Effects

   I continue to pay for my father 's abuse. He was a very heavy drinker and would often black out and lash out at me. I've seen him  fall down full flights of steps completely naked. Daily, I was called 'sick', ugly, lazy, no good, 'just like my mother, stupid, unwanted, etc. In terror, I've watched him scream about how he hated his life, his girlfriends and his kids (he made my half-sister with my mothers older sister. ), his job. and with a knife to his chest scream 'kill me now!'. He would slap and kick at me constantly. To most of the outside world, my father was a normal, loving parent.

    September of 1986

    I was born. My mother decided she didn't want to settle down at 23, so she left me with him, binding my dad and i together forever. Being reliant solely on one unstable parent is an unimaginably lonely upbringing. I spent my childhood alone outside, dawn til dusk playing out in empty fields, dry river beds, deep woods...  

    He always managed to have girlfriends. They were either *******, fighting, or doing drugs. unfortunately, he would cheat and they  could rarely stay sober, and these women would terrorize our house often...usually in the middle of the night. One woman, in particular, would shout outside the house and soon attempt to knock down one of the doors. A few attempts were successful and I've watched my father beat the women. He would also push me across the room and tell me to mind my own business. I was the one who knew to watch out for these times, and often stayed up all night on cold floors waiting for someone by the door so I could protect myself. The neighbors wherever we lived sometimes experienced these episodes and we could sense their disgust for such whitetrash. I was humiliated often. 

  As i got older (10-15)it was often me who would provide food and safety for myself.  My father became increasingly negligent (or was in jail) and it became clear I had to fend for myself. I had to make my own money selling jewelry at school, shoveling snow, small landscape jobs for old people in my neighborhood. My father relied on me as if I were an adult during the worst periods of his drug abuse. During this time I became seriously broken and my peers at school sensed my weakness. That's when the bullying started outside my home life. Its hard to remember how I got through high school. My grades were good or else i was beaten until i couldn't move. Id lay in the floor trying to catch my breath for sometimes 20 minutes. Or until i got a good kick. The belt was terrible. And metal dowel. And orange extension cord. I would live in fantasy like daydreams to escape the reality of my life. My extended family simply thought I was 'weird' and I probably was. They wanted nothing to do with me and as they began to find out the truth about my abusive father, they turned a blind eye and never intervened. When dad got arrested, I was alone.

    At 14 my father, black-out drunk, decided to force me to drive him to the local bar. I had no license. The bartender gave me a Budweiser. Later that night I watched him and his friends do lines of cocaine on the bar at 3 in the morning. The next thing I remember is crying in my bed.. shaking.. while unable to sleep. 

    I ran away for 3 days and was nearly raped, so I went back home. My father locked me in my room- literally. Within a few hours of going back, he'd ripped the phone cords out of the walls and beaten me til I literally couldn't fight back. Then he picked me up and carried me to my room and threw me on my bed. When I came to, I heard the sound of him boarding up my bedroom door. I asked him why, and the last thing he said to me reverberated in my mind for 10 years. He said "rot in hell". 

    I laid in bed for a day and a half recovering from my injuries. No doctor, no hospital. He'd built a toilet and sink in my small walk in closet. I had graduated from high school a week earlier. the next night I became too hungry and started knocking on my door. My room was built alone down a long hallway.  I never got a reply, but could hear he and his girlfriend and her son eating dinner. I couldn't scream or yell, so I just cried. 

    My room only had one small window, and that window had a heavy old air condition unit nailed in. I silently picked at the wood around my window the whole night. After a long time I used my strength to quietly lift it out of the window and rest  it on my bed. I emptied my school backpack and put in clothes and $40 that I'd saved up. Silent. I used a ripped bedsheet to make a satchel- type sling and folded a warm blanket. Then I jumped out of my window as quietly as a mouse and ran. didn't look back until I was a block away. Waiting to see my bedroom light flick on and hear his maniacal roar. I imagined him throwing the screen door open and getting to his truck. He was like rolling thunder. I imagined him finding me and running me over. He would tie my feet and drag me behind his truck, like he once did to my dog.  I imagined my death. If he'd woken up That night I know I would not be alive today. 

   For 6 months I hid in a friends basement, her parents never knew. I got my first job at Subway and started college that fall. Life was and still is hard.  I didn't speak to my father for 5 years and even then, I'd meet only in public broad daylight. I still trembled like a tiny child when I saw him. There was no eye contact and we said few words. I merely wanted to tell him how he broke me, but never could.  I still can see him in my head when I close my eyes. I am a 26 year old woman now and still have body memories of his rage on me.