This is VERY hard for me to do…..but hopefully by doing this I can show that it is ok to share your story with others and to also show that you don’t need to feel like you are the only one out there cause you are not the only one fighting this battle.
I have had a very interesting life. I was abused at birth. The earliest that I remember is that I was backhanded out of my high chair for spilling milk out of my sippy cup. The others were nightmares but were confirmed after I grew up. First instance…I am terrified of thunderstorms because I was at my grandmother (on my birth mothers side) house and she decided she didn’t want me there anymore so she packed my little suitcase and threw me and my suitcase outside in the middle of a thunderstorm. The next one is that my brother and I were put on the bottom bunk of our bunk bed and she poured gas all around us and set the bed on fire. Thank goodness our Uncle happened by to check up on us so he was able to put the fire out before anything happened to us. Then there was an instance where she left my brother and I in a trailer, in the dead of winter, I was little bitty and my brother was still a baby, with no food water, heat or anything, while she went off to California with her boyfriend to do drugs. The neighbors across the street noticed that there wasn’t any movement in or out of the house for about a week and came by and noticed the condition of my brother and I and called the doctor. The doctor came…..and we both had pneumonia….diaper rash, malnourished, dehydrated, and he said if we were left alone for a matter of about 4 more hours we would have died. Where was my birth father in all of this you ask. Well he was in the Army. And he would go a wall all the time to come back and take care of us…..but they would find him and bring him back. My grandmother on my birth fathers side tried to take care of us…..but she had children of her own and was living in a small trailer and couldn’t so the state stepped in and took us away. We ended up in foster care. I was abused by foster parents. I was put in a bed with I don’t know how many other children….all I know is that I was at the very EDGE of the bed. I still sleep like that to this day. No matter how much room I have on the bed, I always end up at the very edge…and never fall off. I was about 3 and was made to go to the HUGE strawberry patch and pick strawberries and milk the cows. From dawn till dusk. My foster parents had a son. I admired him because he worked with model molding. So one day I went upstairs to see what he was doing and he grabbed me by the hair and kicked me down the stairs. Thank God nothing was broke. My brother and I got adopted and things happened but for the sake of family peace I shall not mention what happened then. I got married when I was 16 and had 4 wonderful children. He could be controlling at times, couldn’t have friends, but to be honest with you….I didn’t have time to have friends with taking care of 4 boys. Then after 13 yrs of marriage we just drifted apart and got divorced. I had a boyfriend before my next husband who was EXTREMELY controlling and ABUSIVE. I could not go anywhere without him….and had to go everywhere with him. He would kick me, punch me, slap me etc. He had me staying in an outdoor kitchen that was infested with mice and roaches and I had to wake up at 4 in the morning to go feed the goats and horses so he could sleep in. If I didn’t I would get it. Finally his family found out about me staying back there and got mad. So he brought me out the country to a friend of his trailer (in the middle of summer) no air conditioning no electricity. I had to stay there. No way to contact anyone. I almost died of heat stroke so he moved me to a little motel out in the country. There he continually beat me and punched me. One day he beat me so bad that i started throwing up blood. So I got on the phone and called a friend in Lafayette and told him what was going on and he came and got me and brought me to an abuse shelter. He helped me pack all my clothes and helped me get in the truck. As we were pulling out of the driveway I called the shelter and told them I was on the way and the vehicle i was in and that my friend was with me. Unfortunately, as we were pulling out my boyfriend was pulling in. So needless to say, it was a race by both to Lafayette to get to the shelter….but we won and made it in seconds before he got there. He tried to get in but the shelter was locked by gates and the cops came and picked him up so my friend was safe and I was safe.
After several months there, I moved to Mississippi and got married again, that is where all my REAL trouble started. Let me first say we lived with his mom and her house was deplorable. He drank some before we got married but it wasn’t bad. But once I signed the piece of paper all hell broke loose. It is like it gave him ownership of me or something. He was controlling, didn’t want me to work. IF i went somewhere without him (which was few and far between) I had to bring receipts back. Or he was calling every 2 minutes to see where I was. And heaven forbid if I said or bought something that he didn’t like….I got beat. He drank like a fish…..10 or more 64 oz bottles of beer a day. Did cocaine, meth, marijuana, and lord only knows what else. I was not allowed to speak without him telling me that I could. When he was home I had to stay in the bedroom with him. He was lazy. If it was on the weekend, I was in the bedroom all the time. It got to where I slept the majority of the time. Then I couldn’t really do that because I was afraid of what he was going to do while I was sleeping. I was also stabbed on a few occasions. He loved to go fishing…so we would go fishing and he would get so drunk that he would fall into the pond and then blame it on me and then beat me. One time it was so bad that I had blood running down my legs. I had to go to the ER. The doctor asked what happened, I told him it was just a bad “time of the month” but he knew better and gave me something for the pain and put me on bed rest. I had to hide the medicine from my husband which was farely easy because he stayed to drunk to remember where they were. It got to where he turned my whole family against me and I had to turn to strangers to be able to leave. One night at 1 am I packed a couple of trash bags (while he was work) and ran through the house and jumped in the car and drove as far away as I could. Once he found out I was gone….and wasn’t coming back….he kept calling my phone and threatening me. He was stupid enough to leave me messages on my voice mail threatening to kill me, plus his mom threatened to kill me AND I still had all the bruises and fresh wounds when I went to get the restraining order. The judge in Minnesota was shocked to say the least and VERY MAD! He told me that if my ex ever stepped foot in Minnesota he would regret it. But for now all he could do was issue a restraining order on him and his family. After I left and moved WAY up north (Minnesota) I have lived in fear for most of my life after that…..not until just recently have I decided that enough is enough and it is time for me to take my life back.
It is a one day at a time process….but I am getting better. I have started seeing a psychiatrist to help me deal with my flashbacks, because I have come to the conclusion that I can’t do it on my own any more.
You never get over being abused you will always remember it but you can’t let it ruin your life. I am finding my Brighter Tomorrow, let’s find your’s.
Life After Abuse, A Brighter Tomorrow 
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