up and that just wasn't going to stay that way. Mom was put to bed with a couple of sleeping pills and that was that. I sat in my closet with all the clothes on me hoping that he was so drunk he couldn't see me. But his rage was bad, worse than I had ever seen. His finger entered with rage and he entered places that he had never entered. I gasped for air and he held me there with his hook getting tighter. I must have passed out because he was mad that I wasn't playing with him and started biting me all over. The pain was the worst and I could hardly walk to clean myself up so he slapped me hard. I felt dizzy but kept walking.
The next day, Mom had to leave early for a job interview and he got me out of bed and washed me, played again and warned me about our secret. Just Daddy and me knew that secret.
At 10 I became a young lady, and Mom told him so that she could have money to buy my personals. That was when things got worse. Mom and him drank. She got drunk and he would put sleeping pills in her drink and then come to my bed. I had a new bed, a canopy for Daddy's little princess. That's where Daddy really made me his. He crept in like the night creeps in but he took my soul. Now he was really raping me, not with fingers. He laid on me, breathing like a dog, smelling of booze and telling me that that was part of growing up.
Once I got brave and was running to Mom's room and he caught me and held a knife to her neck while she slept. How easy is it for me to end it now, first her then you. I promised never to try that again and he laid me on that bed again just because I was bad. I did tell one aunt and she confronted him. He was her drinking buddy so he said that I liked to lie and she opened a beer and they let it go.
The abuse was hard but for a 12-year-old to sit and wonder if she might be pregnant month after month by her dad. I washed every chance I could. I scrubbed myself til I bled. I'd hide at night but there was no hiding from that animal.
Somewhere along the way I lost my childhood and became Daddy's wife because that's normal, afraid to talk, scream, cry or be seen. I became the perfect child. I knew my time was running out because at 15 I had to marry his friend. He made that very clear! At 13 he started sending me to his friend's house for fresh eggs and I'd have to lay there quiet as a mouse listening to how he was going to treat me like a princess. When he was done touchin' I'd pick up my eggs and go home.
At 14 I ran away. He found me and cracked my head open with a board. But the story was that I was running and fell on the 2 by 4 and that's why I laid on the kitchen floor til Mom got home from work.
At 14 I beat that man with a baseball bat that I broke his arm and his stubby!!! I walked up to my mother and told her what was happening and that at 15 I had to marry his friend. She looked like she was in shock. My heart was beating so hard I thought I'd have to pick it off the floor. We left, stayed at my aunt's house where he came crawling like a dog begging her to come home and she left.
I stayed with my grandparents but had lots of problems. I started acting out, fighting any one drinking and dating a man that was beating me and forced me to have sex with him four years older than me and he had went to jail stole a car robbed a pawn shop. I wanted to die!!!! By 16 I was a mommy from another man and had left him to go back to my abuser. He left me and I went to another man, had his baby and just kept moving on. I found a man that loved me for me and took good care of my girls but I didn't know what it was to have someone love me without leaving bruises. My mom broke that up with lies and more lies. I lost the man of my life.
I moved on like always and had two more kids, 2 boys but now I have stayed with this man for 16 years. I learned to love my kids more than myself. And as for my dad I know now that he was my step dad. And I never got pregnant from him because he had himself fixed.
It's been 44 long years but I'm not his victim no more. I'm a survivor. Me and my mom hardly talk and when we do it's no good. Step daddy died a harsh death. Cancer, I heard. That was still too good for him. Me and my kids talk about what I went through and I tell them never to be quiet, express yourself, be heard and seen!! I'm a force to be reckoned with.
Remember, it's not your fault. Never give up because then he wins. Hold your head high and be proud who you are!! Us survivors will be okay as long as we fight to stay alive. I love being a mother. My kids helped me have a reason to live. I hope my story helps at least one person to want to live. I never got help even when I got older. I never put it on paper til now! Thank you for this website. I've actually sat here having to breathe real hard to push the last button. It would make it like real for everyone to know the secret will be no more.
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