Child Abuse Story From Tabitha

by Tabitha G
(Pennsylvania, USA)

The devil that took my innocence away:  
I have been living with the nightmares of what my father and stepmom did when I was 5 year old. But my abuse started before that.

My real mother, who left me with my father when I was three, told me just a year ago that my father had been touching me and fondling me since I was six months old. But I don't remember that. I remember when I was 5 years old, my father came into my bedroom and would start kissing and fondling my private parts and pull up my nightgown and tell me to not say anything. He would have sex with me and beat me so that I would do what he wanted me to do.

I remember I was nine the first time I tried to tell someone. They called my dad and told him what I told them, and when I got home, I was met by my father. He had a belt and said, "Now you're going to get it, you trouble-making b@@@@," and he started beating me and told me to pull down my panties and stuck it in me and jammed it and went faster until he made me bleed.

The next day, he kept me home and called the school to tell them I was sick. My stepmom was at home with me, and she would beat me and abuse me too. She would hit me with wooden spoons, and burn my hand over a hot stove just to teach me not to touch flames or fire. She would make me eat soggy cereal, and if I didn't eat it, she would force it in my mouth and make me swallow, and if I puked it back up, she would leave it there for when I came home and make me it then.

I'm now 30 years old and I still have flashbacks. I was taken from my father at ten years old, but the abuse didn't stop there. I was dragged through 47 foster homes and 3 group homes. Foster parents weren't told of my history. They just thought I was a bad apple.

While in foster care, my foster dad molested me because I got a bad grade and he felt that was the appropriate punishment for me. My foster mom sat by to watch him have sex with me. I cried and screamed, "Not again. God let me die."

I was fifteen when the courts decided my dad was well enough for me to come home for a weekend. The nightmare started all over again. My father raped me, and this time, the rape came with a package attached to it. I went back to my foster home, and again acted like I normally did, which was a raging, angry, hurt kid. This time, I learned who I could trust.

My foster parents had a kennel where they bred and sold dogs. There was a little dark brown and caramel dog named Hershey. I told Hershey what all had happened, and my foster mom overheard. She called my caseworker and my visits stopped with my dad.

A month later, I was examined by a doctor because I was bleeding down below. I just thought that I wasn't having my regular period. That's when I came to find out I was pregnant with my brother-son. Nine months later, I put my brother-son up for adoption.

At eighteen years old, I tried to give my dad a chance because I was still blaming myself for what he had done. I went back to his home from foster care because I was no longer welcome in the system. It started all over again. He would come into my room and beat me and rape me and tell me I would never be good enough for anyone. I finally kicked him and told him he was going to die for what he had done to me and ran out.

Three months later, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. No matter what the flashbacks were of that god-awful night and what he had done to me in the course of my life, I loved that baby.

But the system that was supposed to protect me and keep me out of harms way did the opposite of that. They took my child from the hospital when she was three days old and put her in a home. They said I would do the same things to my baby that that monster did to me. They ruined my life as a kid, and they were back to make sure I suffered more by taking my child away, not returning any of my phone calls or letting me see her. I am paying for something I didn't ask to have done to me by the system, by my family and by everyone around me. People made me feel like everything that happened to me was my fault, and that I am not good enough to be alive.

I have been torturing myself by cutting since I was five years old. It's away of punishing myself for all the wrong-doing I did, and for being a bad little girl. You see, I had a baby girl by a man that at the time I thought I loved. My baby was seven months in-term and 14 hours old when she died in my arms of congenital heart failure. Child Protection Services had the nerve to show up at the funeral and say they were there to make sure my baby was dead.

I have been married to a guy for five years now, and I have a stepson who is eight. I am a survivor of abuse.

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