I Am a Child Abuse Survivor
Hello everyone:
Me and my younger brother and I were adopted by the Robinsons when I was ten years old. We were taken from our real dad when I was seven because he was an alcholic and tried to kill us and himself during one of his drunken rants. He purposely ran the truck we were riding in off the road tipping it over and causing it to catch fire. We were taken from him and placed in foster homes till our adoption. The day we met the Robinson at a motel in Abilene Ks was a bit strange for me because I knew I had seen them before when we were with our real dad and when I told them I remembered them they claimed they didn't know our parents and that I was just getting them mixed up with someone elese. On the way to our new home in Mt. Hope Ks with them they first took us to see our new grandparents, when we pulled into the driveway and I saw the house I again got excited because I knew this place, we had played in all the cherry trees in their front yard of the house, I knew every room in the house cause we had stayed here with our real dad after our mother had died. This was the house that our real dad gotten into a fist fight and one of the guys who was drinking dad pulled a gun and shot another guy,dad grabed us up and threw us into the car and we got out of there but not before one of them shot at the back of the car with a shot gun. You must understand that from the time I was four till I was seven years old we moved around a lot, we were always moving from place to place and it was usually one step ahead of the law or the welfare or both so even though I remembered the house and vaguely remembered the people who lived there, I wasn't sure who or how they were connected to our real faimly. Of course the Robinsons again told me that I was just mixing this up with something elese. After a couple of days later we arrived in Mt. Hope.
our house was directly across the street from the city park but we were not allowed to play there, I don't know why but I do remember finding this out the hard way I had gone across to the play ground and was playing on the swing set when I looked up and saw Joyce coming toward me she was smileing at me so I stoped the swing and got off it, she walked up to me and I started to say something and she backhanded me across the face knocking me to the ground and bloodying my nose. I was stuned I had no idea why she had hit me, and when I asked she said "because I can, now get your a** back in your own yard." That the day it all started, and it got worse and worse, Joyce would be all smiles one minute and slaping and beating you for the smallest of things she deemed as being wrong the next. she would hit me with what ever was in reach, and if nothing was in reach the she hit me with her fists, I have been hit cooking utinsels, dishes, pots and pans even with the blades of knives. remember we were sitting at the kitchen table once eating longhorn cheese it was the first time I had ever had it and I told her I really liked it she picked up the wooden cutting board the cheese was sitting on and swung it hitting me across the face and head knocking me from the chair screaming don't talk with food in your mouth. Jack got beat from time to time but mostly it was me who got her wrath. Life went on like this for two years and I lived in fear of Joyce, well actually we both did. We never knew when or what would set her off. What was ok to do one day was not ok the next, and I herd that line of hers because I can at least once a day. When our case worker came to see us one day and asked if we wanted to stay with the Robinsons I wanted to tell him no I wanted to tell him what was going on and how mean and hateful Joyce was but he ask us in front of her and I was to scared to tell him anything other than yes because if I didn't I knew I would get a beating for it when he left. After the adoption was finial Joyce came to me and told me that they never want to adopt me cause I was too old, they just wanted my younger brother Jack but the welfare wouldn't split us up so they had to take us both, but that didn't mean they had to keep us both. So at the age of twelve I was sent to the City of refuge for boys in frederick Okla. They told them I was a bad kid and they didn't want me living at home and ruining my brothers life too. City of Refuge was a christian boys home ran by Lester Roloff the evangelical preacher from Corpis Christi Tx. but what went on in this home was anything but christian. I was cut off from the outside world completely no t.v., no books other than the King James Bible, only one hour of radio a day and that was to listen to Lester Roloff preach his sermons on his radio show, Phone call were limited once every six or eight month's and then only if they were monitored by the homes staff. One wrong word and you were disconnected immeaditly, I never bothered with a phone call, but I saw other boys calls disconnected and get swats with a three foot long paddle with holes drilled through it. All mail incoming and out going was censored by staff. Nightly bible studies before church which was held every day of the week, they had a church on the home we attended Mon. Tues. Thurs. Fri. and Sat. on Wed. and Sun.it was to churches in various towns during which time we were watched by staff members. We were not allowed to talk to people unless we were spoken to first. We were quizzed daily on the bible verses we had to memorize and you had better know them or you got no privledges, as though we had any to begin with. We were not allowed to attend public school for the first six months we were there as there was a school on the grounds it was never used but was kept in working order for tours of the churches and organizations that donated to the home. When I was finialy allowed to attend school I was in constant trouble with the home because some of my friends were blacks, we were taught blacks were beneath us and that they were cursed by God and were to ment to serve the whites. I swear they actually tried to pass this off as the word of God, and had bible verses to prove it. something to do with the sons of noah after the flood, I don't remember them now cause I didn't beleive it then or now so I got swats with the paddle often for it. Twice a year we were loaded up and taken to Mc Allen Tx. to work in the orange groves owened by Lester Roloff first to irragate the orchards and later to pick oranges, we picked cotton in the feilds at the home in Okla. Roloff made a small fortune off the labor from us. When I returned to the Robinsons from the home I stayed only a short time and was sent to Twin Oaks in Hutchinson Ks. till I was sixteen and then they made me an emancipated teenager, and I was on my own. This barely scratches the surface of what my life was really like, its pretty much just the high lights of the things that still mess with me on a daily basis. The welfare got me an apartment and gave me money for food and part of my rent the rest I had to find a job to cover. As I never had a mother or father to give me any guidence or help and of course I was no where near ready to be an adult, and lets face it I was a mental and emotional diaster just waiting to happen. I was screwed up by this life well into my thirties and still am to a certian extent I suppose, I still have bout of serve depression, I think about my childhood almost daily and how much different my life could have been if the people who was suppose to care and love me actually had. Its a day to day struggle and there days that I still shed tears from the memories of it. But I have a wonderful wife of thirty seven years now who helps me through the really rough spots, and thank you God for her. She met the Robinsons one time in their lives and they treated hear like she was some kind of plague. She says there is a special place in hell for them, I as bad as it is to say I hope she is right. They are both dead now, I attended their funnerals more out of spite than anything elese. Joyce just passed away a couple of years ago, she was from Mt. Hope Ks. and we are related to about half of the town they are uncles, aunts, cousins and so on close to two hundred of her family lives there, and maybe twenty or so even bothered to show up at her funneral service, when it was ask if anyone wanted to share any memories everyone just sat quietly not saying a thing God's honest truth so that kinda tells you the kind of person she was. I spoke to a couple of my aunts about how she was related to our real family because she would never admit to this. They told me she was my real mothers cousin. They also told me that before the adoption was finial that they had gone to several attorneys and tried to stop it but no one would listen to or beleive it was as bad as they claimed, they finialy said they had to stop because they were afraid Joyce would find out about it and that she would end up beating Jack and I to death over it. They all knew what she was doing to us but were too afraid of her or what may happen to us to come forward and tell anyone. I don't blame them for it, but I don't have anything to do with them either its a part of my life I am trying to forget.
Me and my younger brother and I were adopted by the Robinsons when I was ten years old. We were taken from our real dad when I was seven because he was an alcholic and tried to kill us and himself during one of his drunken rants. He purposely ran the truck we were riding in off the road tipping it over and causing it to catch fire. We were taken from him and placed in foster homes till our adoption. The day we met the Robinson at a motel in Abilene Ks was a bit strange for me because I knew I had seen them before when we were with our real dad and when I told them I remembered them they claimed they didn't know our parents and that I was just getting them mixed up with someone elese. On the way to our new home in Mt. Hope Ks with them they first took us to see our new grandparents, when we pulled into the driveway and I saw the house I again got excited because I knew this place, we had played in all the cherry trees in their front yard of the house, I knew every room in the house cause we had stayed here with our real dad after our mother had died. This was the house that our real dad gotten into a fist fight and one of the guys who was drinking dad pulled a gun and shot another guy,dad grabed us up and threw us into the car and we got out of there but not before one of them shot at the back of the car with a shot gun. You must understand that from the time I was four till I was seven years old we moved around a lot, we were always moving from place to place and it was usually one step ahead of the law or the welfare or both so even though I remembered the house and vaguely remembered the people who lived there, I wasn't sure who or how they were connected to our real faimly. Of course the Robinsons again told me that I was just mixing this up with something elese. After a couple of days later we arrived in Mt. Hope.
our house was directly across the street from the city park but we were not allowed to play there, I don't know why but I do remember finding this out the hard way I had gone across to the play ground and was playing on the swing set when I looked up and saw Joyce coming toward me she was smileing at me so I stoped the swing and got off it, she walked up to me and I started to say something and she backhanded me across the face knocking me to the ground and bloodying my nose. I was stuned I had no idea why she had hit me, and when I asked she said "because I can, now get your a** back in your own yard." That the day it all started, and it got worse and worse, Joyce would be all smiles one minute and slaping and beating you for the smallest of things she deemed as being wrong the next. she would hit me with what ever was in reach, and if nothing was in reach the she hit me with her fists, I have been hit cooking utinsels, dishes, pots and pans even with the blades of knives. remember we were sitting at the kitchen table once eating longhorn cheese it was the first time I had ever had it and I told her I really liked it she picked up the wooden cutting board the cheese was sitting on and swung it hitting me across the face and head knocking me from the chair screaming don't talk with food in your mouth. Jack got beat from time to time but mostly it was me who got her wrath. Life went on like this for two years and I lived in fear of Joyce, well actually we both did. We never knew when or what would set her off. What was ok to do one day was not ok the next, and I herd that line of hers because I can at least once a day. When our case worker came to see us one day and asked if we wanted to stay with the Robinsons I wanted to tell him no I wanted to tell him what was going on and how mean and hateful Joyce was but he ask us in front of her and I was to scared to tell him anything other than yes because if I didn't I knew I would get a beating for it when he left. After the adoption was finial Joyce came to me and told me that they never want to adopt me cause I was too old, they just wanted my younger brother Jack but the welfare wouldn't split us up so they had to take us both, but that didn't mean they had to keep us both. So at the age of twelve I was sent to the City of refuge for boys in frederick Okla. They told them I was a bad kid and they didn't want me living at home and ruining my brothers life too. City of Refuge was a christian boys home ran by Lester Roloff the evangelical preacher from Corpis Christi Tx. but what went on in this home was anything but christian. I was cut off from the outside world completely no t.v., no books other than the King James Bible, only one hour of radio a day and that was to listen to Lester Roloff preach his sermons on his radio show, Phone call were limited once every six or eight month's and then only if they were monitored by the homes staff. One wrong word and you were disconnected immeaditly, I never bothered with a phone call, but I saw other boys calls disconnected and get swats with a three foot long paddle with holes drilled through it. All mail incoming and out going was censored by staff. Nightly bible studies before church which was held every day of the week, they had a church on the home we attended Mon. Tues. Thurs. Fri. and Sat. on Wed. and Sun.it was to churches in various towns during which time we were watched by staff members. We were not allowed to talk to people unless we were spoken to first. We were quizzed daily on the bible verses we had to memorize and you had better know them or you got no privledges, as though we had any to begin with. We were not allowed to attend public school for the first six months we were there as there was a school on the grounds it was never used but was kept in working order for tours of the churches and organizations that donated to the home. When I was finialy allowed to attend school I was in constant trouble with the home because some of my friends were blacks, we were taught blacks were beneath us and that they were cursed by God and were to ment to serve the whites. I swear they actually tried to pass this off as the word of God, and had bible verses to prove it. something to do with the sons of noah after the flood, I don't remember them now cause I didn't beleive it then or now so I got swats with the paddle often for it. Twice a year we were loaded up and taken to Mc Allen Tx. to work in the orange groves owened by Lester Roloff first to irragate the orchards and later to pick oranges, we picked cotton in the feilds at the home in Okla. Roloff made a small fortune off the labor from us. When I returned to the Robinsons from the home I stayed only a short time and was sent to Twin Oaks in Hutchinson Ks. till I was sixteen and then they made me an emancipated teenager, and I was on my own. This barely scratches the surface of what my life was really like, its pretty much just the high lights of the things that still mess with me on a daily basis. The welfare got me an apartment and gave me money for food and part of my rent the rest I had to find a job to cover. As I never had a mother or father to give me any guidence or help and of course I was no where near ready to be an adult, and lets face it I was a mental and emotional diaster just waiting to happen. I was screwed up by this life well into my thirties and still am to a certian extent I suppose, I still have bout of serve depression, I think about my childhood almost daily and how much different my life could have been if the people who was suppose to care and love me actually had. Its a day to day struggle and there days that I still shed tears from the memories of it. But I have a wonderful wife of thirty seven years now who helps me through the really rough spots, and thank you God for her. She met the Robinsons one time in their lives and they treated hear like she was some kind of plague. She says there is a special place in hell for them, I as bad as it is to say I hope she is right. They are both dead now, I attended their funnerals more out of spite than anything elese. Joyce just passed away a couple of years ago, she was from Mt. Hope Ks. and we are related to about half of the town they are uncles, aunts, cousins and so on close to two hundred of her family lives there, and maybe twenty or so even bothered to show up at her funneral service, when it was ask if anyone wanted to share any memories everyone just sat quietly not saying a thing God's honest truth so that kinda tells you the kind of person she was. I spoke to a couple of my aunts about how she was related to our real family because she would never admit to this. They told me she was my real mothers cousin. They also told me that before the adoption was finial that they had gone to several attorneys and tried to stop it but no one would listen to or beleive it was as bad as they claimed, they finialy said they had to stop because they were afraid Joyce would find out about it and that she would end up beating Jack and I to death over it. They all knew what she was doing to us but were too afraid of her or what may happen to us to come forward and tell anyone. I don't blame them for it, but I don't have anything to do with them either its a part of my life I am trying to forget.
By:
roberts1107
Age:
56-60
,
Male
