Child Abuse Story From Dana J

by Dana J
(Texas, USA)

In my family growing up, the typical family roles were switched. My mother went to work and father stayed home with the children. I am the eldest daughter with a younger brother. When I was 11 years old, my father began molesting me when my mother wasn’t home. It continued until I was 15 when he started coming into my bedroom at night after everyone was asleep (including me) and would molest me. I remember never wanting to fall asleep knowing what would happen. I remember trying to cry out and then he would threaten me to make me shut up.

I enjoyed school for multiple reasons; mostly because it would allow me to get away from home. These were the worst years of my life. The nights became worst and as I got older, he became more and more possessive.

One day he had found out that I was talking to a friend (who was a boy) at school and he came into the bathroom while I was showering and hit me through the shower curtain, I went unconscious for minutes and then woke up in the shower to hear screaming. Needless to say, I went to school with a swollen lip the next day.

My father beat my mother as well as me, although neither of us ever talked about the physical abuse for fear of worse. Little did she know what ELSE he was doing to me. I feared standing up for myself because it would always end with me getting hit so I stopped trying. During the summers, he would force me to go with him to work in a different town where he would continue to abuse me- sexually, physically, and mentally.

Many times I would think about cutting myself and I would try occasionally but never was able to make the leap. I just wanted to die and it all to be over. I would use my birthday wishes and Sunday prayers to beg for a way out safely.

When I was 17 years old, my father took me on a “father-daughter road trip” for a week. This… was the worst week of my life. I counted down the hours till I was home again… I would burst into tears randomly during the entire trip. Every night would be another single bed motel room which I dreaded. When we returned, I decided to stand up and tell him that he could no longer have charge over my body and that I was going to tell everything. But his response was that no one would believe me and that they would take me away instead of him. I was trapped, not knowing what to believe or what to do.

One day he told me that he decided he was going to move me to an all girl school. I wasn’t allowed to go to school for the few days which were a big deal because I never missed school and had perfect attendance. So, I said I HAD to go because I had I test. I couldn’t be around him one more second. He dropped me off the next morning, and I didn’t look back. I crutch-ed my way into the school, (I was in a leg cast because of a sports injury) to my classroom and broke down into hysterical tears. I was escorted to the counselor’s office where I finally spilled my entire situation.

That was the last day I ever had to see my father. I moved in with a close friend while CPS (Child Protective Services) did their magic. My mother began the divorce process immediately after she was notified of everything that had happened, getting custody of my brother and me. A restraining order was placed against my father who was not allowed 500 ft. of the county line which we lived in.

Before the divorce was final, he died of an aneurism in his brain no more than five miles from my house.

This is my past, my secret. But I live a new life now and choose not to think about what has happened to me but what I’m going to do to make the best out of life.

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