Child Abuse Story From Kate1

by Kate
(Connecticut, USA)

A broken spirit: 
I met my boyfriend in 2007 when we were both 17, almost 18. He's sweet, caring, would give me the world, never thinks twice about getting up out of bed to make me breakfast at 5am in his boxers when there's no heat in his house mid January in New England, always tells me that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, that I'm the most amazing girl he's ever met, that I'm the light of his entire life. And I don't doubt that for a second that I mean a lot to him. He always tells me "we're going to have the most beautiful kids some day" "I can't wait until I can spend every night by your side" "When we have our own house we're going to get a dog, right?". He's so sweet and genuine towards me. I love everything about this boy, every move he makes, every smile, every laugh, his eyes light up every time he smiles and when his eyes light up...my heart lights up. He's such a loving gentle being that to think anyone could deny such a glorious person that brings so much joy to my life the attention and love that he always deserved breaks my heart.

I've always been a nurturer. I really felt for him because when we first met he was reluctant to open up to me, but once he did I learned that he grew up with a crack addicted mother, and a dad who took little interest in what he did with his life. He dropped out of school twice, but was working to get his diploma. He constantly blamed himself for his brother's weight issues. He's convinced that when he was 15 and he ran away, that the stress of him running away caused his younger brother to eat for comfort. At one point when he was 14 he was completely alone on the streets, breaking into liquor stores, cars, and houses. He wasn't raised by his parents. He was raised by his older brother.

From the time he was a small child he's seen single crack rocks worth in excess of $10,000. He would walk in the room on his mom and her boyfriend at the time, who were openly smoking crack/cocaine. She would give him money to go entertain himself.

While his mom was smoking and selling crack and using her sons' social security numbers to take out loans that she would never pay, back his dad was bouncing from one girlfriend to the next.

He has no idea how many times he's moved. He had an apathetic attitude that nothing in his life is permanent. He has completely accepted that life isn't fair and doesn't feel deserving of anything.

Every couple of weeks, his mom shows up strung out and struggling with dissociative identity disorder claiming that she's dying of cancer, and I see every time the way she carelessly rips these boys' hearts apart just so she can feel like someone cares. Every time she tells them that she's dying, my boyfriend keeps a straight face until she leaves and then he breaks down in my lap, sobbing like the little child that I think will always be hurting on the inside. And finally, once he can fight through the sobs, he quietly says to me, "I'm not ready for my mom to die." It breaks my heart just as much as it breaks his. I just want to cuddle this boy and tell him everything will be alright. And I think that's why we're so attached. He needs a nurturer and I need to nurture.

As for myself, aside from my dad leaving my mom 3 days before I was born and my parents legally divorcing before I have any conscious memory of my life, seeing my first therapist when I was four, having my dad threaten to move away forever and never see me again, never really showing me affection, and saying his other kids were more important, I've had a very normal happy childhood thanks entirely to my strong, loving, and courageous mother who would NOT stand for a man that would throw hot oatmeal in her face, rip the clothes right off her back, and smash everything in sight and then scream at her to pick it up.

My dad was abused as a child and I guess that's where that comes from. I'm not sure why, but it was just him, he was the oldest and seemed to be the target of my grandfather's rage. None of my uncles or my aunt got it the way my dad did.

I remember when my uncle told me about how when my dad was a teenager my grandfather picked my dad up by his throat, pinned him to the wall off of the ground screaming at him that he was worthless, in front of my dad's friends. Which is probably why my dad bottles up his anger until it shatters, and doesn't know how to be affectionate towards his own children. My relationship with my father is very awkward and non-fatherly-daughterly. I feel weird hugging my dad...I'll put it that way, and it's not like he disappeared from my life for a long time.

But even still, my boyfriend's sad story was quite a shock to me, something I had never experienced before.

Every time I told my boyfriend that he wasn't being fair he would tell me, "Yea, well life's not fair. I didn't ask for a crackhead mom." Which always made me feel terrible because I felt that in comparison to having a drug addict for a mother, my complaints were insignificant.

He started accusing me of cheating on him all the time, but would deny not trusting me. He's extremely insecure. He isn't able to see that he could possibly be responsible for anything (i.e. if he doesn't wake up in time for school it wasn't his fault because no one woke him up, to him there was nothing he could do) but he uses these excuses as justifications, that because it wasn't his fault that to him, it's ok that he didn't go to school.

Every time his dad brings home a new girlfriend he immediately calls her mom...but at the same time doesn't really show any emotion as to whether she sticks around or not.

He seems to disregard the fact that I don't want to have sex 24/7. He just keeps asking and asking and asking and asking until I give in. He'll start to pull my clothes off saying, "So yea? that means yes? that means yes?" when I haven't said yes or no. I feel like his infatuation with sex, his inability to believe anything is his responsibility, his super static cling to me, attitude towards his dad's girlfriends, his neediness, his lack of self esteem, and his learning disabilities are all deep seeded results from a less than normal childhood, but I feel like there's more to his story, something he may be ashamed of.

Another weird thing that he does is when he gets upset or angry he totally shuts down. He will lie down or put his hat over his face and within ten seconds he can't hear you, he can't feel you. If you open his eyes with your fingers his eyes are completely rolled into the back of his head and you have to shake him out of it. I've never seen anything like it. He constantly spaces out and has taken special classes because he doesn't know how to handle his frustration.

I want with all the love in my heart and soul to help this boy because I know him better than anyone in the whole world. I know what he's thinking. I always know his next move, and I'm the only one who see's the great potential inside this boy, but he doesn't know what to do with it or that it's even there. He's a broken spirit that still has a little bit of glow in his eyes, and I feel like I'm the only one that sees it. In wanting to help him I feel like I'm losing sight of my own well being.

He may have never been abused (I'm not sure)...but he for sure has NOT been treated right. But I just hope that he's not doomed forever because of his mother's poor choices. I want to spend the rest of my life with this man, but as much as I've seemed to be for the last two years, I can't be his mom. I'm not his mom. I'm not ready to be anyone's mom yet, and most importantly, I can't put my needs on the back burner forever. I feel like a reliable maternal figure is what he needs, but I don't know if maybe I've done something wrong by acting like a mom to him because now I feel like he can't go on without me. I mean I don't plan on breaking up with him but I mean, he's totally dependent on my love like it were oxygen or something.

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