Reflections

Let me start this blog off with one of my favorite survivor songs:

Broken Angel by Boyce Avenue

You showed him all the best of you
But I’m afraid your best
Wasn’t good enough
And know he never wanted you
At least not the way
You wanted yourself to be loved
And you feel like you were a mistake
He’s not worth all those tears that won’t go away

I wish you could see that
Still you try to impress him
But he never will listen

Oh broken angel
Were you sad when he crushed all your dreams
Oh broken angel
Inside you’re dying ’cause you can’t believe

And now you’ve grown up
With this notion that you were to blame
And you seem so strong sometimes
But I know that you still feel the same
As that little girl who shined like an angel
Even after his lazy heart put you through hell

I wish you could see that
Still you try to impress him
But he never will listen

Oh broken angel
Were you sad when he crushed all your dreams?
Oh broken angel
Inside you’re dying ’cause you can’t believe
He would leave you alone
And leave you so cold
When you were his daughter
But the blood in your veins
As you carry his name
Turns thinner than water
You’re just a broken angel

And I promise that it’s not your fault
It was never your fault
And I promise that it’s not your fault
It was never your fault…

Oh broken angel
Were you sad when he crushed all your dreams?
Oh broken angel
Inside you’re dying ’cause you can’t believe
He would leave you alone
And leave you so cold
When you were his daughter
But the blood in your veins
As you carry his name
Turns thinner than water
You’re just a broken angel

And I promise that it’s not your fault
It was never your fault
And I promise that it’s not your fault
It was never your fault

Tonight I find myself thinking about all the things that have happened to me. I AM a survivor. But what now? I’m currently attending college to get my bachelors degree in criminal justice. My goal is to become a detective for the Juvenile Specialty Team. I feel that by help other abused children I can somehow feel like I have gained power over my abusers. So, this is what happened to me…

When I was about a year old my mother and biological father split up. He beat the hell out of her and threatened to kill me and my brother. Months later I was kidnapped by this man under the guise that my mother was unfit to parent me. His words, not mine. He told me when I met him for the first time as an adult that he took us from her because she was living in sin with another man and he didn’t feel that she had the right to raise us. This.. this from a man that has no moral compass at all… so anyway.

I can remember everything from the two weeks that he had us. I can remember sleeping, not in my own bed, but his bed. I can remember the exact layout of his house. He made us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Goober peanut butter and jelly; the kind that is mixed together…grape… I can’t eat that stuff to this day. I remember riding the bus. I would sit on “dad’s” lap and my bother in a car seat. I remember seeing two elderly gentlemen playing checkers in an alley on the way to his house. I remember telling my brother to eat the bologna string because that’s why it was on the bologna and he did. I remember bath time. I remember a portable t.v. I remember the sound of glass shattering and my little brother crying because he was being pulled from the broken window. I remember blue lights. I remember screaming… And I remember him…

It is to my best knowledge that this man molested me. No one has ever told me that.. I just had this feeling. Then a dream. Then I asked him point-blank, “Did you ever touch me inappropriately”. I got a guilty laugh and then he hung up. That was about a year ago.

Many years after that I was adopted by my step-father. I remember that I did not want to be adopted. I did not want him as a father. I never called him dad. He was not, is not, my dad. The adoption happened when I was twelve. Everything was fine for a year or two. Then it got bad. He beat the shit out of me on what seems like a daily basis. He was verbally abusive, mental abusive, and neglectful. I was never good enough. I was a girl. I was raised with boys and therefor was deemed a tom-boy. I was not a girly-girl. I didn’t like braids, or dresses, or make-up, or dolls; I liked to get dirty, wear jeans, and play sports. This was not the daughter that he had apparently envisioned.

He was always so angry. I got straight A’s all through school, I excelled in every extra curricular activity that I participated in. None of this was ever good enough. I lost my virginity at fifteen.. that’s when he became obsessed with my sexuality. He stalked me whenever I was with a boyfriend. He went as far as breaking into one’s house when I was waiting downstairs while he changed so that I could give him a ride to work. He dragged me out of the house by my arm. He was good though… only once did he leave a mark. He busted my lip and I don’t even remember why.

He locked me in cold garages in the middle of winter. He dragged me by what ever he could grab, kicked me, threw me into furniture. He left a scar on my back about a foot and a half long. That scar is from the time he drug me up the stairs by my shirt and my bra strap cut deep into my back. I showed my mom, but for what ever reason, she never seemed to believe me. He would always make up stories about how I had misbehaved or talked back to him.. one time he told my mom I went crazy and came after him with a knife. Lies.. all of it.

I ask myself what a child could do to deserve this. Any of it. Who would deserve my childhood. Who would deserve worse. I know that there are worse cases out there. I lived. Many don’t. Why was I so lucky? What makes me special?

Anyway, now I’m free. I’m free of the both of them. Surprisingly I have a loving husband who has never even raised a hand to me. We rarely argue. I guess I got lucky. They do say that women marry their fathers. Not me. So, I’m free, but at what cost. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder), and god knows what else. My doctors are still trying to sort through all the various mental disorders that I could possibly have and they are trying to figure which are genetic and which are caused by “trauma”. That’s what they call it. The abuse… “trauma”.

Anyway, that’s just the summary. Two fathers and one unwanted child. That’s just the beginning of my story.