Child Abuse Story From Martin

by Martin
(Canada)

I don't really ever remember not being in pain. Where for most people home was the one safe place on earth mine was the opposite. Home was where my demon lived. There were 4 of us living at home. My older brother, my older sister, and my sister who was a baby (12 years younger than me) Our mother was our abuser she used a combination of brute force and psychological abuse. Get told enough times what a worthless piece of sh*t you are, you start to believe it. I have been hit with fists, sticks, wooden spoons shoes belts brushes brooms. She managed over the years to break my collarbone three times, my nose once, my arm once. I had my hair pulled out in clumps. Numerous bleeding noses, bruises etc. She used to starve us. I remember being 6 and sitting in the basement in the dark eating a can of corn and sobbing because I knew I was going to get beat for it but the hunger was overwhelming the fear. You get the picture life at home sucked.

One thing I will remember to my dying day is being sat down on the couch with brother and sister and being told that if it was up to her she would give us away to the first f**ker stupid enough to take us. It was every man for themselves at home. If you could rat out one of the others and get them tortured, well then you were safe till she was done with them. I used to say I was raised by Wolves. (Wolves are kinder though). I learned a lot though. Never show fear. Never ever Cry. The expression you want something to cry about still sends shiver up my spine. Suffer in silence. Trust no one. I used to walk home from school praying that she would not be home. Please God just let her not be home for a while. But nope she was always at home waiting. If she suspected you of something she would line us all up and make us swear an oath to god that we hadn't done whatever. So I swore oaths, lied with my hand on a bible and had daily unanswered prayers. Doesn't take long and you don't believe in anything or anybody. A brother and sister who were the enemy. My sister was the first to leave. She escaped to a foster home. My brother was next, just ran away. That left me at home, 12 alone scared and all alone with her. All her focus that was spread amongst 3 was now mine and mine alone. I packed so many times to run away but could not for whatever reason leave. I stared drinking when I was 11. Sniffed nail polish remover, gas, anything to dull the pain.

I decided when I was 14 to kill her. I got a hunting knife sharpened it to a razors edge waited for her to go to bed crept in and was going to slit her throat. I stood over her for what seemed like forever staring at her, the source of so much pain. I decided she was not worth it to me. She would be dead I would be off to jail or wherever and she would still have power and control over me forever. I crept back out, packed for real and left. So I was 14 no skills no education no prospects. I started working, stealing, whatever. Gotta eat gotta live. I used to think I was okay. I mean I lived in hell and made it out. Life was good. I started working full time. Got some good jobs, made real good money. Yet things were still f**ked up. Everyone else seemed to get ahead but I lived hand to mouth payday to payday. I never learned to social drink. Drinking was to get drunk not socializing. Even though I worked and had jobs I rarely had a car or a nice place to live, any money I had went to dull the pain. Drugs drinking thats all my life was. I used to think that I was invincible. Seriously I was involved in 3 car wrecks where people were killed and I walked away without so much as a scratch. I had more failed relationships than I can count. One failed marriage. Who really wanted to live with a drunken a**hole who was a rageaholic. I used to try to f**k my way to happiness. If you were f**king me you must love me. Right?

As the years progressed I lost more and more friends and family to drugs and drinking. My brother never did make it over the torture and sadness and phoned me and said he was going to blow his head off. I said whatever, phone me tomorrow and hung up on him. He did indeed blow his head off and died that night.

When I was a kid I used to have a evening paper route and would stand on the sidewalk and peek in the front windows of houses and wish I lived there, people laughing, not cowering, warm safe.

I went through a lot to get to where I am now. It took me years to cry. Now I get weepy at movies and newscasts and am neither embarrassed nor ashamed. All those years of no tears have to come out somewhere. I now understand how she was responsible for my problems, not my solutions. She is dead now, died last year. I did end up having a relationship with her. It was hard, but it was hard to be afraid of a little 5 foot high woman who was frail and sick. She took a long time to die. She died of lung disease and took about 7 years to die. But when I was phoned and told she passed away my first thought was, How do you like hell you b**ch.

The moral of my story is pain inflicted on us by others need not end our lives. We can choose not to give them that control any longer and rise up and have a happy life anytime WE WANT. It also took a long time to realise that I was addicted to danger and turmoil as much as the drugs. Once I realized it though I could start to deal with it. This by the way is a Reader's Digest version of my life. Much much more happened and I think daily of what I survived. But I am now mostly happy. Mostly sane and drug and booze free for 15 years and loving life.

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