Child Abuse Story From Sweetie

by Sara
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

I'm not sure how to start, to be honest. My life has been a roller coaster of confusion. I was physically, emotionally and verbally abused by my mother my whole life, but I still love her unconditionally. I know that is something hard to do, but I honestly feel as though she tried her best to raise both my brother and I on her own and the only way she could.

My father left when I was around 7, and he was very physically abusive towards both my brother and I. I remember running away from him up the stairs and into my room, leaning against the door hoping that it would keep him and his belt out of my room. I was naive thinking a 5-year-old could hold the door shut against a grown man, but I always tried, knowing I would get it worse because I ran to hide.

My mother used to punch and kick both my brother and I, and she used to pull me around by my hair as though I was a rag doll. I recall one time when I wasn't very hungry in the morning (I was around 6) and I couldn't finish my cereal. My mother told me I wasn't allowed to get up without finishing it, so I sat at the table for about a half hour just staring at my bowl. My mother came back into the kitchen screaming and yelling about me not finishing it yet. I told her, "Please stop yelling," and she went ballistic. She grabbed me by the back of my neck and stuck my face in the cereal bowl, moving it around in the bowl so that my face was coated. All I could do was put my hands, palm down, on the table and try to push my head back. Finally she let go of the vice grip she had on the back of my neck and took the cereal bowl, pouring it on my head. I was at this point crying, and as a result, got smacked around a few times before being yelled at about the mess "I" made on the floor. My mother then grabbed me by the hair and dragged me upstairs and into the bathroom, stripping me in the bathtub and then washing me down, saying how I shouldn't even be allowed to change, that I should go to school in the clothes I was wearing. Once at school, my brother asked me if I was okay. I smiled like a big sister should, and gave him a hug and said, "Always".

The food in face and over the head thing happened often with my mom. I tried to protect it from happening to my brother the best I could by switching plates with him when I would finish, but if I didn't finish my "new" plate (my mother never knew about us switching) I would get the same treatment all over again.

Another time I recall is when I was about 8, I was still not allowed to bathe myself so my mother was bathing me. She began scrubbing my chest and neck very roughly with the lufa. I was turning red and I was getting little red dots everywhere. I remember it feeling like she was rubbing my skin off with sandpaper, it hurt so bad. The next day my friend's mother called my mom because I was at her house and had spilt something on my sweater so she gave me a tank top to put on and the tank top exposed my chest and neck revealing the skin covered in the little red dots. She questioned my mom about it. My mother told her I had written on myself with a permanent marker and I had then scrubbed too hard to get it off. My mother was always a great on-the-spot storyteller.

We moved around a lot. After my 7th birthday, my brother and I only stayed at our original school till I was 8 1/2. My father sold our house after the divorce and basically left us with nothing, so we first moved in with my grandparents and then into different apartments. In my whole life I have been to 7 different schools, including high schools. I was never really close to anyone, until I met my best friends when I was in grade 4, and to this day we have all been best friends (4 of us).

No one ever knew about the nightmare that my brother and I faced at home until I was about 12, and it seemed my mother started to not care. One of my best friend's was at my house. She had always had her suspicions about where I would get so many bruises from, but like my mom, I became good at on-the-spot storytelling. While my best friend was there, my mom started to yell at me. I stood there and said nothing, because I knew if I said anything she would lose it. Little did I know, she would lose it either way.

My mom and I were in the hallway. My friend was in my room. My mom grabbed me by the hair and started smacking me. She pulled me down to the ground where she could kick me. I was crying, begging her to stop when my friend ran out of my room and started yelling at her to let me go. My mom at that point realized she had been caught and quickly let me go. My friend helped me up and told me to grab my jacket, 'cause we were going to her house. I was sooo embarrassed. I felt as though I had been caught doing something bad. My friend asked if I was okay, and I smiled and nodded. She never told her parents and we didn't talk about it again for a long time.

When I started my first job my life changed. One of my co-workers and now good friend grabbed my arm and I yelped. He then asked me what was wrong. I said, "Nothing, you just grabbed me kinda hard." He apologized, but didn't drop it. Later that night when we were closing and we were alone in the back he touched my arm in the same spot. I winced. Now he knew something was wrong, so he asked me to roll up my sleeve. I argued with him for a little bit, but in the end I lost, rolling up my sleeve to reveal a nasty blackish green bruise that covered most of my upper arm. He demanded to know where I got it from. I knew I couldn't get out of telling him, so for the first time I broke down and told him everything. He called the cops on my mom, but nothing happened because not only did my mom lie to them, but my brother and I both did as well.

My best friend was then told of what happened and I told her a little bit of what she already knew from being not only a witness, but from being told by the friend I told at work. At the time she was going through a rough patch with her family and was talking to a counselor at school. She ended up breaking down to this counselor about my situation. A social worker (5th in my life) was called, but again, we smiled and lied.

The beatings went on my whole life since I can remember, but they stopped when I became brave enough to fight my mother back. I realized I'm 5'7" and she was only 5'4", so when she attacked me one day when I was 17, I grabbed her back by the upper arms and slammed her right into the wall, knocking the breath out of her. I told her if she didn't stop I would kill her myself. I let her go, and she fell to the floor, and then I left my house for the weekend. Since then, she has smacked me a few times, but not in the last year for sure.

I'm now 19. My mother and I have finally started to pass that stage in our lives. She is slowly becoming one of my best friends. I did, although, ask her why she did all those things when I was younger, if it made her feel good punching my brother and I down and kicking us around or throwing things at us or even beating us with the belt, cord or any kind of hanger. To my own horror, she doesn't "remember" doing anything of the sort. So I now figure there is no point in trying to remind her of something she can't be proud of, if she doesn't recall it. I promised myself to never let my child live through the childhood I had, and I will stay true to this.

Thank you for reading this. It helped to write it out. Of course I didn't say it all, but this is the most I've ever let out.

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