Child Abuse Story From Liz D

by Liz D
(Kansas, USA)

I was adopted. That is the weird part about all this. I was adopted, at 6 days old. My Mom and Dad always left fingers and hand-bruises on my arms. Sometimes I'd feel so guilty - oddly enough, to wear long sleeved shirts on hot days to school. I started growing distant from my peers. The "quit acting so stupid!" and "what's wrong with you?!" started, and my capacity for learning fell off the edge- the learning curve was so high for learning how to divide, that my teacher told me I'd invented my own method, and, although it was wrong, it worked.

My Mom used to keep me up til 3am- two, three times a week- screaming at me to "figure it out" (math) and slapped me so hard my head would hit the table....

Moving along... when my brother started coming in at night and fingering me, forcing me to go down on him... and penetrating me... I was scared to death. Once or twice my Dad would come in after my brother. Maybe an hour or so later. He would do things like my brother did. But not as bad. I've never told anyone that before. It's a lot easier saying "my brother sexually abused me for years" than "my Dad knew about it, and would come in and take a turn when my brother was done..." he'd smell his fingers.

My Mom would keep me in my room, locked up. I had to break the lock on the door by shaking it so hard so I could use the bathroom every time. Every time I did the door frame would splinter a little more.

For a maybe a week once- I don't know how long- I was really young- my Mom took the lightbulbs out of my room, locked the shutters that were inside the room, and set in the middle of the floor. I didn't move except to go to the bathroom in the closet when I started to accidentally pee on myself. She wouldn't answer. I didn't hear anybody for a long time. Once in a while somebody opened the door when I was sleeping and put a plate of food in my room and locked the door again.

My Mom didn't feed me for four days (those were the four I obeyed) and so I started hoarding food I'd steal in the middle of the night and hiding the wrappers/trash under my mattress and in my underwear drawer. When she found out I got a beating. Getting beatings was pretty regular. My Dad would come home and my Mom would yell "You need to go deal with xxxxxxxxxx!" And he would come.

My family - the other kids, laughing- would kick me out of their minivan sometimes when I was real little- on the side of the road, next to a huge hill covered in trees- now I know it's 5 mins from my parents house- but back then, in the dark- I had no idea where I was- and they'd slide open the side door and my brother, usually, would kick me out onto my butt on the road, on my parent's command. They told me the Boogie Man was going to get me. They'd come back fifteen minutes later laughing at me and making fun of me for crying. They nicknamed me Chicken Little.

Once I had a really bad dream that made me scream and run down the hall to my parents room. I made them really mad. It was snowing, and they locked me outside, my Dad told me to sit on the back step- it was covered in black ice. I knocked and knocked and begged to pleaseee come in. He told me to shutup.

I started running away a lot after they started locking me in the basement. Four nights. The first night they dragged me down the stairs and screamed at me that I was "an animal." I had had another bad dream that woke them up---

When I was 13 I told my Mom that she hated me because her Mom hated her- they made me drink a quart of vinegar. I couldn't finish the last of it- and so my brother held me down and my Dad straddled me- and started pouring it into my mouth. I got free of them and ran outside- where my brother held my arms around a tree and my Dad finished pouring the bottle into my mouth.

....after the my older brother sexually abusing me thing and telling kids on the playground...counselors and having my parent's called and them yelling at me to tell them I was a liar- my psychiatrist finally believed me and had my brother sent to a mental hospital for four months. In the treatment session with his therapist I was forced to apologize for ruining his life- tears streaming down my face- asking everyone in the room to explain to me how this was right- someone to tell me directly what I did wrong- and no one did. It was just "crucial to his recovery."

My parents adopted two boys from Romania. One was 3, one was 5. They were my world. I always tried to protect them. my Dad would drag them around by the inside of their flys- and throw them into the bathroom like bowling balls. I think he sexually abused them.
My 3 yr old brother, T, had autism and muscular dystrophy. My parents always ragged on the agency that lied to them-- my Mom would get furious that he would eat donuts for breakfast every morning and not be able to say it- so she had him running laps around our 1/2 acre backyard every morning - as soon as I woke up I'd check and in the snow or in the rain, he was jogging/running laps from when I woke up to when I left for school. D had his share of it, too.

I tried to get between my Dad and them once, and he hit me so hard I saw the "stars"... the white dust-like things that spin around you- and ran out of the room. I hated myself for that more than anything.

When I was fifteen, my Dad pulled me out of the shower and beat me.

I used to have to stand naked next to my brother and get spanked with the belt from shoulder blades to ankles until someone "confessed."

My mom used a rectal thermometer on me until I was twelve.

My Mom would have me stand naked in front of the mirror with her and spin and tell myself how ugly and fat I was.

One day I came home from school and my two Romanian adopted brothers had been re-adopted.

I now have a relationship with my biological mom. Her life was not a pretty picture, either. But I like her a lot. The thing is, I want some sort of recognition. Like... noticing that I'm strong. I've been through a lot. (I sound like a jerk here, but please, without thinking me a complete jerk- believe that when I say I think the most foolish thing to have is confidence I mean it.) I just want someone ELSE to tell me. Because that's all that matters. If I can help someone else.

That's all I can talk about.

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