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Child Abuse Story From Shae

by Shae
(Utah, USA)




When I was three my father left with another woman...he left my brother my sister and me with my mother, who he had abused. I later learned that he touched me. I don't know the details, but I am trying to figure it out.

About three years later she married her husband. For eight years I have lived in fear. The abuse got worse over time...it happened so many times in different forms that I have forgotten many details. He would throw my brother and my sister down the stairs, hit them, punch them, kick them in the stomach, he even whipped them with belts. His punishments were always cruel...he used so much force that our butts would be sore and red for hours after he spanked us.

My mom's husband would go into my brother's room and beat him at night. I remember being so scared that he would come and hurt me after he was done. My siblings and I would purposely try to get each other in trouble just to spare ourselves. After a while of being tortured in the night, my brother started having night terrors. My mom and her husband both claim that's what happened at night. They deny that anything happened. During the time of the night terrors, my mom's husband went into my brother's room...my brother says that he was pinned to the floor face down, my mom's husband's knee on his back holding him down. Then he took his arm and pulled it back until it snapped. Even when it was snapped he held it there. My brother was completely helpless. When CPS got involved we were told not to say anything about ever being hit or spanked.

We left the state for a while, and I stayed at a friend's house for a couple of weeks in Idaho. While I was there I was sexually assaulted by my best friend's father. I was only ten, when he touched my butt and rubbed my chest. I was lying on my stomach on the couch. He got up and started rubbing my back. Within minutes he had touched everywhere on my back, from the back of my neck all the way down to my calves. Soon his hands were in my shirt. It took a lot to tell his wife what had happened.



After the investigation of my mom's husband was closed, it all came back, but this time he would hit me too. One time he hit me on the top of the head and knocked me out. Another time he smacked me across the face. But what hurt the most was watching him beat my four younger siblings. He would even spank his two boys when they were two. He would hit them and I couldn't do anything about it. It still hurts to remember it.

My mother participated in his verbal and emotional abuse toward me. Even the other children got some of it.

Recently, he broke my brother's arm again. He was mad at my brother for something and so he went to the room to talk to him. He punched my brother in the stomach, left, came back and picked him up off the floor and threw him back down at an angle onto his shoulder. My brother's bone went through the muscle and was sticking up.

We left for Washington to live with family, but it didn't end up working out so we came back to Utah...my mom is now trying to work on her marriage with him and wants us all to live in the same house again. My sister is now calling him dad again and my brother too wants to live with him.

I am fifteen years old, homeless, depressed and scared for my life and the lives of my sibling.

A Video Reading by Darlene BarriereNote from Darlene: The volume of contributor submissions has now made it impossible for me to comment personally (especially in great detail) on each and every contribution. If I haven't left you a comment or one that is in-depth, please do not take my lack of a personal response as a slight, or as a statement that your story is somehow unworthy of my time. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, could be further from the truth. If there was a way for me to respond to all of you at length, I would.

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Comments for
Child Abuse Story From Shae

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Mar 11, 2009
Tell someone again...
by: Darlene Barriere - Webmaster

Your mother's husband is a dangerously violent man, Shae. Please contact Child Help at 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) in order to talk to someone about the abuse you and your siblings have had to endure, and quite likely will continue to endure. They are staffed 24/7 with professionally trained counsellors who will listen to you. They are not a reporting agency, although they can help you through the process of reporting if you decide to disclose the abuse. Even though CPS completed their investigation, if this man continues to abuse, then it needs to be reported; otherwise, you and your siblings will continue to be in danger. The fact that your mother and her husband coached you all to not tell about the spanking and hitting is a clear sign that they know they are doing something wrong. Especially since spanking a child for discipline purposes is not illegal in the USA. Much as I find that law repugnant and terribly misguided, it is the law. However, even though parents have the right to physically discipline their children, they do not have the right to use unreasonable force or to harm them. Talk to a school counsellor or a trusted teacher about your fears and your depression; s/he should be able to offer you some additional resources. You deserve that, Shae. You and your siblings do not deserve to be mistreated or emotionally abused. You deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. You deserve to loved and nurtured without fear of what will happen to you and your siblings next. Your mother and her husband are wrong to hurt you. Reach out to someone who can help you. And tell them what your friend's father did to you too. While I'm delighted that you told your friend's mother, he should be reported to the proper authorities; otherwise, he will likely molest another child, quite likely his own daughter. In fact, he probably already IS molesting her. Tell, tell and tell again...until you get the help you so desperately need, Shae.

Thank you for sharing your story with my visitors and me.

A Video Reading by Darlene Barriere
Darlene Barriere
Webmaster: www.child-abuse-effects.com
Violence & Abuse Prevention Educator
Author: On My Own Terms, A Memoir

Mar 17, 2009
please do
by: Anonymous

wow ....Please contact that hotline... your life can be so much better..don't be scared contact the hotline and help your siblings. they will thank you one day!! PLEASE!

May 25, 2009
Get Help
by: Not Broken !!!!

You don't have to be on the street. There is places that can help you. I do know its hard to trust. About your brother and sister going back...its the only life they know. They are worn down and don't know what else to do. You're smart, you want more. Take a step forward and get help. You're a strong person. You want a better life. Please try and get help. Trust someone to help you.

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