Child Abuse Story From Lim

by Lim
(Location Undisclosed)

I'm sorry, Lim sounds like a silly name, but it was replaced. Even my foster parent calls me Lim! I had another name, but I don't want to say it, for it brings back disturbing memories about my childhood. Well...at least it's better than Anonymous.

Back when I was 5-7, my stepfather would beat me up. He called me by my birth name, and that's why I don't have the courage to conclude it.

"Stepdad" who my brother calls "Dad" used his belt constantly, a chair even once. Mom was never around to protect me, from hard working to partying with her friends, and if she WAS ever home she would verbally abuse my brother and me. But the only thing that kept me up and going were my two friends.

I was 11 years old. CPS (Child Protective Services) had picked me up from my abusive and neglecting mother, taking me far off to an all-girls orphanage. I asked later on why I was taken to an orphanage, for my dad and mom had not died. They said that nobody would have better care for me than this place. Dan, the owner, was caring and kind. He helped me befriend Belle, a girl whose parents died in a fire. She was really affected by that. It took her years before I could actually get into the details of that situation and help her out. It was horrifying, what she said happened: It wasn't a mistake. It was murder.

Dan helped me a lot, too. The first year of my staying in the orphanage was very uncomfortable to me. He kept asking me questions about my parents and my past, but I had amnesia for some reason. My past had affected me so much that I had amnesia. He asked me what my name was. I simply replied, Lim.

After a year of trying to bring up my past, Dan pulled me up in his office one day and had told me that he was going to try to recap me. He told me to close my eyes and relax. He asked me about my mother. That was easy: "She was a late-night mom and yelled bad names and bad words at us." My stepfather: "He hit us a lot, and threatened us. Mom never seemed to care when we showed her the cuts and the bruises, the bloody noses and the fist marks on the stomachs and cheeks." Then he asked me about who I was with two years from that day. I said that I was with my friends, at midnight, watching movies while my mom was out working. We were watching movies, before it happened.

Dan asked me what had happened."My friend's Golden Retriever was shot." It was amazing. I had remembered this, suddenly. He asked me what my other friend's name was.

Horhei.

He was Spanish. He had black hair, and was a foreign exchange student. He had been physically abused--slapped hard across his face, leaving him with permanent red marks streaking down his cheeks. Kids made fun of him. I befriended him. I taught him English. He was my best friend. He had this "10 Rules of Survival" sheet stuck in his head, because he coped with a lot of bad things through his life. I soon learned it from him, and I kind of passed it on to other abused kids.

Dan asked me about my other friend, but never asked about his name. He had a sister, Sarah, who was 1 year older than him. He had this Golden Retriever named Dice. I loved her so much...until I had found out about her death. She had gotten shot while hunting with his dad. And I tell you, the day that my friend came back home from school with me by his side and got the news, his heart broke. I can still see him falling onto his knees and hearing his wails of crying echoing in the kitchen.

Dan told me that he forgot his name and wanted to hear it again. As I stood up, watching him, I replied that I had never concluded his name, so he told me to say it. I looked down. My eyes wandered into the past and my fears overpowered me.

"...Michael." I kept repeating "Michael." Today, 12/21...is his birthday.

I watched Michael's father spit at him saying that he was a baby. It was a horrifying image to watch on that day.

Dan asked me what happened to HIM. In a crying frenzy, in front of Dan, I explained how I had a sleepover with Michael. I woke up late at night and looked through the window blinds. He was standing in his pajamas...on the edge of his pool...bent over. Next thing I knew, I heard a big SPLASH! I watched him splash around in shock, for he forgot it was December and the water was a couple of degrees off of freezing, and he splashed around. He was in alert mode that he couldn't swim! After 5 minutes, I saw a floating body in the water. He had committed suicide!

I fell on the ground, crying and wailing in front of Dan as I yelled that he was gone. Michael was gone. I had amnesia all about that, and how after the situation I forgot my name from such mental and emotional damage and started calling myself "Lim". It was so crazy!

But Dan told me shortly that I had amnesia from all types of grief and abuse. I was just a poor kid. I still cry so much about Michael and still sometimes call myself Lim, for my birth name is long gone in my memory.

I miss Michael. So much. And when everything crashed and burned, I was left helpless. But not until I found Belle, and of course...Dan found me.

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