Child Abuse Story From Rachael K

by Rachael K
(Jackson, Mississippi, USA)

I grew up in South Mississippi with my older brother and younger sister, Josh and Katie. My parents drank a lot and were always high on some type of drug. My father was a big man and he worked at a construction company. My mother didn't work at all, and she would leave town for weeks at a time.

My father was extremely abusive. We would get a beating almost every night. I was always the one who got targeted because I was "bad luck". Josh tried so hard to take up for me, but he just wasn't strong enough. He always ended up getting us both in deeper hell. Katie was young so she was, in a sense, forgotten about.

I remember going to school and the teachers would see the bruises and gashes, but they never asked. I went to school crying. One time, a secretary asked me, "Why are you crying? Are you ok? Do you need to go home?" I replied, "NO! I-I-I'm fine. Please don't call my parents!" She just walked off! I grew up telling lies about the night before.

My siblings and I would hide in our room for hours, and then we would hear footsteps out the door. We would hold each other close and pray for him not to come in, but he did, every time. My father would grab one of us and then repeatedly hit us as hard as he could. He would beat us with whatever he could reach: belts, sticks, cords, certain rods, broken pieces of wood, anything.

He loved to hear us cry and he would beat us until we just gave out. I remember he beat me with an ice cane (an ice cane is a thin leather strap with knots in it that is wet) until I passed out. I woke up with gashes in my back and three of my ribs had been shattered. I was in the hospital for two weeks. Then they made me go back home!

One night, my dad came home and he picked me first. He slammed me against the wall. All I remember is pain so bad that I just wanted him to kill me. Three hours later, after my dad had left, my brother found me lying in the kitchen half dead, so he called the cops. The ambulance rushed to the house and picked me up.

At the hospital, when I woke up from a coma, the police officer informed me that they found my little sister Katie dead, beaten to death. Josh suffered a skull fracture and was in another room. I could almost see his reaction when he got the news.

I was eleven years old that fateful day and Josh was thirteen. Baby Katie was just four years old.

I am now eighteen years old, and I still have scars from my past, both emotional and visible. My father was put in prison for life. To this day, I still can't understand how a man could take three innocent souls and crush them into dust and still live with himself.

We still love you Katie! You are my guardian angel!

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