DEBBIE THE MEMOIR

Red Tape Residue is sticky stuff. The memoir Debbie is from 1970 to 2015.

Copyright © 2015 - 2020 Sierra D. Waters. No permissions granted including, but not limited to, printing or republishing any copyrighted materials from the author elsewhere. Please contact the author on the "contact" tab included on this website for written permissions. Originally published on Amazon as an eBook in 2015. I have chosen to offer the memoir Debbie for free on this website instead. No other versions (except those previously ordered from Amazon as an eBook are authorized.) Other versions not authorized by the author may contain viruses and/or incorrect information.
I have tried to recreate events and conversations from my memories and documentation that I have. In order to maintain the privacy of those involved, in certain instances, I may have changed the names of individuals and timing of certain events. I may have also changed some identifying characteristics and details, such as physical properties, age, occupations, and places of residence. Illinois is not the true state that I grew up in. (certain updates including, but not limited to /names/locations/etc.. may be found through-out this website. I revealed certain information on this memoir reveal website in 2018.) There are several chapters of my life not included in this book to protect innocent people and in doing that, not all of the absolutely harsh and traumatic events will be written about here. There are also wretched chapters of my life that I must leave out due to circumstances beyond me. However, they are documented elsewhere.

****TRIGGER WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IF YOU COULD BE TRIGGERED BY SCENES OF ABUSE. THIS BOOK CONTAINS GRAPHIC DETAILS THAT CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS MAY BE SENSITIVE TO.*****

The goal of writing Debbie is to raise awareness regarding sexual abuse and to let politicians and the public gain insight into the life of a childhood sexual assault and childhood pornography survivor. If politicians are going to make decisions for me regarding time limits and how they prosecute pedophiles and child pornographers, shouldn't they see how sexual abuse (rape) and child pornography (repeated rapes) have affected me and others? If the public is going to continue to say things about pedophiles that are captured like, "He will pay in prison" shouldn't they be taught that what they are saying is far from true in many instances? Take a look at how many violent sexual predators are within a 10-mile area of your home, read this book, talk to other survivors, and then begin to form your opinions. Did they "pay in prison” or are they back on the streets sitting on an offender registry? Do you feel safe?

It is not a single crime when a child is photographed while sexually assaulted (raped.) It is a life time crime that should have life time punishments attached to it. If the surviving child is, more often than not, going to suffer for life for the crime(s) committed against them, shouldn't the pedophiles suffer just as long? If it often takes decades for survivors to come to terms with exactly how much damage was caused to them, why are there time limits for prosecution? There are other crimes with no time limits. Do lawmakers actually believe that incest and child pornography cause less damage than those laws without time limits? Just because a survivor is breathing does not mean that they are living.

Dedicated to all survivors of childhood sexual abuse that have tried to get help, but were called, "CRAZY" by people who aren't even close to having their own "CRAZY" under control….. This is my red tape residue.

CHAPTER ONE

I can barely catch my breath. The lump in my throat from trying to hold back the overdue tears is almost unbearable as I begin to shake. Looking around this bland office with its mustard ugly walls I feel dread and notice that the already small room's walls are closing in on me. I need to get out of here, but the man sitting at his desk across from me finally stops typing and begins to speak, "What you are feeling right now is normal and it is part of having PTSD and undoubtedly you have severe anxiety. I want to thank you for telling me small details about the things that have happened to you." I can't look up at him, I am so lost in this moment and I feel as though I am being tortured all over again. I cover my eyes with my trembling hands and I lean onto his desk and I try to speak, but the words won't come out. Finally my voice cracks and I beg him, "Please just change the subject, right now. Say anything, please just help me get out of this moment!" There is a moment of silence that feels as if it will never end and I can only hear myself struggling to get air into my lungs. The man wearing the tacky brown wool sweater that I've been speaking with for the last twenty minutes so that I could receive therapy at the local community mental health facility, finally breaks his silence, "I wish I could've watched you when you were a stripper."

It's happened again, the sexually charged atmosphere that is always present even if I do everything I can to try to be invisible. Is it men? Is it me? God, I am so sick of this. Today I wore a pair of faded old jeans and a plain grey baggy shirt. I hadn't even taken a shower, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed a worn out black oversized jacket to cover myself with even though it is warm outside. I have made conscious decisions lately to look like less of what I felt a male would want to see. I want to disappear. I have also been dealing with anxiety that seems to be getting worse with just about every interaction with the adult male species and that has made me just want to stay sheltered at home. I don't want to be judged on my looks any longer, but I like looking nice so down playing myself has its wins and losses. This man had no right to speak to me that way. That wasn't just unprofessional, it was downright troublesome from someone in his position. Do I speak up and say, "NO! Do not speak to me that way?" Many women would say, "Yes, tell him that," but some survivors, they know exactly what will happen if you say "NO" at all, ever.

If I say no, I may not get the needed assistance or my file may get lost or otherwise manipulated. I know all too well how people like him take advantage of people like me and it took me decades to figure it out. "Red flags," as they say. I see red flags more than I probably should now and it has left me in a constant state of fight or flight. This is a very dirty world full of very dirty people, there is nobody to trust, I thought to myself as I sat stunned at what Mr. Tacky Sweater had so recklessly just said to me. I had just told him about being sexually exploited so many times in my life. What was he thinking? My anxiety quickly turns to disappointment and rage, but I did not respond to what he had just said to me, and in fact, I tried to ignore it in the hopes it would go away. I know from experience how this will play out for me if I try to tell someone. I will be the one who looks bad, I will be the one "hysterical" or "crazy" and this "professional" will be off the hook. The story rarely, if ever, changes that way. There is all too often no justice for survivors of childhood sexual abuse and child pornography, in regards to revictimization by professionals, advocates, and others who abuse their power. They can simply write off what they've done and blame our anxiety or other emotional issues as the problem. The message from every direction is clear, "Stay silent" or pay whatever price will come from each situation where you are revictimized. You will see how this has come into play repeatedly in my lifetime and how my unhealed traumas made it all the easier to be revictimized time and again. I don't like the word "revictimized" though, because I'm nobody's victim anymore. I am a survivor. I think I will just make up a new word, "resurvivorized." I had to resurvivorize. All of the things that happened to me were all just more traumas to try to forget so that I could survive, whether that meant healing or not, I had to survive. I feel tense emotions while sitting here in front of this man, but I am relieved as the intake is finally completed.

If I wasn't uncomfortable enough already, a not so distant memory of something I overheard an old neighbor say about me to a friend of his on the phone, comes into play with my insecurities. "It's like her pheromones are too intense, men are just drawn to her, its the strangest thing that I have ever seen. She should be studied." My old neighbor is speaking about the time when I had been accidentally injured and he had escorted me to the local emergency room. He had noticed that I was getting tense as an older male volunteer entered the seating area. "What's wrong, Sierra?" As I point towards two gentlemen I tell him about how I had been here at this hospital before and that the older male volunteer had tried to rub my back and that he made me very uncomfortable. While my neighbor and child are with me at this emergency room, this volunteer begins sitting right next to me again. He begins to try to baby me as if my injury were much more severe than it actually was, as if I needed comforting, when I didn’t need comforting at all. It sent chills down my spine and I could feel my arm hairs stand up. Many people in the waiting area take notice of his actions. An older female that was with her husband gives me a silent look of understanding. I smile in her direction, but only to let her know that I am thankful for her apparent understanding.

I am relieved as the nurse finally calls me back into a room. Both my neighbor and my child become witness to the creepy old male volunteer enter the room and proceed to act as if he cares about me by rubbing my shoulders and holding my hand while trying to get me to talk to him alone. Seriously? I think to myself. I patiently tell him, "No, I'm fine," and I look past him and see the stunned look on my neighbor’s face. My daughter was not shocked at all. She had the unfortunate circumstance of having to have seen it before. The volunteer tries to quietly give me his number as he touches my hair. He isn't just standing too close, he is practically sitting on top of me. "I care about you, I know what it is like to feel so lonely," the creepy volunteer announces. "I have to use the rest room," I say as I attempt to get out of this situation. Finally, after making me even more uncomfortable, he just leaves. This memory is one of many rushing through my head as I stand outside the counseling center and lean against the car that I borrowed from a friend. "She should be studied."

Am I to blame? What did I do wrong this time? I light a cigarette and stare up at the brilliant white clouds that are slowly being covered by more sinister grey ones. I need to just focus on the clouds. Why does this keep happening to me, I think to myself. Suddenly a man walks past me while I am deep inside my own thoughts. He startled me and I feel my heart start pounding. I notice everything about the man. I notice the color of his sneakers, his shirt, his hair, how he walks, and what he has in his hands.

I notice these things on impulse and without thinking. My mind is full of lame details about people that nobody else may have ever noticed. Survival I suppose.

Several times over too many years I have wondered about therapy and if I should go back. I have tried to go into therapy before, but it is always so uncomfortable and often brings up so many old memories that I cannot catch up with the layers of trauma and I become overwhelmed. The other reason I do not care to go is because of the unprofessional behaviors that I've come to expect from far too many people working in places such as therapy offices, churches, shelters, and even law enforcement agencies. They are often tight knit groups that typically cover their own, and I discovered that the hard way, of course. Power trips and red flags are common. There are wonderful people in these professions and I even had a wonderful therapist that helped me get through a car accident about a decade ago, but unfortunately I have found many bad seeds and I can’t help but to think about how many more there must be. I know that I am not the only one who has ever landed in the spoiled fields of bad seeds that will never grow.

As a young child I remember going to therapy after my father was put in prison on a sexual assault charge where he had harmed another person. His sentence was not nearly long enough as you will come to see because not only did he not “pay in prison,” but he had a pretty good life inside those walls. In the court documents a Judge says to my father that he had saved his case for the end of the court calendar so as not to embarrass him. A judge telling a pedophile that he didn't want to embarrass him? Yep. Oh but that's not all, in a transcript a Judge asks my pedophile father if he had done things to other children (including myself,) and my father admits that he had. My father must not have known that the transcripts would be in my hands one day and he must’ve hoped I’d forget, because he spent a lot of time denying what he had done to me. Though my father admitted in court that day that he had harmed others, the Judge did not do anything about it and never brought it up again. Justice denied.

While in, what I was told was "mandatory therapy" as a child, I often felt as if I was being talked down to. The therapist would show me books with cartoon images of naked men and women and how they made love, and this was supposed to show me what "normal" sex was. Imagine a little blonde girl that had been brutally sexually traumatized, being forced to see cartoon sex and being told it was love. The therapist sat in her dark brown leather chair with her legs crossed. She had auburn hair that fell just below her shoulders, and then there was me, unkempt in a dingy white shirt and blue jeans that were ready for flood waters. Knowing what I already knew about adults in my life, I pretended to be interested so that she would not hurt me if I didn’t. She was showing me a sex book just like what my father had often done and if I did not pay attention to him or if I ran away, I would be punished. I was only an elementary school aged child as I stood there looking interested, but I remember thinking, I already know what sex is. She wasn't showing me anything new and with the exception of making paper flowers and playing with play dough, I couldn't figure out why I had to keep going there. I was a good girl. I looked at the pictures she showed me. How many times do I need to do it?

I had told the therapist about my father forcing me to do sexual things while he took pictures, but she too did not seem to care enough about me to get me out of a house still filled with abuse and a traumatized single parent heading it. I guess I’m not a good girl if she wants to show me pictures too and she won’t help me either. Even though my father was temporarily in prison, I was still stuck in hell at varying levels with entirely new traumas to try to process on top of what was yet to be processed or healed. Maybe she did care but she was caught in "red tape." Or maybe I was just not worth saving. As a child my mind could only process that it had to be that I was not worth saving and that everything I had ever been taught or told about myself had to of been true. "slut," "dumb little bitch," "whore," "over-sensitive," "annoying little tramp," "tease," "sex kitten," "slut slut slut." Now that I am older, I wonder to myself about how they could have put me in mandatory therapy, which proves that they knew that I was abused, and yet they still did nothing to prosecute him for what he had done to me previously and for all the traumas that his horrific abuse would be causing me in the future. How many people would it take knowing that I was being hurt before someone did anything to help me?

Once I realized how much the original trauma of being sexually abused and exploited as a child had affected me, it was too late to do anything about it. Our justice system said that I should have known sooner how traumatized I was and that also meant that I had to be able to predict the future. As a traumatized child or young adult, according to the “justice” system, I was to already know how much my abuse harmed me and I was expected to know how much the original abuse would destroy me in the future. I had to meet their time limits for prosecution even though I was a child. Otherwise, no justice.

As for those who knew I was being abused and did nothing, I could sue them, but every attorney that I have found has said it would be too hard to go back to the 70s to do it. The case was too old, yet they are helping Catholic Church survivors from the 70s. Easy money for the attorneys or are the Catholic Church survivors simply worth more justice than I am? One even told me, "It would be too hard to fight a county, a police department, and the church that knew and didn't help you." Two of them asked, "Does your father have an estate you can sue?" So if my family is poor, I cannot have any justice in America? The country that I worshipped and even taught my daughter to treat with respect had absolutely no respect or compassion for me? Money, it’s all about money. I only wanted an apology, recognition of the fault of these agencies. Justice. All of the messages were combining, "You're only good for sex, nobody cares about you, you certainly don’t deserve justice, and you're worthless."

Justice is elusive and only for the rich or those that can make attorneys richer, it seems. My main goal was always survival though. I knew that being rescued or finding justice were things I was not privileged to. How do I survive today? What will happen the next day to prevent the next trauma so that I could heal the past ones? My mind was always on high speed. I was always thinking of what might happen next and how I could prepare for it or divert from it. Traumatic experiences were either happening, or I was thinking about how they would happen next, much too often. My mind became a war zone where I had to constantly prepare for the next battle. Even small battles could quickly turn into a World War in my life. Sometimes well-meaning people would say things like, “Relax, that won’t happen,” but I had learned early on that absolutely anything could and likely would happen. Between the people that I was unfortunate enough to meet, and my lack of proper life skills due to neglect and abuse, I was stuck on one hell of a horrible ride.

I was once asked by a male therapist, "How did you survive it all and not end up on drugs or kill yourself?" I was stunned. “I didn’t know I was supposed to use drugs or kill myself,” I said. I did not know how I survived and since I didn't know, I was too insecure to return to therapy with him. I felt that if I did not have that answer, I couldn't continue therapy. That was trauma doing the thinking for me, which it did more often than not throughout my lifetime. When every horrible thing happening is what you've always known to be normal, and when so many around you are calling you "over sensitive" and telling you that you need to "get over it," having someone ask me how I survived justified to me that I had gone through more than anyone ever should've had to of gone through. I was not prepared for that. I simply had to survive. That's what my normal was. "Get over it." Don't be "sensitive." Stay tough. Take it. Never let the fuckers win. "Suck it up." As my old Army Drill Instructor once said, "The pain is just the weakness leaving your body!" He meant the physical pain of Boot Camp. Or did he? Mostly, his statement made me cringe, but I marched on as the Drill Instructor called us all wimps and pussies in an effort to strengthen our resolve. Little did he know, those names were weak compared to what I had already been called.

CHAPTER TWO

I can remember being called a lot of bad names when I was younger. One of my first memories of being called a bad name was when we were living in an area of Illinois that was known for its poorer population. The red brick apartment buildings were neatly tucked beside one another with wide open spaces in between rows. On this day, just about every child that lived in the complex was outside playing. It was a remarkable day because the night before had been filled with dangerous weather and today there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I could not go outside and play because at the age of three, I was not allowed to go out by myself. Strangely however, I was allowed to stay in the house with a pedophile. I don't know why my own mother had left me in the house alone that day with my father, but she had and I wondered where she had gone. At the time I didn't know that my mother knew long before I was ever born how abusive my father really was. She knew, so why did she leave me alone with him?

Worrying questions wandered through my mind as they often did when I could not find her. Was she tied up again? Where was she? Was she dead like the lady I overheard people talking about? Did she drown in the water like I had heard a child had recently done? There were too many horrible thoughts running through such a young mind. Those were terrible things for a three year old to have to consider. It was made all the worse by the fact that I had to worry about her and survive at the same time. I had been sitting on our worn out couch, picking at my bruises, when my father grabbed me abruptly. He yanked me by my upper arm and began to drag me to my parent's bedroom.

He threw me onto the bed and began to stack pillows behind my body in an effort to put me into the sexual position that he wanted me in that time. My father had dark hair and he was fairly tall and muscular. He was always clean shaven and he had excellent posture. I don’t know if his great posture was due to his time in the Army or if it was his mom and dad that had made him that way. He towered over me as I lay silent and frozen with my legs spread apart. The look on his face was a smirk that resembled all of the evil I could imagine at that age. He was gritting his teeth and it is an image that is forever burned into my mind because I had seen it so many times before and after this day in my parent’s bedroom. He took out his camera from the table that sat next to my parent’s large bed and he began taking pictures of me in various sexual positions. He demanded that I smile so that people could see that I was a good girl. I knew that if I did not do as he said, I would be hit hard, so I smiled. Silently.

Just about every time I would smile when I was little, my nose would crinkle up and everyone would tell me how cute that was. I made sure my nose crinkled every time so that he wouldn't be mad at me for not being a "good girl." I was like a dog being forced to learn my master's every move and whim. Being as terrorized as I was as a child, it wasn't very hard for my father to teach me what his dark side wanted. It wouldn’t be long before I knew what every man’s dark side wanted from me. I was so very small as I laid on the bed and this was all that I knew in regards to what father's do. This was my normal. He set the camera back down and pulled down his pants and forced his penis into my mouth, but my teeth scraped him as he did this, and he smacked me across the face for it. I did my best not to cry. This wasn't the first time that he made me show people that I was a good girl so I knew the rules already.

He picked up his camera again and then he forced his penis back into my mouth. I couldn't breathe and he did not seem to care. I was choking and gagging and gasping for air. He was taking pictures of his penis in my mouth and telling me what a good little "slut" I was. I did not know what he meant but it wasn't the last time that I would hear that word. He repeated that I was a "good girl." I could feel the tears beginning to roll from my eyes as he choked me with one hand on my neck while trying to put his penis back into my mouth over and over again. He would remove his hand from my neck long enough to use that hand to take even more pictures. I looked up at him and there was hope that he would see he was hurting me, but he told me to only look at the camera. I did as my father said. I stared at the camera as much as I could through tears and trying to breathe. I felt him pee into my mouth and he had never done that the other times that he had hurt me. Why was he peeing in my mouth? I thought to myself, and as I spit it out he told me that's not what good girls do and he forcefully put some of it back into my mouth. After he calmed down and got off of me, he caressed my hair and told me that he loved me. I was completely silent. I could hear the kids still playing outside and I wished in my heart that I could go play with them. I was so sad as I lay in my parent’s bed, bruised, shattered, and frozen. I had to lay right next to him until he said that I could leave.

There are other times like these that come flooding back into my mind if something triggers the memory switch. Even when my memories are not triggered by anything that I can pinpoint, there are times that the words, the screams, or the gasping comes to haunt me at night as I lay down to sleep. All these decades later and I still have trouble sleeping. There are nights with no sleep and then there are the more common nights of two to four hours of sleep. My mind is an exhausting place filled with unimaginable horrors. There is a memory of my father that plays out in my mind more often than other memories do at night. This distressing memory was the day that he had me drink my first beer. We had moved from the red brick apartment rows and into a place way out in the country with lots of farm land surrounding it. It was a stereotypical house for the area at the time. It was a multi-level rented home and it had a big basement that my father filled with his favorite things. There were plenty of windows yet the house always seemed so dark. Just writing how dark the house had felt, brings another disturbing memory back to the forefront of my overwhelmed mind.

I remember when my brothers Jared and John were upstairs in their room laughing and playing. I was alone again downstairs so I went up to play with them, but they were much older than I was and they did not care for my presence. "Annoying little brat," is one thing that they would call me when they didn't want me near them. Other times they would call me "fat brat" or "little bitch." John especially liked calling me the last one. When I got to their room upstairs I saw them painting the light bulb that was attached to the ceiling. I may never tell what happened after that, and I think I should go back to the story about my father making me drink my first beer. He had told me to come downstairs to the basement and as I began to go down the stairs he met me towards the top with a can of beer in his hand.

He told me that the beer was our secret and that I should never tell my mom. I was afraid of him, but I always told my mom everything. She couldn't do anything about any of it though because whenever she told anyone about him, they didn't believe her or they did not care about us. For example, while we were still living at the red brick row apartments in Illinois, my mom called the police when I was two years old. According to her the police arrived at our house while he was forcing me to choke on his penis again, and they left me there anyway. There was nothing she would be able to do about him giving me the beer either. When he gave me the can of beer I felt proud that he was being nice to me because that must've meant I was being a "good girl." It was one of those moments where you fill up with hope that someone who has always hated you finally loves you. You know those repeated moments of hope that never fail to let you down hard? It was like that.

Within minutes of my taking small sips from the beer can, it was clear that he had not come around at all, and in fact, he seemed to love me even less. He giggled with me as I took a couple sips out of the cold can of beer. He then asked me if I wanted to go see all of the things he had in the basement and he even told me that I could touch the CB radio buttons. I was excited because when I touched the buttons before, he made me go get the belt, but this time he was going to let me touch them. Of course I went with him willingly as he was my daddy, my provider, and at that moment, he was the only one in the house who even wanted to be near me that day. The entire day had been a bad day. My brothers were teasing me because I had fallen out of a closet by my parent's bedroom. They were all laughing and pointing at me because all of the coats fell on top of me.

I was hiding in there because of what I had just seen prior to my fall out of the closet. I was in there because I was afraid. The closet was one of two places that I had felt safe until that day when my brothers swung open the closet door and I fell out. After I fell out, they were relentlessly teasing me and making jokes as if I they were broadcast News Reporters talking about a child that fell out of a building. I ran away and as I did, they chased right after me and when I got outside I ran as fast as I could and climbed up the tree in the front yard. The tree in the front yard was my other safe place. I don't know how they knew, but they seemed to know that while I was in the tree, they were not allowed to mess with me. It was my rule. Maybe my mom told them that was a family rule. I don't know, but they never teased me when I was up in the tree. I tried really hard to never let them see me cry because if any of them saw me crying, they would get mad at me. Even my mom told me "Don't you ever cry!" My mom was adopted when she was little and she was told to never cry, so she didn't, and I wasn't supposed to either.

I tried really hard not to cry, but this time when I got up in the tree, I cried for a long time. I'm 45 years old and to this very day, if I have to recall the memories of that day, I still have to fight back the tears. Usually, unsuccessfully. Earlier that day I had woken up hungry. My father had some fetish for liver and beans and I had to eat them all the time. I probably refused to eat them the evening before this horrible day because my stomach hurt from hunger. As I was coming out of my bedroom, I walked across the dark tiled kitchen floor of the farm house and I looked on top of the counter. I saw some delicious looking brownies. I had seen my mom make brownies for my dad before but I was told to never touch them. Sometimes my mom would secretly make us cookies to eat, and my dad did not get to have any, so I didn't mind not touching his brownies. On this day, however, I was really hungry. I ran to go find my mom to ask her if I could have a brownie, but as I ran through the dining room and into the living room, I heard the most horrid sound that a child could ever hear.

My mom was screaming so loud it sounded like she was being murdered. I ran as fast as I could towards the screams, but I heard his voice and my fear of him stopped me in my tracks. I quietly got on the floor and crawled the rest of the way across the living room towards their bedroom door. When I got close enough, I looked into their bedroom through a small hole. Standing there afraid, I was trying not to lean against the wooden door or make a sound. I carefully looked through the hole to see if my mom was alright. She was not alright and there was nothing that I could do to help her. I was told to never call the police because one of my brother’s would go to jail if I did. It was my brother that was always acting the meanest to me. His name was John and he had long curly black hair and tiny brown eyes. He had the kind of eyes where you could look into them and not see anything at all. He was an average sized teenager but he was not an average teenage boy. He wasn't a good big brother. I did not like how he looked at me when he was mad. He scared me more than my dad did sometimes, but I loved him just as much as all of my siblings. John’s dark heart made me both sad for him and mad at him at the same time.

As I stood quietly peeking through the hole, I heard my brothers slam the screen door. They were coming inside through the kitchen and I quickly ran and hid in the closet. They were going to rat me out to my dad for looking in the hole, I just knew it! So I went to my closest safe place to hide. They must've heard me close the closet door because before I could grab the hanging rod and move behind the coats, they flung the door open. I fell out and they began their laughter and the never ending fake news broadcasts. “News flash! News flash! Little girl falls out of eighteen story closet!” Once I ran out and got up into the tree I let myself cry as I tried to think of a way to get past my brothers and save my mom. What I had seen through the hole was my dad had my mom kneeling on the edge of the bed with her head facing the opposite way and he was standing behind her with a knife. She was completely naked and tied up from her ankles to around her neck with a rope. My dad was laughing but not like normal laughing, not like happiness. He had tied another rope all the way around her head and through her open mouth like a gag. She looked absolutely terrified. I thought about telling my brothers but I knew my dad would hurt them if they tried to help and I didn't believe any of them would help anyway. They were much bigger than I was and several years ahead of me in age, but when it came down to it, everyone was on their own in the family nest and had to just survive the best way that they could.

It was also better that I stay up in the tree so that my dad wouldn't do to me what he was doing to my mom. I wanted to punch him really hard and scream at him. I wanted to fight and kick him for my mom except that there was no way that I could. I was too little and I did not know how to use the gun that my dad had in their bedroom. I had seen my brother John with a gun before and a deputy talked to him about it. I wished the deputy had taken me away, but I knew that was not going to happen. Now, I had been sitting up in the tree for so long focused on a way to escape, that I didn't even hear my youngest brother come to the bottom of the tree. Even though he was my youngest brother, Jinx was still older than me by six years. I was the baby of the family. Like John, my brother Jinx also had dark hair with curls but his eyes were blue and he was mean to me too, but not as mean as my other brothers. I liked Jinx the most because sometimes he was very nice. My other siblings were often mean to him too, so I think his heart was softer like mine. Jinx said that I had to come down from the tree because it was time to eat so I rushed down the tree because I was still very hungry.

My siblings and I sat at the faded yellow picnic table near the front of the farm house in the exact order we had been taught to sit in. My place was to sit in between my father and my brother Jinx. I was sitting next to Jinx as my dad walked out of the house slamming the back screen door. He had his shirt off and a big plate of liver in hand. He was home from work and had plenty of time on this day to make sure we were all still under his terrorizing control. Now I don't know much about Stockholm Syndrome and back then I had never heard that description before, but what happened at the picnic table that day was either fear of my father or a sick psychological bond one of my siblings had with him. Just like the other memories of this day, this one is also forever engraved in my mind.

While we all sat at the picnic table, I had refused to eat the liver again. I was not going to eat it no matter how hungry I was. Every time I had to eat the liver I would get sick and I was already feeling sick and sad from what I had seen through the hole earlier, so I refused to eat it. Maybe I was fighting him back for what I had just seen him do to my mom, but I don’t know. I did know that we did not say NO to our father. A single refusal to do what our father demanded would lead to being physically abused and degraded. At the picnic table that day it was no different. When I refused to eat the liver, I had to sit there and watch everyone else eat a different meal. My dad, at my refusal to eat the wretched liver, had demanded that my mother hurry up and get the rest of them something better to eat. He was going to try and break me. In front of me was a plate of liver, but I wanted the meal that they were eating. When my dad wasn't looking I would tap on Jinx's leg hoping he would give me some of his food, but he wouldn't and he didn't even look in my direction. He was afraid too I guess. Once they were done eating my dad excused all but one brother from the table. My mom was clearing the table, Jinx, my sister Julie, and my other brother ran off to play. The brother that was told to stay and my dad were sitting on either side of me. My dad told my brother to make me eat the liver.

My brother pulled me from the table and brought me to a tree and pushed me against it. He shoved the liver in my face so hard that the force caused my head to bang against the tree, but I kept my mouth closed as tight as I could. The look in my brother's eyes was just as dark as my dad's eyes would get when he would hurt me. My mom must have heard the commotion because she ran outside, but my dad held her back so that she couldn't get near us. She screamed for my brother to stop and once he heard my mom's voice he slammed my head against the tree again and he walked away. I was in pain, already traumatized from seeing my mom hurt, and now this too. I was having a bad fucking day. I noticed my dad had started taking off his belt so I quickly bent down and picked up the liver from the ground and I sat down at the foot of the tree. I did not want a beating on top of what already happened. I struggled to eat the liver through heartbroken tears, and I sat there alone while my siblings played together nearby.

My parents sat at the picnic table watching me. My mom wasn't crying, but I was. She stared at me the entire time and I stared right back at her. I did not want to look directly at him again. I tried to speak to her in a secret language that I had invented to talk to her in that my dad could never figure out. It was a simple addition to words that changed the way they sounded. Our way of saying "What are you doing?" or "I love you" was the same exact code word, "Dooery." I was crying so hard while trying to eat the dirty liver that when I tried to speak to my mom, my words came out broken and that made me even sadder because I needed for her to know something. Before we died, I needed her to know that I loved her. "Dooery" I said softly through the hyperventilated breath of my tears. A desperate look crossed my mother’s face. "Dooery" she forcefully yells as she slammed her hands down onto the table. She stood up and for that one moment, it seemed like my father was afraid of her.

He did not make her sit back down. Maybe he was confused by what we were saying to each other. She looked at me with telling eyes as if to say, "It will be ok." She looked very tired and she had injuries all over her face. She looked as if she had just found strength again as she leaned forward on the table staring straight at me with a demanding look on her face that I should just hurry up and eat it. She was giving me strength the only way that she could in that moment. We were a team. We were going to be ok and we would fight back together some day. I just knew we would!

I finally finished eating the liver and I was allowed to go back inside the farm house. My dad must've made my mom stay away because she never came to see if I was ok. While I was in my room I prayed to Jesus on my hands and knees to make my real family show up to rescue me and my mom, but Jesus must not have heard me again, and my day only got worse from there. The day from hell continued when my father brought me down into the basement after giving me my first beer. He quickly showed me the radio buttons for his CB and he swatted my hand away when I went to touch a button he did not want me to touch for some reason. The basement was a scary looking place and I was never allowed down there without him. There was a curtain hanging and behind that curtain there was an area with many images hanging up. There were pictures on a table inside that area as well. We were not in the basement long before he started raping me and taking pictures of me naked again. This time while he was doing this to me, I felt like I was watching from just above myself. I remember looking around at all of the radio equipment that was near us. I don't like using the word "us" in that sentence. There was no "us." He was hurting me and I wanted it to stop, but there was nothing that I could do. I felt distraught at watching myself from above just lying there silently trying not to cry. The day was finally over, but my life was not.

CHAPTER THREE

"Jesus Fucking Christ! You little slut, go get the fucking belt!" I'd hurriedly walked away with my head hung down and hands clenched together. He'd always tell us to "go get the belt" and of course, being "a good girl," I was the one dumb enough to come back with it. To survive in my family, I learned very quickly to always "be a good girl." I did whatever my father said. He had full terrorizing control. It's a strange thing how this poured right over into my adult life. I kept being everyone's "good girl," for a very long time. If authority figures told me to do something because it was "for the best" or simply because they told me to, my traumatized mind had me listening and following what they said. If I needed love, I knew what I had to do to get even an ounce of it. I was taught from the very beginning to be nothing more than "a slut" and "a good girl." As a little girl, it felt like I was left abandoned to figure it all out on my own and that steered me right into more traumas as I got older. If it wasn't for actually going to church sometimes, I would have grown up thinking my name was "Jesus Fucking Christ!"

My mom had let me know that I was an "accident" several times. There are two different versions of how I was conceived. The first version of my conception was that it happened on a rock in the north woods and the other version was that my mom was raped by my father. Maybe they are both true. The story of my birth that my mother told me went like this: "When you were coming out I wasn't ready yet and neither was the nurse. The nurse tried to push you back in, but I shit on the table and when you came out, you landed in my shit."

If there ever was a way to sum things up, the story of my birth was it.

The small town that we lived in at the farm house made it hard for me to know anyone beyond my sheltered world. There was one boy that Jinx knew and one day I was lucky enough to be able to go play at his house. Jinx went off to go do something else that day and I stayed behind to play with the boy. This boy ended up showing me pornographic magazines and somewhat successfully tried to do to me what he saw happening on the pages in the magazines. The pornographic magazines were the same as what my dad had shown me except they weren't pictures of children with adults, it was all adults. What the boy did to me was nothing I didn’t already know. It was normal for this to happen to me. It was just the way it was in my life, but I still felt really bad and I left his house and never went back there. When I walked up on Jinx on my way home, I told him what the boy did to me and he called me a "slut," laughed a bit, and we walked back home together as if nothing abnormal had happened at all. Just another day. Another moment. No big deal.

I did not have any of my own friends, but my siblings had friends from school, and they would go to their classmate's homes sometimes. One day while I was hiding up in my favorite tree, I saw my brother Jared beginning the long country road journey to his friend's house. Jared was a good looking teenage boy. He liked to wear his dark hair in a buzz cut and when he would sometimes smile, the girls were charmed by it. I really wanted my big brother Jared to see my new hand me down dress. I climbed down the tree in my bare feet and pretty dress and I started following him down the road. He ended up pretty far ahead of me because I kept getting distracted by the tar melting between my toes as I walked. I kept stopping and I would push my toes down into the black muddy tar. This was the coolest thing I had ever seen or felt. I was fascinated and completely distracted from anything else going on around me. I did not see how far ahead my brother Jared had gotten and when I finally looked up from my newly found melted tar fascination, I realized he was nowhere in sight.

There was nobody around except me, standing barefoot in the middle of the road. I wasn't afraid and I kind of liked the freedom of the road that I was on. It was a long road with only a few houses with big front yards and most of them had dirt drive ways. The fields surrounding me were green with rolls of brown hay placed randomly throughout. I began walking the rest of the way to Jared's friend's house. Once I arrived at his house, I straightened up my pretty dress and wiped my hair away from my face with my dirty hands. I was a Tom Boy wearing a frilly dress. I just knew that my big brother Jared was going to be so happy to see me and that he would tell me that my dress was pretty. In my new to me dress, he would like me better. I knocked on the door and I did not have to wait long before Jared opened up the door. I smiled. He did not smile back. Jared had immediately noticed the giant bug near my feet and he took his foot and stomped on it. The bug's guts got onto my pretty dress. He looked at me without expression and slammed the door. I cried all the way home.

Why didn't my big brother love me? I thought to myself, but I knew deep inside that he did really love me. He was my brother and the bible said family loves each other. He must not know he hurt me, he was just killing a bug, I convinced myself. It's strange how you can become so used to abuse and still have hope. "Hope" every time I write the word it feels like a lie. "I hope the justice system actually works just once for me," or "I hope there really is a God." Yeah, I still have hope. Hope was built into me. Hope has aided in my survival, but it has also aided in my torment. I know I am not alone in thinking that hope is a bitch, but without it, what else is there? Nothing. You must have hope even if it destroys you, there is no other way to make it to the next day. The next trauma. The next broken heart. The next smile from your child. The next kitten to rescue. The next revictimization. The next rainbow. The next breath. The next.. the next. The next hope.

Ahhh hope. One day, while living at the farm house, I was brought to a building filled with young girls close to my age. I did not know any of the girls sitting around the room on the floor and I was quickly ushered in and told to sit quietly in the back. A woman was calling each girl’s name and the girls that had their names called would walk up one by one to the front. They were then handed something and everyone would clap for them. I didn't clap because I was told to be quiet. I sat with my hands under my butt smiling watching all of the girls being happy. Two girls in front of me started saying that I smelled bad and that my hair needed to be brushed. I felt very sad that these girls weren't different from what I already knew. They laughed at me just like my brothers did. I felt dirty and confused and I sat in my spot quietly. When I overheard someone say they were getting "brownie pins,” I thought it meant something to eat.

I asked a woman behind me if I could have a brownie pin too. She wasn't thrilled with the idea but the woman next to her said that I could, "If you're still here." I anxiously waited for my name to be called so I that I could go up in front of all the girls and have them clap for me too. I was going to be included. I was so excited! As it turned out, that was not going to happen and I wasn't there long before my mom and another woman came in and made me leave with them. Kicking my mom and the lady, I burst into tears because I did not get to do what the other girls were doing. I'd never get a brownie pin. My mom and the lady told me to be really quiet and they quickly put me into a strange car. We left that small country town for good and my dad was not allowed to come with us.

While we were driving it was explained to me that my dad was going to go to jail for hurting another child and I was told that all of my suffering at his hands would now be over. I hoped they were right. My mom was very nervous, but excited. Her long brown hair was blowing in the wind because the window was down so that she could smoke cigarettes. The air felt good and I stared at my mom a lot because she was smiling so much. The woman that was driving took us to a hotel and when we opened the door there was a giant basket of fruit waiting for us just inside on top of the dresser. The room had two big beds and the television set was next to the big basket of fruit. I wanted to watch cartoons so I ran towards the television. Then I remembered. I didn't dare turn on the television because when I had done that before to see cartoons, I was beaten by my father because it woke him up. I did not watch cartoons for a long time after that and the only time I'd watch T.V. was if my mom was sitting with me. She liked to watch scary movies with demons and spirits and they terrified me so much that I couldn't sleep, but sometimes that was the only way to be with my mom and watch television too. I turned away from the T.V. and placed my attention back on the basket of fruit. I had never seen anything like that before.

There were fruits of various colors and shapes all stacked on top of each other with a big bow on top of the handle of the wicker basket. I had never seen most of the types of fruit in the basket before, and they were curious to me so I spent the next half hour or so taking a bite out of every single fruit. Some of them tasted delicious and those I would have Jinx try as well. He seemed happy to eat them with me. Jinx then decided he was not happy that I was taking a bite out of every fruit and he tried to snitch on me to our mom. She was too busy reading papers about my dad, I guess, so she did not respond to him. When Jinx snatched a piece of fruit out of my hand, my mom yelled at him to give it back to me. Things were finally starting to change. The next day we woke up and a woman called an "advocate" drove us over to a domestic violence shelter. What was an advocate? What was a shelter? I had no idea, but life was good for a minute. John came back and we were all together again, but without my father near us. My dad can't hurt me anymore, right? "That's right," they'd tell me. I believed them and things felt like they would start to turn around for me.

One morning shortly after we had arrived at the shelter, one of the advocates took me into a room filled with used toys. It was not a very big room. It was more like a large closet and all of the toys were on shelves or stacked inside of boxes. She told me that I could pick out one toy. I looked around as long as I could. I was curious about the puzzles but she told me those were too old for me and when I pointed to a car, she said those were for the boys. I walked around the crowded space and I was happy when she became distracted by a phone call. That would give me more time to look in the boxes. I wanted to pick out the best toy there was! I was trying to see every toy inside every box, but she hurried me along and told me to grab something because she had to go. I quickly grabbed a pot holder maker that was sticking out of a box and then she rushed me out the door. When the advocate wasn't so busy, she taught me how to use my new toy. I never did figure out how to tie off the ends right. I spent hours putting different colored pieces together so that each pot holder would be unique. I kept making pot holders, without closing the ends off, for everyone that lived or worked there. I liked the happiness on their faces when I would give my creations to them. They finally made me stop making the pot holders, but that was alright because I had also just discovered a brand new favorite food, the Charleston Chew Candy Bar. I had never tasted anything so delicious in my life! Then I was introduced to another kind of toy, a Barbie! My mom laughed when I had no idea what to do with a Barbie doll except dress it, undress it, dress it again, undress it, and make it punch or have sex with the other dolls. She laughed, so I must have been ok. Right? Right. I was discovering a world outside of the one I had been trapped in for so long. I was finally able to just be a child. Jesus must have heard my prayers after all.

While at the shelter, we were a rowdy group of seriously traumatized kids. In an attempt to keep us in line, the advocates had tried to convince us that the house was haunted. They even made roller skates move across the room seemingly on their own. I was confused about roller skates. My brother told me that I was "dumb" for being afraid of the skates and that the advocates were doing it just to scare us. I was sick of my brothers calling me names so I grabbed the skates and tried to put them on. I ended up with the tongues of the skates under my feet and the laces wrapped around my legs. I did not know how to put them on or tie them. I didn’t even know how to tie my own shoes. I immediately fell down, but I had shown that I was not afraid. I looked up at my brother from the awkward position that I fell down in and stared right at him. I was hurting, but I wasn’t going to let him know.

A woman, who was also a resident, must have noticed that I did not know how to tie shoe laces because she came over to me and took the skates off of my feet and had me sit down next to her. We each had a roller skate in our laps and she showed me how to lace them. She patiently explained, more than once, how to tie a bow with the laces. She was really nice to me and she’s the one who gave me my first Charleston Chew Candy Bar. Bit by bit I was learning small things that I should have already known about or how to do. It was a big new world and I had hope and I had my mom, so I was happy. I was very proud of my new shoe tying skills, so I would sit at people’s feet and untie and retie their shoes. Mostly, they did not mind. I would smile and wait for them to notice how good of a job that I did tying their shoes. I really liked it when they told me that I done a good job.

Now, I don't know who it was, but someone at that shelter decided that I needed to learn how to take a bath, without my mom's protection. I was highly traumatized from previous bathtub sexual and physical abuse and though they meant well, they went about trying to "cure" me of my phobia in about the worst possible way. The lady that had given me the toy, and who I liked so much, TRIED to put me into a bathtub while the water was running. It did not go well for her. She made me take off all of my clothes and she tried to get me to sit inside the bathtub. I was not having it. While she struggled to push me down into the tub, I was hanging onto the faucet and kicking her as hard as I could. She failed at her attempt to force me into taking a bath. I was glad she did not hit me for kicking her, but there was no way I was getting into that bath tub. Oh, but they were not done with their “cure this child” bathroom adventure.

The advocates had another lady pick me up and take me over to her house. Her house was big, white, and looked like a mansion to me. Her bathroom was the biggest bathroom that I had ever seen. It had black and white tiles on the floor and a free standing white bath tub. I was very timid when she brought me into her bathroom. I knew to be obedient to adults, and she had already warned me that I had better behave. She was mean and I was afraid of her. She turned on the faucet, turned off the lights, and then told me I wasn't coming out until I took a bath. After being in the dark bathroom alone for awhile she came in to shut off the water. She told me again to get into the bath tub, but I just stood there silent and tense. I could tell she was getting very angry with me, so I finally got into the tub. I was shaking and terrified and nobody seemed to understand that I wasn’t being defiant on purpose. There was a reason why it was so hard for me to get into a tub alone. Its decades later now, and I really enjoy taking a hot bath sometimes, but I cannot always stay in one very long.

Eventually we moved away from the shelter that had been my first taste of freedom. Decades later I would find myself calling that very same shelter to see if there was anyone there that remembered my family. "Is this Debbie?" a female voice on the line asked. The woman not only remembered me, but she had kept certain documents knowing that I would be the one most likely to come back for them some day. She began talking to me about the bathtub incident at the shelter. She told me how much of a survivor and fighter I was as a child. She said that many people would never forget my family. The abuse was more horrendous than many want to ever believe or admit to. She quickly mailed me the documents. Though I remember much more than what is in the documents, it did turn my stomach to read some of it on paper. The day that I received the envelope I was living at another domestic violence shelter with my mom and I was close to thirty years old. I was helping her get away, again. We were trying to escape more than I knew though, and trauma was still playing its role in our lives. Our family was still a mess. I probably would've made it out sooner if I hadn't of been so co-dependent on my mother.

I sat outside the shelter at a table surrounded by pine trees as I opened the envelope that the advocate had mailed to me. I began reading the documents inside of it. My mom had stepped outside to smoke and saw what I had in my hands. She began to read them as well and while reading them she began to shake. While staying at that shelter, my father had managed to send me an email message that he knew, that my mom knew, would trigger me. "Hi Kitty," it read, and it included a picture of me lying on a bed next to a picture of a cat. That picture of me had been taken by a very abusive ex-husband of mine. That email message would seem like no big deal to anyone that was an onlooker, but it was a very big deal. He was taunting me. In the past when my father would rape my mother or myself, he would also call us "kitty," at times. He also knew exactly what my ex-husband, the one that took the picture, had done to me. Upon seeing the creepy email, and after seeing those old documents again, my mom vowed that if we had our names changed, she would stay away from our family for good. This would not be the case at all, and her trauma ensured she'd go back. Not knowing how traumatized I really was, and my desperate need for any part of a family, ensured that I would go back near her. That would put me right back where I never really wanted to be again. The family nest.

The family nest was a place filled with pretending. Pretend to be a good family. Pretend to be "over it." Pretend nothing ever happened. Pretend because if you love others, pretending helps them move on and survive. "It isn't about you Debbie!" Pretend you're not hurting. Pretend you're not alone. Pretend so that you can survive and fit in, even if only on the outskirts of the nest. It was better than nothing. I had my mom sometimes. Sort of. While reading the documents I learned that my mother had known, long before I was born, that she was married to a monster. I was completely angry at my mother and I felt betrayed by her. I felt neglected and uncared for, but then I remembered and read about how many times she reached out for help, and there was no help at all. She was lost in a traumatized mind, inside a society that did not care. It was the strangest thing, watching my mother preach about God and the Bible and her trying to convince me that there was a hero in that story. She knew all too well that there were no heroes for us, so how could she believe in an invisible man and his followers that had let us all down? I felt terrible for being angry at my mom because I knew the life of abuse she had suffered long before my dad got his filthy coward hands on her.

Her real mom had serious psychological issues and I was told several times over the years that my mother's real father died drunk in a shady hotel room. Those two had brought an uncommon amount of children into the world. Most of them had been placed for adoption. My mom and one of her siblings were placed together in an orphanage where abuses occurred and then they were sent together to a home with a proper Christian woman (who I know to be my Grandma R,) and a man that wasn't always so great (who I know to be my Grandpa R.) Inside that home there were more abuses towards her. Then she married my father. I began recognizing that I was raising her more than she ever raised me. We were not learning together at all. Her growth was stunted mentally and I was on my own from the start to learn anything that I needed to know, no matter how many times I had pretended otherwise that I wasn't actually alone. On top of that, it was my job to hold her up as a good Christian child should do for their mother. My healing was on hold until she died and I felt selfish trying to heal without helping her through this life. She needed me and I was always at the ready no matter what was going on in my own life and no matter how old I was. If she called, I would drive fourteen hundred miles to save her. Over and over again. I strongly believed my life wasn't as important as hers and that my life would turn out alright no matter what. God would show up. Right? Yes, I believed in God and I thought for sure she was right about him.

Sitting at the picnic table that day was no different. I put my feelings on hold. I knew no other way to live. I had no right to be angry at my mother, I told myself. As far as the woman that sent me the documents, I want for her to know that her thinking of me all these years mattered. I just wish that one of the people or agencies that knew of all of the abuse had done something sooner, because my life was only ripped apart further after leaving the first shelter when I was a young girl. Though some people tried in their own ways, (and are appreciated,) I never received the help that I actually needed while I was younger: a complete separation from my family, intensive therapy, and a chance to recover from the original traumas of sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, physical abuse, and psychological abuse before the next trauma happened. (and the next and the next and the next etc.) Moving out of that shelter when I was a little girl, and my father going to the state mental hospital and then prison, (because he convinced them he didn't belong in the mental hospital,) did not change my young life all that much. I had hope as a child and sitting there that day at the table with the documents I still had hope for a bright future. A future that resembled what society deems, "normal." The normal that I knew was tearing me apart day in and day out.

My first taste of what society deems as "normal" came from the first domestic violence shelter we had lived in when I was little. Once we were able to move out of that shelter, we moved into a side by side duplex on top of a big hill. The fairly large city that we lived in was filled with tall buildings and plenty of bridges that my mother and I had to walk across just to get to the places that she needed to go. My mother never drove a car because she didn't know how to. Just as I had never been taught to tie my own shoes until months before moving to the house on the hill, she had never been taught to drive. I didn't mind walking with her though because I loved going anywhere with her. She was my only friend and sometimes she would manage to buy a treat for the journey. There were times walking with her that weren't any fun at all, for example, the numerous days where my stomach was so empty that I didn't feel like I could walk another step. I would feel weak and the mouth sores that I often had from stress or the pink eye that I had kept getting from the environment lived in, would make the walks that much harder. On those days she would promise me that we could go to the Children’s Museum on the next walking journey we had to take. I would push myself to keep walking. She never once forgot to take me to the museum whenever she could. Those were good moments in my life that I cherish because she made sure to play with me while I tinkered with every single thing in the museum that I was allowed to touch. (and some that I wasn't allowed to touch.)

The Children's Museum had a nail bed that I could put my hand on and it would leave a temporary imprint and there was also the Pioneer area where I could put on a period costume and crush bits of hard corn. I would pretend that I was living on the prairie and that everything was good in my life. I'd pretend I was making pancakes and had a family to share them with. I'd imagine that just outside of my prairie home, there were kittens sleeping in the barn waiting for milk from the cows. Sometimes I would sneak some of the stale, and probably overly touched hard corn, and try to eat it. I was hungry and I did not see anything wrong with sneaking some extra corn into my pockets to save for later. I was happy to have the treats. It was better than liver and it was better than starving. Only once was I caught sneaking corn into my mouth and the woman simply told me to never do it again. I didn't do it again after that. I wish I could've told her that I was hungry, but my mom had told me to not talk about being hungry, because that would make me even more hungry. I did not want that to happen.

When I was a bit older than I was when we would go to the museum, my mom used to sneak into a hospital's private employee area and steal lunches out of the refrigerator so that I could eat something. This hospital had a piano in a room and she would play the piano while I dug through the brown paper bags for the best food. She would also let me steal rhubarb out of the neighbor's yard sometimes when we were walking. The rhubarb house was near our house on the hill.

Before moving to the house on the hill I was forced to grow up with a violent sexual deviant. Not far removed from those days, we were living on the hill, and many things seemed normal to me that shouldn't have felt normal at all. There was the woman that lived next door that was still breast feeding her son who was much too old to be breastfeeding according to my mom and my brothers. There was also the man across the street, who almost every single day, would lock himself out of his house completely naked. I was not shocked to see a penis and since my mom would always laugh, I'd laugh at him too. It was all just another day in my young life.

CHAPTER FOUR

The house on the hill had a big back yard and sat right on a road that was fairly quiet. There were several kids in the neighborhood close to the ages of my siblings. My brother Jared had a male friend and he was several years older than me. He was close to being an adult, if he wasn't one already. One day this friend of his asked if he could kiss me and I looked over at my brother Jared hoping that he would tell his friend to shut up. He instead told me to do it and that he did not care if I was a whore. I was still in elementary school. The boy quickly grabbed me and tried to French kiss me, and my brother laughed. Though this was my normal environment, I still felt gross inside. I thought this was simply what boys and men did to girls even if the girls didn't like it. I didn't know then that I was being revictimized and becoming more traumatized.

My brothers had lots of friends while we lived on the hill and there was one, that I think may have been from China, and he used to make me sit on his lap while he molested me. He called it "finger banging" and he told me that if I told, he'd lie and that nobody would believe me. Did it matter if they believed me or not? Nothing would happen to any one that hurt me anyway. If everything that had ever happened to me up until that point wasn't enough, my brother Jinx had a greasy friend that tried to kiss me too. Jinx would make fun of me about kissing him, but that kid's real colors would eventually show when he became an adult. Jinx never had a lot of friends growing up, so it doesn't surprise me that this person is still his friend despite his friend's truth, even allowing his own children to be near the man. In my family, the only bad guys are the ones that speak up against the bad guys, it seems. "We good family. Bad guys good. Truth tellers bad." Indeed.

At one point there was an arcade at the bottom of the hill and I was there with Jinx just hanging out when a man told me to get in his truck so that he could give me a ride back up the hill. I was tired and cold and he seemed to want to help me. I knew this guy from seeing him around at times with my brothers and I didn't really know "stranger danger" and besides, what could be done to me that hadn't already been done, except death? I got into the warm truck and he began to drive, but then he ended up parking the truck nearby. He turned and asked me if I had any "peach fuzz." I didn't know what he meant by "peach fuzz" so he frustratingly put his hands down my pants and told me what it was. He then promptly kicked me out of his truck because I didn't have any yet. Being the sexually exploited child that I was, I actually felt terrible for letting him down and I cried all the way up the big hill. Being molested by so many people had taught me my worth in this world, and now I wasn't even worth that.

When I got home that night I went into Jared and John's room. They weren't home so I sat in their room listening to the radio as the DJ talked about winning a prize if I was the correct caller. Hoping to be the caller that would win something, I kept redialing but the old phone that we had just wasn't cutting it. Exhausted, I finally fell asleep in one of my brother's beds. I was sound asleep on my stomach when I felt a man lay on top of me. I could feel his hard penis on my bottom as his weight pressed against me. When I turned to look it was my own brother. He was completely naked and about to hurt me. I ran away to Jinx's room and I stayed next to him all night long.

Jinx and I used to sleep in the same bed a lot when we were younger. It was always innocent and sometimes we would try to write on each other's backs and then we would try to guess what the other one wrote. We called it "tickle back" and that's how we comforted each other as children. This night was different though and I just stayed put next to him and stared at the ceiling while he slept. The next day, before he woke up, I went down to the couch where our mom would always sleep, and I laid down on the other end of it. She finally woke up because I had the habit of holding my arms in the air as long as I could when I'd try to sleep and this bothered her to no end. Most nights I slept downstairs on the other end of the couch with her. She had to be near the door because she felt safe there and I had to be near her for me to feel safe.

"Safe" is a loose term in that sentence. My mother and others had decided, for me, that it was a good idea to make me visit my father in prison. "He was a changed man" I was told. I guess they thought he had changed because he had managed to send me a pair of roller skates for my birthday. I really loved those roller skates and I wore them so often and for so long that my toes began to stick out of the front of them. There were no stoppers left on the front after awhile, but I would wear the skates my dad bought me everywhere my mom would make us walk to.

There was a giant cliff near our house on the hill and it had a really high set of stairs that we often had to walk up and down to get anywhere more quickly. I learned to skate down the stairs as fast as I could. I didn't mind going up and down the stairs until the day that I witnessed my brother John throw a cat from the top to see if it would land on its feet. After that, I was afraid of the stairs because I never knew if John would do it again, and I did not want to see it happen twice. My mom was upset that John did that, but when he would laugh about it, she would sort of laugh a bit too. It was all about trying to keep the peace with John so that his temper wouldn't show back up. She was afraid of him.

John and my other siblings did not have to go visit my dad in prison the first time that I had to. That day my mom and a woman drove me to the prison and reminded me that I was safe there. The woman held my hand as my mother went on ahead so that she could go in first. This would be the first time that I would see my dad since the day that we had left him to move into the shelter. When the woman and I finally got inside the prison walls I was directed into a room but the lady protested and said she was not going to let me go into the room alone. Once inside the room I was told to remove my clothing for a search. I did as I was told and once I was searched, the prison worker opened a door that led into a big room. It was an ugly room and there were seemingly endless chairs filled with people visiting with inmates.

I saw my dad from across the room. He was sitting next to my mom and he reached out his arms for me to come towards him. Not knowing what to do, and still being a "good girl," I walked up to him. He put me on top of his lap and whispered in my ear that I better never tell what he did to me or I would end up in prison with him. I knew that was not true, because I had already told about a lot of it. The rest of the time I was made to thank him repeatedly for the roller skates and my mother and he chatted as if nothing ever happened. It was nice to see them being nice to each other. When we were leaving he told me that he loved me and I no longer felt like I didn't have a dad. We were a family again. Everything was fine.

Aside from the woman that held my hand at the prison, there was another woman that my mother knew and she became my mom's best friend at that time. Martha was her name and she was very street smart. She had taught my mom how to dig in the garbage for food. One day my mom and Martha were digging in the garbage behind a major retail chain store and Martha's children and I were hiding nearby being the look outs. We didn't do a very good job though and a police officer caught them digging in the trash. I figured nothing bad would happen to my mom because the police never did anything to help anyway. We watched as our mothers were scolded and told to put the day old bread and donuts back into the dumpster. Our mothers tried to explain to him that their children were hungry, to no avail. To protect our moms we all ran out from where we were hiding. The officer scolded us too and told us that it was wrong to steal food even from a dumpster. Once he was done with his lecture, he let us all go.

My father sent a letter home that said how great it was that he was able to eat steak in prison once per week. He also called a family friend and let them know it as well.

Martha's son was older and seemed like a nice kid, but he had his own serious issues. He once made me and another girl that he was related to have sex together as he watched. I had long forgotten about what that boy had done to me when I found him on social media. He had not changed and quickly reminded me of what he had done. I suddenly was back in that situation in my mind. He was boasting about it and I told him that I was a traumatized child back then and that the situation was inappropriate. I had to block him because he was still really amused by what had happened.

At the house on the hill there were nights when our drunken, allegedly married, landlord would come over because he liked my mom. I think that's how she got money at times because whenever he'd come over, my mom would have more cigarettes and sometimes she'd have enough the next day to buy an ice cream for me. I didn’t like that landlord because one time when he brought my mom home, he passed out on our patio. My mom was laughing but it scared me and I was happy when he finally left.

One night my mom looked like she was awake, but she swears that she was not awake, and she got up off of the couch and walked straight out the door and into traffic. I was horrified! The road wasn't always a busy road during the day, so the coincidence of it being that late at night with even less cars, (and she managed to get hit,) had always struck me as odd. As a child, I believed what my mother had told me. She gave me some change to go buy another treat. To silence me. To distract me. I was always hungry and having the change meant that I could get something to eat and I think she knew that would make me happy.

My mom would get food stamps in the mail every month and a check that she could cash to pay the rent with. Every month when she would get the check, she would take Jinx and me, or sometimes just me, to get a treat at a local pizza place or ice cream shop. Sometimes it was a fast food place where I could get a green minty shake. I loved those the best! Occasionally, on the days where we would have to stand outside of the welfare office in a very long line, I would get a shake for our journey back home.

Though I liked getting the shake after waiting in the line for hours, I hated actually waiting in the line. People would walk past us and say mean things to my mom like, "Get a job" or "You should have had an abortion." I didn't know what an abortion was so I asked my mom and she told me some details. I wish she hadn't. Every time we waited in the line, there would always be some man saying mean things. I would try to ignore these vile humans and the things that they said by watching the gathering of black males who were always outside the office dancing on cardboard.

They would do the coolest things on that piece of cardboard and the music that they danced to made me want to dance right along with them. Sometimes, while roller skating home from the welfare office, I would practice what I saw the men doing on the cardboard. At first I would usually end up landing on my butt or skinning a knee, but I kept trying, and eventually I became quite good at it. My mom even let me dance with them one day and it was one of the happier memories I have of living on the hill. They were all really nice to my mom and me. One of them shared cigarettes with her while another one showed me how to do a head-spin. That hurt, but it was fun trying. I felt as if I was being included into something good. When I told Jinx and John about my great adventure Jinx said, "That's cool," and John said, "Ni**er lover." He’s mad at me again.

Jinx was fun sometimes and he even let me try to teach him how to dance. He tried really hard, but he never had the coordination to do it. Dancing and roller skating became my life for several years. I would skate everywhere and on the days when I was left without abuse, I would dance. I would dance up the house stairs, down the stairs and in the street. I’d dance in the living room, and I would even dance across the bridges and while standing in line anywhere we had to stand in a line. I would dance on the city bus when we could afford a bus token, and I would dance while wearing my skates. I became so good at dancing that my mom said that I could enter a dance competition at a major pizza chain. There would even be a famous person there judging it. I was excited and I practiced as much as I could.

I chose two Michael Jackson songs, one to sing, and one to dance to. I wasn't a very good singer, but sometimes I would go down to the old folk's home and sing for them. They were happy to have me sing for them even if I wasn't any good at it. The day at the pizza place I sang Michael Jackson's song, Ben. I really liked that song a lot but sometimes it made me cry. Once I was done singing, it was time to dance. My mom had managed to find me a black top hat and a black cane. I wore an oversized black leotard and I danced my heart out. My mom told me that if we won, she would get money and that meant she could buy me pizza after the show. I did the very best that I could do without any professional lessons. I didn't really need them though, I could watch someone dance and pick up the moves quite easily. My mom would have me watch dance shows with her or gymnastics and then have me practice. It was bonding time for us and I really loved it. She told me she used to be a ballet teacher when she was younger, but I didn't like ballet dancing, I was a Jazz dancer.

Once my dance routine was over it was time for the judging. The famous person that was there that day decided that I was in 2nd place behind a girl that had spent her entire life in dance classes. I was so proud of myself and he handed me a plaque that said I won 2nd place! My mom couldn't afford pizza that day but the manager of the place gave me a slice to take with me on my way home. I was a happy girl. As my mother and I sat at the frozen bus stop in the snow, we watched as the cars went by. She wasn't as happy as I was so I just sat silently eating my slice of pizza. I started feeling sad for my mom because I had let her down. The girl that won first place pulled out of the parking lot in a nice car with her mom at the wheel. When she saw me sitting there she held up her trophy and stuck her tongue out at me. I grabbed my roller skates that were tied together and hanging around my neck and put them on my feet and I skated over the ice and snow all the way home and my mom did not try to stop me.

I skated all the way home singing a song that I loved and it was called Rapper's Delight by The Sugar Hill Gang. It was fun to skate to and my big brother Jared would often make me sing it all the way home from the roller rink whenever we had to walk home from there, which was often. We were able to skate for free because one of my siblings worked there. My brother hated that song though and only made me sing it so that I would skate or walk faster ahead of him so he could hang out with his friends on the way home.

Singing the song also helped me forget that I was hungry on these long walks. There were plenty of times that my mother never had any money to feed me. Sometimes I would find a dollar in her purse, I would hide it, and when we would go for walks I'd get ahead of her. I'd drop it below a curb and then pretend that I found it. This was my way of being able to buy food for myself. I think she knew, but what could she really say? If she had the money and was letting me be hungry, how was that more ok then what I did to feed myself? At the time it was somewhat amusing because I didn't know how neglected and abused I actually was. Even as I grew into adulthood, it still didn't register as it should have.

My mother didn't teach me many things, but she had taught me to fend for myself just like she had to do, whether she realized that or not. I remember times when my mom would take money out of my dad's wallet to try to get whatever she needed for the family. He would never notice the money was gone if it was a large amount. If it was a small amount, he would know, and he would beat her up badly. My mom would tell me that it must have been that since it was a large amount he probably thought that he had spent it on a male hooker and beer the night before. She learned to only take big amounts and to only do it on the nights after he passed out drunk. I remember getting quarters from my dad before he went to prison. He must not need them for the hookers.

Some time before we moved out to the country house and long before we moved to the house on the hill, my brother Jinx played a trick on me that involved one of those quarters from my dad. This would end up being something that we would continue to laugh about for years, but my laughter wasn't real. I love Jinx dearly and he knows laughing about it still ticks me off, but I'd laugh anyways because it kept me bonded to him. In my family we tended to laugh about many things that shouldn't have been laughed about. That's some kind of sick trauma bonding, I guess. Was it survival and a way to pretend that everything was ok? Maybe. Jinx never knew why his trick had always made me angry other than that it was a cold trick to play on his little sister. His trick? I had one quarter and he had one dime and one nickel. Jinx convinced me that I had less money because I only had the one coin and he had two. I was too young to understand that one quarter was worth more than two smaller coins. He said that he wanted to trade with me so that I could have more money. I always felt like I could trust Jinx so I traded with him.

The minute that I traded my quarter for Jinx's two coins, I received a valuable life lesson. My trusted brother Jinx began laughing more than I've ever seen him laugh before as he repeatedly told me what a dumb girl I was. I began to cry and I was very frustrated because he wouldn't stop telling me how dumb I was. He continued amusing himself by telling me how money works and that he now had more money than I did. I was very upset and heart broken by how he was being so mean to me, but now that I am older and willing to tell more of the story, I'm glad that he ripped me off and took that quarter away from me and here’s why: Earlier that morning I was abruptly awoken by my father as he began to molest me again. (Molest is not a strong enough word for describing what he's done to me.) This time he was much more sadistic and he smelled horrible. Once he was done ripping my soul to shreds again, he put my clothes back on and tucked me back into bed. As my father was walking away, he turned back and tossed the very same quarter that Jinx would later trick me into giving him, right onto my bed. The very next chance that I was able to talk to my Grandma R on the phone, I told her about what my dad did to me and for my next birthday she sent me a new quarter. I was so excited to have that quarter and my mom told me how much it must've meant to my grandma.

I'm not certain if my mother ever knew why my grandmother sent me the quarter, but it did not matter if she did or did not know because I felt strongly that my grandma was going to save me. She knew and she would save me and the quarter was proof that she listened. On my Grandma R's birthday I sent the quarter back to her to remind her that I needed her. She sent it back to me on my next birthday. We kept sending it back and forth to each other for years. I realized she was never going to rescue me. She died when I was about 13 years old. I don't know where that quarter eventually ended up because it was last sent to her before she died. Every time I see a quarter on the ground now, I know it must be her way of telling me she is still trying to help me the only way that she ever felt that she could. With hope.

When I was still really close to the age I was when Jinx tricked me with the quarter, I often had to deal with my brother John alone. Mostly he was a normal happy kid, but sometimes he was a different version of himself that was quite mean. Once while I was home alone with John, who is even older than Jinx is, I had heard him messing around in the small hallway. I was still very young and I put my fingers into the hallway door frame to pry the door open. As it opened I saw that he had leaves all over the floor. I went to reach down to get a leaf, but before I could reach one and before I could move my fingers from the door frame, he slammed the door closed as hard as he could. It wasn't much longer after that when we were told by our mother to come outside to get into the car. The car already had people inside of it and as I tried to climb over John to get into the car he pushed me back out. I tried to get back in, but he slammed that door on my finger as well. I was screaming bloody murder because it hurt so badly, but I was yelled at for crying by my mother. To this day, my ring fingernail is still damaged. I have tried to cover it up with fake nails but that does not take away the memories. Fake smiles don't either.

John was different from my other two brothers. Where Jared and Jinx seemed to, at times, have the ability to show compassion. John often seemed incapable, as did my sister Julie. Yes, I have at least one sister. Julie was tall, with really short black curly hair, brown eyes, and a pleasant smile. Like my other siblings, she is also older than me. I was the odd one out in my sibling group from the very beginning. They were all close to each other in age, being about a year apart from the next one, and I was much younger with no other siblings very close to my age. Though my other siblings were all near the same ages, John and Jared were the two that seemed to hang out together the most. They were tight. From growing up in the row apartments to the farm house, and to the house on the hill, they were almost always together. They would fight with each other sometimes, but they were serious about covering for one another whenever one of them would get into trouble. Some of the things that they would do to cover for themselves or each other would end up being more fuel for inappropriate bonding laughter in the family nest.

Growing up in what I call the "nest" was horrific at best. I seemed to always be in the way and when I wasn't in the way, I was often being abused in various ways. I felt unloved, tense, and sad more often than I ever felt safe. Even at the youngest age that I can remember, I knew that the church pastor was supposed to be like God. I knew that respecting your parents was a must for all good girls and boys. I knew that police officers would show up if there was a commotion. What I didn't know was why none of them were doing their jobs. I felt like they should be protecting me but on the other hand I didn't feel worthy of it either and I thought that was why they weren't.

I wasn't thinking that I needed to be protected when my parents first brought me to see a Dr. Dolittle impersonator. I was so excited to see the animals. I was able to pet them and talk to them for a little while. My excitement, however, did not last long. I stood in the center of the make shift petting zoo and watched as my dad pulled my mom away. They both looked back towards me. My dad was smiling at the man dressed as Dr Dolittle, but my mother was not. She did not look happy at all and I remember knowing that something bad was going to happen to me. I wanted my mom. I began to cry and the man put his arms around me. I was told to lie in the hay, which I did. That is the last thing I remember about the Dr Dolittle impersonator and his make shift petting zoo.

Decades later, I still cannot get this memory out of my head whenever I go near a petting zoo, or see anything about Dr Dolittle. It gives me chills but going near a petting zoo or hearing about yet another Dr Dolittle movie are not things I can avoid easily. Sometimes you just have to pretend to be happy when others are happy so that you don't make a scene or get called "crazy." Sometimes people can't understand or don't care to try to. Hell, even I didn't know what the word "triggers" meant for decades to come. I seem to have more of them than I had realized before. Certain songs get to me. Dust in the Wind by the Band Kansas is one of them. I remember my father taking us rock hunting one day (one of his favorite things to do.) He would often get angry with me on these walking journeys. I was the smallest therefore my eyes were closer to the ground, so I should've been able to find the types of rocks that he wanted more quickly. While on our way home from one of these unpleasant adventures that song came on the radio while I was still in the back seat trying to recover from another beating because I did not find enough rocks. I overheard him say it was his favorite song and for my mom not to touch the dial when she attempted to change the station. Years later when that song would came on the radio, I'd always flip the channel real fast. My mom told me that it made her skin crawl too.

The sight of any adult male alone with any young girl, even if it is his own daughter, also triggers me, for obvious, yet sad reasons. There is also a bridge near my current residence that sends me into a state of panic. I do not know why I have such a hard time walking over that bridge, but doing so induces the kind of panic attack that makes me feel like I'm going to faint and die right where I'm standing. It has become quite a problem for me. I have no history with that particular bridge other than driving over it hundreds of times before. I can still drive over it, but I cannot walk across it without really focusing on staying in the moment. I sometimes tap the concrete divider as I walk across the bridge because it seems to help keep me attached as I try to stay calm. This triggering bridge was never a problem before. It just came out of nowhere one day. The trigger of adult males with young females is more of an "I notice" type of trigger. It puts me on alert, (protective mode,) and I immediately look to see whether or not the small female child appears to be happy and safe.

CHAPTER FIVE

When I was a young girl I may not have known it then, but looking back it seems I had several triggers, of varying degrees, throughout my life. As a child, anything to do with my father would trigger such an intense anxiety that I had to clench my hands to maintain some type of control or sense of safety. Things that required me to see my brother John or hear about him would also trigger me and they still do today. In John's regard, he caused a different type of terror. Terror in the form of threats that I believe he is capable of following through on because of his history. Some people dismiss him, but should they?

I remember a time when we were living at the farm house and John had gotten a hold of a gun. It was a very scary scene and the sheriff's department showed up. Somehow, I was still left in that house. We all were. When we were living on the hill, my brother John took me to a party near the State Capitol building. I remember entering and I remember a lot of people. One of the women was known to be John's girlfriend of that time. I remember being handed an adult beverage. The next thing I remember was feeling the air on my face as I was being driven, in the back of a patrol car, across a bridge. I was apparently found in a phone booth after calling the operator for help. I do remember glimpses of being inside the phone booth as well. The police officer drove me home with my brother's girlfriend in tow. I was about nine or ten years old. Sadly, that officer also left me in that house.

After being dropped off, I recall lying on the floor with my head in my mother's lap. She was stroking my hair as I came in and out of the altered level of consciousness. She was yelling at, and telling my brother's girlfriend that she was fed up with John. His girlfriend was agreeing because she said he had hurt her before. We moved away from the house on the hill not much longer after that. We moved around to various apartments for a few years. One of the apartment homes that we moved into was another duplex but this one was an upstairs downstairs type of duplex.

We lived on the second floor and the front stairs that led up to our apartment were the kind that spiraled. While living there my mom gave me permission to run off downtown with my brother Jinx. Jinx and I had wandered off before together but never as far as on this day. When we returned home it was another disturbing scene. The story that my mom and her friend tell is that while I was off with Jinx, my mom was home alone and kept hearing my voice saying, "Mommy help me." When her friend came over to hang out with her, my mom was afraid to tell her what she had been hearing. She thought she was losing her mind. Shortly after her friend Martha's arrival, Martha asked my mom, "Where is Debbie?" Martha had heard the voice as well.

My mother and Martha began following where the voice was coming from and that led them straight into Jinx's bedroom. Jinx had two closet doors and they decided to open one of them and they say that they saw a little girl standing inside of it saying, "Mommy, help me." Martha knew a priest so they called him and he came over right away. They told him about the voice, the girl, and also about the random knocks we used to get on our doors. Nobody would ever be there when we would answer the doors so that's where the Priest began his search for the truth. He first tried the front door with the spiral staircase. He knocked and tried to run before my mom could answer, but no matter how fast he tried to run, she was able to get to the door before he disappeared. He then tried the back door that had a very steep staircase. While he was trying to knock and run from the back door, he fell down the stairs and injured himself, I guess. When Jinx and I got home my mom told me that I could never sleep naked in the house again because if I did, the demons would rape me. Needless to say we did not live there very long, but an impression was strongly imprinted into my thoughts. I already knew that God wasn't going to protect me from men so why would he protect me from demons? Now I had another type of evil to avoid getting raped by.

We ended up moving into another house and this one was in a fairly decent area. It was only my mom, Jinx, and I that lived there. Julie had moved away and ended up in another state. Before Julie moved away she tried making me watch her and her new boyfriend have sex together. The entire time I stared out the window, she was laughing and saying, "Watch Debbie." Her boyfriend didn't seem to mind that I was really uncomfortable. She was making sex sounds and moaning and I was trying to just listen to the sound of the cars passing by outside the window. Not long after Julie moved away, I heard a song that will forever remind me of that moment. Another trigger.

Julie moving away didn't spare me more torment. Julie had a best friend before she ran away and that girl made sure to keep cornering me in the back alley or on the patio of a nearby house when I would go outside to play. One day I was having a parade through the neighborhood. I was always having mini parades around the block because parades made me happy so I figured having a parade would make others happy. The parades kept the boredom at bay as well. I would take our cat and put on whatever clothes I could turn into a performance costume and then I would march around the block hoping someone would smile at me and be happy. Sometimes Jinx would do the parades with me, but rarely.

Jinx tried to play with me sometimes, but he was getting older and a bit more on his own. On one sunshine filled day while I was marching around the block, Julie's friend saw me and cornered me. She told me that my big sister had told her that if she ever moved away, to make sure to come back and beat me up. That's what she was there to do that day. While she was beating me up she told me that I was a slut just like my sister was. It left me confused because I thought she liked my sister. Once my mom was able to talk to Julie again over the phone, she told her to make her friend stop beating me up. It did not work and I was still too small to fight her back very well. She was older and taller. After many fights with her, she finally became my "friend." She took me to her house to teach me how to curl my hair and put on makeup as if nothing ever happened. I was good at the "pretend" everything is ok because that was a constant in my life. I liked having a friend, at least until the next time she beat me up because she had heard a rumor that my sister slept with someone she liked before my sister moved away.

I was still young and had to go to school while we lived on this street. On top of school, I was also quickly learning that I hated going to the doctor because every time that I did, they would stick me with a needle. I hated those damn needles. I guess I was finally catching up on some medical appointments that I had needed but never received. There was one point where I knocked an entire shelf over trying to get away from a doctor trying to stick me with a needle. Needless to say, we never went back to that doctor again. I did have to go to other appointments though and I missed some school. I missed school enough that I already didn't fit in there just like other schools that I had gone to. I found out that the school had a dance line so I tried out and made it. It was so much fun, but I made friends with a girl who was also in the dance group and we had decided that the next time we went to a different school to perform, we would not wear any panties. We would do it while dancing to the song Centerfold by the J Geils Band.

The girl had convinced me it would be funny because of the song and I totally agreed with her. Why not? I thought. That's what life was about anyway. Sex. That did not end well and we were found out before we could actually do it. I was kicked off the dance line. The school knew I was an abused child because I began acting out left and right. One day I knew that I had to go to a health class that I was told would be more like sex education. I procrastinated all the way to school. I did not want to go into that class. Were they going to make me have sex? What was this for? Didn't everyone already know about sex? I knew I did. Between all the things that had already happened to me and the therapist trying to show me cartoon sex images, I did not want to go to this class. I didn't have a watch and I couldn't even tell time anyways so when I thought that I had stayed away long enough, I finally entered the school. I had not procrastinated long enough though and was sent directly to the class, late.

When I walked into the classroom I noticed immediately that the teacher had drawn ovaries onto the chalkboard. I did not know what ovaries were but I knew that wasn't a penis so when I overheard a bunch of boys laughing about how the ovaries looked like a penis, I became enraged. Not only were penises not funny to me, but that isn't what one looked like and those boys laughing should've known that. I screamed at the top of my lungs "That's not a fucking penis!" The room fell silent and I ran out as fast I could. I was almost to the door that exits the school when I was snatched up by a male that worked at there. He grabbed me from around my waist and though he was only trying to prevent me from leaving the property, he was now on my journey through sexually triggered hell. I kicked, screamed, and even spit at the man. I was still little, but I put up a good fight and he finally had to let go of me. I ran out of the school and all the way to the corner where Julie's friend had last beaten me up. I hid behind the neighbor's patio wall until my mom came looking for me. On the short walk home she asked me, "What the hell is the matter with you?" I didn't know the answer.

I've asked my own daughter that question before when she was acting out, and I now see, again, how the cycle continued onto the next generation within my family. I owe my daughter an apology which she will get when she comes home from school today. She was never molested. I was beyond over protective of her so that it would never happen to her, but I have said things to her like, "What the hell is the matter with you" without realizing I already knew the answer. Due to my unhealed traumas, she was born into my shit, just as I was born into my mother's shit. My child had to go through certain traumatic events with me just because she was my child. I will get to those later in this book. I cannot wait to give her a hug when she gets home. We are very close, but my heart is breaking knowing that simple sentence probably hurt her and confused her. I am her mother, it is my job to protect her, love her, and guide her, and that was not a good example of any of those. I'm in tears at recognizing this as I wrote that last paragraph. I will not let this trauma cycle continue. It stops right here. I need a moment before I begin writing again.

Whew. Ok. Child hugged, child heard, child hugged again. This is a never ending journey of learning and healing and recognizing trauma responses. I'm just happy that now, at the ripe old age of 45, I can finally recognize trauma responses. (mostly) Oy vey! Ok, back to writing this book.

I was still going to that school and learned that playing the game Up Up 7 Up was a fun game when the teacher made people pick you. I also learned that dodge ball was a cruel game that Gym Teachers would make me play even though bullies took full advantage of the opportunity to hit me with the ball and call me names like, "ugly," and "Dirty Debbie." It was just a fun childhood game, but it was not fun for me. They picked on me because I never had the right clothes. They picked on me because of my sister's friend. They picked on me because I missed school to go to appointments. They picked on me because my hair wasn't clean. They picked and they picked and they picked.

I was sick of being picked on about being physically dirty. I started climbing into the bath behind my mom so that I could get clean and also so that I wasn't alone in the bath tub. It bothered my mom because she just wanted to take a bath in peace, but she let me do it and she made sure I could not see her from the front. I had to stay behind her and crunch down in the tub to clean my hair. Then I had to get out before she did, but I was cleaner so I was alright rushing through it. I didn't want to be in the bath tub anyway.

My mom would mostly wash our clothes by hand in the tub until we moved to this neighborhood. She was doing laundry using an old washing system that the landlord had left for tenants to use. It was one of the kinds with the ringers on it that you had to push the clothes through to get the water out of them. She somehow had gotten her fingers caught in the ringer portion and she ended up suing the landlord. My mom told me that she settled and received a little bit of money due to her injury and she took me shopping with that money. She brought me downtown and bought me a brand new pair of Nike shoes like the other kids at school had and not only that, she let me get my ears pierced. On the way home I pulled my hair behind my ears so that everyone would notice my beautiful earrings. I was totally excited to go to school again. I wanted to show off my earrings and my brand new shoes. When I showed up to school in my brand new shoes, a group of bullies were coming up the stairs and they laughed at my brand new Nikes and told me that I still wasn't cool because now another type of shoes were cool. Everything changed in a couple days? I was feeling pretty shitty until I was called into the office to be talked to about my previous behavior in class. No amount of me trying to explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how could I have explained it to them? Finally they said that they had a job for me to do if I wanted it. They let me be a school crossing guard. I didn't know much about it at first, but it wasn't long before I discovered the power that I now had. Those bullies didn't stand a chance!

I wore my orange sash and carried my orange flag with pride. Every time a bully would try to cross the street, I would put my flag back down and let the cars cross instead. It was the best few days I had ever had. My mom even brought me a real live baby bunny one day while I was standing there holding my flag. I came home from school another day shortly after that, and my mom told me that the cat had killed my bunny. That was the second one! I asked her to never bring me a bunny again and she didn't.

Though I was finding my sense of power while being a crossing guard, we soon moved away from that neighborhood. My mom had us move above a store and we did not have any furniture again so I spent countless hours in my room dancing in the empty space. Sometimes she would let me put on a dancing show for her and she would clap and yell, "Bravo!" It made me feel great. It was just us in that apartment and we would listen to music together all of the time. She even managed to get me a pet that wasn't a bunny. She somehow had gotten me a little white dog.

Now when I say this dog was a "white" dog, I mean that two ways. It was the color white. It was also a dog that we ended up not keeping because one day while I was outside walking it alone, it tried to get away from me and chase a black man down the street. The next time I went to walk the dog my mom came with me and sure enough, the dog went after another black person. It did not bite anyone, but it wanted to. My mom explained to me that the dog was raised to hate “black” people. I knew that certain members of my family also hated black people. I told her I did not want the dog and she got rid of it. She also said it was time for me to start dancing in competitions again. I did and I won some of them and she always kept the money, but again, I did not mind because it made her happy and one time after I won, she bought me an awesome new purple shirt. I wore that shirt everywhere and I even wore it the day she took me to go visit my new friend from school.

My new friend called herself "mixed." She said she was half black and half white. She had chubby cheeks and really light brown hair that was always put up because it was always tangling up on her. Her hair felt very different than my own. I always had thin blonde hair and her hair felt a lot thicker. We arrived at her house and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Have you heard When Doves Cry"? I thought she meant when birds make sound. She was so excited in asking me about the doves, that I responded excitedly as well, "YES! It's soo cool when they do that!" She corrected me and told me it was a new song by the singer Prince and then she asked me if I wanted to come inside and hear it because she had just gotten it. I was too embarrassed and did not have the skill set to recover from that moment, so I squeezed my mom's hand real hard and she knew to say that we had to leave. We also did not live at that house very long so that was good. I never had to face my stupidity from that mistake. I was terrified she was going to pick on me too, call me names, or laugh at me. It had happened so many times before with just about everyone I knew when I would make a small mistake. In making another small mistake, I told myself all of the bad things that I had already heard about myself.

There was no resiliency in me. Nothing was automatic. Everything affected me. What there was inside me was audacity, the ability and audacity to hope for a better day despite any one hurting me. I was going to escape some day to a place where everyone was nice. I had seen magazines where the scenery was beautiful and the people were all smiling and hanging out together. I knew it existed. What I didn't know was that you could be standing in that good place and be too traumatized to recognize it. Traumatized was the name of the state that I was stuck in for years. No matter where we moved to and no matter if I knew it or not, I was in an endless traumatized state. I was stuck. I would not be able to move on from that state.

There came a point where my mother and I moved to another project based apartment complex and while we lived there, John would stop by sometimes. There were two children just slightly older than I was that lived right across the hall. The apartment that we lived in was a big two story apartment with plenty of room and the space was made to feel larger because we had no furniture. We had plenty of cockroaches though. Cockroaches were everywhere even though we did not have any food for them to eat. The neighbor girl had stated to me that she had lots of food at her house. She said that I could come over and eat.

Once I was at my new friend's apartment next door she told me that I could not eat until I went upstairs so that her brother could have sex with me. I was confused and afraid and still very hungry. My hesitation made her mad. She told me that I couldn't eat but that I could go upstairs and play in her room with her. I followed her up to her room and it was not long before her brother came out and began staring at me. She kept insisting that I have sex with him and I just kept trying to play. I wasn't refusing, I knew not too, but I tried to ignore it.

Her brother kept calling her over and whispering to her. She soon told me that she was going to go have sex with him so that he wouldn't get mad and that is exactly what she did. I sat at the top of the stairs for a moment not wanting to leave my friend, but I kept hearing sounds that made me uncomfortable. I bolted out the door and I never went back to their house. Everywhere I went it was all about sex. I could not get away from it and there was nothing at all that I could do except to tell my mom who usually just told me to ignore it because that's what happens when you're an "adorable girl." When she would say things like that it both made me angry and proud to be a good looking girl. I was conflicted inside and I felt torn about whether or not I wanted to be "adorable" or "cute" anymore.

CHAPTER SIX

There was one point where I had gotten into some trouble and so did my big sister Julie. We were both sent in front of a judge at the same time. We were juveniles and our demeanors were very different from each other. I specifically remember being both excited and afraid to see my big sister that day. Her moods were always swinging and I never knew what days she would like me. This was before she moved out of state. Julie started staring up at the courtroom lights and not paying any attention to what the judge was saying. I stared straight ahead at the judge in total panic mode. I thought I was going to go to prison like my father did and he had even told me before that I would go to prison if I ever told. That was a silly thought though because I wasn't there because I had told on him. As Julie continued to stare up at the lights the judge began to raise his voice in frustration. My big sister did not seem to care what the judge had to say, but I did. I paid attention as if my life depended on it. My eyes were probably huge as I stared at him and tried to ignore Julie's giggles. The judge stopped yelling at Julie for a moment, looked at me and said in a harsh tone, "You're cute as a bug's ear, don't ever let me see you in here again!" I heard my mom laugh under her breath from the seat behind me. She boasted all the way home about how I didn't get into trouble because I was "cute as a bug's ear." She went on for years about the events that day.

My mom was more into my looks than anyone else. Everyone said that I looked a lot like her when she was younger and maybe some of her distant dreams were placed on my shoulders. Maybe the way she had to survive her life, was my burden to carry. I already knew my worth in regards to men, but now it was again being driven home that my looks mattered, even to a Judge. It was always endless little hints and violent projectiles being thrown at my brain subconsciously. I was already plenty vulnerable to people's words because of everything that had happened to me up to that point. All of the unhealed traumas, words, and name calling began a cycle of promiscuity as I entered my teenage years. There was no doubt, my looks were my only way through this world and that if I needed anything, (food, love, comfort, and safety) I only had one way to get it. I wasn't called smart. I wasn't called strong or brave. I was called cute. I was called a slut. I was just a worthless girl that only served one purpose in this world. My self-worth was in my looks even though deep inside I knew that there was more about me then they would ever say.

When we lived at the apartment projects when I was a young teen my mom managed to get me a job at the state fair. I was not old enough to be working alone in that environment. She couldn't afford the bus fare for me to keep coming and going so she told me to stay at the fairgrounds and find a place to sleep. She didn't leave me any money for food and I eventually discovered that if I took two dollars to go get some French fries, the carnies wouldn't notice at all. I'm not sure the carnies cared at all if some was missing any way. It was one of them who taught me the "tricks of the trade." If your booth made enough money, they would never know if some was missing.

I was roaming the state fairgrounds alone very early one morning when I found a place to sleep. I chose to sleep where the horses were. I actually didn't mind doing this. I really enjoyed being around animals as long as it wasn't a petting zoo. I began to teach myself how to brush the horses. It wasn't hard to find things for the horses, because their owners left everything accessible. One night I ran into a carny's daughter that was close to my age and she thought it would be fun to sleep in the stable with me. I was glad she was there because we had a lot of fun running around the dark fairgrounds together after everyone was gone.

One night we found a horse that looked like it was starving to death. Several times a day and several times a night we would sneak it something to eat. Each night we would go to the corral area where it was always left alone by its owner. My new friend said she could "break" the horse and taught me what that meant. That horse bucked her off so many times, but it never fazed her, she kept getting back on. On one very early morning, just as the sun was coming up, a cowboy caught her riding the horse. To say he was angry would be an understatement. He let us know that the horse was for rodeo purposes and was meant to be how it was. He chased us off for good, but I don't think either of us came to regret helping that horse.

Sometimes when I took my breaks from working at the game stand on the Midway, I would sneak off and get on my favorite rides. The Caterpillar, the mirror house, and my absolute favorite of them all, The Magic Carpet Ride. I don't know if that's what it was really named, but that song played every time I went on it. There was a cool slide at the end of it and that was one of the best parts. It was a lot of fun and it brought me plenty of excitement and laughter. The carny that ran it would let me ride it over and over again.

One day that carny was eating donuts and offered me one. I ate it and asked for more. He said I could earn more money for food if I worked for him. So he took me around the back of the ride and molested me. I still can't listen to that song without thinking about that. I couldn't tell my mom because I would be in trouble if she knew that I had spent some of the money that I earned (or snuck into my pocket) on rides or French fries when she wanted to keep the money that I had made for herself. Getting into trouble was not what I ever wanted to do. "Cute as a bug's ear!" While working at the fair that year I ended up getting a giant stuffed bear. My mom called it a "German" bear because it wore a green overall outfit that reminded her of what people wear in Germany. While living in our big empty apartment, that bear became my bed, my only friend, and my confidant. I took precious care with my bear and told it many secrets late at night. I would cry into my bear and I would bring it into the bathroom with me so that I could feel safe when I had to take a bath. It felt good to be able to take a bath alone without being so afraid. I felt like I had overcome that fear thanks to my bear.

One day my brother John had left his girlfriend at our apartment while he went some place and she took me upstairs to lie down and look at magazines with her. It was nice having a big sister type that would hang out on German bear with me and show me magazines with a lot of neat things in them. It felt great being able to snuggle up against her and just laugh like sisters were supposed to do. I was totally comfortable and happy just hanging out with her. While we were looking through magazines she paused and asked me if I knew what a clitoris was. I told her that I had never heard that word before. She proceeded to show me what it was and when I tried to run away she made sure that I couldn't. She told me that if I ever told anyone that she and my brother John were going to hurt me. As soon as I found my mom I told her what happened anyway. The next time she saw John she told him to never bring that girl around again, as if that girl was the only problem.

It wasn't much longer after my mom yelled at my brother John that we came home from running errands to find a scene that set off a change deep inside of me that would last forever. I promised myself that I would never back down from John again.(if only it were that easy.) When we walked into the apartment we immediately saw my only friend, the German bear, sitting at the bottom of the steps. John had stabbed German bear with multiple knives that were all still sticking out and then he poured something that looked like blood all over my bear. The threat John left was clear, but when I screamed "MOTHER FUCKER" at the top of my lungs, my mom didn't even get mad because she was saying plenty of bad words herself. Her concern was that she loved that bear's outfit. She kept talking about how he ruined the bear! Didn't she realize that was my friend? The German looking outfit reminded her of her real family because her real dad came from Germany. It was special to her because of that. I felt even angrier when I realized my mom was more upset about the outfit than she was about my only friend being stabbed to death, so I called her a "father fucker" and well, let's just say I spent the next few hours locked outside on the patio. I did not care.

That was a turning point. That was the day that I knew somehow, some way, I would stop being "Little Debbie the good girl" and that I would find a way to escape or fight back. Remember when I was telling the part of my story where my mom would steal lunches from the local hospital? We were living nearby that hospital in a 4plex apartment unit when my fighting back would become just another reason for people to tell me how worthless I was. Jinx had gotten his first real girlfriend. Her name was Patricia and she lived right in the apartment next door. She was always willing to hang out with me. She took notice of how many times a very large group of kids, led by a single stuck up girl, would come to the front of the apartment house and try to get me to go outside to fight her. This girl hated my guts and she had money, friends, and apparently enough time without her parents to constantly be at my door. She was relentless and my mom often had to shoo her and the other kids away. Whenever I would go to the neighborhood Y down the street, her male friends would beat me up with their fists and with the occasional perfect strike of a basketball to my face. It didn't stop me from going back there though because sometimes my mom would come with me and we would find the empty music room and sing songs together or she would play the piano while I danced. I had one friend at the Y, a girl, and her mom managed a stripper bar up the road.

My friend and I would practice different dance moves together out on in front of the Y and I felt safe hanging out with her because when I did, nobody would dare mess with me. She had brought me over to the bar that her mother managed one day and while we were there a song came on the radio. It was a song called "Self Control" by Laura Branigan. When I heard it in the bar that day I asked if I could go dance on the stage. The place was empty except for me, her, her mother, and another person so her mother said that I could. I did not know what a stripper pole was so while I was on the stage dancing around it, nothing was out of the ordinary for me. What it took me decades to realize was that this small moment was another turning point for me. Not only was I starting to act out more and more, I was beginning to become all that I had been taught to be. When I was done dancing, her mother told me that when I turned 18, (which would be several years,) I could come back and work for her because I danced so well. I was thrilled! I was going to be a professional dancer some day! She just said so. See, hard work pays off! I was so naive and that would not be the last time that I was. Not by a long shot.

It was a sunny yet cold winter day when the bully girl that kept coming to my house with her friends, made the horrible mistake of trying to cut through our back yard alone. Jinx's girlfriend saw her coming down the alley and ran to my house to tell me that this was my chance to finally stand up to her and that if I didn't do it now, I would be picked on forever. Who wants to keep getting picked on their whole life? I'd had enough! I ran out the door and as I ran towards her, every ounce of anger that I had hidden deep inside of me came out in an endless chain of bad words. I felt like the sky had turned grey as I repeatedly punched her. She was trying to hit me back but I managed to flip her over onto her stomach and hold her face down into the snow. Jinx's girlfriend ran inside to tell my mom that I was beating the bully girl up and my mom came out and got me off of her.

I had fought back. It was over. I proved myself and nobody was going to mess with me again. Well, due to that incident (and not because I needed someone to actually help me,) I was put into a child psych ward at the very same hospital my mom had been stealing food from. I didn't have to stay there very long but while I was there I met a nurse who showed me how to smoke cigarettes. My sister Julie had tried to teach me to smoke before, but this time it stuck. My mom found out that the nurse was giving me cigarettes and when she confronted the nurse, she was told "Your daughter has bigger problems to worry about!" She knew! She heard me! She stood up for me! Nope. I was quickly sent back home and my mom continued to buy me cigarettes. Short of a few months here and there, I've been smoking ever since.

My mom ended up in a hospital psych unit as well. While she was there for a short stay, I was sent to live in a foster home. The foster home had multi levels and it was nice to have good furniture but I was not allowed to use any of it. In fact, I wasn't allowed to go upstairs to be near the family at all unless it was dinner time or to watch their daughter dance in her private dance studio. I had to stay downstairs in a room with another foster girl who was about seventeen years old. She had been there for a long time she said and they had bought her a curling iron and blow dryer. She was always doing her hair in the small mirror that they provided for our room. The room had two sets of dark wooden bunk beds and they handed me sheets and told me which bed to sleep on and to make my bed. I didn't even know how to make a bed and I certainly didn't know what to do with the fitted sheet. I did my best with what was handed to me but it just ended up being sheets placed on top of a bed. The girl in the room with me was appalled that I didn't know such a simple thing. Shortly after getting there I discovered I had to go all the way back to my old school to attend. That meant I had to get up and be out of the house long before the sun would come up. I had to take several city busses alone in the dark.

I remember walking blocks in the cold alone through the dark to find the bus stop and it was the wrong one. Then I had to find it again and I ended up downtown in a major city by myself hungry, afraid, and alone. I asked someone how to get to the hospital so I could find my mom and they helped me get there. I stood outside of the psych unit crying because I needed my mom and I could not open the door. A kind woman opened the door for me and when she did I looked inside. I saw people standing sideways and I could not figure out for the life of me why they were standing that way. It struck fear into me and then I saw my mom. She did not look normal to me. She gave me a hug and told me that I had to get back to the foster home. Someone else brought me to see my mom another day, but I wished she would just get out of there. I really disliked the foster home. One night they had me come up to dinner and they were hand making pizza. I could really stand for some pizza so I was happy about that. I'd never heard of head cheese before and that's what they had put all over it. It was disgusting but I shut up and ate as much of it as I could before I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I was told not to come up for dinner again if I was going to act like that.

The foster parents had me watch their daughter dance in her private studio and she got to try on her competition dance costumes. I was told to clap for her, which I did because she was a really great dancer. I sat watching her dance and wishing that I could dance too, but I was told that if I danced, it would be too distracting for her since she was about to compete. I understood and sat quietly. Late in the evening they said we were all going to go school supply shopping. That was awesome because I had never really had any school supplies except sometimes a pencil. When we got to the farm like chain store I figured out that this shopping trip was only for her kids and the other foster child. I downheartedly followed them around the store as they picked out new clothes, new shoes, and new school supplies for themselves. Finally my mom got out of the hospital and I was able to go back home. I was so happy to see her.

My brother Jinx was nice while we lived on that street but I didn't get to see him as much as I wanted because he was getting older and doing his own things. My brother John was driving for a taxi cab service and I saw him occasionally. Even though John was an adult, he had a girlfriend that was closer to my age and she was fun to hang out with. She wasn't rich either, but she made the most of it. John did not like me hanging around with her because he was afraid I would tell her things about my family or him.

There was one time when she and I were riding in a different cab company's car and he ended up seeing us together. She screamed when she realized that he had seen us and we both begged the driver to go faster. John made a u-turn and was driving dangerously near us. He flashed a gun and the driver of our cab stopped right in the middle of the road. John's girlfriend tried to run. John caught me and pulled me by my hair while berating me for “betraying” him. His demeanor was red hot and he would not stop ranting about how I did not do as he had said. I was not to be near his girlfriend. He was screaming and threatening me. He was assaulting me. I just knew he was about to kill me. He was so volatile and dangerous, something I had seen before from him and my father. I managed to escape after he held me there awhile. I did not get to see much of her after that, unless we were super sneaky.

There was another time when John asked me to have lunch with him and a different girlfriend of his. She had a child. Being the stupid good girl, I went! We're a family, right? While we were there the little child made my brother mad and my brother smacked that child so hard that I was in fear for the child's life. I knew exactly what my brother John was capable of. I called the police on him. Hopefully the police would help that child even if they never helped me. Hopefully someone would stop John from hurting anyone else. That was my naive thinking. He was angrier at me than ever. As time went on, we would all just pretend none of these things ever happened. We'd forget. Or would we? Time has a story to tell.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Aside from the girls that I knew from around the Y, I did make a couple other friends once I was let out of the kid psych unit. Now that I was a smoker, I guess I was seen as cooler than I really was and it wasn’t as hard to make friends. Maybe it was because I kicked that snotty girl's butt. Or maybe it was because I was just short of puberty. While walking down a busy street in the neighborhood with my new friends a couple of my brother Jared's friends that I hadn't seen in awhile pulled up in a car next to us at a stop light. "Nice lips" one of the adult males said to me, "You've really grown." Being the naive girl that I still was, I thanked him for the compliment thinking he meant my smile. The driver of the car made it disturbingly clear what he had actually meant. My friends and I crossed the street and it was just another moment in the life of Debbie.

I don't know what made my mom think that letting my dad back into our lives after he had gotten out of prison was a great idea, but she did. I was now the only minor child alone in the house with my parents. Since my siblings were so close in age to each other, they always had other siblings around while having to live with our mother and father. Lucky me, I was young enough to still be stuck with them as they got back together. My brother Jared, who had moved on with his own life, told them both how great it was to have his mom and dad back together again! Yeah, I suppose it would be great to have your parents back together again if you were an adult living somewhere else. If you could pretend that our mother hadn't been tortured. If you could pretend your little sister wasn't in danger. It would be easy for him to pretend everything was alright because he wasn't the one stuck. It would become easy for everyone to pretend that their reunion was a good Christian idea. "Be a good Christian woman and go back to your monster husband." "He's a changed man!" "Give him a chance, mom."

My father being able to return to my life despite his violent and sick ways really took a toll on me, but plenty of other things had already been happening in my life. There was a lot going on in my world and none of it was good. I sometimes had the job of babysitting a little girl that was Jared's ex’s child. I really loved that child and I felt like a big sister. I also really loved Jared's ex. She was a lot of fun and often hung out with really cool people that would come over to her house after they were done partying. They were bikers and they would let me hang out at the table with them while they played cards. Some of them would speak protectively of me when they learned how I was treated in my family.

She and these friends of hers went out a lot so I spent many nights sleeping over at her place babysitting. The bonus was that she had food! She never seemed to mind how much of it I ate. One night she had to go somewhere so I was watching her child. I was getting hungry and nobody had told me not to eat from the pan of spaghetti, so I did. I don't know who left that spaghetti there but it was a terrible mistake for me to eat it. She came home with a group of friends. They had all been drinking and, from what they told me, they had been home quite awhile. They told me that they had been bouncing a beach ball off of my head and I never even moved or reacted. Eventually I figured out what they were talking about and I was happy to see that the child was alright. I did not eat spaghetti for a couple years after that.

I have taught myself how to cook various things over several decades, but I often avoided vegetables at all. I didn't even know what most of them were. I knew that mushrooms were sometimes bad. It was a slow and fearful learning process. I would buy vegetables, not know what to do with them, and then toss them out. I was afraid that if I cooked them wrong, I'd go on another bad trip. I had so much to learn. I didn't even know what I didn't know. Another night that I had slept at her house she told me that I had to sleep with a friend of hers because he was a really mean guy and he had a crush on me. She said I was doing her a favor and keeping her safe if I did it. She brought another man into her room before she turned on a porn video and left me alone with him. This grown ass drunk man did as he pleased with my young teenaged body that night and though he hurt me, I had kept her safe. Naive.

Sometimes she would come to our house while she was out running errands. She always wanted to know what my brother Jared was up to. He had since moved on from her and I was, by default, in his wedding where he married another girl. I was still a young teen and nobody seemed to mind that I went home with a man from the bar where they had their reception that night. Sometimes when Jared’s ex would stop by she would steal my socks and use them as pads for her period. I did not have many socks but she needed them so, whatever. It wasn't long before I started getting periods as well. My mom never taught me about tampons or pads so I ended up using socks too until I met a new friend who taught me how to use tampons. Since we could never even afford food, I had to steal tampons. I would steal them from people's houses. Just a couple here and there to get me through when I no longer had socks or toilet paper to use. As confused about life as I already had been, I was more confused than ever during that time. In my thinking, since I had my period, I was a woman. Nobody was coming to save me, nobody cared. I would sit in my room for hours trying to do math and figure out just how much I had to make a month to buy tampons and afford food and rent. I sucked at math and I barely knew the basics. I figured that if I made $4.25 an hour working fifteen hours per week, I could make it on my own. I'd fall asleep with pen in hand and wake up the next day to head off to the high school that I never fit in at.

More often than not I would walk the long distance to the school even in the snow. I hated snow and I hate it to this day. Some days it was brutally cold, but to fit in at this school and not get picked on, I'd wear miniskirts and little boots. My brother Jared's ex-girlfriend was still coming around and she would give me some of her highly coveted 80s clothes and footwear. I looked like any other kid from the 80s, and that helped me get through sometimes. I would wear my hair spiked with lots of hair spray if I could find some. Sometimes my hair stayed that way because I still wasn't bathing very much. There was a school bus stop nearby but I never felt comfortable there. The kids at the stop were all friends and I'd have to stand by myself while they gossiped, so I figured I'd just walk to school. On days when I actually made it to the school, I'd often walk in one door and right out another. Though I wanted to fit in and be included, two things got in the way of that. One was that I had no idea how to fit in. The other reason was that other girls often hated me. I tried to wear mascara one day and missed a spot, these girls actually focused on me so much that they noticed it. They made sure that everyone else did as well. As if mascara was the end all be all problem in the world.

High school was rarely pleasant for me. I was completely unprepared for it in numerous ways. I didn't know how to open the lock on my locker and I was too embarrassed to ask. Not knowing things had often led to my being teased and humiliated. Later, sitting on top of the hood of a car, a boy would teach me how to undo a combination lock. I didn't know how to read (understand) my schedule, and I never had money for lunch. My mom did get lunch tickets for me, but she would sell them for cigarettes. There was the time that the school counselor called me into his office one day and he talked to me about what I wanted to do in the future. I had no idea so I just rambled off some things. I couldn't even figure out school so how was I to know anything beyond it?

There were times at school when I would go across the street and smoke cigarettes that one of the richer kids would share with everyone who wanted one. I met a boy that was also standing outside one day and he was hilarious. He was an African American boy and he just had a way of making the people around him comfortable. We hit it off very well. We would dance together outside on the school steps. Whenever he would see me he would call me by the sweet nickname that he had given to me. Those were the rare good days at that high school. Most days were like I said, in one door and out the other.

There was a small city nearby and I would walk over there and hang out with some other kids that also ditched school. At night, in that small town, we would walk the streets and watch all the cool kids cruise in their cars. We were too young to have cars of our own so we would ride with them at times. There were plenty of men in their twenties and thirties that would cruise the street as well and sometimes they'd take us with us in their cars or they would give us booze and take us back to their homes. We would go to kegger parties and get drunk. When I found out my dad was coming back into our lives, I ran away to this city and hid with some friends. One of my friends told me that her mom saw me on a milk carton as a missing child, I don't know how true it is, but my mom did not deny it once I had to go back home. I wasn't missing. I ran away.

My mom showed me the missing poster that an organization had made up to help find me. Knowing how important my looks were to my survival, I fought with her about the image she had chosen for the missing poster as if it mattered. While on the run in this city I was in a car with a group of kids when a man that was probably a private investigator had us pull over. He asked me to show him my right foot because he thought my right foot had a birthmark. He was wrong, it was on my left foot so when I showed him my right foot, he was confused. He then told me to show him my shoulders because I have distinct dimples on my shoulders. When the boys that I was riding in the car with overheard that, they almost beat him up. He got away and I was still on the run.

Once I finally went back home I was confronted with my dad again. He was out of prison, had a new truck, and said he was moving my mom and I with him to the southern state. I didn't even know what I was thinking or feeling. I was numb when I got up the nerve to confront him. "Why did you do that to me?" I asked while sitting with him behind a fence near our apartment. "I thought you wanted me to" was his pathetic response. I suddenly knew what I was feeling and I began screaming at him, "I was a baby!" "I'm your daughter!" He got angry and told me that I had better calm down and to quit being "over sensitive." I had heard that plenty of times before when I would make a fuss after my siblings would treat me bad. I hated being told that because that was how they made it all my fault all the time. "She's crazy." "Mom, Debbie's being a little bitch again." "You fucking slut, shut up." "God Debbie, just shut the fuck up!" "Debbie's a dumb blonde." "Debbie is over sensitive, just ignore her." Constantly.

While driving to the southern state with my father the sadistic pedo, I had to sit in the middle between him and my mom in the front of the truck. I sat as close to my mom as I could but she kept shoving me back towards him so she'd have space. My mother and I chained smoked the entire way until we got into the Ozarks. We were traveling on a very high road with curves that frightened me. A car flew past us and my dad said, "Don't worry about him. We won't be seeing him again." He meant that the guy was going to lose control of his car because the road conditions were so bad. There were makeshift signs along the side of the road at various points to warn us of our impending doom if we weren't careful. Suddenly it occurred to me that we were out in the middle of nowhere, it was dark, the weather wasn't great, and we were with my father. Before going to prison, my father liked tying stockings around necks or almost drowning his victims in the tub, and that made him masturbate. I am out on this dark road with my mother and the violent man that had harmed me so badly before. I froze. I don’t remembering hearing the radio or their voices after my realization of the situation I was in. The next thing I knew, we were stopped at a store.

My mom shook me out of whatever state I was in and told me to come inside to pick out a pop. I overheard my dad ask her what was wrong with me, but I ignored their conversation and I began looking around the store. I could not find what I was looking for so I stepped up to the counter and asked the gentleman behind it, "Where is your pop?" He said, "What's pop?" Where the hell was I? I tried asking him again, but in a different way, "Where is your Coke?" He responds, "What kind?" What is going on here? Has this man never heard of pop before and there was only one kind of Coke! "What do you mean what kind?" I inquired, and then it must’ve hit him, I wasn't from the south. He walked me over to where the pops were located and pointed out various types and told me they were all called Coke or Soda. "I would like a Sprite please." He hands me a Sprite and says, "M'am here's your Sprite." M'am? Sprite became my new favorite thing and it wasn't long before I picked up the southern drawl. I did not have much of a drawl at first, but I couldn't say Sprite without one. I was finally out of that northern state. Hallelujah! M'am? Wasn't that for older women? I had so much to learn already, and now it seemed I was going to learn an entirely new language. I looked forward to it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I was so happy to be away from that frigid northern state. While we were still in Illinois I had begun spending my time at the apartment pool when I wasn't out partying with grown men with my younger friends. I had one swimsuit that was handed down to me. It was black and a one piece but it shaped my new curves much more than it should've for my age. There were always men at the pool checking out the girls and ladies that were tanning around it. I really enjoyed learning trick dives and I would practice them a quite a bit. I was a good swimmer, but I hadn't always been one. I remember a time when my mom had taken me to a community indoor pool. It was huge and I found myself in the deep end struggling. I was going under and could not get back up. My mom said that she saw it happening but could not get to me fast enough through all of the people. She says she began screaming for a life guard and he finally found me and pulled me out of the water. There are other stories about me and the water that run through my family as jokes, but that are unfortunately true.

One of them is the story about how when I was an infant my parents decided to take all of us kids on a tubing trip down the river. I was on my father's back unable to hold on because I was literally a baby and Jinx was on my mother's back. Somehow Jinx fell off of my mom's back and my dad tried to grab him. That made me fall off of my father’s back and I went under the fast moving river water. My parents have both told me they searched for me and only found me because I brushed up against my father's leg as the river tried to pull me away and save me from them. My dad would tell the story as if he was a hero. He was very proud of himself for "rescuing" me.

Another fun time on a different river with dear old dad was the time he decided that I needed to learn to swim. He took my siblings and me to a rusty old barge. He lifted me up pretending to swing me around, and I was laughing. It was fun having him play with me. He then tossed me right off the barge and into the river. I was about three years old. I remember being able to see my hands through the muddy water and I was scraping the side of the barge with my finger nails. One of my brothers managed to pull me out.

I wasn't thinking about any of those days when I was able to relax and play at our apartment pool before we moved to the south. At the pool, an adult male started a conversation with me and invited me to come over and have lunch. He said that he had heard from a neighbor girl that my family hardly ever had food. Jinx would eat bread with condiments when we had any and I could often be found drinking pickle juice that was left inside the pickle jar. I didn't really like the taste of pickle juice, but it was better than nothing. I thought it was nice of this gentleman to invite me over for lunch. He took full advantage of me being at his apartment alone. Shortly after that, lots of the men at the apartment complex would invite me over for food. Sometimes I was actually given something to eat, sometimes I wasn't. What I always received was a rough time in someone's bed or on their living room floor. I didn't want to have sex for food, but I was hungry and had to find a way to eat. I had already been sexually exploited so often in my life it wasn't really a big deal, until after when I would feel worthless, abandoned, and used. I was just a worthless teenage slut, I guess.

I eventually met a woman who also lived at the apartment complex. She was single and liked to go to bars. She told me that I could go with her if I washed my hair first. Since I was always in the pool and was still a bit afraid of bathing, I didn't think I was dirty. I got cleaned up and I even discovered that shaving your legs can cause painful cuts that leave their mark forever. Showered up and shaved, I told my mom I was going to the bar with the woman. She didn't mind because she had seen me drunk before. Sometimes I would try to sneak into the apartment and I would slam my hip against the folded down breakfast bar that was usually up. My mom had put it down to catch me coming in the house drunk. She was still a couch sleeper so she caught me, but she never did a thing about it except yell at me for a minute. I guess she felt better knowing I would be out drinking with an adult woman instead of who I usually ran with in those days.

My first night at the bar it happened to be Ladies Night. The neighbor lady had already coached me on what to say to the man checking IDs at the bar, so when we entered and he tried to stop me, I smiled my cutest smile and said, "Does this face really need an ID?" He smiled, handed me a rose, and let me walk right in. She had dressed me up in a mini skirt and heels and put on my makeup. My hair was in an up do and I was ready to dance on that blinky dance floor. There were strobe lights and adults having fun everywhere I looked. She handed me a drink and I drank it as fast as I could. I kicked off my shoes and jumped onto the dance floor. There were plenty of men giving me attention. She took me to the bar with her several more times after that night. If I hadn't already learned enough at my young age about what men wanted from me, she was teaching me even more. Things I never needed to know but sadly would come in handy later in my life. I was in way over my head and that seemed to be just fine with every adult in my life. So long as I did what the adults wanted me to do for them and as long as I wasn't in their way any other time, they were content ignoring that I was struggling. It was all about them and I just had to like it that way or there would be nobody for me to connect to at all. Any protest from me was met with chaos or the reminder of what a "spoiled selfish brat" I was.

When we finally arrived at my Grandma C's house in our new southern state we were all tired. This was my dad's mother. My Grandma C was just as I had remembered her from years ago, a mean old woman. She went on and on to my mother about how wrong my mom was for divorcing my father because he hadn't done "a damn thing wrong." She was so mad at my mom that she made me sleep in the RV outside to try to make my mother angry. The RV smelled of mold. At night it was freezing and during the day it was humid inside of it and I was not allowed to come out except to eat. There was no TV, no radio, and there was only one blanket. There was a musty tent left inside of it so I used that as a bed sheet to lie on top of the dirty make shift table bed. One morning my mom came out to the RV and surprised me by waking me up with a Sprite and she was singing Wham's song Wake Me Up Before You Go Go. She pulled me out of bed and danced around with me and tried to cheer me up.

We danced and danced, singing the lyrics as loud as we could. That became our song. It wasn't long before my Grandma C entered the RV to tell me that I had to go to school that day. My mom told her to get out of the RV and leave me alone so that I could be happy for a few minutes. "Tell that little bitch she better hurry up," my grandma said as she slammed the RV door. I sat down and started worrying about being bullied at the new school. Not only did I have nothing to wear because most of my things were left behind in Illinois, but now I had another canker sore on my lip and it was a really big one. I just knew I was going to be laughed at by all these new kids. I got dressed in one of my dad's T-shirts and the pair of jeans I had been wearing the entire trip. I tied the T-shirt on the side and put on the beaded safety pins that I had managed to keep. I put on my worn out jelly shoes and headed off to my new high school. The town was so country and small that some kids rode to school on horses. I thought that was totally rad. I walked timidly into the school, but to my surprise, absolutely every single person was extra nice. Teachers were nice, kids were nice. One boy gave me a folder and pencils and another boy gave me his jacket. This is going to work out ok, I thought to myself.

When it came time for lunch, I had an egg salad sandwich in my paper bag that I was happy to have, but some kids at the table took notice and offered to share their lunch with me. Everything was good at school, but not at home. We almost immediately moved to Julie's house in another city in that same state. This city was big and confusing. While at Julie's house my parent's left me with her for several days so that they could be alone and find us a place to live. Though I felt safe in the closet at our farm house, I did not feel safe being locked inside one at Julie's house. When my parent's finally returned I was sent to a new school. This school was filled with good people too. I was told I could join the R.O.T.C. program and they explained to me what that meant. They gave me a fake gun to dance with. I really liked it even though it was really hot outside when we were practicing. Bam, we moved again.

I had never seen a beach before so I shut out the thoughts running through my head about how un-fun moving near my sister Julie would be. She had moved to a city near the beach and my parents followed. When we pulled up to her house the very first words out of her mouth were, "Mom, why is Debbie so fat?" I wasn't fat. I was 5'7 and barely 110lbs. While living there with Julie and her young family she was always trying to fight with me. If I cleaned up her house, it was wrong. If I tried to pour a drink, I did it wrong. When she let me borrow a dress of hers to go on a date she ended up fighting with me to the point of smacking me because I wore the belt differently than she usually wore it. "If you're going to borrow something from someone, you wear it how they do!" Smack! She seemed to feel like everything that her husband did was wrong as well.

My parents ended up finding us an apartment in what was called civilian housing on a military base near Julie's house. When we moved in there a family rumor got back to me that one of my brother's tried to commit suicide by taking a bunch of pills. I was still pretty young and naive compared to how kids that are raised normally were, but I was also curious. I did not feel that I wanted to die, and that wasn’t a consideration, but I calmly went into the bathroom while my mom was sleeping and I swallowed an entire bottle of aspirin. They tasted horrible and I wasn't even sure what kind of pills they were. Once I finished forcing them into my mouth, I walked outside and sat down. I don't know what I was thinking would happen. A neighbor kid walked past me and I told him what I did. It was when I saw the panic shoot across his face that I finally realized what I had just done. I had made a terrible mistake he said. I was going to die according to him. He ran in and woke up my mom and they called the military EMS crew to come get me.

I was brought to a hospital on base and they made me throw up, a lot. With chalk and vomit all over me, military members escorted me back home. On the way home I threw up on one of them. He didn't seem to mind because he ended up asking me to go out to a party with him on base. I went to the party and he became my boyfriend. Whenever I had to be dropped off at Julie's house for whatever reason, he would bring me there in his cool car. Julie would try to run out and call me a slut loud enough to make sure he heard her. This just made him pick me up more often and I spent a lot of time at his apartment eating food, drinking, and having sex. He told me he was going to marry me and get me the hell out of there. We would travel the world with the military and life would be good. Being the young damaged girl that I was, I fully believed him. When he stopped showing up, I was a bit relieved because I did not want to leave my mom behind even though my mom was, as she said, "done raising" me.

We moved off of the base and into a house just down the road from Julie. It was a small road so it was very close to her house. The houses on that road were shabby at best. They were near a part of the bay that smelled terrible, and I ended up spending a lot of time at the beach down the road. The first time that I saw the ocean I was taken aback by it and I was so lost in my own head that I stood there for an hour watching the waves come and go. When I had to spend time at home, my mom was all about trying to get me back into modeling. She had tried before to force this on me. I painted my room black with some paint that I had found in the backyard. My father was not pleased with what I had done to my room and gave a grand lecture about how I wasn't a normal teenage girl. It was so humid there that I spent countless hours in the shower trying to cool off. There was no tub in that house, thankfully. It was so hot outside that you could just walk out the front door and immediately need another shower. My dad was pissed that I painted my room black, but he would get even angrier when I would lock the door while showering. I learned the hard way that I wasn't to lock the door.

My mom got my dad on board with her thinking and my parent's decided to make me go back into trying to be a professional model. That pissed Julie off because now I had my dad's full attention again and since it was my mom's idea, well, let's just say the family fighting got worse. She could have his attention. I really did not want it. My parents hired a photographer and he took me all around town taking pictures of me. The pictures turned out amazing and I was starting to get into the idea when Julie began her "you're a fucking slut" bullshit again. I wasn't supposed to look as good as I did, I guess. If I didn't look good, I was treated like shit for that too. I couldn't fucking keep up. What was I supposed to do to make these people happy so that I could stop getting blamed for everything? How do I make them all stop? Why do my looks matter? It all needed to just stop. My parents brought me to a modeling audition and there were so many girls competing that I can't tell you how many there were. I was told to walk, talk, smile, and pose. On the way home my mom said, "I think you got it, Debbie."

That night I sat in the shower with a knife contemplating on whether or not cutting up my face would make these people love me. Instead I heard my father trying to break down the bathroom door. He did not know I had the knife, so what was it he wanted? He finally left me alone and I put on my clothes and walked out the door.

My parents had befriended a couple with a son about my age. He was a good looking kid that had never been in trouble, but he knew that my family was bad because he heard his parents talking. He told me that if I ever wanted to run away, he would keep me safe. He really disliked his own parents at that time. He ran away with me to a town that wasn't too far away. We had no money and we slept outside all night. He could not handle the hunger and the elements so he called his parents to pick us up. His parents brought us back to their house but on the way there I was blamed for the entire thing.

When we got to their house I was told to wait outside until my parents arrived. I waited quite awhile for them to show up and when they did I was led back into the house and I was forced to sit at a small dinette across from my father while the lady tried to mediate between us. My mom did not stand up for me. She walked outside and left me there. I was quite hurt by that, but I was not going to back down from my father. Not this time. As I sat taking the blame for seemingly everything that the boy had ever done, even before meeting me, I was shocked and getting angrier. On top of that, I was repeatedly told that I had run away from home because I'm just a bratty little slut who took her son's virginity. My dad would pipe in and tell me how I needed to grow up and act like a lady. He was putting on an amazing show in front of this family. He was always good at the show. I, on the other hand, was hysterical during the conversation, so of course, that made him look even better.

After what felt like hours of being blamed and despite constantly letting them know that I did not have sex with him, that he was still a virgin, and after having to sit and watch my father's good daddy routine, I finally grabbed a cigarette and lit it up right in their house. I looked at the woman and I screamed, "MY FATHER FUCKING RAPED ME!" Nothing. The room went silent. The women began to say, "Well, your dad has done a lot for you, and," but she didn't finish because my dad chimed in and said that I was a liar. My mom came back inside. She pulled me out of their house and made me sit outside. She went back into their house and after awhile, they finally came out and took me back home. Nothing. Deaf ears. Again. All the way home, my mom told me about how the modeling agency had called to tell her that I was the one who had made it. I was the chosen child. She let me know how ashamed she was of me that I ruined my only shot at making it in this world because when they called, she had to tell them I had run away and since I had run away, I couldn't be the chosen girl. I was no longer good enough for the agency's high society.

During the drive home, my dad ranted on and on about how much money he had spent on the photos and between the two of them and their nonstop put downs, I began searching the back seat for anything sharp that I could cut my face with. I just wanted to cut my face. I wanted to end the bullshit. I did not want to die, but I wanted to make sure they couldn't do this to me again. Nobody would be jealous of me and try to beat me up for it, I'd be ugly. No more fucking pain. No modeling, no incest, no grown ass men hurting me, just a chance at a normal life. I couldn't find anything sharp enough in the back seat. I stared out the window while they continued letting me know how pathetic I was. How I had let them down. When they were asleep one evening, I quietly snuck out of the house and made my way to the highway nearby. I caught a ride with a truck driver passing by and I was gone.

CHAPTER NINE

That first driver was appropriate. He had purchased a lot of food off of the menu for me at a truck stop and he did not expect anything in return. We were sitting at the table together eating when we noticed another teenage girl. I asked him if I could give her some of my food and he told me to have her come over and sit with us. He let her order whatever she wanted off of the menu, just like he had done for me. She had been on the run for awhile and was obviously as hungry as I was. She and I got along really well so he advised us to stick together.

He taught us how to catch rides from other drivers safely. I don't know if he had daughters, but if he did, they were probably really lucky to have a dad like him. He never asked me why I was out there alone, but he probably already knew that it couldn't have been better at home. He probably didn't call the police on us because what would they do? Send us right back home. How was the highway any worse than their home? He probably thought. He was really awesome and I wish I knew his name so that I could thank him for caring about me when nobody else seemed to. He was older then, but if he ever happens to read this book, and recognizes his role, I hope he finds peace in knowing that I did not die as a runaway, because he taught me how to stay safe. I wish that I could tell him in person how much his compassion meant to me.

One thing he taught us was that whenever we would go with a new driver, we were to have the previous driver write down all of the new driver's information. This kept us safe. It was smart because that meant there would be a trail and the new driver would be less likely to want witnesses if he hurt us. We would occasionally talk on the CBs looking for our next ride. We didn't know or care where we were going. When a driver piped up and said he could take us to a place, we decided if that sounded like a cool place, and if so, we'd go with him. We made it to Florida and decided that's where we would start our new lives. We were free! We asked the driver we were with to stop when we saw a convenience store and smelled the ocean air. He pulled over and let us out. We looked around for the ocean but we couldn't see it. My new friend decided it was a genius idea to walk up to a local cop car and ask for directions to the beach. We were promptly put on a bus and sent back to our homes in different states. We rode together on one bus, and then I never saw her again.

When I got back home I was put into a locked down drug treatment facility. I was not on drugs. The only drugs I had ever used were those slipped to me or eaten accidentally. This was just my family’s way of making sure that I was the one to blame. The first night there I met a pretty girl that I had to share a room with. She told me there was a rule there that said, if we could get out, they couldn't call the police for a certain amount of time. She said it was the law. My dumb ass went up to the front desk to make sure she was telling me the truth. The woman at the desk told me it was true. With only the clothes on our backs and a few clothing items she had in a back pack, we bolted as soon as someone had to open the front door. I've heard rumor saying that we were the first two to ever successfully escape the facility for more than a few hours. I don't know if that's true, but people have told me it was. That night we hid on top of an overpass and watched as police cars circled the area. We were laughing and being young teenage girls. We noticed all the trucks on the highway and we decided to make a run for it. We did not have to wait long once we stuck out our thumbs.

A truck driver stopped to pick us up. We told him not to stop the truck no matter what until we were out of town. He obliged because he didn't have to stop anyway. He gave us Crown Royal to drink and my friend drank most of it. She was drunk in the front seat and I was in the back peeking through the curtains when I saw him make his move on her. We both ended up in hysterics and he pulled over and left us on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. She was puking and begging me to find toilet paper because she also had the runs. We were laughing and tired. We slept on the side of the road that night. We woke up the next day pretty tired and after walking for longer than I care to remember, we finally caught another ride. We eventually ended up in K.T’s truck. K.T. was fairly good looking and took a shine to me. He even brought us home to meet his momma and she was awesome. She fed us and washed our clothes and gave us a few extra clothing items. After dinner my friend and I went out into her beautiful back yard and talked about how I was going to have a good life with him and that if she wanted to stay she could.

While we were sitting outside we heard his mother screaming at him for messing with a teenage girl. He made us leave right away and as time went on, K.T. became very controlling of me. What I wore, how I wore it, when to have sex, how to talk, what to say, use this word, not that one. We managed to get away from him with other drivers after hiding too long inside a truck stop shower. My friend and I soon got caught in a small town way up north closer to the state I was originally from. They put us in a closed off jail cell inside a men's unit. The inmates knew we were inside the cell. Their TV room was right outside our door so they had seen us being placed inside of it. Once the jailer was away and we were locked in, they told us through the door to flush the toilet if we needed a cigarette. Being teen girls that made us laugh, but we did it. Whenever we would flush they would slide a lit cigarette under the door even when we were just using the restroom.

Eventually two men showed up and I guess they were some type of cops, investigators or something but they had a really cool mustang and they were there to get us back home. They put one of us in the front seat and the other in the opposite rear seat. Handcuffed. To each other. The driver was flying down the highway when we were pulled over by a police officer in an almost identical Mustang. Imagine the officer's surprise to find two teenage girls handcuffed together with two adult males in the middle of nowhere. Somebody had a lot of explaining to do. We were un-cuffed and left to travel un-cuffed if we behaved. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to have two teenage girls with two men on a trip like that, but yeah. Since the girl and I were from the same area, we were brought to the same place, her mother's house. Her mom drove me to my house and on the way there she was lecturing us. I hadn't realized how exhausted I was and I don't think I ever felt as tired as I did that day in the backseat of her car. I was really trying hard to pay attention and show respect to her, but my eyelids kept closing. When I woke up I was back home. That night I sat outside in lawn chairs with my mom because the house was too hot and my dad was inside. I told her all about my adventure, the things I had seen, and about K.T. I told her he wanted to marry me and she said, "I'll think about it." She'd think about it? I had expected her to protest at least a little bit. I was her young teenage daughter, her baby. Nope, "I'll think about it." I guess I was just too much for her to keep handling if she was really considering letting me get married to a man I had to sneak away from. I’d find out later the K.T. was allegedly arrested for a sexual crime against someone else.

Something happened between my parents and my mom was fed up with Julie so she decided it was time for us to leave. Finally. She said she wanted to go a few states away to her brother's house and see if we could make a life there. On the bus trip to her brother's house, I had to sit next to a man who did not hesitate to slide his hand down my pants while I was sleeping. I was used to it. While we were staying at my uncle's, my mom had to make some calls. While she was on the phone my uncle had told her to get off of it. The call was important and my uncle was drunk, so my mom ignored his demand. Instead of my uncle just hanging up the phone or removing the cord from the wall, he decided that the better idea was to tie a chain around the pole. He tied one end of the chain to the pole and the other end of the chain to his truck. That did not go well and soon my mom and I were hiding in the bushes nearby. We were stranded in the middle of nowhere good with no money and no place to go. We finally made our way back to Illinois. It was nice seeing my old cruising friends again and since I had adventures to talk about, and they had plenty happen while I was gone too, we all reconnected very well. My mom said I had to move to another city soon so that she could take a job caring for a disabled man in his home.

I made sure to spend time with my friends and the night before we were supposed to move, they were having a party because someone's parents weren't home. I was drunk and dancing with my friend in the middle of the living room when in walked a twenty year old man that was quite handsome. He had long blonde wavy hair and an amazing smile. He wore a leather jacket that made him look even better. He was not from around the area, and I don't know how he ended up at that party because none of us knew who he was. I took notice of him right away and being the girl that was trained to be promiscuous, I went right over and sat on his lap the very minute he began flirting with me. This time was a different though. For the first time in my life, I felt my heart hurt when I looked into a man's eyes. I was gone on him. Completely gone. He felt important to my life somehow, if that makes sense. I was sixteen years old and I was in love with my new boyfriend Shane. We spent every minute we could together until the moment I had to leave to the other city for my mom's job. We would be living in the house with the disabled man. I don't know how my mother got this job, she had few job skills, but we had a nice house to live in because of the job. Even after we moved, Shane would drive all the way up to see me almost every single night.

Shane would pick me up and take me to parties. He would smoke pot, get drunk, and drive me around all night. One day while we were driving around he told me to go down on him. Since I had only ever done that while be forced to do it, I didn't really know what to do, but I did my best while he drove. He stopped the car and when I looked up, we were in a cemetery. I was terrified Jesus was going to strike me down right in that very spot. He started laughing and told me it would be ok. I could not calm down. I was going to burn in hell for all of eternity. He finally drove us out of there and we had sex on an over pass as we watched the cars go by. We had sex in corn fields and we had sex in my bedroom. We had sex in the elevator at the disabled man's house, and we had sex at his parent's house. We had sex all the time. My mom would let him sleep over despite him being an adult, and we even had sex under the blankets near her while she was watching TV. She didn't even know.

One night we went to another party and an old friend of mine who was 15 years old joined us. Later that night I caught those two together in his car. Suddenly I was enraged. I went after her but she ran away. Looking back it was another adult male touching my friend but at the time I didn’t have the brain to see it that way. I spent that night bawling my eyes out to him about what he had done and he started crying too. He said he never had a girl care for him the way that I did. We rode all the way back to my house and a song by the band Boston came on and it became our song. He told me he would let me drive his car part of the way and I ended up hitting a skunk. I started crying about killing the skunk. It was a very emotional night that led right into the next morning. Once we got back to the house, we sat in the driveway and talked and it became a very serious conversation. We decided that we wanted a family together. A precious child to love. We went into my room and had sex again and again until we both passed out. We had sex again when we woke up.

Several weeks later my mom told me that she was getting back together with my dad again and that we were moving away in two days. I was 16 years old so I did not really have a choice, unless I ran away again. I started feeling sick so Shane drove and he and my mother took me to the emergency room. My dad was already on his way up to Illinois from the southern state he still lived in. We were about to move to Oregon with pedo dad whether I wanted to or not. Shane was crying that I had to leave and he swore that he'd come with us. That made me very happy. While I was sitting on the stretcher in the emergency room, the doctor walked in with a stern face to tell me that I was pregnant. To his and my mom's dismay, I jumped up off the table right as Shane ran towards me with his arms open. We were ecstatic! We did it! We were going to have a baby and be a family. My parents would not be able to break us up. As we squealed in excitement in the emergency room, my mom lit up a cigarette. The doctor told her no matter how ashamed of me she was, she couldn't smoke by the oxygen tanks. Ashamed of me? Why? She was done "raising me." Right?

We stopped into a local store on our way to meet up with my dad so that we could all drive to Oregon together and Shane bought me my first healthy pregnancy beverage. Chocolate Milk. This was not a good idea because I never drank milk and my stomach was always hurting me long before I had gotten pregnant. I kept ending up in the emergency room because of mysterious tummy pain. I had been sexually destroyed my entire life, but now something wonderful was going to come of it. I was going to have my own child. As we drove, I sat in the middle of my mom and Shane and I started crying wondering if my mom was ashamed of me. She said she wasn't and baby talked to me and my belly. Whew. Good. Everything was ok. I was going to have a family and my mom was still with me. I laid across the two of them and tried to sleep until the song "Shout at the Devil" by Motley Crue came on the radio. That was when I had a big panic attack, but I didn't know that's what was happening. My heart started racing and I felt out of control. I begged Shane to shut off the song. It had me completely freaked out. I wasn't myself. He was laughing at my so called drama and it took me awhile to calm down, but I finally did. I was terrified and I couldn't figure out for the life of me why. To this day I do not know why that song triggered me that way. Maybe my mother's talk about demons raping me or all of the scary movies she had me watching. Maybe it was something else altogether.

CHAPTER TEN

Once we arrived in Portland we found two apartments in the same building. The one that Shane and I moved into had shag green carpet and a red telephone. It was a very big apartment and ugly as hell. I found a fifties style dress at the local thrift shop. It was the kind of dress that hung about 3 inches below my knees, with a wide belt. I was starting my new life. I had a great boyfriend, an apartment, a housewife dress, and a baby on the way. My mom was just down the hall. Oregon was rainy, but I was content and fully believed that from there on out, normal would happen. Young love and an even greater love growing inside of my body. My dad and Shane could not find work so my mom said that she and my dad were moving back down south. Shane said he wasn't going to stay in Oregon and he did not care if I was sad about. He told me he didn't care if I went with him, with my parents, or stayed in Oregon. He was going back to his Momma's house in the state where I had grown up tormented. I was sixteen, pregnant, and I had no idea what to do. I needed my mom more than ever, but I also needed Shane. I was carrying his child. I chose Shane because wanted my child to have a dad. I knew how it felt to not have a dad.

I didn't have a good dad when he was near and I didn't really have a dad at all while he was in prison. I did not want that for my child and I was also very afraid to have a child and be near my family. With Shane and me back in Illinois my mom decided that she didn't like my dad again. She moved in with Shane and I and we all waited for the angel to be born. Before my mom moved back to Illinois though, Shane and I had another apartment. I had no idea what was happening to my body but I was constantly on the phone calling the doctor, even after hours. That poor doctor must've wanted to pull his hair out. I was in a complete panic. Every movement, every pain, just anything at all caused me to think that I was about to lose the little angel inside of me. I was reliving my traumas in various ways, but I did not know that. What was happening was that I was once again in an abusive situation. Shane wouldn't come home for days and when he was home he was drunk or trying to get me to have anal sex. I was doing everything in my power to try to please him. He was often high or drunk.

I had taught myself to make spaghetti and I made it for him almost every night. He taught me what green peppers were so that I could change the flavor sometimes. I didn't know how to cook anything else except grilled cheese sandwiches. I cleaned the house, I dressed like I thought a good mom would, I would sit quietly so that he could watch his shows. I was terrified that he was going to abandon me too. Anything I tried to do was never enough and I couldn't figure out why. One night he came home bragging about cheating on me with an old girlfriend. I was about 5 months pregnant and cooking him dinner. He was relentless giving me all the details. I packed up a suitcase in tears. I overfilled the suitcase with everything my baby was going to need that I had collected from the local charitable office. I could barely lift it and my pregnant belly was in my way. We lived really far from any public transportation, but I knew how to hitchhike so I packed up my unborn baby's things, drug the suitcase down the stairs, and used all my strength to get down the road. He started laughing at the site of me trying to lug the suitcase down the small road. He ran up and kept trying to kiss on me. He told me how cute I was trying to carry the suitcase. Since I didn't know where the hell else to go, his charm worked. He carried the suitcase back inside for me and he finished making dinner. He loved me again.

Shane and I left that little apartment and moved to the town that I went to high school in. I would see people that I knew from school and they would make comments about how fat I looked pregnant. I was excited to see them hoping for friendship in my new imaginary world of adulthood, but I was just a joke to them. That's when my mom reappeared and began staying with us. I was close to having the angel. My mom got back into going to church and bible studies and I sat home prepping the apartment for the baby over and over again while Shane was off at work. I would try to sit at the kitchen table and have adult conversations with my mom as if I actually was one. As if I actually knew anything about the world. I had learned to boil egg noodles and make cheesy tortillas, so I'd make us some and we would sit down and eat together, but it was just a fantasy world in the end. I was trying so hard to make life feel normal. I was fooling myself and still very traumatized from the past. I was far from ready for what was to come no matter how much I loved the angel growing inside of me.

Sometimes Shane would come home and sometimes he wouldn't. I had my mom near though so I tried to be patient. Shane was two weeks from turning twenty-one years old and I had just turned seventeen two weeks prior to the night that he came home drunker than normal. My mother and I watched together as Shane walked into the rest room, pulled down his pants, and peed all over the bathroom floor. My mom demanded that he clean it up and he just smiled his charming smile at her. That smile worked on everyone. My mom and I both told Shane that we were not cleaning it up so Shane decided I was wrong for telling him that. He said he wanted to go to bed and he brought me into the bedroom and closed the door. Then he put his hand on my face and shoved me backwards into the metal closet doors. The next day he got up and went to work and my mom went to bible study. I went into the rest room because I was feeling cramps. When I wiped I thought I was losing the baby. I quickly got on the phone with the nurse at the doctor's office and I told her what I had coming out of me. She told me to breathe and explained to me what a mucus plug was. I was in labor. I would soon meet my baby.

I called Shane's work and told them to tell him it was time. I called my mom's church friend who drove her home. My mom said she had never seen an elderly woman drive so fast. Shane quickly drove home too and we were told to go to the clinic before the hospital, just to be sure that I was really in labor. Once we got to the clinic the doctor said that I was indeed in labor and to get to the hospital down the road. Shane and my mom both ran for the car and told me to wait curb side. As I waited I watched them drive off without me. Shane threw the car in reverse and they were both apologizing for leaving me standing there. They were just really excited. It was a cute moment. I felt justified in having my child. Things were going to be alright once the baby came. Obviously Shane loved me and my mom was on board as well. Everyone was excited about the baby, except Shane's mom. I was never good enough for her son. I was poor, they were not. He was the only adult in our relationship, but I was the only one to blame for the pregnancy. Her son was never ever wrong and I'd soon come to learn she would side with him and bail him out plenty.

Once we made it to the hospital I was told that I had to have a C Section. My blood pressure was much too high to try to give birth. They explained to me how they would do it, that I could stay awake, and that both Shane and my mom could be in the room. It was such a strange feeling being strapped to that bed. I was both terrified because of past history but I was excited about my new baby. We had already chosen the baby's name if it was a boy. As they were digging around in my stomach Shane passed out and knocked over a surgical tray. My mom couldn't be in the actual room because it became crowded, so she was standing very near in a surgical room doorway. Shane came too and right about the time that he did, they pulled the baby out and announced, "You have a son!" Shane was hiding behind the curtain that they had in front of me so that I could not see what was happening to my body. He did not want to see it either. I was in tears. I had a boy! So many things ran through my mind in that moment that I never thought I would think of while giving birth. One of them was He's less likely to be molested. I was so relieved.

They pulled down the curtain that was blocking our view so that we could see our precious baby boy, Shane shouted loudly, "Why are his balls so big?" The baby was startled and began crying. Everyone in the room was trying their hardest not to laugh at Shane's question and shock. They did their best to explain to us why that happened to baby boys, as I saw my son for the first time. I am in tears writing this. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. He was everything I ever dreamed he would be. I just wanted to hold him and never let go. Once I was back in my room I was asked if I wanted to breastfeed. The very first thing that came to my mind was how that would be molesting him. A woman's breasts were for sex just like I had always known. I knew nothing about breastfeeding except seeing the lady next door breastfeed her son when we lived on the top of the hill. I spoke the word, "no" and the nurse must have thought I knew more than I actually did. She couldn't possibly have known about my life. She handed me a bottle and brought my son into me. She didn't show me how to feed him so I was really happy when he just started sucking on the bottle out of instinct. I did not know when to change him but I knew how to change him because I used to babysit Jared's girlfriend's toddler. Her toddler had been too old for a bottle, but was still wearing diapers. Her child was a girl though so I received the shock of my life when I laid my son down and took off his diaper.

He peed straight up into the air and right into his own mouth. I screamed thinking he was going to die because babies should never drink pee! I was screaming so loud that the nurse ran in. She had calmed me down and explained to me that it's ok. It happens. He would be fine. My mom had quietly left and Shane wasn't in the room either. It turns out that the very first night of my son's life, Shane was at a party with 14 year old girls even though in two short weeks, he’d be twenty-one. I heard about the party from Shane rubbing it in and also from someone else. Oh but that first night alone with my son, as I sat there in tears holding him knowing that I was alone with a brand new baby, I could not stop staring at him. He had long fingers and he was very alert. Even the photographer that came in the next day told me he had never taken a picture of a baby so alert before. As I sat there that first night with my son, I quietly cried as I touched every one of his fingers and toes. I practiced changing him, bundling him, and feeding him. I sang to him and I told him how his name would be spelled. I let him know that he would have his father's last name and I told him how hard that one would be to spell. I talked to my son all night long, even as he slept peacefully in my arms. His scent, his little baby sounds, and the sound of his heartbeat were forever locked into my memory. It was pure love.

Very early that morning the nurse walked into the room with some papers. I asked her why she thought I would give my child up for adoption and she said, "Because you're too young to deserve that child." I told her I wouldn't do it and that I was keeping my son. She huffed out of the room. I got the impression she was in the wrong room with those papers because that had never been a thought in my mind. When Shane finally showed up I told him what the nurse had said and he said to "ignore the dumb bitch." Shane left again after making me cry. He didn't care if I was crying and he was getting colder and colder towards me, much like his mother. His mom and dad showed up one day to make sure the baby looked like him. I liked Shane's dad a heck of a lot better than I liked his mom. There are plenty of reasons that I won't go into here, but Shane knows them and so does she. When I finally got to go home with my son, Shane disappeared most days. We were out of diapers one day so I called his work to leave a message asking him to pick some up on his way home. No big deal, right? Well his boss thought it was a good idea to antagonize him over the loud speakers about bringing diapers home. He kept teasing him so instead of Shane manning up, he left me home with no diapers or formula for our son, while he ignored his new reality.

I couldn't take trying to raise him alone anymore because I never knew when Shane was going to show up or not and I never knew if he would be drunk when he did. I had to literally beg Shane for the baby's every need. I had to call my parent's and ask for money for diapers and formula. One night Shane came home and told me that if I didn't start getting high with him, he was never coming home. I desperately loved and needed him as part of mine and my son's life, so that night he got me high. To his bad karma he took such a big hit that he fell backwards and hit his head on the counter. I sat on the couch staring at the disturbing movie that he had put on. I was high as a kite. The only other time that I agreed to get high with him was one time with his cousin Gordy. Gordy was one of those guys that seemed cool. To fit in with him you played along. Shane really looked up to him so when they told me to take some hits off of "creep" weed. I did. I wanted to fit in and I wanted to not embarrass Shane in front of his cousin by being a baby about it. When it finally hit me, my heart was racing and I got really paranoid. Shane dropped me off at a hospital and left me there. I never did it again. I spent most days and nights just home alone with our son. I felt very lonely, but my son lit up my life.

One night Shane was home and we had put the baby to sleep and enjoyed a rare peaceful night together. Shane got up and went to work that morning and after I heard the baby start fussing, I went in to check on him. Inside my son's crib was a pack of cigarettes and he had broken pieces of cigarettes in his mouth. They had fallen out of Shane's pocket when he leaned over to kiss our son goodbye that morning. I quickly got all of the tobacco out of his mouth and called the doctor. The doctor told me what to watch out for and as it turns out, my son must not have swallowed any because he was fine. Later that day I took my son out on the sidewalk for fresh air and I even tried to teach him to walk, but he was too little. We sat out there and played as he crawled around. He was such a happy little guy. If I even looked his way he would smile. I would turn on the country music that I had come to love and I'd put him in one arm and the vacuum in the other hand. I'd dance with my son and listen to "Bop" by Dan Seals. That made my son laugh and giggle and that made everything alright.

It wasn’t unusual for Shane to not come home so one morning when I woke up and he wasn't there, I was not surprised. I got up and fed my son and decided to take him outside to play and crawl around. When I opened our apartment door I found Shane lying on top of a mattress in the hallway with the two girls that lived across the hall from us. They were all passed out and the girls were half dressed. I couldn't take it any longer. We ended up going to stay with someone else and it wasn't long before I realized that I couldn't afford rent or baby items on my own. I didn't know how to do anything. I didn't even know how to fill out a job application correctly. I had filled out a couple applications in person before, but they weren't that great. I had even taken a job for a day before here and there, but I always felt stupid because everyone knew so many basic things, and I did not. I didn't know how to approach any one about a job correctly and I felt lost and alone. I had to do something. I had a helpless child in my arms. I called my parents and asked them to help me take a bus to their town. My mom said my dad was rarely home. He was an over the road truck driver so I didn't think it would be so bad and we really needed some help. Some family. Something.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I still hadn't healed from old traumas and my life was only about getting to the next day. There was no room for going to school and there was no room for trying to learn skills. Shane had already started teaching me how to be a stripper months before I left him. When he had mentioned how much money we would have for the baby, I practiced in an empty bedroom. Once I had a routine down, I asked Shane to come watch me. He watched me quietly and when I was done he burst out laughing and told me that strippers don't jazz dance. I felt so stupid but I just did my best to play it off so he would stop laughing at me. He took me over to the local strip club a couple times and had me watch and learn. So now that I was living with my parents so that I could provide for my son, I started stripping on the nights my father was gone so that my mom could watch my son in peace. There was no way I was going to let my father buy one damn thing for my son. I didn't want to owe him anything.

One of my dad's brothers lived at the same complex and his name was Randall. He had served in the military and was often found high staring at pictures of helicopters and talking about the war. He was always nice to me and it was fun getting to know him better. If I needed anything he stepped up or one of his friends would. He was a lot different than my dad's other brother in Illinois. I had no desire to ever again see the uncle that lived in Illinois. My uncle Randall knew that I needed a job and had no skills so he suggested I go to a big cabaret down the road. His friend brought me over there and the owners really liked me. They sat me down and ate a steak with me. They were Greek and quite the romancers. They were older than my dad. I needed to feed my son and I convinced them to let me work. They said I needed my mom to sign a permission slip. I was a mother, yet I needed my mom to sign for permission. She gave them a note with her permission and her signature attached. Once the club closed for the night, me and a group of friends that I had met, would go get my son and we would all go eat at a local twenty four hour diner. We did this without fail. I loved those moments with my son.

I was providing for my son and I could afford to buy him food, diapers, and even new clothes. I bought him a ton of blue outfits and gave him the nickname Baby Blue. My mom was starting to complain about my working hours and she was telling me that she was worried my father might come home one day when I wasn't there and my son was. I did not want to leave him alone near my father under any circumstances ever again. I had already experienced what it felt like for my dad to have access to my son when I wasn't around. When my son was only months old I became pregnant again by Shane. This was around the time that Shane was trying to teach me to be a stripper. We had briefly moved to the southern state so that Shane could go to truck driving School. I didn't know I was pregnant again when Shane and I got into a huge fight. He had convinced me that the girl living in an apartment near us was pregnant with his child and miscarrying. He said he had to go with her to the hospital. I knew he was lying because the girl and everyone with them were all dressed up to go out to the bar.

There we were living in the southern state trying to start fresh, except it seemed that one of us wasn't trying at all. Again. Shane was supposed to start school soon because his attempt at getting into the military had failed. After my son was born, my mom had gone back to my dad. Our time together in the southern state was brief and before we had moved back to Illinois where I caught him in the hall with the two girls. When he left with that allegedly miscarrying girl in his car that night he thought he took all of the car keys with him. He had my set of keys for the little car that he had gotten for me. I had learned the hard way that when given a spare key, hide it.

This car came with two keys and either he had not known that, forgotten about the other set. I reached up on top of the medicine cabinet and found the spare key. I took off with my son and started driving out of town. I realized I had no money at all and barely enough gas to make it back to the apartment if I turned around right then. I made it back home and there stood Shane. He grabbed my keys from me and he grabbed our son. He then ran into the apartment and locked me out. Guess who was standing down stairs perfectly healthy? You guessed it, the suddenly perfectly healthy non-miscarrying girl. When I looked in through the big living room's glass window I could see him holding the baby and the baby was screaming. I punched the window and managed to reach through it enough to open the door. As I stood there several feet from Shane who was still holding our crying son, I wasn't sure what he would do if I tried to grab the baby away. I was bleeding from an injury, but I didn't feel it at that time.

I did not want my son to get hurt so when Shane's temperament began to change during our screaming match, I was now very concerned about how he was barely holding him with one hand. Out of nowhere I screamed at the top of my lungs, "He's not your fucking son!" Immediately his demeanor changed to a strange calmness and he tossed our son towards me. I caught my son and I began apologizing endlessly for saying such a thing. We both knew it wasn't true and he effectively used what I said to guilt me into whatever he wanted after that. Shane got into the trucking school that was several hours away in another city and I wanted to come up and be with him at the weekly hotel that all of the students were staying at. He didn't seem to mind so I brought our son and we moved into the hotel with him. We were several hours away from anyone that we knew and the nearest people to us were my parents.

The day that we got there he took us out to eat with some of the other students and we all had a good time. That's when I tasted steak fingers for the first time. Delicious! I was still learning about so many things that I had never even known existed. My son was only months old but he loved to make humming noises. Whenever he would hum I would gently move his bottom lip up and down and it would sound like "Momma." We were doing that at the restaurant that day and Shane seemed really happy to be with us. We were still getting over the last fight, but he knew how to make me feel better. When he would smile and be with the baby and I that's pretty much all it ever would take for me to move on. When we returned to the hotel later that day we put the baby to sleep and Shane wanted to have sex. My stomach had been hurting earlier so I told him I didn't want to have sex. He told me to give him oral so I did. It was a good day so why try fighting with him again now? I was only a minute into doing it when my stomach pain escalated to a pain scale of five hundred. I couldn't move.

Shane was trying to figure out what was wrong with me but I couldn't speak. The pain was the worst thing that I had ever felt. Shane ran and got help as fast as he could and a woman rushed in and asked me if I was pregnant. Shane told her that I just had a baby, months before so I couldn't be pregnant. This isn't what labor felt like anyway! So naive. So young. Seventeen years old, I had an infant son, and I was pregnant again. The emergency room doctor stuck a very long needle up into my vagina and pulled it out with a syringe that had blood in it. He said I was having an ectopic pregnancy. He said that I was going to die if they didn't help me right away. That's the last thing I remember and I woke up, what felt like days later, to shadows standing in the doorway. One was Shane, one was my mom, and the other was my father holding my infant son. Everything was a blur and everyone says that I did not remember who any of them were, except my son. I was told that I had demanded that these strange people return my son to me. They said that I was enraged until they put my son in my lap.

Apparently while I was still recovering and quite loopy, Shane had made the decision to have my parents take our son back to their house in another city until I got out of the hospital. Once I came to clear enough and realized what he had done, I told the hospital staff that I needed to leave. They made me stay longer but I was really afraid for my son and I told Shane it was time to go get him. Shane decided it was also time to move back to Illinois. While still healing from emergency surgery, I drove one car back up while he drove the other one. Once we got to Illinois we moved in with his mom for a short time and Shane continued to be abusive. If he wasn't running off with other women or drunk, he was completely ignoring me to the point that anything I said he would just stare straight ahead as if I wasn't in the room. It was nonstop control games like this all the time. It was his way or no way about anything and everything. We then moved into the apartment complex where I had found him with the girls. That's when I went back to live with my parents and became a stripper.

With plenty of back and forth moves under my belt, I ended up back in Illinois with him for a very short time. I was trying desperately to believe him when he would call to tell me that he loved me and our son. I needed help with our baby. Where was the wonderful family that we had promised each other? On another "I hope we can get back together" trip that I took to Illinois to visit Shane, things turned even worse. That trip did not last long. One evening I could hear Shane's car stereo from far away. His mom had bought him a brand new car stereo and a brand new set of speakers. When he pulled into the parking lot the music was so loud there was no way people weren't being woken up. The music never shut off so I grew concerned and ran out the door. In my rush I had forgotten the extra keys that I would need to get back in through the security door. I ran downstairs to see what was wrong with him.

Sure enough Shane was passed out drunk in the driver's seat with the engine still running and the car stereo blaring. Because of his sloppy drunk parking job, I couldn't reach through the driver's side window so I walked around to the passenger side. I shut off the radio and reached in through a hole on the steering wheel to try to reach around his hand placement and I managed to turn the car off. I needed the keys to the building in order to get back inside. If he wanted to sleep outside that was his choice. Just as I turned off the car, he woke up and grabbed me by the hair and repeatedly slammed my head into the steering wheel. He was pulling on my arm and really hurting me. My arm was trapped in the steering wheel hole but I fought for the keys with that hand and eventually won. Once I got the keys I ran through the security door and he was stuck locked outside. I ran all the way up the stairs and got into the apartment and locked the door. To my surprise I suddenly heard his voice coming from outside our hallway. He had managed to get into the security door somehow.

Our actual apartment door was a very strong heavy door so I wasn't too afraid at first. He kept banging on the door as hard as he could when finally the door started to give way. I picked up the phone and called the police. An amazing female dispatcher was on the line and she could hear every slam on the door and she could also hear what he was saying. I am pretty certain she heard exactly what I heard as he made further progress in breaking open the door, "If I can do that with my left hand, imagine what I can do with my right!" He made it through the door and grabbed the phone from me and slammed it down. I was doing my best to fight him off and thankfully the police officers got there as fast as they could. They pulled him off of me and brought him down several flights of stairs. The police officer heroes that showed up that night to save me can tell you quite a story about Shane. They told me that he had tried to trip the officers down the stairs and they also told me that while in the back of the patrol car he kept slamming his own head against the cage and windows, repeatedly.

The next day his mom called me. Her son, she says, was innocent. Why did I do that to him? It was my fault, according to her. If I hadn't of entered his life he would be such a great guy. When I saw him in jail after that night, he sure did look like he was banging his own head against a cage, just like the officers had said. He must've been really mad sitting in the back of that patrol car to mess up his own face that badly. He was crying and telling me how much he needed a cigarette. He said he remembered none of it. That he loved me. Shane and I went back and forth like this at various times. The back and forth would continue years after the next events took place. He was my first real love and I had his child, I kept trying but in the end, all of the years of abuse that I had faced and all of the things that he never faced, would get the better of us, and we would end up apart.

Survival mode was constant and my heart and hope kept getting in my way. I just wanted "normal" and I did not know how to achieve it, but I kept trying. I was back in the southern state with my son when my parent's said it was time for me to go on the road with my dad for a trip in his 18 wheeler. My mom would watch my son and I was to make up for lost time with my wonderful father. It was the late 80s and my son's first birthday had come and gone. Time just kept moving on, quickly. Too quickly, I never had a chance to really catch my breath and I certainly didn't have the life skills to know that I needed to. Even if I did know that I needed to, I did not know how to. While on that road trip my father talked all about my breasts and how they bounced around when he would hit bumps in the road. He spoke dirty about me to other truck drivers when they would mention the girl sitting next to him in the cab of the truck. It was a sick combination of him speaking to me like a normal father would and him turning around and talking about me as if I was some woman he was trying to seduce. I was stuck with him because I couldn't bolt. He might make it back to my son faster than I could. I'd have to hitchhike.

At one point on the trip a sugar cane truck spilled some of its load on the highway. We sat on the side of the highway while he taught me how to eat it. We sat there as if everything was perfectly normal. My stress level was through the roof living with them. There were moments when I’d pretend for my son that we were fine, but there were times when I wanted to jump out of my skin! When we finally got back home I managed to save up one month’s rent and I moved my son and I to our very first apartment that nobody else lived with us in. It was a shit hole but it was ours. I could no longer go to work at the club though because my mom was no longer watching my son. So now I had no way to pay rent, but I wasn't thinking about that right then, I was thinking we were safe. I had bought us some cute sheets and made a pallet on the floor. I must have been a lot more exhausted than I had known because the next day when I woke up, it was the afternoon. The night before, I had chained the front door and locked it. When I woke up, the door was open and the chain was off.

Though my son was tall for his age, there was no way he could reach high enough to unlock the locks. He was not in the house. My heart sank and I cannot describe the feeling that I got when I had thought my son was really missing. I ran out of the building screaming his name and banging on everyone's doors. Soon a woman opened her door and told me that my son was inside playing with her kids. She was smiling about it and I was dumbfounded at how casual she was being while I was hysterical. "How did he get outside?" I asked her. She said that he had actually managed to unlock the front door by climbing up onto a chair. She said he was talking to her and her kids through the door so instead of knocking on my door, she managed to slide the chain off and let him out. What? “We don’t own a chair!” Did this lady have a key to my apartment? We moved out that day and right back in with my parents. What the hell were these new neighbors of mine really like? My nerves were shot.

I told my parents that I was going to try to find a shelter for my son and I so that we wouldn't have to stay with them very long. I could not find one that would take us. I was completely overwhelmed. My uncle said it was time that I started going on dates and I agreed with him. I was lonely, but I was far from ready to date. I didn't know that though. I needed to find what my son and I did not have, a man that would love us. There was no way that I could do this on my own, “a woman needs a husband,” my uncle would say. I felt that he was right.

I went on a date with one guy and after we had drank plenty of alcohol I found him in the club bathroom with two women. Being intoxicated, my anger about everything came to light and I, with the help of others, did some damage. Being the girl who was still afraid of being in trouble, I called the cops on myself! While drunk! Who does that? I can laugh about that night now, but at the time I was not happy with myself. That wasn’t who I was. I was not a bad person. The cops brought over a van full of people they had picked up that evening. Seeing my pathetic self standing there turning myself in, they gave me mercy, and they put me in the front with them. I probably would not have survived the back of the van. I sat in the middle on a bucket or something and I was so terrified of going to jail and being in trouble that I cried every bit of my mascara off. They were laughing at me but I could tell they felt bad for me too. When we arrived at the booking area of the jail they gave me a wash cloth to clean my face up with and all the other inmates were having a fit, “Why does she get a wash cloth?” “Why doesn’t she have to be handcuffed too?” They were freaking me out even more. The officers took so much pity on me that night. I admit, I did get treated better than others there that evening, but the others were really bad and I was a dumb girl who called the cops on herself. They then put me in a cell with nurses who were serving weekend jail time or something. I was still very intoxicated and I had to use the restroom something fierce. The toilet was in the center of the room. I could not bring myself to use it in front of these women. I don’t know why, maybe it was the alcohol. The next day my father showed up to bring me in front of the judge. He told me to sit in the back of the very large courtroom and he went up to talk to the judge by himself. I was completely hung over and I still hadn’t used the restroom. My dad came to the back of the courtroom and walked me out of the courtroom and I was told I had to pay the guy for a tire, so we got that done and my father was amused bringing me all over town to run errands with him while I was hung over and hadn’t used the restroom since before entering the club the night before. I continued dating other men off and on.

It wasn't long before I realized that I was pregnant, again. It took even less time for me to realize that I was completely alone in the pregnancy. I was not surprised at all. While I was naive enough to be convinced any time a guy said that they loved me, I wasn't naive enough to think that they would stay for long. I was looking for love everywhere and only finding it when I would spread my legs. Same story, different day. There were plenty of men that wanted to be with me, that loved me, until they were done with me. Two of them were sort of friends and played off of one another. The one that I liked the most would bad mouth his friend behind his back and tell me how unworthy his friend was of me. He would take me dancing at the bar, he'd get me drunk, show me off, and if another man looked at me funny, he would ask me if he should go beat him up. Sometimes I said he should. He played his game well. He made me feel safe, loved, and protected despite my often being drunk. He used me for sex and since I had hoped he loved me like he said that he did, I let him. I really cared about him and I thought it was mutual. If he had really cared a thing about me, if it wasn't just sex, I would not have been alone in the pregnancy. I soon saw that none of the things that he did to make me feel protected were about me at all. He had his own serious issues at that time. He got what he wanted and I had another baby on the way.

My self esteem was well below rock bottom. I was nineteen. I didn't know what depression was at the time, but I probably had it along with any other mental health labels that could fit someone that had gone through what I had in my life. I was now nineteen years old and had suffered one hundred lifetimes worth of abuse without any healing. I was already raising one child alone, and I was now on my third pregnancy. I could not have failed more at life. Maybe I was as dumb as everyone had always told me I was. Naive? Dumb? Doesn't matter, I was fucked in the head from all of the abuse that I had previously suffered. Slut? Whore? Sure, why the hell not. That's what people would say about those days for years to come. "She was a dumb slut." Ok. Sure. Why not?

CHAPTER TWELVE

When I was several months pregnant with angel number two and trying to take care of angel number one, I stumbled upon a monster of a man. The only thing worse than being abandoned when you're pregnant by a guy that convinced you that he loved you, is marrying the ultimate monster husband. I was about to make the worst decision I had ever made in my entire life. I was still naively hoping and happy. I was still dreaming of a life filled with babies and of hanging clothes out on the line in the fresh air. I still dreamt of crickets chirping and open windows with the curtains blowing in the wind. It was a simple dream. I was fooling myself time and time again thinking that I would ever achieve it and be loved by a man that knew what the word meant. The monster that came into my path also convinced me that he loved me. I rushed right into to it because I believed him and I did not want to be alone raising two babies. My family put on the pressure as well. He had to have loved me, I was pregnant, only nineteen, and not thin while pregnant. I was not what men used for sex, so I thought. I gave birth to angel number two while engaged to the monster, Sir Coward of Scumbagville.

Sir Coward had a jealous temper. I was certainly used to bad tempers and figured it was just part of life. My family (my dad and Julie) kept pressuring me to marry him. "Your children need a father." They were right about that. Angel number two was a tiny baby when Sir Coward of Scumbagville and I got married in a rundown church. I had bought a wedding dress from a thrift store and Julie even came to the wedding. She took full control of everything about it. Why did she suddenly have such a strong interest in my life? I tried not to question it even though I really did know why. He had money. Once I was married to this cowardly pathetic monster, he took to paying Julie $100.00 per hour to watch my kids at times while he beat and raped me. She was happy and even boastful about the money.

He beat me with his fists, he beat me with guns, he beat me, and he beat me, and he beat me. He thought he could make up for it by buying me a really cool car. Then he beat me some more. He said that the car was what I deserved for what he had already done to me. It wasn't paid for like all the cars he had bought for his friends. It wasn't even paid for like the car that I already had that he gave away to my family. It was a financed car just in case I decided to run he said. Another way to control me, is what I’d understand later. He once bought me a dog but when the dog went after him for attacking me, I never saw my dog again. What I did see was an image of my dog tattooed on his arm. He was real proud of himself. Coward.

The bruises all over me should have been enough to make my mother believe me when I told her what was happening to me, but it took her seeing it for herself. One day I had my mother and my kids in the car with me as we drove back home from a trip to the store. It was a long country road that we were driving on and we were having a good day together. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw him right at my bumper as we were driving about 50mph down this road. I told my mom to hang on because I did not know what he was about to do and sure enough he tried to put us into the ditch. It did not work so he floored it and pulled up alongside me and gave me such an evil look that my mom grabbed my arm and told me to drive faster. He and I were driving identical cars except for their colors. We were both driving Pontiac Formulas and I told my mom there was nothing that I could do, if we hit the ditch we'd probably be dead. My son already knew the terror of Sir Coward and he started crying in the back seat. I heard my son scream, "Fuck you, C.nt" at Sir Coward.

That was a wonderful phrase that Sir Coward taught my son to say. I couldn't attempt to deal with his bad language right then, I had to figure out how to get us away from Sir Coward. My kids were in the back seat. My daughter was in her safety seat and I had hoped that I did not miss my son unlocking his seatbelt. He always did that. I had to do what I had to do, right then. I slammed on my breaks as hard as I could when I saw a pickup truck coming from the opposite direction, in the lane that Sir Coward was driving in next to me. It all happened very quickly and had I of hesitated, Sir Coward might have been dead, but the innocent driver or my mother and kids could have been dead as well. Sir Coward was about to smack head on into that truck and I secretly had hoped he would, but I did not want anyone else to get hurt.

With both kids now screaming and my mom in a total panic Sir Coward cut back over into my lane and missed the truck. I flipped a U Turn as fast as I could after the truck passed. I got as close to the truck as I could get while trying to flash my head lights. The man inside must’ve realized I was in some trouble He slowed and waved me around his truck. That was something people there did anyways when someone would flash their lights to pass. I got in front of him and he did not let Sir Coward pass him, even driving partially into the ditch to block his attempt. Sir Coward was an even bigger coward when it came to men confronting him, so he wasn't so tough then. He was not going to challenge that driver any further. We got away, but I knew I'd have to go back home eventually. I just had to do as he said and we would be fine. I could take the hits. I wasn't worth much more than that anyway. There was no help for me to get out, at that time. Later I discovered what I had done wrong to cause Sir Coward to be so angry again that day. One of his friends told him that I had said, "Hi" to him while I was at the store. That's it.

There were plenty of days and nights like this in the short amount of time I stayed with this pathetic waste of life. Eventually I would figure out how to get away from him for good, but it took awhile. His sister was a pain in the ass too. His parents were not around. He had lost a lot of his friends when his drug supply money started running out. What he had left was me and my kids, his sister, and a few disturbing individuals that he called friends. Before his money ran out he had purchased a Corvette. One day he said I could not take my car to bring the kids to the doctor for an appointment because he promised his friend he could take it out of town. He would later tell me my car was used on a drug run. Driving the Corvette meant that my son would not be in a seatbelt. I put the baby in her seat in the front and my son was in the rear when a nice policeman pulled me over. Out pops my son's head and he says, "You going to give mommy a ticket?" I was like, damn it. The officer tells my son that he was not going to write mommy a ticket, but that he had to talk to mommy. The officer told me that he pulled me over because the local PD was looking for the car I was currently driving. He went on to tell me all about how my husband was a drug dealer. I had known he sometimes used drugs, but that was the day when I found out he was an alleged dealer.

I told the officer, just as I had told several other officers, that my husband was beating me. Just like the others stated to me, "There's nothing I can do unless I see it." I heard that so many times before. I don't know how many times I had called the police, but it was plenty. I remember calling them one time after one of my attempts to leave Sir Coward and he showed up causing a scene. It was one of several times when he would sit outside the mobile home that my parents had moved into. He would rev his engine, scream my name, and every other horrible name, and then threatening to kill my son if I did not return. He rarely threatened my daughter because she was such a tiny baby when I married him. He told me I better teach my daughter to call him "daddy!" He hated my son because my son would never call him daddy.

My son and I were very close and I had always told him who is daddy was. Shane. Sir Coward had never even met Shane, but he hated him. He was overwhelmingly jealous that Shane even existed in the world. He was going to continue to beat me until my son called him daddy. That shit was not going to happen. I told my son he never had to call him that. That meant Sir Coward had no control over my son and while he was sitting outside revving his engine, he would scream and scream about what a little bastard my son was. As much as I hated going back to him, I was very worried he would kill my son if I did not go back. He was a violent person and I was already knowledgeable about how violent men could be.

I would call the police, they would show up, they would say there's nothing that they could do until they see him do something, and then they would leave. It was a like a never ending cycle. On the night that I was previously speaking of, he was outside revving his engine and he was drunk. He was drunk in a pickup truck with someone else's toddler son in the truck with him and no one else. When the cops arrived I walked outside. It was a mobile home park so the streets between the houses were just one large lane. The officers were on the other side. He was drunk, they saw him with the engine running, and an unfastened toddler in the car and they still did nothing. I stood there until they called me to cross the road to go talk to them. As I crossed the road, Sir Coward stepped on the gas and tried to run me over right in front of the cops. I made it safely to the other side. I was very shaken up. They still did nothing. Nothing. NOTHING! I begged them, I said, "YOU JUST SAW THAT!" Nothing.

One of the officers left after threatening to take ME to jail if I did not calm down. I was in tears and totally confused. I sat down in the driveway and felt even more defeated. I watched as the other officer that was still there walked over to my parent’s living room window. He turned and asked if Sir Coward had ever tried breaking in, and I told him that he had. He walked back over to me and told me to stand up and when I stood up he asked if he could come inside the mobile home. I let him. He walked inside and looked at the window from the inside and then he told me, "The next time he tries to break in, kill him." Then he proceeded to tell me how to do it. The officer left shortly after that and my mom helped me get the kids to sleep. I sat alone in the living room. I was twenty years old, I had two children, and I lived in the same house as my deviant father. I had serious decisions to make. I stared at the window. I sat there thinking about what the officer had said, and all of the things Sir Coward had done. Horrible memories raced through my mind.

There was the memory of the day he had come home and tried to get at my son. I had the baby in my arms while I was standing in the bathroom doorway. My son was gripping onto my leg and standing behind me. Sir Coward began throwing blows at my head, my arms, and everywhere he could hit me. I was trying to cover the baby and keep him from my son at the same time.

There was the day when he told me to go into a store to buy cigarettes and on my way out of the store I was staring at the ground as he had told me I had to always do, but I mindlessly made the mistake of holding the door open behind me for a man walking in. When I got back into the car he began punching me and he slammed my head repeatedly into every part of the car that he could slam my head into from where I sat. If that wasn't enough to put me back into my place for my mindless mistake, he pointed his gun at me as he drove me around the parking lot screaming at the top of his lungs, "Does anyone want this fucking whore?" "She likes holding doors open for men so they will fuck her!” And so many other terrible things. He did this for what felt like an hour. Nobody called the police, I was bruised and bleeding, and though I was crying, I knew not to say a word. I just kept trying to stare downward as I was told to do so many times before. I was not allowed to look at anyone.

As I sat on the couch staring ahead, I remembered a previous time I tried to lock him out of our house that we lived in together. It was quiet for a full twenty four hours so I was naive enough to believe he was either out of town or had given up. I couldn't have been more wrong. I put the kids in the car so that we could go buy something to eat. There was no food in the house because he had given it all to his sister so that I would know my place in the hierarchy. I got only a few blocks before he made his appearance behind me and this time he had his worthless friends in the car with him.

They flashed their guns and he let me know that this was the day that I was going to die. My son would die, I would die. They were all laughing as they were taunting me with their words and the guns. I drove that car as fast as I could and I managed to get on the expressway. We were in a high speed chase as we crossed through the city and over a bridge into another city. I managed to get to the police station and I continuously honked my horn until a detective saw me out there. I explained what was happening and by then Sir Coward was nowhere in sight. The detective gave me his phone number and told me he knew some things about Sir Coward and that the cops would love to get their hands on him. I was confused. If they wanted him so badly, why did they never do a thing when I would call them? They were two different cities sitting right next to each other and no communication? Maybe that wasn't how the cops in this small city wanted to deal with Sir Coward. Maybe they were going to deal with him in a much better way. A girl could only hope.

After the detective gave me his phone number, he asked me if I wanted to come over to his house one evening. When I left the station and got a little ways down the road, sure as hell, Sir Coward and his friends ended up right behind me again and the high speed chase continued. I did not know where to go because of traffic so I pulled into a parking lot that I thought would end in front of a busy store. It was not the correct way to go and I ended up getting my car stuck on top of a large curb. They all came at me with guns in hand. Sir Coward told them all to back off so he could be the one to do it. He put the gun to the side of my head and asked my son if he wanted to see mommy die. My son was screaming and begging him not to hurt me. Sir Coward was shocked when I turned, looked him right in the eye, and said rather calmly, "Just do it." He started laughing and walked away. I had called his bluff, but that was not my intention at the time.

Memories rushed through my head as I sat on the couch at my parent’s house wondering if I could kill him as the officer taught me how to do if he tried to break in again. I thought back to the time when he raped me as my kids were alone in the living room. We had a big wooden water bed with big mirrors across the top of it. After he passed out I stared up into the mirrors and watched him for any movement as I slowly tried to reach past him for the gun. My children were just outside the bedroom door and alone the entire time, one a toddler and the other one an infant. I knew that if I tried to get off the bed, he might wake up and attack me again. The only choice that I had was to reach the gun. I carefully began reaching for it when suddenly his eyes opened up. I froze for a moment as he stared right back at me in the mirrors above us. He knew exactly what I was reaching for. We both went for the gun at the same time, but it was on his side of the bed on top of a nightstand and he reached it first. I ran out of the bedroom in an attempt to get my kids out of the house, but I didn't make it in time.

I had my son's hand in mine and I was about to grab the baby's carrier when Sir Coward began a relentless assault upon me. I pushed my son away as I fell onto the couch. Sir Coward was now on top of me slamming his fist into the center of my chest over and over again. He wouldn't stop. He was hitting me so hard that I could barely breathe so I used what breath I could muster to say to him, "I love you." I hoped it would work. It did, the attack stopped. My chest was really hurting and I told him "I'm dying." I begged him to take me to the hospital. My body had obvious signs of his multiple attacks that day. He just kept apologizing and telling me he couldn't take me because he would go to jail. I told him I would tell them a stranger attacked me. I would tell them he saved me from a stranger. I promised that I loved him and that it would be ok, and I kept begging him to please just take me to the hospital before I died. He finally gave in, but only because I promised I wouldn't tell the truth. He would use my infant daughter to insure my behavior at the hospital.

I sat on the couch staring at the window with all of these events rolling through my mind. At one point we all ended up in Illinois. "Fresh start." Sir Coward held me and my children hostage in that apartment for days. He repeatedly raped and beat me the entire time. If I started to fall asleep, he would wake me up by hitting me. When he would start falling asleep, I was too afraid to move for fear that he would kill my kids. I knew I had to survive for my children’s safety, but I was hurting so badly inside and out. Finally he said he was taking us back to our old state down south. He said that we needed money so he sold a motorcycle to my brother Jared. Everyone was pretending that my children and I were alright. We weren't, and I had to figure out a plan to get away. Sir Coward said that he needed to go sell a four wheeler that he had brought up with him. He had to sell things to get the money to bring us all back south. I knew the area that we were in well, and he knew that I did, so he kept tight control over me and my kids. He had never been there before so that made him very nervous and all the more controlling.

When we got to the place that would buy the 4 wheeler, he sat in the vehicle trying to figure out how to go inside and sell it, without leaving me alone outside. He didn't want me to go inside because he knew from previous experience that I might try to get help. Finally I convinced him that I would not try to run away and that if he loved me and wanted for this to work out between us, he had to be able to trust me. I did exactly as I said I would. I stayed put. He made the employee of the store come outside to talk to him so that he could still see me. I sat as calmly as I could with my children and played with them.

Once everything we needed to sell was sold, and we had enough money to drive back, he made sure he was the one driving my car. We drove several hundred miles as I pretended I was very happy. I told him repeatedly how much I loved him. That kept him calm. My son would sometimes pipe up and say things like, "mommy is lying," and to keep us safe, I had to correct him even though he was right. Sir Coward wasn't thinking about the fact that I was a truck driver's daughter and that I previously had plenty of runaway time on the road with truckers. He didn't even know that I had a CB in the car and I had forgotten all about it until this trip back down south.

My father had given me a CB that Sir Coward did not know about. Ironically, my father had given it to me to keep us safe. It needed no exterior antenna on the car. Sir Coward also made the mistake of putting some of the money we had into the center console. I knew that my children and I were in a life or death situation whenever we were near him and this was far from an exception. I knew that once he got us back "home" we would never see the light of day. He was too pathetic and jealous to let me near anyone else again. I had to do whatever I could to get us away from him once and for all. Our escape was now or never, and I was ready.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Down Interstate 35 through the center of this wonderful country, there is what is called The Kansas Turnpike. I knew it well. It is a part of the highway where the only way to get fuel is to pull off at the toll booths and pay, or to use one of the gas stations that is in the center of the highway. If you used one of those, you did not have to get off of the turnpike to fuel up. Sir Coward opted to stay on the turnpike to fuel up. He pulled up to the nearest pump that he could that was closest to where you go into pay. I purposely asked my son if he wanted to go into the store with Sir Coward to pay. That he could get a candy. This served two purposes. First it told Sir Coward that I was willing to let my son go inside with him and that meant he could trust to leave me alone outside, but the real purpose was to make my son start having a fit. It worked. I knew my son would not go with him. As my son began having a hissy fit and crying at the thought of going anywhere with the piece of shit coward, the coward told me that I better shut my fucking son up. So far so good, Sir Coward had never wavered if my son would cry. It always put him on edge.

I unbuckled my seat and I reached back and pretended to console my son out loud, but I was secretly checking his seat belt and the baby's car seat. During my son's hissy fit he woke up his sister who also started crying. Perfect. Sir Coward started his own rant and I stayed calm and told him that everything would be ok, “just go pay for the gas so we can get back on the road.” He stepped out of the driver's seat. Coward was about twenty-five feet from the car when he suddenly looked back. He had just realized his mistake. I was already moving into the driver's seat when he began running back towards the car. The door wasn't even closed as I stepped on the gas pedal. He almost made it in time to stop me. Almost. He was running after us and there was no way I was going to stop the car. I knew that I was going to have to eventually stop for gas. I also knew that if he stuck his thumb out he would be able to catch a ride from a trucker, so I told my son to unbuckle himself and to hand me the CB.

My son was notorious for unbuckling himself and then laughing when I would get frustrated. Sir Coward had taught him so many bad things in just a short amount of time. He was a good boy, but when adults laugh when kids are doing stupid things, the kids learn to laugh too and they tend to keep doing them. That's where my son was at in his little life. He had learned to hit me and laugh when being naughty. He would always give me hugs when I was sad though, he knew what was right and what was wrong. He happily unbuckled his seat belt and handed me the CB. He then crawled into the front seat. I was not about to stop the car to correct him. I got on the CB and I said, "Breaker Breaker" and a driver responded flirtatiously.

I said that I needed to talk to every driver that could hear my voice. "My children and I are in a danger." The driver told everyone on the CB, in his own polite way, to be quiet so that he could hear me. He asked me how he could help and I told him that I was escaping a hostage situation and that I had left the person who held me hostage back at the gas station. I announced to everyone listening that I had two young children in the car with me and that I needed all drivers to know not to pick him up. I gave them his description and told them what kind of car I was traveling in. Soon enough a driver ahead of me slowed down as he noticed me in his rear view mirror. He told me to pull ahead of him. I did so. He said he was going into the same state that I was and that he would follow us all the way there. When we stopped for gas, he did too. When I had to change diapers, he stopped too. Not only did he stop, but he and the other drivers kept relaying the message back to other drivers.

We made it back to my parent's house and a couple of days later I got a call from coward's sister. She was pissed that I had left her brother stranded and she told me that he was stuck out there for a good long time. I guess the driver's kept repeating back to other drivers, not to pick him up. That's all that I could think of in regards to what would prevent him from getting a ride sooner. I told his sister to go fuck herself and to tell him to do the same. I did not know what I was going to do and I also did not know that he had actually made it back into town.

Thinking it was safe to do so, I had my mom watch my daughter so that I could go over to the other city and talk to the detective that I had spoken to before. I knew his hours and I knew that he'd be at the station. I knew that Coward's sister lived in that city, but I also knew the local cops where I lived weren't going to help me get him put away for good. I did not understand about jurisdictions, I wanted to tell the detective what the coward had done to me in Illinois. The detective was my only hope in getting real help because I did not have enough money to get away. I had enough to get to my parent’s house when I had ditched him at the gas station and that was it.

I drove with my son and we were having a nice time together singing and dancing in the car. We always did that whenever we could. He was such a little show off with his impressive dance moves. Despite the trauma, my kids were pretty happy kids. The weather started turning bad as we entered the city limits. There was lightning and I could feel the air change. It felt just like when I was a little girl and the weather changed before a tornado. It made me nervous and I thought it best that I find a place to turn around and go back home. I was terrified of storms. I used to have to go storm chasing with my brother's and my mom when I was younger and it was very scary. I hated storm chasing.

I found a place to turn the car around in a lot with a long driveway, but I wouldn’t make it out in time. Sir Coward was facing me head on. We were almost bumper to bumper. Between playing with my son and the storm approaching, I was not paying attention to the cars around me. I don't know at what point he spotted my vehicle, but he obviously had. I know he would've killed me that night if he hadn't of made another mistake. As I rolled my car backwards in the small lot area, the coward jumped out of his car and stood right in front of mine. My radio was still on and I had heard that there was a possible tornado coming. Between the coward and the storm, my adrenaline went into over drive like never before. He attempted to get into the car but the doors were locked. He was ranting and raging, "You're both fucking dead!" "What's Shane going to do without his perfect little bastard son?” It was then that he made his mistake. Coward was not going to kill us and I made sure of it. I finally made it over to the small police department and I was shaking and obviously panicked. The detective came outside to look at the damage on my car. My windshield was cracked. I told him exactly how it came to be that way.

I thought about all of these things and more as I sat on the couch contemplating what the officer had told me to do if the coward ever showed back up. I sat there for several hours. The sun came up and the baby started crying. Soon my mom, the babies, and I were all in the living room together. I asked my mom if she had any money that she could give to me. She asked me what I needed it for and I told her that I had to leave the state with the kids and that I could not tell her or anyone where I was going. She said she wanted to leave as well. She didn't want to be near my father any longer. He was out on the road driving his 18 wheeler that day so it was the best chance at her getting away too. We packed up my car, bought groceries for the trip, and decided to head for San Diego. This wasn't the first time she promised to run with me and help me with the kids. There was another time before all the other times that she would end up abandoning me somewhere to just end up going back with him.

I was hoping this time would be different. My mom talked about how beautiful parts of California were and that while my dad was stationed there, she fell in love with it and even hugged a Palm Tree. I had never been to the southwest before and I was very afraid of driving through the desert. I had heard it was easy to die in the desert. She told me that if we just drove straight through, we would be ok. I couldn't drive straight through though because I was so tired. My brain was tired. My soul was tired. I was tired in every way that a person could be tired. We were all worn out when we stopped in Arizona.

We found a hotel with a big swimming pool and while my mom watched the baby, I took my son to the pool for some much needed fun time. My mom and I counted the money that we had left when I got back to the hotel room. It wasn't a lot. The next morning I left them at the hotel to go find a store to buy us all breakfast. I didn't really know what the city looked like because it was dark when we had arrived. The sun began to rise while I was driving and to my surprise it was the most beautiful place that I had ever seen. I stopped the car and finished watching the sun come up. I was in awe and immediately fell in love with the area. I hadn't yet experienced the heat! I drove back to the hotel and talked to my mom about staying there. She agreed she thought it was a good idea. We were very low on money.

We spent time trying to find an apartment. It was getting hotter and hotter outside. We pulled into one apartment complex and my mom stepped out of the car to smoke a cigarette while I went to go find the office. Knowing my mom was near the car, I left it running so the kids had A/C. I wasn't far from the car when my son decided to unbuckle his seat belt and jump out the driver's side door. Following the rule that I had taught him, he knew to lock the doors when we would all get out of the car. That was his favorite job. My baby daughter was now stuck inside a locked car on what was probably the hottest day in the history of that town.

The local fire department showed up and we were all very thankful that the A/C was still running for her. She was crying though and I was about to break a window when I was advised that I had to prove it was my car! What? My baby was stuck inside! One of the fire fighters was just as dumbfounded and anxious as I was and he began to pull on the top of the driver's side window; so I began pulling on it with him. We had another fire fighter lift up my son and I begged him to reach down into the window and unlock the door. The A/C had started blowing hot air and the baby was now crying and sweating. My son didn't realize the seriousness of what was happening so he was laughing thinking we were playing a game. I finally forced my arm down the window as the fireman pried it as far open as he could without breaking it. I was able to pop the locks. I rushed her over to the local ER. She was fine. Tired, but fine. We were all very grateful and happy and my mom and I both snuggled up on her all night long. I had to change some rules for my son. He was never allowed to touch the door locks again.

We soon found a rundown mobile home in an even more run down mobile home park in a seedy side of town. We didn't know the area but we knew this wasn't the best part of it. Money was too tight to find a better place to live. We only had enough money to pay that month's rent, a deposit, and to buy a little food for the house. We had no furniture, but we had blankets to sleep on top of. There was no need to cover ourselves with any of the blankets though. It was hot all of the time. My mom would sit under the swamp cooler all day while I would go out looking for a job. I was so intimidated. I only owned shorts and one pretty dress that was not suitable for looking for work in. All of my traumas were catching up to me as things settled down for us but I did not know that. I just knew I was always anxious. Was my mom going to leave again? How was I going to feed the kids? How much did I have to make to pay the next month's rent? I did not have the skills that I needed to live a normal life. I couldn't focus, I'd drive around and attempt to go into places to apply, but I would get really nervous and fearful of humiliation. I was distraught at what a failure I was at being normal.

I was twenty years old and my entire life up to that point had been a living nightmare. I never had a long enough period of time, or even the knowledge that I needed, to begin to heal from even one of the many traumas I had experienced so far. I just knew that I loved my mom and kids and that I couldn't let us all down. As I was driving around by myself one night I happened to drive by a strip club. I went inside and they hired me on the spot. I grabbed my pretty dress out of the trunk of the car. I danced and earned some money that night. I even met a friend. A guy friend and his name was Levi. After closing he and I sat out in the parking lot all night long talking. I talked and talked and talked. He listened and he was very comforting. He never even tried to kiss me or hold my hand. He just listened. He laughed with me, he cried with me, and we just sat in that desert parking lot bonding. He didn't want anything from me. He just listened. When it was time for me to head back home he handed me a black rubber bracelet and told me it would be my reminder that I was safe now. He even had two cool pagers and he gave me one and taught me how to use it. I just had to call the number of his pager and enter the number one. He would then call my pager and leave a phone number that showed up on the screen. That's would be the number I was to call him back at. That way where ever he was, I'd be able to get in touch with him. I thanked him and gave him a hug goodbye.

I went back home and took everyone out to eat and I bought some groceries with the money that I had earned. I was even able to buy my mom some magazines and newspapers to read so she wouldn't get bored watching the kids when I went back to the club to dance again later that evening. I breathed a sigh of relief because I knew we would now be ok. We were all together and safe and I had a job that made plenty of money. I tried to lie down and take a nap, but seeing my kids so bored and fussy in the empty house made me feel sad. We all went outside and we ended up meeting some of our neighbors.

We sat outside most of the day and the heat didn't even bother us. My son was especially not bothered by the heat. He refused to wear shoes and he would kick them off whenever I would put them on him. He had no issue walking around barefooted. He was always wearing shorts and nothing else. He quickly potty trained once we were away from Sir Coward. He was a little behind in that area, but that was due to all of the stress I bet. He was potty trained before I met Sir Coward and then he wasn't. I taught my son to potty train by having him aim for an O I had placed inside the toilet. He was always proud when he did a good job. When his little sister came along, I was concerned about him seeing anyone naked, so I never explained the differences to him. He was too young anyway, I thought. I did not want for him to be as exposed as I was when I was younger to other people's private areas.

One day when my mom was still living with my dad, I had brought the children over so that her friends could see my new baby daughter. Sir Coward would let me go places with my mom because we lived near her and he would pretend to be a good guy around her at first. I needed to use the rest room as they all sat there cooing over my kids. They passed the baby around and spoke to my son about God. I went to the bathroom and as I was standing back up without my pants pulled up yet, my son burst through the bathroom door to tell me, "JESUS LOVES ME!" He barely finished saying it as I hurried to pull up my pants. Too late, he had seen my private area. As soon as he said what he said about Jesus, he welled up with tears and ran out of the bathroom screaming, "SOMEBODY STOLE MOMMA'S PEE PEE!! SOME BODY STOLE MOMMA'S PEE PEE!!" There was a gasp and then silence among the church women. I had to sit him down in front of those church ladies and show him the difference between boys and girls while I changed his sister's diaper. You have a penis. Girls do not. Only boys do. See, your sister has no penis. Mommy has no penis. Grandma has no penis. Only boys like you and grandpa. It made me sick to say that to him.

My son made sure to point out who had a penis and who didn't for quite some time after that. He would even tell strangers if they had a penis or not. "You do not have a penis." "You have a penis." "Mommy is a fucking c.nt." I did not know how to stop him from saying that. It was the one terrible thing he kept saying long after we got to Arizona. He did not know what it meant and no amount of me trying to explain that is was bad was helping. Sir Coward had left his mark on my son. I was relieved when he was finally potty trained the first time, and I was even more relieved now that he was a bit older and we were away from Sir Coward. He was laughing and having fun playing in the sun with the neighbor girl's kids that day when my mom and I noticed the sky was turning a very concerning shade of gray.

We began asking the neighbor girl where everyone in the mobile home park was supposed to go if a tornado came. She seemed totally confused. We pointed out the sinister looking sky to her and she laughed at us. She explained to us that there were no tornadoes in this city and we quickly learned what "monsoon" meant. No tornado, just a sudden burst of epic wind and rain as if a mini hurricane was on top of us, then poof it was gone and there would always be a rainbow. I wasn't afraid of storms anymore, at least not in Arizona. My mom seemed to really enjoy it too. She loved storms. She especially loved standing outside when there was lightning. She wasn't afraid at all. She was afraid of tornadoes when I was little, but she wasn't afraid anymore. She loved the times when she and my brother's would drag me along to chase them.

I went back to the club to dance later that evening but I didn't stay as long because I was so tired from being up all night before and all that day. I was even too tired to change out of my dress. I got into my car and drove barefoot. I pulled onto a road and traffic was heavy. Everyone was cruising. I remembered those not so distant teenage years when I would cruise with my friends. I started smelling fire and I knew nothing about cars so I thought my engine was overheating. I pulled off into a parking lot and got out in my bare feet and dress and popped the hood.

As I stood there looking at the engine trying to figure out what the hell I was looking at, a police officer pulled in behind my car. I walked toward him and he just smiled at me. He kept staring at me. He then noticed my license plates were expired and from out of state. He asked me how long I had lived in this city and I told him and he said I had to go get new plates. He asked me for my insurance and driver's license too. I had neither. He told me that it was illegal for me to be driving the car. He told me that it was illegal that I was driving at all. He asked me why I had the hood open and I told him I smelled fire. He smiled at me and told me there was a fire nearby. He asked me to pop the trunk and he saw that I had baby items and clothes in it. Stuff was everywhere inside the trunk. He asked if I was living in my car and I told him that I wasn't and that my mom was home watching the kids so that I could work. He let me know he wasn't going to write me a ticket but to make sure that I went and got new license plates, insurance, and a driver's license. I was too embarrassed and insecure to tell him that I had no money to do those things and that I also had little idea how to get it all done. I saw this officer again years later and I asked him why he kept staring at me. He said, “You were like an angel standing there in that dress, my angel. “ As far as the car was concerned, it would have to wait. My life was all about survival and I was quickly learning more about how much I didn't even know about normal everyday things. I knew what it meant to be driving illegally, but that's about it.

He complimented me on the car and my dress and he drove away. I found a payphone and paged Levi. I explained to Levi what the officer had told me and he said he would help me with it once he made some extra money. He told me just to be careful around cops. As time went on I learned that Levi was afraid of the police. I headed back home and my mom soon informed me that she was going back to my dad. She said that I didn't have a good enough job and that my children were driving her nuts. That was it. We were abandoned by my mother again. I felt horrible for failing her, even though I didn't. What the hell was I going to do now? Who was going to watch the kids so that I could work? I paged Levi again from a pay phone at the convenience store nearby. I explained to him that my mom was going back to my father and that I no longer had anyone to help me with the kids. I asked him if he knew anyone that I could trust to babysit so that I could continue working. He said that he wouldn't trust anyone he knew to watch my kids. I went over and spoke with the neighbor girl to see if she would mind babysitting so that I could work, but she told me she couldn't do it and I learned that night that she was only twenty years old and already had five children. Her boyfriend didn't want any more kids in the house. They had enough to deal with. My mom left and I was stuck.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I had no idea where to turn or what to do. I wasn't sleeping because my brain was always running. I called Shane and he wouldn't answer. I called my Grandma C and she said I was a dumb bitch and she wouldn't help me, and that I should've stayed with my husband. I even called my dad and he refused to help me saying that he had enough to deal with now that my mom was home running through his money. I was desperate. Eventually, I paged Levi again and told him the situation. I had seen him a few times since my mom left and he never once tried to touch me, so I began to really trust him. He was even with me the day that I got pulled over with my kids in the car by a motorcycle cop. That cop took my car away and left us all sitting on the side of the hot road. Eventually, I managed to get the car back. I was ticketed for various violations. I had no one else and he was always so nice to me and the kids. He was especially nice to my son and he made sure my son had a black rubber bracelet as well. Levi told me he had already spoken to his brother that he was living with. They were roommates and had a fairly nice apartment on a better side of town. They invited me and the kids to come live with them. We would have food and shelter and we would be safe. I had no doubts because Levi had always been so kind to me.

Everything was going alright, but I was still dealing well with plenty of other traumas and I did not see what was coming next, yet another major trauma. Levi looked me right in the eyes and shot himself in the head in front of me, my children, and his brother. Right there in the apartment that we all were living in. I was in shock. Not only did I have all the old and recent traumas playing their roles in my life, I now witnessed someone close to me take their own life in a horrible way. Thankfully my children were still too young to know what was happening. The police came, victim services came, and mine and my children's lives were about to be torn apart further than they ever were before. They offered to place my children in temporary care because there was no way we were going to stay in that apartment. There were officers in and out of the apartment as I sat in a detective's car with my kids. I was being interviewed about the events. I was in absolute shock. I did my best to explain everything to the detective as I sat there trying to process what I had just seen. I am in tears right now just writing this. It is decades later and I still see him staring at me so clearly. I see what happened next clearly as well. I put my son's rubber bracelet on his foot and I kissed my kids goodbye. They were off to a temporary home and I was soon left completely alone, in shock, and extremely traumatized.

I don't remember getting into my car that night, but I did. I don't remember driving anywhere that night, but I did. What I remember was sitting in a filthy bathroom stall at a gas station on the worst side of town. I was curled up in a ball next to the dirty toilet. I was rocking back and forth and I kept seeing the scene in my head over and over again. I don't care to continue writing about that night. Not too long after Levi committed suicide local officers needed my assistance on something. I should have never been put in that position as traumatized as I was. I was a numb robot. I soon had my children back from the temporary placement and we were living in a shelter. I was told there was an awesome children’s shelter that was for moms and dads that needed a few days to catch up. Since I was so traumatized and trying so hard to get us on our feet, the staff told me all about the place and said it would be totally normal and healthy for me to take advantage of it so that I could catch my breath. It was better than us ending up in another bad place. I was barely functioning. I was too traumatized by my life to think clearly.

They explained that the people there were like grandmas and babysitters. That just like when you would have a family member watch your kids for a few days to get a break or go on a work trip, they would be that temporary family. I missed my kids when they were there and sometimes I couldn't stay away the entire amount of days. While we were living at the shelter my daughter wasn't as happy as she used to be and she would constantly cry. It didn't matter if I held her or not, she was always crying. It was exhausting and the staff was getting frustrated at me telling me to make her stop crying. They told me to try leaving her alone in the room until she fell asleep on her own, but when I would do that, the next shift would tell me that I was wrong for doing it. I didn't really know what to do. I kept trying to use the conflicting ideas I was given to see what would work for my daughter.

My son was still cussing at me and they taught me to set a timer and make him sit down and be quiet until the timer went off. That would be his cue to come get a hug and I would tell him what a good job he did in time out. I had to give him a penny or more if I had it, every time I said a bad word too. He was also allowed to make me sit in time out. Thankfully he couldn't turn the timer on very far. While my son and I were getting closer and learning new ways to just exist, my daughter was still always crying. I was worn out but I had hope for our future. I was trying so hard to just function for my children and get us to something that resembled normal. I was still as naive as ever. I just didn’t know it. I was desperately trying to grasp at anything that looked normal.

I met another girl from the shelter and she and I decided to get the heck out of there and move in together. She would help me watch the kids so that I could find a job and work. That was the plan anyways. We weren't in our new house long when I came down with a very high fever. I had pneumonia and she had no car so I had to keep taking her places while I was so sick. I was still sick the night that I had a dream about my car. I had never dreamt of my car before so it stuck in my head that I dreamt about it that night. The next morning after I got dressed to go look for a job, I walked outside and my car was not there. Thinking someone stole my car I called the police and they promptly advised me that it had been repossessed.

I called the number that the police department told me to call and the man on the phone told me that I could not have my car back unless I paid $1000.00. I begged in tears for him to give me my car back and I told him I did not have that kind of money. He then gave me some other fantastic news! He told me the only reason he knew where to find my car was because my mother gave him my address! He had convinced her that I would go to jail if she didn't tell him where it was. It was the financed car that Sir Coward had gotten for me. I was learning everything about "normal" life in the hardest ways possible. My roommate promptly moved out when I no longer had a car. Me, two kids, no car, no mom, no babysitter, no money for a baby sitter, no friends, still traumatized. I was still in my very early twenties and still trying to function and survive it all. I began struggling more than ever. I tried keeping up with everything, but I couldn’t. Eventually I had another apartment, but I couldn’t maintain the world around me. I was falling apart and my kids were voluntarily placed into foster care. I was trying so hard to do right by them. I was trying so hard to just stay alive. I was really suffering. While in care I was allowed to visit with them as much as I could manage because I was a good mother and the staff repeated that to me often. My only wrongs were that I was poor and traumatized. The kids would come to the apartment for visits, that was great and we had a lot of fun, but I was really struggling to overcome the traumas.

The night terrors, the flashbacks, the lack of sleep and lack of normal life skills were still at play. I was terrorized by so many things in my life and soon some people would expect for me to sign documents in my traumatized state of mind and they’d call that legal. Hope and love were not enough. My strength in surviving everything was not enough. Over the next several decades, people involved in every direction would make sure that I was the only one to blame for what happened next.

Jump ahead a short amount of time to a late evening after 9pm and you'll see me at the age of twenty sitting in a room I never should've been sitting in. I had no lawyer, I had no support, and I had no healing. You will see that I was completely beaten down psychologically and emotionally. Prior to that night, you'll see me still completely traumatized and being told that if I loved my children I would know that love was not enough. You’ll see me barely functioning, but trying. You'll hear them tell me that I am a good mother and that my children love me. You'll also hear them say that they had never seen a son who loved his mother so much. If you keep listening you'll hear them tell me about a richer family that lived on the “far **** side of town.” You’ll hear them tell me that I would get pictures as my children grew. You’ll hear them tell me that they didn’t really need my signature any way. Even though I had escaped with my children, they used the guilt of Sir Coward and my father over my head, but also made it seem as if I had a choice in signing.

Now back at this night, you'll hear them repeat how much love it takes to do what they wanted me to do. You'll hear them sort of explain the process a bit more and you'll hear them tell me again that if I love them, I would give them a better life. You'll hear them tell me that there would be a court hearing that I shouldn't come to because it would drag out the process and hurt my children. You will see me in some frozen robotic mode of survival where I would respond, but I wasn’t really there. If you were able to see inside of me you would see that I wasn't even me at all. I hadn’t been distanced from previous serious traumatic events for very long prior to this night. You'll see them hand me a pen. You'll hear my heart break. You'll see me sign adoption type papers. Then you'll see them send me on my way and tell me that I will be able to heal and move on and so will my children. You'll see me get into a cab and shatter.

The only person on my side that evening was this stranger driving me away, the cab driver. The only thing that he could do to help me was drive a little longer until I could gather the strength to get out of the cab. My life was over. My friend was dead and my children were gone. I had nothing left. I would never be the same. Once I snapped out of it, I was very angry. I was a fighter, at that point more than ever. I called the people that had me sign the papers and they told me it was too late. I found a phone book and called lawyers and finally one told me that if I could come up with $500.00 I could get my son back because he was older and we had bonded with each other, but that my little daughter was probably lost to the system. I was determined to get them both back! I called my Grandma C and begged her for the money, she reminded me what a worthless person she felt that I was. I managed to get back to the state that my parents lived in. There was no way my parents would let me down on something this big. Upon my arrival, I promptly asked my dad for the money for the Lawyer before it would be too late. I only had so much time to change my mind the Lawyer said. He said he had just given my sister Julie $500 for a restraining order against her husband. What? Restraining orders were free weren’t they? I don't know what came over me but suddenly I had the strength of several men. I picked up the refrigerator and I tipped it towards my dad. My mom was afraid of my level of anger and she told me to leave. She had never seen me that angry before.

How was I supposed to handle losing my children when I still hadn't had the opportunity to really heal all of the other things in my past? I didn't handle losing my children very well. I would spend years beyond the next decade trying to stop the tears. Dreaming of them coming back someday not only kept me moving forward, but it guaranteed that I would not be facing my other traumas. The traumas were co-mingling as I was driven down the highway of my life, with the loss of my kids at the steering wheel.

Time went on and I eventually found my way back up to Illinois. When I got to Shane's house his roommate let me in. Shane was working and when I walked in the door, right there on their kitchen table sat a letter advising Shane of a court date about our son. It was past that date. Another letter was there that stated our son was in a foster home and that he could get him back with a home study. That one was dated months later. When Shane came home I begged for him to get our son back. It was too late for me to try to get my daughter according to what I had been told by everyone I had spoken with. Shane sat crying with me for hours. We knew there was nothing that he could do. Shane was drinking a lot. My children were gone and I needed to start facing it. Shane and I tried to fix our relationship and since I had gotten my GED I told him I was going to try to get into the Army. I swore that when my children finally came back, they would see that it was not all for nothing and that their mother had become someone that they could be proud of. I’d be someone who was finally good enough for them.

Shane hadn't changed up to this point, but I knew that his heart was hurting at knowing he had failed us because he kept repeating it. Knowing that just seemed to make him drink more and that made him willing to hurt me even more. Over the years there were times when we would find ourselves back together again. They were always sad times. We were always fighting the loss of our child and I had the additional pain of losing my daughter too. I was still messed up from all the things that happened in my life and he was still drinking. It was never a good combination no matter how much we loved each other, which we did. For that I have never had doubt. Despite our love for one another there were more abusive times ahead.

There was the time that we were at a small friendly gathering where he got pretty drunk. He head butted me so hard I was knocked out. There was the time when I couldn't get over the loss of losing the kids and Shane would not open his door. I had spoken to him earlier and he sounded despondent. I did not want to lose him and I wasn't going to go through that suicide shit again so I called the cops and the officer got us in the door. The officer left and I stood on his balcony with his brand new CD player that his mother had gotten him while he sat on the couch staring ahead watching as his fish ate each other. He hadn’t fed them in quite some time. There were beer cans everywhere. I swore I was going to drop that CD player if he did not snap out of it and help me get our son back! I didn't care if it was too late. We had to fight! We had to stay alive! We had to be ready when the kids came back! He did not move. We were both dying inside. We were dead inside, except for my bouts of hysteric passion over my children.

There was the time a few years after losing the kids that we went to get professional pictures of ourselves done. We had hoped to somehow get them to the kids. The images were expensive, but Shane and I were trying to move on and heal. We just wanted to do what we could for the children. I asked him to write a message to the children on the back of some of the photos. He did and it was sad. We would never recover. There were times when we were happy trying to work it out and then there were more sad times. It took decades for us to finally let go of each other and he finally did a better job of it than I did. I had a very hard time letting go of him.

Long before Shane and I finally moved on from each other completely, I went to the Army Recruiting office. A recruiter told me that with only a GED, I needed to get some college credits in order to enter the Army. The recruiter told me that there was a local school they sent recruits to that would give me enough credits to get into the military. This recruiter was a horn dog by the way and I was still living with my parents. There were some harsh moments during this time, but I was determined not to let my children down again. The trauma of losing them drove me. The recruiter even made me sign more papers letting the Army know that I did not have any children. It was infuriating. At the school I was given financial aid even though I was completely confused by the process. I just let the school handle it. I gathered what they asked for, and signed when they told me to. I studied hard and I learned to type and I learned how to do data entry. I felt good knowing that I was certified at something. I had done something with my life, but I was not done yet. I was still trying to get into the Army.

I didn't get a very high score on the military entrance exam so I signed up for the Army doing something that wasn't even close to what I wanted to do. I didn't care that much. I didn’t know any different anyway. It was all the same Army to me and I was going to make something of myself. I had successfully gotten through school while living with my parents. I had successfully kept the recruiter happy. I had successfully survived no matter what it took for me to do it. I arrived at boot camp. Even though I wasn't very old at all, I was told I was the oldest recruit there so they made me a platoon leader. I was proud that they had chosen me, but I did plenty of pushups to make up for what I lacked in leadership and life skills. I was finally able to shut the traumas out enough to handle boot camp. So I thought. One night a female recruit and I were doing fire watch when we heard a male voice that sounded drunk, it was a drill instructor. There was also the time in boot camp where I was pulled into a room to give a Drill Sgt head. Another recruit and I had heard that if the chain of command wasn’t listening or if you were afraid, you could go see the chaplain. Soon I was discharged with an injury that I didn't have. I was not the only one.

Once I was back home I was once again told how worthless I was. I couldn't even finish boot camp. Blah blah blah. I sucked it up, shut my mouth, and moved on. I had small victories at various times. My data entry certification was one. I had also managed to pass the driver's license testing. I was legally allowed to drive and I could prove it. Somehow through the years I managed to finance cars because I would work off and on as a stripper at various local bars. I made a couple of new friends that worked in them too and we would often go out to the night clubs and dance all night. I had never had the chance to be a child, so this was that opportunity. It was a complete distraction from all of the pain that I was feeling. It was fun to get dressed up with friends and it was reassuring and degrading every time I'd go home with another man. I was still looking for what I was missing.

There were still fights between Julie and I and sometimes they were physical. There were comments from my dad that were so lewd about my body or my friend’s bodies that none of us wanted to be near him. I was missing my children and still just as heartbroken as the night that I had signed the papers. I started telling myself that it was for the best. I convinced myself that they must be in a good family and I was told they were adopted together. I had never received a photo of them like I was told I would get. Though I was trying to pretend that I was alright and that they had to be alright, I was having horrible nightmares about them. I eventually headed back to Arizona. I wanted to know how they were doing and I wanted the pictures that I was told I would get. I wanted to see for myself that they were ok. What I saw was an image of my two children standing next to a stove. The image was framed and sitting on the case worker's desk. "Why do you have a picture of my kids?" Silence. "Of all the children you work with, why is there only a picture of my children on your desk?" I grabbed the picture.

At another point I had called to see if they were alright and the case worker informed me, "He cried for you nonstop for the first year." Thanks Lady! That helped. I was right back in despair. I was never really out of despair. I was certainly triggered even more. My mom and I had kept a shirt of my son's and one of my daughter's bottles. It was all we had left of my precious angels. I couldn't even look at those things so she hid them away for safe keeping. While back and forth to Arizona I met a few guys. I even ran right into an officer that I had met with my son. My son had told this officer that he wanted to be a helicopter and that I wanted to be a “policie cop.” That officer became the only consistent thing in my life for a very long time. We didn't have a normal relationship and when I say consistent I mean that if I showed up in town, he would come to my hotel room without hesitation. I thought that was love. Over decades I would end up returning to his arms and the comfort that I had found in them. It was completely destructive and he was a serious distraction from my life of pain. I always looked forward to seeing him again.

The other guys I met were nice guys mostly, but one stood out above the rest. I moved in with him and when he started getting too close and normal, my trauma responses kicked in and I bolted hurting him in the process. I couldn't stand being in the same town where I knew my children were and I couldn't stand to be away from it either. I was a chaotic mess. I was just going through the motions from day to day. Panic, run, survive. Panic, run, survive. I jumped from man to man looking for everything missing from my life. Of course I didn't find it, but I did find a guy with a little boy just a bit younger than my son. His son even looked a bit like my son. He said that he was a "Weapons Distributor" and I didn’t know what the hell that really was, but I began bonding with his son so when he said he was moving to Nevada, I followed along. The plan was that I would watch his son while he went to work, but he rarely came back home and I was always stuck in the house staring at a child that just made me think of my son and remind me day in and day out that I had lost both of my children. I was so in need of a diversion that I read cooking books and actually learned how to cook a cherry baked ham. Small victories. When he would come home, we would argue. I didn't have any money, but I knew that I couldn't keep fighting with him in front of his son. I knew not to ask my family for anything at that time either. We had driven past a brothel on our trip up to Nevada and he explained to me what it was. I called one of them to see what it was about.

I did not realize that I was punishing myself for losing my children and for being the failure that everyone kept telling me that I was. A deep part of my soul believed what they were telling me about myself. Nobody recognized my strength, no one acknowledged what I had been through, and I was simply a bad person. It didn't matter if the people saying it were also abusers. If abusers banned against me, they could pretend that they were not bad people. I was a very easy target. My siblings were mad at how many times I had helped my mom. "Don't trust Debbie." "I'm going to kill you sis!" I was to ignore my mom's needs and go along with the falsehood that my father was good so that we could be a "normal" family. Traumas unhealed were at play, I was still "Little Debbie."
Self-destruct mode was fully engaged.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The brothel staff had me come out to "interview" but it was just them checking to see if I looked good enough. They wanted me to start right away and told me they would pay for my doctor visit that I needed, my blood work that I needed, and a license that I needed in order to be a legal prostitute. They said I would have my own bedroom and they showed me around and introduced me to some of the ladies. All of the ladies were nice to me and they offered me whatever I needed to get started. They gave me super cute outfits, make up, and one of them sat down and ate lunch with the owner and I. They told me what to do if a condom broke, how to finger douche to get any accidental sperm out, and they told me that I had to see the doctor on a regular schedule. They set a price point for me and it was pretty high compared to some. I told them I needed to get the car back to the man I was living with and they paid for my cab back. I was given my own room, shown where the panic button was, and then they showed me all around the very large kitchen and dining room. They introduced me to the Chef who would prepare just about anything I asked him to prepare. If I didn't want something from the Chef there were endless cupboards filled with food and multiple refrigerators filled with food as well. The only thing that I had to do was go to the doctor and get my license to get started. That was the law and they were strict about it. Those things cost money to do so before I was even able to work I was already in debt to "the house."

I justified all of this in my head by telling myself, men were always fucking me anyway and at least this way I was getting paid and in control. Many of the girls seemed to think that way. The girls had told me how much money I could make and it was a lot! Some of the girls there had degrees. Some were teachers who only worked the weekend and one was even a doctor, I was told. I felt like I was around some amazing women and I felt happy, but I was also totally afraid because this was way above my head. The owner had the driver and the manager take me to the doctor. There I was given a female exam and I was checked for STDs by exam and blood work. I had to wait at the brothel for my test results to come back before I could "work the floor." While waiting I learned various tricks of the trade by the ladies in the house. Every time I tried to cut through the parlor to get from my room to the kitchen various men would try to pick me even though I was wearing pajamas that I was given. It was so weird that they always wanted the ladies who looked tired or a mess from the night before. For each night I spent waiting in the house for my blood work to come back, my debt to the house grew. I had to pay back for my time in the room spent waiting. Finally my blood work came back and they drove me to the Sheriff's Department to get finger prints done and get my license to be a working girl.

It was a very small Sheriff's Department compared to the ones I had seen before and the woman at the desk was very nice. She did this all the time and she never made me feel ashamed for what I was about to do. It was a totally normal thing around that town. When she handed me my new license with my picture and my name on it and the words PROSTITUTE written across it, I wanted to crawl up into a ball and die in the very spot I was standing. The brothel owner had come along that day because she knew I was really afraid. She was always so nice to me. She told me stories about her life and how she became successful and ended up buying a brothel. I figured I could make it if she did. She taught me what to do and what not to do and she said I didn't have to do any of the crazy stuff that some of the men would come up with. Things like "rain" or orgies and I didn't have to have anal sex either. She told me to use the panic button if a man ever got rough with me or made me feel uncomfortable in any way. She taught me how to negotiate and she let me know that there were intercoms in the rooms for two reasons. The first reason was for my safety and the second reason was to make sure that while I was negotiating the price with a man, the house would be sure to get their share of the money. Once I was done negotiating the price and had the money in hand, I was to check his penis for any signs of disease. They told me exactly what to look for and my first several times they had another girl come in with me to make sure I knew what I was looking for.

It was awkward at first to check a man's penis with another girl in the room. It was as if we were checking out something normal. It became routine once I was past the first few men. I even started getting bossy about it. I demanded that they also shower before having sex with me. The tables had turned with men, I was now in control. Right? Once I was done checking their penis for signs of disease I would have to leave the room and bring the money over to the manager for safe keeping. Then I had to return to the room and deal with whatever the man and I negotiated. Did he just want a blow job? If so, I was taught to use a certain gel inside the tip of the condom. I found which condoms were the best for giving blow jobs with. They didn't have a horrible flavor and the sensation for the man was good too. If he wanted sex and a blow job, that would be negotiated for a higher cost. There were all sorts of ways that they could order what they wanted. Mix and match. There were definitely things I refused to do but the two things I absolutely enforced every single time were, "Do not kiss me above my shoulders and never try to go down on me!" Those two things felt much too personal to allow in a brothel. I had boundaries, right? Right.

I was in my very early twenties and still fucked up in the head from all of the past abuse. I just didn't know it. I looked forward to using my hard earned sex money to get a car and get my own apartment. Maybe I would go to school to become a police officer or a marine biologist. I thought marine biologists played with dolphins all day. That would be a totally awesome job! Maybe I would become the person who designed billboards. Whenever I would drive by them I would immediately begin to think about how I could make that billboard better. I had so many options and so many dreams. I couldn't wait for my kids to come back and see what a success I was. That we would all be together again and everything would turn out ok. My mom had been adopted and reunited with her real mom but her reunion did not go well because her mom was in a mental institution and tried to slap me because I looked just like her. I swore my reunion with my kids would be nothing like that. I was going to do much better than all these other people in my family did, just as soon as I earned enough money.

The very first time I was working on the parlor floor they sat me at the bar and let me drink as much alcohol as I wanted to and I drank a lot! The doorbell rang and the bartender looked at me and said, "Ready?" I took a big breath and I was finally ready to go stand in the line at the front door with the other girls. I wasn't picked and I was relieved, but I also felt unworthy. I was picked my next time in line. The guy had already been drinking even though it was still day time. Well, no biggie I suppose because I was drinking too! He had spent the night at the casinos and now he wanted sex. After negotiating the deal with another lady's help and checking him for diseases, she and I left the room and I walked up to hand the "office" all of the money. They told me they heard me talking and working out the deal and that I had done a very good job. They knew I was nervous so they promised to keep the intercom on and listen in, which made me feel safer, but all the more nervous. They would be listening to me having sex with a strange man. I hurried back to the room and when I walked in the guy was on his stomach completely passed out, lying in his own semen. The deal that I had negotiated was one "cum" and nothing more. I ran back out to the bar at the parlor and I announced the guy was passed out in his own semen and they all rushed in. He was mad that he did not get to have sex, but a deal was a deal. He got what he came for and he was promptly removed from the premises as his drunken anger grew.

Over time I learned what "out dates" were. That was when men could take me outside the brothel on "dates." I would be their escort as they went to shows, business meetings, and casinos to gamble and party. These dates were even more expensive and I made quite a bit of money doing them. I would go to expensive hotels with them and I would ride in limousines. The brothel driver would sometimes come along if the date seemed a little more weird than normal. He didn't go often though and more often than not, besides having to have sex, the dates were a lot of fun. They would give me gifts and plenty of them promised to keep returning, and they did. A couple of men said they had fallen in love with me. Time came and went. I was in and out of the brothel. I met plenty of men. I married one and quickly got an annulment. Another one bought me a brand new car. He was a City Planner or some such thing. I really didn't know what he did and I knew even less about government issues. I crashed that car into a tree and he was pissed. That was the end of that.

Another guy was a rescue worker and he took me away from the brothel and promised to marry me, but before he did that, there were the times that certain local deputies would come by the brothel for "security" purposes while they were on their shifts. They would just sit near the bar and talk to us. They never went to our rooms. I had mentioned that I wanted to someday become a police officer and they let me know that my working in the brothel would not prevent me from doing that because what I was doing was legal. The "house" let me leave my shift and go on a ride along. The dream was still alive.

Sometimes military men would come into the brothel with a group of friends. They would egg each other on, "You go man! Do it!" More often than not, after negotiating the deal, we would just sit and talk because they did not really want to cheat on their wives or girlfriends. In those instances I would walk out of the room with him after our allotted time and act as if he had just given me the best sex that I ever had. The group of men would high five each other and all was well. I was learning more and more about the world I was living in, but I was losing the small bit of myself that was left of me. Any money I earned was spent on my days off or my mom. Whenever I would go to work at the brothel I was to stay for ten days. That was the rule, but once I was done with those ten days, I could stay gone as long as I wanted. Sometimes I was gone for a long time. I spent that time still trying to save my mom, still running back to Arizona to feel like I was near my kids even though I didn't know where they were.

Later I would become pregnant again and I knew exactly who the father was because I had only had sex with him within a certain time period. I told him I was pregnant and he made sure that I knew that if I told anyone it was his kid, he'd do his best to pay me back. I was not to ruin his life. I was several months pregnant as I headed back to the brothel to see if I could work and try to earn money before the baby was born. I had no money and I was living in a shelter where the women were always drinking and fighting. I left the shelter and headed back up to Nevada. I was running out of gas on my way there so a small town Sheriff's Office gave me the gas that I needed to get up to the brothel. Once I was at the brothel I was given a room and money to furnish it how I wanted. They knew I was good for the money and would quickly earn it back. A girl that I had earlier befriended was now back there too. She was also pregnant. She told me she was going to get an abortion and I tried to talk her out of it. I couldn't convince her not to though and that was probably because I couldn't convince myself not to have one either. During the months of pregnancy I thought over and over again about how my children might feel knowing that I kept a baby but not them. I never wanted for them to feel like they were less loved. I thought about the guy who impregnated me and his response to it. I thought about having another child ripped from my life. I could not go through that again.

Certain brothel staff talked to me too and eventually I convinced myself that the best idea was to have an abortion. My life was still a complete mess and I couldn't settle down. I was constantly looking for what I had lost or was never given. I was running around with men and I was still very traumatized and messed up in the head. I was pretending that everything was ok. It would all be ok. Far from healed from all of the things that I had survived, I sat in the abortion clinic listening to the woman tell me that my child was a girl. That struck even more fear into me. She could get molested! Her mother was a prostitute! She would become one too! A million thoughts flew through my mind. The woman continued and explained that they would put pins inside of me and leave them inside of me for a certain period of time and then suck my dead baby out of me. I was numb. By the time I realized what was happening, realized deeply what I was doing, and what my decision really meant, I already had the pins inside of me. They said it was too late to remove them. I will never forgive myself. Her name would have been Jonaray.

In all of my bouncing around and between stints at the brothel, I kept trying to fulfill my dreams of becoming a police officer. The dream was also still very much alive that I would reunite with my children and that they would be proud of who their real mom was. I had known the local constable of my parent's town because it was a small area so certain members of my family knew him. I did not know him very well, but I had taken a job with one of his employees. This guy had a side company selling radio equipment. He taught me the job and I did it fairly well. I was learning new office skills. He knew I wanted to eventually become a police officer so he told me about the reserve police academy. He and I asked the constable to sponsor me into the academy and he did. The constable even gave me one of his own guns to use and told me to make sure I returned it just as clean as when he had given it to me. I learned how to clean the weapon and I bought a safety lock for it because Julie's kids would sometimes come by. I was getting closer to Julie's kids and I was doing very well in the reserve academy that really pissed Julie off. I would go to class every day and then on my way home I would stop at Taco Bell and get nachos for my kitty and I to share. I was living with my parents at that time and my mom would leave me alone to study. Julie kept coming over and starting fights with me and trying to pit my mom and I against each other but it never worked. I never went out drinking and I took my studies seriously. I was in heaven and I got along with almost everyone at the academy. Some of them were not happy about my being in the class with them. It was a boys club at times but I just kept keeping on.

I learned to use the baton and even received identification saying I was trained to use it. Another small victory. Julie would not relent, and I was not backing down one bit. One night my dad was home and he challenged me to try to take him down. "Show me what you're learning at the academy, Debbie! Are you a man now?" I took his ass right down to the ground, but it wasn't just what I learned at the academy, I had learned a few things from others along the way. I was both really proud of myself and also afraid of what would happen when he stood up. He stood up and nothing happened. I slept a little closer to the gun that night. I was handed the phone one night at my parent's house after hearing my mom say to the person on the other end, "You tell her!" It was a long distance call from my brother John. He told me that if I became a cop, it meant that I betrayed the entire family. "I will hunt you down and kill you." He continued his rant, "I will take out your fucking brains, and play with them." Soon I was called into the constable's office and he told me he had heard a rumor that I was out partying all night, every night and not keeping up with my course work. That was far from true. I was home every night with my cat and my mom, studying. I was doing well in class. It turns out someone was lying about me, and my heart broke when he told me to give him his gun back. I would not be allowed to be a reserve at his department. I was really hurting because I had been really trying and once again, I was derailed no matter how hard I had tried to succeed.

I eventually made my way back to working at the brothel. I wasn't there long when I met the rescue worker that I would soon become engaged to. He filled my mind with stories of how I could become a police officer because he was going to become one too. He moved me out of the brothel and we moved to his home state. I hit it off with his sibling and we had even went and gotten tattoos together. His family got me a job at an important company in their mail room. I can look back now and see how simple the job was, but at that time, even the simplest of tasks were confusing to me. I looked and felt stupid. I was told how stupid I was all the time. I tried to work at a bar serving beer, and I was a little bit better at doing that. I had been in contact with my mom during this time and she was telling me how bad my father was being to her so I told my fiancé that I needed to go visit my mom. I drove across the country and found my mom miserable. She was constantly fighting for what she needed from my siblings and my father and she was not getting any of it according to her. Apparently one or two of my brothers had told her that if she didn't stay with my father, they wouldn't let her be in their lives. Julie lived extremely close, but my mom basically said that she was tired of her shit too.

My mom said she hated living there, but that she didn't want to lose my siblings. She said she only kept returning to that town because she felt like it was her home and she missed her cats. I tried to be understanding of her because it's hard to keep losing everything and everyone. It's also hard to get bullied when you try to get support.

While talking to my mom my fiancé’s parent called me and told me it was over between us. I was asked for the ring back so that he could marry another girl. What? What other girl? I was devastated. I went out to the bar with an old female friend after I told her what had happened with my fiancé. I finally stopped crying and we went out to a night club with a friend. As I was sitting there miserable at a table alone while she danced with a man that she knew, up walked a short guy that was plenty cute. My friend warned me, “He’s gay,” but I laughed at the idea. He was totally into me and I was totally into him. I figured everything had happened the way it had in my life so that I could meet him. The Universe was aligning. His name was Donovan. I would eventually end up marrying him. Donovan and I planned a quickie wedding and I tried to include my sister into my life again. I asked Julie if her children could be in my wedding. She said that they could but on the day that Donovan and I married, Julie's children didn't show up. According to those involved that day, Julie drove her kids around the church and told them that I was a horrible person and that I did not want them to come to my wedding. That broke my heart because it was the furthest thing from the truth. Donovan and my mom knew it, everyone there that day knew that I was looking forward to her kids being in the small wedding. The family feud level continued to rise, and guess who was all to blame? Me. "Why do you hate me Auntie Debbie?" "I don't hate you, honey." At that time I should have, but didn't, tell her kids what a liar their mother really was. I was trying to keep the peace and I did not want her children hurt.

My sister and I got into a huge fight when she tried getting closer to Donovan and at home Donovan and I began fighting because of it. He did little to alleviate my insecurities and even managed to make them worse at times. To Donovan’s credit, it wasn’t that hard to make me insecure at that point. We fought and fought and fought. I was insecure to the point of driving him nuts at work, and he made sure I had reasons to be insecure. Julie didn't care about him she was just trying to continue to mess with my life. If I was happy, that was a problem for Julie. Donovan knew how much my sister had hurt me in the past, yet he still went to her house to chat. I felt betrayed. The more I felt betrayed, the more my trauma responses showed up. She told him about a song that reminded her of me, but I still don't get it, I actually like that song. She was trying her best to keep Donovan on her side. She even keyed my car really bad one day and was coward enough to blame her own children for it. She had plenty of bouncing around from man to man as well and I could never figure out why she hated me so much. Someone told me the sick reason that they felt she hated me, and it may be true, but that would be really sad. I just wanted her to stay the hell away from me and the new family I was trying to build.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

One evening Donovan admitting to me that he had previously slept with men. I had asked the stupid question, “What do you think about when we’re having sex?” He told me about a man he had been with. We had a huge fight! I was triggered into memories of my dad bragging to my mom how men would give him head. He would make my mom feel horrible and I did not want a marriage like that! To me it was filthy and dirty. I felt like I would end up with a child molester for a husband just like my mother had. No matter how wrong that was, that's how I felt at the time, but I did not put it into words. I was hysterical. I was livid. I had been honest with him about my previously being a prostitute but he hadn't been honest about his own truths. He did not tell me before we were married that he was into men. I felt that he should have disclosed that information to me and then let me decide if I still wanted to marry him. Between that disclosure, another disclosure, and any hint of a relationship with Julie, I felt betrayed. He then laid it on me that I had rushed to get married, which was true. Was I completely to blame because I had rushed him into marriage?

At another point, I had gone to my friend's house and she told me that my husband Donovan had been seen with another girl. I was confused about who to believe. We got into such a huge fight over all of it. He was mad that I didn't believe in my own husband. My long-time friend was mad that I didn't fully believe in her. He said she was manipulative and jealous. She said that he was a liar and that I should believe her because he had already broken my trust. I did not know what to believe! Did it really matter what I believed? I may have been a prostitute before, but hell no to my husband thinking about men while having sex with me. What I knew of men sleeping with other men, to that point, had been nothing short of disturbing and now my husband too? I was so angry. I’d scream at him and he’d scream back. Mostly it was me screaming. I was really destroyed inside over his disclosure. In later years, (many years later,) I’d come to learn that the correct name for Donovan’s sexual preference is called hetero-flexibility. (per Donovan.) At the time, it didn’t matter what it was called or what it really was, he did not disclose it to me before we were married, and the only thing I knew about anything like that, was my father. The stage was now set for even more chaos.

When Donovan’s employer found everything out, he was transferred far away. Thousands of miles apart, I still managed to scream at him over the phone. I was unbelievably hurt, triggered, and frustrated. We were still in love, there were better moments during this time, but it was hell and pretty much over even though we were still married. I was told that I might need a hysterectomy because of scar tissue from two ectopic pregnancies, a C Section, and other surgeries. I tried to tell Donovan about it in a long distance call. I had the opportunity to become even more insecure and feel even more worthless when he told me over the phone that he had met a girl and couldn't talk to me about my surgery needs because he had to take her to the hospital for a urinary tract infection. Why was he so concerned about her, when his own wife needed surgery? I was so mad that I tossed my cell phone into traffic. We were over one thousand miles apart in every single way.

I started going back to bars with our mutual friends because sitting at home alone was a miserable feeling. I couldn't sit still with all of the anxiety and I hated sleeping alone because of the nightmares about my children, Sir Coward, Levi, and my childhood. Donovan and I were married but over with. He had obviously moved on, so I moved on in my own way too. I was often with our mutual friends and I ended up sleeping with one of his former co-workers. I helped that man take care of his son while he would go off for work. He was a single father so I spent most of the time at his house with his child. I was still trying to find normal. One of our mutual female friends was someone that Donovan had previously been sleeping with and they both admitted it to me, but as desperate as I was for friends, I stayed friends with her and she and I would go out to the bars together. A male friend was also someone Donovan had been sleeping with, but I would not come to find that out until much later. I had no idea who I had married and Donovan had no idea who he had married either. He had his own things going on, and I was too traumatized to actually have a healthy relationship. We were very destructive to one another and the friendships that we had made it all the worse. Donovan and I would have been great friends if we would have never married each other. In the marriage, we hated each other. "Everything happens for a reason." We kept communicating, sometimes battling. We meant a lot to each other and I believe that to this day, but it took a lot of growth and overcoming to finally admit it to each other and become the friends that we should have always been.

I didn’t really know what to do with myself so I ended up talking to Navy recruiters periodically. There was no way I was going back into the Army and I had to fight just to get into the Navy. Nobody thought I would be able to do it but since I studied really hard, I passed the ASVAB again, but this time with a much higher score. My score was so high that they made me retake the test to prove it was me that took it. It was so high that the recruiter told me to dumb myself down for the retake, which I did. Who knew that Debbie could study and learn? Surprise! I knew there was nothing wrong with my knee and I knew why all of that happened the way it did in the Army. Low and behold when I got to MEPS for my physical the doctor told me he had heard of other recruits telling similar stories about their time at Fort Jackson. There was nothing wrong with my knee and he medically cleared me to join the military, again. I was still married to Donovan and Donovan was still living plenty of miles away. I headed off to boot camp. I was more determined than ever to get through whatever they threw my way. My kids would come back some day and I had to prove I was worthy of them. Nothing was going to stop me from succeeding.

While at boot camp another idiot in charge took a special liking to me. Big deal, I thought, and I did whatever I had to do to stay in boot camp no matter what it was. I was not going to lose another opportunity. The day of my final PT exam to graduate, the recruit holding my feet while I did pushups, said out loud to the instructor walking past exactly how many pushups I had done. It was more than enough to pass. The hardest thing for me was running. It took everything I had to pass the running test that day, but I did. At the end of the day the instructor told me that the recruit holding my feet said less of a number of sit ups than she had actually said. I was being messed with again. I was told I could go to ceremony but that I had to return to boot camp afterwards and take the entire PT test again. OMG. I had to run again! At my graduation Shane, my parents, John, Jared, and Jinx showed up. What was going on? They were being there for me? I did not question it. Everyone was proud of me. I had pleased them by passing when no one thought I could finish.

John had shown up to my graduation with anti-government stickers all over his car and for that, I was invited to do extra PT along with also having to retake the PT test! I just laughed it off as best I could and fought through every ounce of pain. I finished the second PT test and went onto my advanced school training to become a Radioman. I took pride in my appearance and in my uniform. I had worked hard for it and I had overcome so many horrible things to get to the point that I was at. I had my hair cut fairly short and to legal military length. I purchased expensive shampoo and I woke up extra early to make sure I could get into the showers and have time to look good before training class. I woke up so early it annoyed my bunkmates, so I tried to be quiet about it. I noticed a dry cleaner on base so I went inside and the woman taught me the various types of dry cleaning and helped me pick the one that would make my uniform look the best. I used her services for my uniform. I always looked great. I was proud of myself. I was on my way to a much brighter future. Finally!

While at “A” School to learn my job to be a Radioman another "leader" kept making passes at me, but nothing would come of that, I started shutting myself away from everyone on my time off. I went to the movies for the first time alone. I would drive around alone for hours in the car that I had purchased after boot camp. I was afraid. I was afraid of people and their intentions and the ability that people had to take everything away from me if they wanted to. I did not want to go down that path again and I was trying very hard to stay on top of the boundaries I was growing. Occasionally I would be asked to go to the bar with others, and I would go but not for very long. One day I was stopped and told that I had to remove one of my ribbons. What? I earned that! I was told that I didn't earn it and to remove it immediately. After some protest, I did as I was told because you were not supposed to argue with them. You could get into serious trouble if you did. I still had my other ribbon. I would not be deterred.

As I was walking to medical one day I came across a Military Officer and as he stepped out of his car, I immediately stopped and saluted him. He started walking quickly towards me. Oh now what the hell? I thought to myself. He said, "I want to shake your hand. That was the finest salute I have ever seen!" Whew! Right on! Once I finished my training I was told I was going to be sent to the state that Donovan was originally from to do my job on a specific type of ship that I knew little about. I did not want to live in Donovan's home state. I asked for a different location and I was sent to another state. Though I was assigned to a ship, my ship was still being built. I had to work in a military office and I had no idea what was expected of me or what my job actually was since I was not doing the job that I had signed up for. I thought I'd just get on my ship, do what I was trained to do, and carry on. I had been fairly isolated at the advanced training school and though I met a few awesome females, I was still isolating myself out of fear. Once at my new station I thought it best that I try to hang out with people. These were going to be people that I would be on a ship with, so I felt I should include myself in some things that they were doing. I went out drinking with some other fine men and women one night and I met up with someone above my rank. I won't discuss much here about what happened that night, but it wasn't good.

I did not want to tell anyone but while smoking a cigarette outside with another female at work she basically noticed tension between me and the guy. She guessed what happened and kept prodding me to tell someone. She said it was not the first time for him from what she knew. She was the one who told. I was cornered by a superior outside later that day and he told me he had to report it, but that if I just denied it, things would turn out ok. When I was questioned about it, I did not deny it. I told them the truth. I had my own room on base and I asked them to call my husband Donovan. Donovan took an airplane and showed up. He could not stay long though. I wavered on whether he really believed me or not. I was back to being totally isolated. I thought it would be me and the US Navy going after the bad guy for what he had done, but it ended up being me against the US Navy. At one point they moved me into a barracks where I was supposed to manage sleeping in a room that had some of his friends in it. In boot camp we were often told about sock/blanket parties. The thought crossed my mind that this could happen to me.

I was brought in again and I was told that they had interviewed him and that he only would admit to having rough sex, mutual rough sex. No. I was terrified at the situation that I was now in and I even went to the local news at the urging of another girl after everything happened. I did so and they swore they would shadow my face out. I told my story. I don't know if they ever ran the story and I was probably too traumatized to have told it when I did. I ended up also talking to a professional on base. She told me there was no way for me to win this and that if I wanted to feel safe again she would write down that I had a personality disorder and I would get a general discharge. She explained to me that a general discharge would not hurt my chances of becoming a police officer. She also told me things like this happened more than the Navy wanted to talk about and that a lot of females had to "psych out" of the Navy.

Intimidated, old traumas triggered, and fearing for my safety, I did what I felt I needed to do. I took her recommendation. I was sent to Captain's Mast as the bad guy. While at Captain's Mast I was surrounded by people in my Command. Though I had passed inspections I was now being told that I failed them due to my uniform being bad. It never was. I was told my hair length was wrong. It wasn't. I was told I was insubordinate since being there. I never was. I was lied about to my face and I could do nothing but stand there in fear. I would say, "Yes, Sir" even though I knew they did not deserve it. When it was finally over I was a shell of myself. I collapsed onto my knees in the hallway in tears. The Captain walked out with his arm around the shoulder of the one person in my command that I had thought supported me. He looked back and smiled at me as I was crumpled onto the floor in tears in the uniform that I had so proudly worn up until that point. I couldn't breathe. My entire life had all at once ended again and I felt that it was my fault. I shouldn't have gotten drunk. If I hadn't have drank, it wouldn't of happened. That's what I had believed and I was crushed beyond belief. I became anxious and more insecure than ever. What happened at Captain's Mast that day felt worse than what had happened the night of the event that prompted it all, if that makes any sense. I don't know enough words to fully describe what that did to me.

After stopping in Arizona to try to find whatever the hell I was looking, for, and after bouncing around again, I decided to head back home to my parent's house. My dad was still a trucker and not home very often. I started going out to night clubs and getting drunk, sometimes I would still strip at one of the many gentlemen's clubs. Donovan and I had divorced but we still knew mutual people. I would go hang out with them. I met one guy and I thought I loved him and I thought he loved me to so it didn't seem like a bad idea to get married. I was at the point where not much mattered to me anyway. I was fairly numb. He owned a house and we got married. He had roommates and worked two jobs. His roommates liked to party and I was now in Emergency Medical Technician training. I was still trying to become something more. The only place that I could really be alone and study was in our bedroom but every time I wanted to study he would be right there and super clingy. I was sure he meant well but he was driving me bonkers with the clingy! He would tell me that I obviously didn't love him because I couldn't pay attention to him the way he wanted me to while I tried to study. We began fighting all the time but I kept up with my training. He had bought me a truck as well so getting back and forth to training was actually peaceful. It was just me driving down the long roads to school with the stereo on. No matter what was going on between us, I was doing well with my training.

He wouldn't back off the guilt trips or the clinging and it had been clear for awhile that I would be leaving him if it didn't change. One day while looking through a desk to find another pen, I found a large stack of papers. All of the papers had various details about my life and my name was spelled out in them in various ways. It was hundreds of papers and he had been printing them all off from work. Most of them were from random internet sites where he would find anything with someone that had a similar name to me and print it off and place it with the others. I asked him what the papers were about and he told me it was in case I ever tried to leave him, he would have them to use against me. Use against me?

Plenty of the things in the binder filled with papers weren't even about me, just similar names. We had a huge fight and I moved in with a paramedic from my training school so that I could finish. While living with this paramedic he and I became close. He was such an amazing person who had been through so much in his own life. He pampered me like crazy. Soon my mother wanted to leave my dad so she came to live in his little RV with us. Now in that cramped RV I had to keep studying and he would use my flash cards to quiz me. He taught me on the side more of what I needed to know about being an EMT. My mom decided one day to profess her love for him. My mom, saying out loud that she was in love with the man that I was now in a relationship with did not jive well inside my nervous system. I told her to leave. She went back to my dad and I tried finishing school. One night in class I received a legal notice from my husband's lawyer. I had to give the truck back etc... I did. I thanked God when we divorced. I finished training and passed the state exam.

My mom and I had started talking again and one day while driving the ambulance with my partner, we saw my mom riding her bike along the side of the road. Thinking I was a safe enough distance away, I turned on the siren to get her attention. It scared her so bad she fell off her bike. Knowing that I had stupidly scared my mom as bad as I did, I rushed to help her. I felt terrible! My poor mother, I started babying her to make up for the guilt that I felt. We were now in each other's lives again and I was happy about it because I loved her so much. My mom began telling me stories about how bad my dad was getting again. She told me how abusive and horrible my brother John still was even though he didn't live near her. She was afraid he was going to hurt someone some day and she was tired of his drunken phone calls. She was tired of pretending for all of them that nothing was wrong. She was tired of being told that if she left my dad, she would lose her other kids because they had forgiven him and she should be over it by now too. How can you get over something that never ended?

There were plenty of various dynamics still at play within my family. It would be too much to keep listing them all here, but I will say this: My mother and I, over the years, had often wondered if my father was a serial killer or serial rapist. It was mostly just chatter between us, but there were serious things to consider regarding him. Did he have the means to do something like that? Yes, he was a long haul trucker. Did he have a history of committing violent sexual acts? Oh, indeed. Did he have serious sexual control issues? Yep! Did he secretly dislike his mother or feel demeaned by her? Uh huh. Was there a history of substance abuse? For sure. Did he feel emasculated? Yes, to the point of calling me to tell me so one evening. Did he enjoy the hunt? Unfortunately, yes. Was he intelligent? Extremely. Do people in the community think he is a great guy? No doubt. It just played round and round, but there wasn't shit we could do about what we thought he might be doing. "Without a specific case.. blah blah blah." My mom had told me some things that may or may not be true regarding my brother John and my father's brother in Illinois, so we were overwhelmed with, "We know what they have the potential to do" whether they did anything new or not. She also told me she was really disappointed when my father kept surviving tragedies like the tornado that hit a truck stop that he had just driven away from, and the forklift accident. He said he was near New York on 9/11 and we were supposed to be happy that he made it out safely when so many good people died that day. Why do the bad guys always survive?

"What about when we lived in Illinois when I was little, do you think he killed someone there?" "I don't know, Debbie." I was tired of being any part of the nest. I was tired of the hero father bullshit. At that time, I did not care if I lost any of them forever. I had already lost my own children and also Levi. I had lost friends that were closer to me than my siblings ever were. I no longer felt obligated to know them or claim them as family. This was the time that I agreed to run away with her again and this was the trip that I have previously spoken about in this book. We are now caught back up to the point where my mother and I were living at a domestic violence shelter and I had the old documents in my hands that were mailed to me by the woman at the original shelter we were living in when I was little. We discussed having our names changed with the shelter staff. They told us it would be easy to do and that no one would find out because they wouldn't think to check in the county that we were currently living in. I thought really hard about what I wanted my new name to be. I came up with Cheyenne and Sierra. I really liked Cheyenne but the staff at the shelter said the better fit for me was Sierra. My mom chose to name herself after a city she had always dreamed of living in. She could not figure out a middle name so I chose one for her and she loved it. As for my new middle name, my mom had trouble calling me Sierra so I made my middle name my original birth name. Deborah. That way if she ever slipped up in our new life and called me Debbie, I would be able to cover up why she did that. Now we had to find a new last name. I searched the phone book and found the last name Waters. We both loved it. That's how we found our new names. We had our names legally changed.

Now with my new name and new life, even though previous doctors had told me that I would never get pregnant again basically due to all of the surgeries over the years, I in fact did get pregnant again. For my child's well-being, and only for her well-being, I will not give those details here. I will tell you that there was yet another abandonment by my mom during this time, and that the year was very traumatizing. That's all that I will say.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Skip ahead through many months of my being under serious psychological distress while pregnant and enter the day that angel number three was born. I had ended up back in the southern state without my mother, father, or my sister Julie even knowing I had come back. I was now living with my ex-husband who was so clingy before and had all the papers collected on me. One of his roommates was the female that my ex Donovan had sex with before. I did not really want to be there but I had no place else to go. I needed to have the baby and get us into the "underground" that I had been told about by an advocate. The doctor said that I needed a C Section. He told me the baby was going to be very large (she wasn’t,) and since I had a previous C Section and other surgeries, it probably wasn't safe for me to deliver naturally. It was almost ten years to the date of my other daughter's birth when I was told to pick a date for the C Section.

My choices for my new daughter’s birthday were my other daughter's birthday or a few days after it. I opted for the one that wasn't my first daughter's birthday for obvious reasons. I just needed to have the baby and get us the hell on our way to our new secret identity life. I would find the "underground" once I had the baby, I thought. The day of the C Section came and I chose to be awake during it. The medical worker could not get my extremities to numb all the way and the third time he stuck the needle into my back he said it had to be the last time. There was no way I was going to take the chance of being asleep when my baby was born. Due to old trauma, I was terrified someone would take the baby away from me. I demanded that he keep trying and on the 5th needle, my legs finally went numb. I was ready to have the baby.

While in the surgery room they had another tarp blocking my view just like they had done with my son, but I was awake and talking to the Anesthesiologist and I could feel the doctor's hands inside my body. Suddenly I heard metal hit the floor and then I heard the Anesthesiologist say as fast as he could, "DOCTOR, THAT WAS DOWN!" I did not know what he meant but I believe what I was later told. A piece of equipment that was on the ground had found its way inside my wide open belly. I had a baby girl. I was in tears and so very happy. The old mutual friend that Donovan and I had helped me by following the baby to the nursery and snapping photos of her as I was stitched back up. They told me that my daughter had Jaundice and that she had to stay in the hospital for days longer than I was supposed to stay. I started getting the sweats and vomiting. I was feeling very ill but the doctor said I must be faking just to stay with my baby. I was not faking as other doctors would soon figure out.

I had no intention of bringing my new baby into my ex's house. I couldn't figure out why he still had a binder filled with information about me or people he thought were me. I asked his roommate to get a hold of the binder. It was disturbing to me that he had it at all. She refused out of fear of being kicked out. The day I was able to get my daughter out of the hospital, she lent me her car. I went back into the house while everyone as work to get my things and the few things I had for the baby. I looked for the binder and could not find it. Upon confronting her she said she grabbed it first and gave it back to him. He was afraid I would tell his Command what a creeper he was and she was afraid of not having a place to stay. I had already found a shelter to go to once the baby was able to leave the hospital so once I gathered our things, the baby and I ended up there.

I was still very sick but I was running on pure adrenaline. I told the shelter that my mom was a few hours away in another city and now living with her best friend Violet. Her friend Violet was a new age type of person who was always telling my mom to stay away from the rest of the family, and me as well. She provided my mom with money often. My mom often complained to me about her and how controlling she was, but my mom kept getting closer and closer to her. She was the only friend that my mom had other than people that lived far away or sided with my father. I remember that while I was headed to my new station in the Navy after my training, I had stopped into see my mom at Violet's house. Standing there in my uniform wanting to make my mother proud, Violet refused to let me see her and my mom didn't put up a fight. They were doing "spiritual" things. My standing there in my military uniform was "disgusting" and "selfish" my mom's friend said about me that day.

I wanted for my mom to meet her new granddaughter because the loss of my other children had impacted her negatively as well. I decided that before I found the "underground" I had to show her the baby first and say goodbye once and for all. I really just needed some support from my own mother. The shelter helped me transfer to a shelter in the town my mother was in. I called my mom right away and she agreed to meet me at the emergency room because I was in quite a bit of pain. My baby was still brand new and I laid her in my mother's arms and my mom was very excited. She told me that she had to hurry up and get back to her friend's house. After she left I headed into the emergency department and asked to see a doctor. I told them about my belly pain and I explained that I had just had a C Section. They did imaging studies and blood work and came back into the room and told me that I needed surgery right away. They said they were surprised that I was even standing and that I was very sick and could possibly die. They said that I needed to call someone to come get the baby. I called my mom and even though she was just down the road, she told me she wasn't going to help me and that her friend said my baby couldn't stay there. I was dying in the hospital with a brand new baby and my own mother wasn't going to help me. Lovely. Why did I always expect more? Why did I keep putting myself through it over and over again? What the hell was wrong with me? How pathetic was I to keep going back into this situation with my family? Thirty years of that shit and now I was standing in the same damn spot again.

The medical staff told me they were going to call CPS to put my baby in a foster home so that I could have the surgery. How do you think that played out? I grabbed my daughter and ran out of the hospital as fast as I could. There was no way they were taking my baby! A couple nurses caught up with me and tried to calm me down. One of them grabbed onto me and started hugging me. I think that she could tell how abused I had been in my life. There was no calming me down. The doctor ran out and told me that they had to act quickly. More nurses ran outside and finally they got me back inside the hospital. A couple nurses stayed with me in the room and one of them said, "You really love your baby if you're willing to die for her." She was right. She told me she was very impressed with me. I'll never forget that because she understood. Nobody was taking a child from me ever again The other nurses came back in and they told me that my baby was too old to be with the newborns if they put me in the hospital for emergency surgery and she explained to me that they had a sneaky idea to keep my baby and I together. I believed in their plan and for their sake I won't discuss that here. Wonderful people!

When they wheeled me into surgery I put all of my trust into those nurses as one of them held my baby daughter in her arms. She smiled at me and promised everything would be ok. I was feeling pretty sick and couldn't really fight back much more anyway so I had the surgery and hoped I would wake up and still have a baby. When I came too I was even sicker. They kept trying to stick me with needles but my body was rejecting them at every turn. From my neck to my feet I was bruised with needle marks for my entire stay at that hospital. I looked up and saw glass bottles filled with medicine and they were all being poured into me via an IV line that they had obviously had trouble getting into me. As I brought my head down to look at my arm that was in pain I saw the most beautiful sight in the world. Right there lying next to me in her own tiny bed was my beautiful baby girl. I was not strong enough to hold her yet but she was wearing a brand new outfit and she looked so precious! As the days went on, I had some setbacks in my recovery. They explained to me that I was really very sick still and I was often so drugged up that I wasn't breathing right. It wasn't their fault, my body never handled medications well and it often took much less medication for me to feel better, especially pain medications. The nurses would come running in and out when the alarms would go off. I was sweating endlessly. I remember laying in the bed soaking wet even though they kept changing my bedding. I was in what they called “surgical menopause.” The baby was so precious every day in her little outfits. All I could do during my sickest moments was look over at her sometimes.

Many days later I started feeling better and I was finally able to stand up on my own. My mom never once came to visit me. She never even called the nurses’ station to check on me and the baby. No one else knew we were there except her and her friend. No one else knew that I was so close to dying. No one else probably gave a damn. The first day that I was able to shower I walked back out of the bathroom to a surprise. The nurses had purchased a brand new suitcase for my daughter and I. They gave me a quick bedside baby shower and showed me that the suitcase was full of baby clothes, diapers, and blankets. The only people that seemed to care about me and the baby were the nurses, doctors, and surgeons. Even the anesthesiologist would come by and say hello to me. From what I was told they had to often use the anesthesiologist to get IVs into me because I had so many holes in me already. They said it was the ethical thing to do to have him help because I was starting to look like a battered woman with so many bruises all over my body from them trying to save my life. The days went on and on and finally it was the day before I was to be discharged. The only place we had to go was a local shelter and they were very nice there too. They had been holding a room for the baby and I during my entire hospital stay.

Before I left the hospital I called a man that I used to date in Nevada and I told him that I almost died and that I had a baby girl. His name was Brad. We had previously met and had a short relationship that ended due to him having a side girl and my trauma responses. He was on the next plane out to come get us a hotel room and stay there with us while I recovered. I was told not to leave town until my staples were to be removed. I was still pretty sickly when Brad showed up in a rental car. We spent several long days in that hotel room. We talked about anything and everything. Even though my daughter was not his, he picked up her up in his arms and told her, "You will never be hungry." He had known some of the history of my life and how I was always hungry as a child. I feared that my child would end up hungry too if I couldn't figure life out. It was a precious moment as we made promises to each other and the baby. Brad was at my side without hesitation and was going to stay there as long as I needed. He took as much time off of work as needed to sit in the dumpy hotel room with the baby and I until I was able to have the staples removed. We often joked about the horrible taste of the water in that town and he made sure we did not have to drink anymore of it. He provided everything that the baby and I needed. Endless days and nights passed as we continued getting closer and closer. He continued to prove to me that he was on my side and wanted to help me raise the baby.

Once I was finally able to leave town we decided to fly to his house in Nevada. I was still very anxious about losing my baby, to the point of extreme anxiety at times. I just knew something bad was going to happen on that plane. God wouldn't give me this child and not rip her away from me. He would not let me be happy for long. There was no convincing me otherwise. If there is a stronger word than "Anxiety" I had that. Brad had to get me on the plane with my baby and it did not go well. I was seriously afraid that if I got on the plane it would crash and that's how I would lose my baby. We were all going to die on that plane, I was certain of it.

Once aboard the plane the poor flight attendants had no choice but to move us to first class. I was crying so hard I couldn't stay quiet while doing it. Brad did his best to try to calm me down but once I found out that a famous person's sister was in the seat next to us, it was made all the worse. The flight number was one of those flight numbers that sounded like it could be on the news. A semi famous person was on board. I was with a man that was actually trying to take care of me and I just had a new baby. There was no way God wasn't going to slap me back down. I was ecstatic, (and so was everyone on board,) when the plane finally landed and they let me get off of it as fast as I could, but when I saw the cockpit with the pilots inside I was reminded about a flight I had taken with my son when I was much younger. The pilots and staff had helped me during a panic attack onboard a flight with my son and the pilots adored him. Now with my new daughter in my arms, I was right back in that moment. I asked the pilots to take a picture together with my baby girl.

It was time for me to get to fresh air. I was overjoyed when I stepped back onto the street in front of Brad's house. Brad had bright red hair and he was a lot taller than I was. He still had beautiful brown eyes that made me melt. He had previously told me that he had been cheated on before and it was a very sad story how that played out for him. My traumas and his paranoia of getting cheated on again would soon play out, but for a little while we were happy. One night I fell asleep on the couch and the baby was sound asleep on my chest. I woke up to the sound of a camera snapping a picture. Anyone else would have thought it was sweet that Brad snapped a picture of the baby and I sound asleep together like that. As I woke up to the sound of the camera, I was right back in my childhood. He triggered me without knowing it. I totally went off on him about taking the picture and it all happened so fast that I didn't even know why I was upset. As I woke my brain up and figured it out, I felt terrible and I knew he was really confused. His semi side girl started showing up again. He’d make excuses for some things she did and for why he needed to keep going to her house. When certain members of his family would call they'd treat me rudely on the phone as if I did not exist. "How are you?” I’d ask. "Put Brad on the phone." This was not the life that I wanted for my daughter and the more that I tried to talk to him, the more we would fight. The more I stood up for myself, the angrier he would become. I took my baby girl and went back to Illinois.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Now that we were back in Illinois, I was able to get into an income based apartment and Shane even helped me get a car on a lease. I was really impressed by Shane's willingness to help. Shane's friend had a ton of Target gift cards that he kept getting from his employer so he took me shopping for brand new baby items. I was able to get a high chair, a play pen, a crib, clothes for her, a pacifier to match every outfit, and plenty of diapers. He said he wanted to help and I was so very glad that he and Shane stepped up. I began going to a local community college. I would take my daughter to her well-baby visits and I'd mention that it felt like she was sick too much. They didn't know that I had previous children, so they wrote it off as me being a new parent.

One of her Pediatricians was a doctor about my age. During a well-baby visit he was listening to her chest and then he stopped and said to my baby girl, "Is it you or your mommy that smell so good?" Sometimes that doctor would come over to my house while he was on call. I soon told him not to come around anymore. I did not want to be a "slut." The baby kept getting sick and I became exhausted. I was isolated and alone. I wasn't keeping up with school. Shane and his friend lived hours from me. My loneliness and need for God knows what, (family?) had me calling my mom again. I left a message with one of her friends to have her call me.

When my mom called me back I told her how close I was to death in the hospital and I told her how much she had hurt me. She said she knew that she had hurt me and that she was very sorry. She told me that she really wanted to see me and the baby. I really needed my mom. She said that my father was on the road and that it was safe to show up. Of all the things she would do, she would never lie about that. I knew that much. I drove all the way to the southern state to see her and I introduced her to my daughter. Once we got down to my parent's house I made sure with my mom that my father would not be showing up. She told me he wasn't going to be back for days. I needed to use the computer that they had but my mom didn't know how to use computers very well and she was afraid I would break it and piss my dad off. When he finally called the house he found out I was there and he called me Sierra. That meant that she had told him my new name! I asked permission to use his computer to check email and he said that I could and he even asked me to try to fix something on it for him.

Once I was on the computer my mom and I discussed whether or not I should check the computer for pornography because she said she had concerns, maybe she already knew. We sat together as I checked what I could and sure enough there were VERY disturbing things. We decided to call the local police department. They searched the computer with my mom's permission and then apparently they got a warrant to search further. My mom asked if she could move back to Illinois with me and I told her that she could but that she couldn't stay with me long in my low income housing because it was a rule. We had told the police department that my father also had a laptop in his truck. They told us that when he got home, they would search it. That is not what happened.

They asked his permission to search the laptop and he refused. Why didn't they use the warrant they allegedly had gotten? If they hadn't of already gotten it, the things on the other computer should've had them getting one especially with his history! They allegedly gave him a copy of the report and now he had all of my information. When I was unfortunate enough to have to talk to him on the phone I asked him why he was looking up such terrible things and he yelled back at me, "A MAN HAS NEEDS DEBBIE!" I said a man does not have needs that are that sick and my name isn't fucking DEBBIE!

Some local agencies helped my mom get into her own housing, and we went to thrift stores and found her the things she would need to get her new life started. That wasn't enough for her and she ended up leaving again. Now that my dad clearly knew where I was and everything about me again, I made the decision to get the hell out of Illinois. I moved my daughter and I back to Arizona but to a smaller town. While in that town the baby continued to get sicker. Her illnesses were more often. One day her Pediatrician discovered something wrong in her blood work. Finally, they were going to find answers.

While living in that town I met a woman and she asked me to start watching her children. They were all different ages and I fell in love with her family and her family helped me get through this hard time with the baby. The doctors told me that I had to drive back to our old Arizona town and take her to see specialty doctors. They told me they were worried she had cancer. They did a Bone Marrow Biopsy on my little girl who wasn't even 2 years old yet. It was a horrible experience. Thankfully, it was negative! She just kept getting sick. She would be completely fine in between illnesses, then bam, very sick again. They did a ton of blood work and tests. They could not find answers. Doctors considered whether or not the cluster of kids getting ill in that town had anything to do with it. We all agreed that even though she had been sick in Illinois, she wasn't as sick there. Maybe it was the climate making her worse. I did not know where to go so I moved us back to Illinois.

I got us into an apartment in the town that Shane lived in. I still had the car he provided for me on lease. The climate changed nothing and my daughter was still getting very sick. She had to have a lot of breathing treatments. Once she felt better you couldn't tell she was ever sick at all, but while she was sick she was a completely different child. Even though the Bone Marrow Biopsy came back negative for the cancer they had checked for, I was still worried they were missing something. One night when I had the nurse line on the phone to see if I should bring the baby to the emergency room, the nurse could hear the baby's breathing. I was trying very hard not to take her in so often but the nurse said to get her there right away. I rushed her to the hospital. It was winter and it was cold outside. I was told to drive with my windows down previously when she had been sick to see if that would help. This time it did and when we got to the hospital she was still sick but not as bad. They put my daughter and I in a room and I was relieved when her fever came back down. We were in that room for a long time and she started getting sick again. Her fever spiked back up and she took a turn for the worse. The doctor came in and said, "Well, now we know you're not doing it to her." WHAT? I was really upset by what he was suggesting. Apparently they were watching my daughter and I the entire time we were there to make sure I wasn't the one making her sick. WHAT?

I called back down to Arizona and spoke to her primary specialty doctor and I told him what that ER Doctor had said! Her specialty doctor was not happy. I asked him, "Did you ever think I was causing my daughter's illnesses?" He said he never thought that at all and that her blood work proved I couldn't be causing it. I told him I was afraid to ever take my daughter back to the emergency room and he told me not to be afraid. He allegedly called that Doctor and laid into him. The ER Doctor apologized to me, but it was too late. It was now in my head that other doctors might believe that as well. No one was going to take my baby from me and they especially weren't going to do it based on lies!

I made sure to always carry ALL of her medical records and lab reports with me to every single doctor she would have to see from that point on. I made sure, for a very long time, that every doctor she saw, whether it was at the emergency room or a regular office visit, had all of her specialist’s phone numbers. I was disgusted, sad, and pissed off. I was triggered again at the thought of losing another child no matter how hard I was trying to do my best by her. I maintained my composure though. I had no choice but to keep us moving forward. She kept getting sick and when her second birthday came around Shane wanted to do something nice for her, so he brought over a cake. That was sweet of him to do but he and I were not getting along. It was me, him, and my daughter and it reminded us both of what we had lost when we were younger. It wasn't good. We couldn't handle it and our issues reappeared.

There were points where I was very distraught over the loss of my two other children. Saying that I was distraught doesn’t even come close to what I was feeling at times. I had a very hard time letting go of Shane at various points of my life because I really loved him, but also because of the loss of the children. He was a reminder of what I had lost, but he was also my first true love. He was very hard for me to let go of, no matter how much we would fight and no matter how abusive he had been. I struggled inwardly and outwardly with conflicting feelings regarding Shane for decades. Plenty of that was also due to the abuses I had growing up. I was still a child when I had met Shane and became pregnant with our son. I certainly never developed in a healthy way as a child.

With all the fighting between Shane and I, in my ignorance and unhealed mind, I was missing Brad so I called him up and we chatted awhile. He flew to see us and while he was there he asked me if I wanted to move back to Nevada. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I couldn't get ahead on my own with the baby always sick. I was also having trouble focusing on anything other than losing another child. I felt certain that the doctors would eventually tell me my daughter had a deadly disease. I was not sleeping and this climate was not working for her either. I agreed it might not be a bad idea to move back. He swore the other girl was out of his life. He flew back and I drove my car. We were fine and happy when we first got back together. This, I suppose, was the honeymoon period I would eventually be taught about.

Brad told me that he was not going to tell his family he was marrying me because he didn't want to hear any of their opinions. That really made me feel sad, but I understood because certain family members of his were a bit rude and pushy. Once we were married he continued to isolate me from them and they did a fairly good job of it themselves once they discovered that we were in fact married to each other. We rushed through the process of buying a house as well. I had never done it before and I didn't know what to expect. Another red flag was that Brad had me handling the realtor and everything else. That was a crash course on how and how not to buy a house and deal with realtors. I’d soon learn that he had me handling it because he didn’t like doing much at all that didn’t involve the side girl, his friends, or one of his certain relatives. He’d later tell me that the side girl was party to a big law suit, and that he’d go to court for her and take notes and tell her what was said. I don’t know much about it, but it was still no excuse because he also told me they had sex a lot. Would she ever stop calling him?

Thankfully, even though it was me dealing with the realtors, we ended up in a fairly nice neighborhood in a home that was already comfy. We had a hot tub and a nice patio and a beautiful front yard. Over time Brad refused to do any work in the front yard. It was too much for me to try to do myself but over the years of back and forth, I did try. People in the neighborhood would actually stop by to say how great the yard used to look. He would rarely fix anything. I was always crying because he would never be affectionate with me. He would tell me to "get over it" and that was not what he should have ever said to me, he already knew that though.

His side girl was constantly calling the house and if it wasn't her ringing the phone it was a certain relative of his and that person was always rude to me. I kept trying to get to know her but she wasn't letting me. She would hang up on me or tell me, "Just let me talk to Brad." I told Brad all about it and he told me to just ignore it because she was a "bitch" sometimes. He denied the side girl at all costs, even though we had caller ID and I would talk to her. He would go over to see his family and never bring me. He would go see his friends and I was only invited one time. I was isolated and home alone with my daughter all the time. I would venture out of the house with her and go to the store and buy things trying to make the house more of a home, as if I ever knew what that was.

Trying to be a good homemaker, I bought a sewing machine and I made curtains for the entire house. I began painting the walls and no matter what I did, Brad would always have something negative to say about it. I would ask him to help me pick colors or tell me what he wanted but he never would. The phone was still ringing and it was always trouble on the other end of the line. It quickly got to the point where I was sleeping in one bedroom and he was in another. My daughter would get sick in the middle of the night a lot and he would lose sleep so I began doing it all alone again. I finally broke down and begged him to try to work this out with me and to keep us as a family. That girl was still calling and he was still seeing her in secret. I tried to pretend it wasn't happening but it was. Still unhealed from everything that had taken place in my life, I did not know how to save my marriage and I was very emotional. I couldn’t figure out how Brad was so paranoid about being cheated on, but seemed fine being sneaky behind my back. He was allowed to not “get over” the time he was cheated on by someone else, but I was supposed to “get over” a lifetime of trauma immediately.

I asked Brad to please move to Arizona with me so that he would get away from that girl and certain family members of his (and hopefully become a better husband.) We discussed it and in tears we both agreed it was a good idea. It was there or the state he had been born in, but he said he didn't want to move back there just yet because of a relationship with a relative there that he wasn't ready to face fulltime. We agreed on Arizona. He said he wanted to stay back in Nevada awhile to catch up on paying off bills and he said he would come down as soon as he could. I did not like the idea of him staying behind knowing that girl was in town, but I packed up my vehicle and moved my daughter and I down to Arizona. I did as discussed and paid the rent several months ahead. I furnished the apartment and got settled in.

Soon enough I knew he had no intentions of coming to Arizona. I was not going to go back to Nevada, so we began the battle of push and pull. I began working in Arizona. My daughter was very intelligent and learned to read quickly. She was talking in full sentences using advanced words beyond her age level. Everyone who had the opportunity to meet her took notice. She was also still getting sick all the time. I was trying to keep up with her and the full time job that I had found. She was doing great in daycare, but was it making her sicker? The doctors said it probably wasn't helping. Nobody knew it then, but eventually we’d figure out that some important vaccinations that she had received, hadn’t worked for her and she would periodically need to be re-vaccinated. That still was not the complete answer to what was wrong with her medically, and again, we didn’t know this then.

Pulling her out of daycare was not an option if I was going to work. I tried various forms of daycares, but the home-based ones made me worry she would be molested and no matter how unjustified that might seem to some people reading this, for me, it was a very big concern due to my own up-bringing. The bigger daycares weren’t always clean and when they were clean, those ones were often filled with so many kids, she’d just keep getting sick. I still had to work and try to figure it out. I was good at my new job. I was asked to be a floor lead fairly quickly. I worked for an internet call service as a tech. A customer would call in with computer or internet trouble and I would help them. They had an alright training program and I learned quite a bit. I was really happy working there and I was even feeling proud that I was doing so well. One day at work while on a call with a customer, I fainted. I was exhausted from trying to do everything alone. With work, her medical appointments, her illnesses, worrying something was going to happen to her, my traumas that I couldn't get out of my head, and just life in general, I wasn't functioning well but I was trying to stay strong.

Before moving back to Arizona and after Brad and I had bought the house, my mother had come to visit and I was back in touch with my family. Did I want them to see that I was doing fine without them? Did I want for us to all be a family now that I was married and owned a home? Was I still looking for what I was missing? Did I really believe life would be any different?

I was still fucked in the head when I agreed to let my mother and father, visit for Christmas at the house where my daughter and I were now living in Arizona. My father was not allowed to stay with me though. He had to go get a hotel because there was no way he was going to be sleeping over at my apartment. At least I had one boundary intact! What was I thinking? Trauma is a bitch if left unchecked. Loneliness, insecurity, not having a single healthy relationship, not having a solid support system, hope, and needing love, were the biggest bitches of all. My stupid heart.

I may have let them near for Christmas, but I knew I was now strong enough as a mother to do whatever I had to do to protect my child if he even said one wrong word. He knew it too. He was never allowed to be alone with her. Ever. Even my mom hovered over my daughter during his visit. It was a bit tense. A small part of me actually felt guilty about not letting my family know my daughter because I was still very concerned she might die since they couldn’t tell me what was wrong with her. I did not owe them that, of course, but that was trauma thinking. I showed him and my mom around town and he showed up with presents for my daughter. He bought her an expensive Barbie Dream House and dolls to go with it. Everything went well during his visit.

One thing I did notice though, I felt like a little girl when he was near. It was disturbing and I did not like that feeling because I no longer wanted to be that little girl. It was like a knee jerk reaction that I had to fight against inside myself. I managed it. When he left Arizona, I was relieved. I tried to keep a bond with some my family members as best I could. Chaos, but as Emily Dickinson had said, "The heart wants what it wants," and that's especially true when your heart is confused thanks to trauma. It had been about thirty years since the first time that I was raped by my father, and because of the cycle that his actions caused, I still wasn’t close to being in a healed state of mind. There had been too much non-stop damage and I was still on auto-pilot.

There were other moments with my mom that were better than some of the times that I have spoken about here. One time my mom and I had stopped at a grocery store in the large town that I last saw my children in. I waited in the driver's seat while she ran inside. As she was walking in, I was in shock to see my other daughter walking out of the store with her adoptive mom. There was no doubt it was her. She looked exactly like me. I quickly did one of those scream whispers, "MOM!”

My mom stopped just short of them and looked back at me to see what I wanted. I couldn't speak without my daughter hearing me so when my mom turned back around and stared unexpectedly right into her granddaughter's eyes, she froze in place. She was staring right at a younger version of me. I slid down into the seat of my car and prayed she wouldn't see me. If she knew she was adopted she would know I was her mom and I did not want to upset her. I wasn’t sure if she had already seen me at the time, but I had hoped that she didn’t. No matter how much I wanted to just run over and give her the biggest hug she had ever had, I knew that it was not my place. No matter how the adoption had went down, I did not want to further hurt her, so I had to find a way to ignore what I was feeling deep inside. I had to find a way to let her go all over again. Seeing her and knowing that I couldn’t hold her and had to let her go again, was unbelievably harsh to my soul. I just wanted to grab her back.

Once they left the parking lot my mom and I sat in the car screaming at each other in excitement. There she was! She was alive and healthy! It took us both a very long time to calm down. My hope for reuniting with my children was as strong as ever. We would reunite one day and they would know that I never stopped loving them. They’d know that I did not just give them away because I didn't want them. I would be able to tell them everything and I even thought that maybe the adoptive parents would let us all love each other. The kids would be happy to know they had two moms that loved them and we would all be happy on every side of the adoption triad. If only. That was one of those good days with my mom. Naïve! I was always so hopeful and such a dreamer. I was always stupid, worthless.

I saw my other daughter again. I decided that maybe it would be better if I went back to that southern state where I was still certified as an EMT. I really couldn't handle seeing her one more time without being able to hold her. She was fine and looked healthy. I was a bit confused about my son still though. Weren't they supposed to have been adopted together? I was certain that if she was happy and healthy, he had to be too. I kept trying to move on, but also stupidly kept hope in my heart. Hoping that the pieces would eventually fall back into some range of normal continued to drive my life.

There was a dream that I had a couple years after I lost my children and it was of a little boy climbing a wall with a backpack on. He fell backwards and hit his head. It felt real. It felt like I had just seen something happen to my son. I had to convince myself that they were both fine. I decided to go back to the southern state and work 24 on and 48 off on an ambulance. That would give me more time for my young daughter’s doctors and I wouldn't have to leave her at daycare every day. My mom would watch her at my apartment and my dad would not be allowed to come over. That's how it ended up working out. Brad was being nice again and he helped me get into an apartment. We were still married to each other but estranged. I kept asking him to file for the divorce because he had more money than I ever did and also, that way, he could structure it the way that he wanted to. I had the job as an EMT and got us settled in.

My mom said she would come over for my shifts to stay with my daughter. She was about three years old at this point. Things were going ok, but I was not fitting in very well in the city where my daughters had both been born. The apartments that we moved into were the very same apartments that Shane and I had lived in right before he went to trucking school. I was overly distracted with thoughts of my other children, more new doctors, and knowing and fearing that my dad could show up at my house when I wasn't home if he happened to not be driving his truck while I was at work. The only time he was ever allowed over was on my daughter's birthday. I invited him, my mom, and Julie's children, that were now old enough to make their own decisions over for her party. I didn't want for her to have parties like I did when I was younger, with nobody showing up. I always made a big fuss over her birthdays and Christmas because of my own childhood. It was a nice family time together despite the tension. It wouldn’t stay that way though. There was about to be more tragedy.

CHAPTER TWENTY

One day at work we were called to a house fire to be standby for the firemen on the scene just in case one of them got injured. I was standing outside the ambulance leaning against it and watching the fire fighters do their job. As I was looking through a window watching the smoke pour out of it I saw a fire fighter stick his head out the window and stare back at me. Once the fire was out he walked up and introduced himself to me. Later that day he showed up at my station as I was cleaning and stocking the ambulance. He jumped up into the back of the ambulance, grabbed me by my belt, pulled me toward him and he laid a kiss on me that was so powerful it made me weak in the knees. His name was Gabriel and he was pretty handsome. We had a lot of passion and chemistry between us.

He told me that he was separated from his wife. As time went on he moved in with me and he worked on getting his divorce. I got a phone call one day from my dad's mom, Grandma C. She told me that my Uncle had died in a car accident. This was the Uncle that was always so nice to me before, but who was always high because he couldn't handle what he had seen in the war. He died in a single vehicle accident. I’d much later learn that he was a pedophile as well, but at this time, I didn’t know it. How could one family have so many pedophiles? How could a family have so many monsters and have everyone denying their existence? Enablers! Since I didn’t know that about him then and only knew that he had always been nice to me, I was really sad that he had died in such a tragic way. A car accident. It got locked into my subconscious brain that you could just die suddenly in a car accident. Everyone knows that, but it was so close to home that it just added to my anxiety. After my uncle died, I was even more anxious about my child’s car seat, and I was checking it obsessively.

My father and my Grandma C were both crushed in their hearts at the loss of my uncle. Seeing my father crying so hard and in so much pain made me feel heartbroken despite how much pain he had caused me. That was one of my downfalls in life. I had a too big of a heart. Maybe it was hope that they were human, maybe it was just that I had too big of a heart. Maybe it was trauma. I now had a funeral to attend and my entire family was going to be there. My sister, my brothers, my mom, my dad, and extended family and family friends would all be there. Shit.

We finally arrived at my Grandma's house and the entire family was there. For some of them, it was the first time that I had ever let them near my daughter. My uncle's service was beautiful with Military Honors, but when they sounded the guns, I began to cry even harder. Not only was I sad because my uncle was dead, but I was reminded of my time in the military and I was overwhelmed. I could not let my family know that at all. As I sat there seemingly crying louder than everyone else, my brother Jared put his hand on my shoulder. I knew that he was trying, but I didn't really want him or any of them touching me. I put my hand on his and just tried to be a good sister back. I appreciated his effort. I wanted nothing more than to just be a family again. To do that, I needed to be in denial just as they were, and sometimes that's what would happen.

Before the service had started I had debated on whether or not my daughter, who was about three years old, should see a dead body. I talked to the funeral home director and I talked it over with others and everyone agreed it was a natural part of life and that I should not hide it from her. I explained to my daughter that my uncle died in a car crash. She was a very intelligent little girl. Wise beyond her years with a great vocabulary few would expect to hear out of her young mouth. The viewing room was packed with people crying and hugging each other. I was holding my daughter near the entrance of the crowded room when she announced very loudly, "HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN WEARING HIS SEAT BELT!" It broke the tension in the room and everyone began laughing. I decided at the last minute against having my daughter see his body. The funeral home staff agreed to sit with her in another room so that I could attend the service.

After the service my family decided that since we were all together and dressed better than normal, we should take family pictures. I stood between two of my brothers and we all actually became playful with each other. We took pictures in various groups. I must admit it felt good acting like a normal family and having all of my siblings in one place and everyone was getting along. That day I could feel the tension between Julie and I but we managed to pose for the pictures together. John was especially nice in front of everyone there that day and he wanted to hold my daughter for the pictures. I knew there would be a fight with my family if I did a thing to disrupt this happy time and I knew he would not hurt her or me in front of everyone that he had to pretend to be a good guy in front of, so I allowed it. He was fine with her and I made sure to stand near. He took a liking to her as an uncle should. That was good to see. We all smiled and laughed together for the pictures as if we were a normal family. Given what had happened over the decades, it was sick now that I look back on it. It wasn't just them pretending, I was pretending right along with them. I was that little girl again.

I was getting more and more uncomfortable the more I heard my Grandma's voice and the more I had to see her house. I was getting sadder and sadder inside the more I had to sit and watch my daughter being read a book by one of my sister's kids on the couch my son had previously sat in. My daughter was getting really fussy too. I just wanted to go home. It was a lot to process. If I was to have my family back, I had to pretend that I was ok with everything that ever happened. Then it hit me. If my two kids ever came back into my life, this is not where I wanted them to find me. It was not ok that I had been so abused and it was not ok that I lost them because I was too traumatized to function properly. It was not ok that I was exactly where I never really wanted any of my children to be, too close to my family.

I was doing my best to get along with everyone in my family so there would be no friction, but there was definitely friction. Why couldn't I break away from being Debbie? When would I ever stop living for children that were gone? It had been over a decade since the day that I signed the papers. “Get over it,” but I couldn’t. After the funeral I just tried to push it all away in my mind and continue on.

While living there it was always in my mind that Julie would tell Sir Coward that I was back home and where I lived if she knew. I had no idea if he was in prison or not. I didn’t know his life anymore. I was still concerned that my father would show up at my house while I was at work. My fire fighter boyfriend was in the midst of a divorce. My mom started telling me that my daughter "Was a brat!" She did not say it lightly. She was not a brat. She was only three years old and I didn't want her to tell my child such things. I couldn't breathe in that town. I couldn't just leave the area though, I had a child to take care of and I had a good job. I was so tired of moving. I even had a boyfriend, Gabriel.

I wanted out, but I didn't want to derail how good we were doing. I still had dreams that I would soon lose the opportunity to achieve, due to age, if I didn't start working on them soon. I told Gabriel that I would love to move back to Arizona some day and become a police officer. We decided we would drive out there and in time test for the Sheriff's Department together. It would be a short trip and he could see Arizona and decide if he liked it. The night before we left for the trip, I checked my daughter’s car seat about ten times and even had other people check it. Why was I so worried when I knew that her seat was always in fine? I couldn’t stop myself from checking and re-checking it that night.

The next day we drove for a couple hours and we entered a major city. Suddenly, every car in front of us slammed on their breaks as we traveled in what is known as the "fast" lane. Thankfully, traffic wasn't moving as fast as it could've been. I managed to stop the car in time before hitting the car ahead of me. I instinctively looked in the rear view mirror. What I saw coming in the rear view mirror I felt was surely going to be the death of my daughter who was in her car seat in the back. At the thought of knowing my daughter was about to die, I apparently checked out emotionally on some level right then, according to what I would be told later. What looked like a big rig from the front was coming at us quickly and there was no way he was going to stop in time.

The accident was horrible and it seemed to go on forever. It felt like a hundred different cars slammed into us and the entire time it was happening my daughter was screaming, "MOMMY STOP IT!" over and over again. My little girl thought that I was in charge of the entire world. She had no idea that I had no way of making it stop. I was injured and I could not feel my legs. We ended up all the way across the highway past the slow lane and into the safety lane. When the medics arrived they noticed the EMT stickers on my car and plenty of them ran over to my vehicle. I was not ok. My car was damaged but my airbags had not deployed. To hold me stable to prevent further injury, one of the medics had to reach across my body and he was now in between me and the non-deployed air bag. I heard a fire fighter tell him to get out of there because there was concern that the airbag would suddenly deploy slamming him into me. He hesitated in letting go because I already couldn't feel my legs. I had a head injury as well. He looked me in the eyes and apologized. I knew what he had to do. He said something that I had often said to patients when I was working on the ambulance, "Everything is going to be alright. You're going to be fine."

He had to let go of me so that they could do what they needed to do to prevent my airbag from deploying. Gabriel was already out of the car taking pictures of the scene. He was injured and running on adrenaline. He was a fireman and had been on many car accident scenes. The medic let go of me and I tried to hold as still as possible. I was in a lot of pain. I realized I could not hear my daughter. They finally got me on a stretcher and put me in an ambulance. Gabriel was in the same ambulance. So was my daughter but Gabriel had to convince me that she was there. I thought my daughter had died even though at one point, I was told that I was screaming at the crew to stop trying to chock her head because she was fighting them and I was apparently worried it could have made any injuries she had worse. My head injury and trauma were messing with me. At the hospital I still could not feel my legs and I begged them to let me call my mom. As I was on the phone with my mom she said, "You're going to be alright, there are angels all around you." I was in no mood for her bible talk. I was desperately pleading with the staff to fix my legs.

I was crying when a woman from Pastoral Care walked up to me. She held my hand, and without her knowing a thing about how many cars were involved in the accident and without her knowing what my mom had just said to me, she declared "Do not worry." Then she went on to tell me how many angels had surrounded my car. I finally started feeling my legs again and I didn't realize my head injury was worse than it appeared. They told me that my daughter was alive but terrified. They eventually cleared us all to leave the hospital. We needed to get somewhere and lay down. My car was totaled and we were not in the town that we lived in. We had nothing with us because it was all in the car. The car that we were driving in that day was my new car. I hadn't had it long at all. We had money on us so we took a cab to a hotel. When I woke up the next day I felt like I was dying. With the exception of ruptured ectopic pregnancies, the pain that I was having couldn't have been any worse. My head hurt so badly. My daughter and Gabriel were also in pain, but thankfully not as much. They were troopers. They both did what they were able to do to just hang in there.

I managed to talk to the person from the insurance company. He had told me that my car had stopped perfectly and if we had hit the wall we would've probably died. He told me that since I financed the car and had full insurance, I would not have to worry much about paying off the loan. My car was way beyond repair. I felt like I was beyond repair as well. I called Brad while we were still at the hotel and I told him about the car accident. He wanted to talk to my daughter to prove she was ok because I sounded "different" he said.

Gabriel put my daughter on the phone with Brad, and though she had never heard any of the people that had talked to me about "angels" she said to Brad, "I saw people on top of the car." Brad was in Nevada and we were still married to each other. He understood the situation and he told me to call a car dealership to buy another car so we wouldn't be stuck. He finally seemed to know that I was doing my best. When I called a car dealership and talked to a salesman they said they could work the deal long distance if Brad was willing to get it done that way. Brad was fine with it. The Salesman asked me what kind of car I wanted and I didn't really care. I wanted to get off the phone because I was hurting so bad. It didn't take long and the salesman showed up at the hotel with a beautiful new car. Did Brad really love me after all?

Over time everything got handled and I got into physical therapy and saw a mental health professional as well. My therapy was for nothing but the trauma of the car accident, but some things intermingled, of course. I wasn’t in therapy long and most of it was trying to get me over fears that I now had because of the accident. I couldn't drive through intersections without freaking out, even though the accident didn't happen in an intersection. I was having panic attacks. My speech was still slurring at times. The mental health person told me that I was stuck in "fight or flight" and couldn't come back down, even more than before. I knew that an ambulance was never where I wanted to be again. All of the hard work was for nothing again, but I tried to stay positive still and I kept up the hope that things would turn out as they should, eventually.

As things began to settle down a bit some things started to connect. I read the police report again and I noticed how many cars were written down as being in the accident. It was the same exact number of angels that the woman from Pastoral Care had told me about. It was impossible for her to have known how many cars were involved. The scene was a mess and the report was not out yet. There was a line of cars down the highway. There were cars over here, there, and over there so there was no way for her to have known that information. Gabriel and I were a little freaked out at the coincidence. I decided to ask my daughter about the people she said she had seen on top of the car. I asked her to describe what they looked like and she said "white." I asked her what they were doing on top of the car and she said, "They were talking to me." I calmly asked her to tell me what they had said to her and she said that they told her "Be quiet. Do not be afraid." Was that why I couldn't hear her as I sat in the front seat trying to hold still? I asked her if she spoke back to them and she said "No Mommy, I was quiet."

Now let's get some thing clear. I am in no way shape or form a "Bible Thumper," but listening to my daughter that day and putting it all together started making me want to go back to church. Sometimes I did. Often I did not. There was a church nearby and some people that went to it had helped my daughter and I and they tried to bring us closer to God. They were really wonderful people, and nothing like what I knew to be true about some other churches. When I was little, my mom asked the church to help us get away from my monster father. They did not. My family claims to be "Christians."

What kind of nonsense was this God? Maybe there was a God and his followers were just dangerous? If there was a God why was the ever powerful spirit unwilling to stop ALL of the monsters? Why didn’t he stop them from hurting me and others? I knew I wasn’t worthy of the people in the world, but was I not worthy of God’s protection? Why were there pedophiles? What about all of the traumas? What about losing my kids? If there was a God he surely knew how much I loved my children. What about having to watch the suicide? What about anyone feeling suicidal at all? What about all the priests that paid me to have sex with them at the brothel? What about the man that came into the brothel that told me to call him "daddy" because he wanted to pretend he was raping his child? (trust me, he was hurting before he ever had the chance to get naked.) What about the cops who left me in my family? What about the therapist, the bullies, the beatings, the abuse, the sexual assaults? What about my little girl’s health? What about all of it? What about my prayers when I was little? What about my mom abandoning me all the time? What about my siblings? What about the fact that I was working so hard and the accident just took it all away again? What the hell God? I wanted to believe we were surrounded by angels that day, but I had begun seriously doubting God. I didn't tell my child that though, if she wanted to believe in him, I was ok with that.

Shortly after the accident, Gabriel went back to his wife. I was trying to recover from physical injuries and the most recent trauma, the accident. I also needed to focus as much as I could to keep up with my child. We still needed answers about her health. I was also now in the middle of a lawsuit regarding the car accident. Things settled down and I bought my first house for my daughter and I. It wasn’t great, but it was ours. We were in Arizona. I told Brad that he could come get the car he was still financing for me and I paid his airfare and gave him some extra money too. We were still married but definitely separated. He still had that girl in his life on the side. My daughter was still having health problems but they were starting to change, not necessarily for the better. She was also about to start elementary school. Since she was so bright for her age I asked the school to test her before she entered kindergarten. They tested her and wanted to push her straight to second grade. I refused that idea but I let her skip kindergarten and jump to first grade.

I chose the house that I bought because it was in the school district that allowed her to jump ahead. I knew that she would be bored in Kindergarten. While she was in preschool she didn't really fit in. She would talk to the other kids and she was social, but she was ahead of them and they didn't want to play with her because she said words that they didn't know and she thought in patterns that most didn't at that age. That was very hard on her. I also did not want to be on the other side of town where my other kids seemed to be living. There were times when I accidently saw my other daughter again as I was driving, so I didn't want for us to be on the same side of town. I didn't want to live anywhere else though, this city was my home. It was the only place that I had ever really felt comfortable.

The house I purchased was an older mobile home in a small but decent mobile home park. We got settle in and she started school. Since I had given Brad the other car back, I bought a used vehicle that soon began giving me major issues. I tried buying a cheap car to save money. Big mistake! I thought I was doing everything right. The roof began leaking on the house and the stove had a gas leak issue. I ended up dumping a lot of money into the house, too much money. I decided to quickly sell it and I sold it for much less than I had paid. I used that money to move us into an apartment across the street from her elementary school.

Money was getting tight and I had heard that the state was hiring. I was hired and about to enter the academy. My daughter's health began changing. She was no longer getting sick every month, thankfully, but now it would be a surprise whenever she would get really sick. As bad as it was on me trying to keep us stable not knowing when she would get really sick, it was scary for her because now what she used to know about her health and how to prepare for it, was changing. Now that she was in school full time, she was getting sick sporadically with severe joint pains, rashes, anemia, and fevers that lasted longer. There was no one I was going to trust with my daughter, her health was too complicated. My mom had seen a few of her cycles happen so I trusted that she could handle it. I couldn’t just freeze and do nothing. I needed to provide for us. I was told she didn’t qualify for disability without a diagnosis no matter how often she would become ill or suffer in pain. The fact that she was doing so well in school despite it all didn’t help according to what I was told regarding applying for benefits for her. I wasn’t just going to ask her to stop doing well in school, that would be wrong and it wouldn’t be true to who she was. She was fine in between the illnesses so nobody really was listening when I told them how much we were struggling. Trying to keep a job with her illnesses and my own trauma wasn’t working so well. When I finally did apply for disability benefits for her later, they sent her to a doctor on a day when she was in between illnesses and he refused to look at all of her medical records saying, “That’s not my job.” When she tried to explain her pain to him, he rushed her through it. She was, of course, denied. I had to just keep going.

Like I had previously stated, when I was entering the academy, I called my mom and asked her if she was willing to come stay long enough for me to just get through the academy. She was living with my dad out of state. I told her I would pay the rent and for whatever she needed. She agreed to come and I rented a car and went and picked her up. She was only supposed to stay until I could find more suitable childcare for when my daughter wasn’t at school and I still had to work. My employer helped me switch shifts to try to make this happen. My mom stayed a lot longer than expected, to my surprise. I did as I said I would in respect to my mom, I paid for everything. I supported three of us (and at one point four of us who were all traumatized) plus two cats, on my own. We were even in one spot long enough to know what stable started to feel like. It was a good feeling.

I had made a comfortable life for all of us. As I’ve stated, I was always trying to prepare for the day that I could reunite with my children. I would have a great job to help them if they needed help, I’d be emotionally ready and prepared for their return. I’d show them that I loved them. Well, three of those things were certain at the reunion of the first child, I had a good job, I could help, and I loved them. Someone turned 18 and that reunion took place. I will not go into any of those details here but I will say none of us were emotionally or psychologically ready for the reunion even if we thought we were. Trauma had taken its toll in every direction. For the love of my children, that’s all I will disclose about the reunion here.

Before the reunion and while I was still in the recruitment process for the state, I met a man that worked there. He hinted to me that he could make or break the recruitment process for me. Being the unhealthy traumatized person that I still was and knowing one of my children and I could soon reunite, I didn't turn him in. If I had turned him in, would I have gotten the job? He’d later tell me that I would not have gotten the job without his help. He said it in a joking manner but he often said things that he meant in a light way. I just don't know. I worked hard in the academy and continued on with him. He’d show up at the academy and pretend he wasn’t there to see me but he made sure I knew why he was really there. I began to fall for him. Stupid me. He said he was falling in love with me and vice versa. It went on from there. It was intense. With pressure and concern from another officer, I eventually came forward to the Warden about it. The Warden seemed confused as to why I was telling him. I ran into this man yesterday after not seeing him in years. I was at the local animal society with my ex-husband Donovan, and bam, there he was standing right in front of me. I froze and just stared at him, he stared right back at me. The loud room seemed to go completely silent. I was really confused as to whether or not I should just punch him, but he soon reached out for a hug and I obliged. We exchanged phone numbers and we hugged again, the situation caught me completely off guard. He said, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” I remembered those days of deeply caring about him and working for the prison system. I felt that chaotic relationship all over again.

I ended up transferring units on the same complex, as if that would do a bit of good. Eventually, between my affair with him, the reunion, my daughter’s health, flashbacks, a major emergency surgery that I needed to remove a tumor, a situation where a coworker was taken hostage, and some other harassment I was receiving while working at the prison, I ended up quitting when the stress became too much.

I was called by a man who worked for the state, and he wanted to know what was wrong as if I hadn’t been telling my supervisors everything already. I kept proof of what was happening. I told him everything and he told me that the state wanted me back and that they had heard good things about my service. I had received praise stating what a good job I was doing at work. He asked me if I wanted to transfer to another city. I really did not want to, but a friend I had met in the academy and his wife were living in that city and they were like family to me. My mom went back to my dad. My dad and John were annoyed with me for getting back into any type of law enforcement. My brother John told me a whole bunch of wonderful things about myself and that he hoped I would die before he got to me.

With the reunion that happened and a few things that I didn't know, my daughter began showing signs of stress. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that grandma was not nice to her and that she was saying mean things. I had noticed that my mom was picking fights with me over everything as well. I was a little relieved when my mom abruptly abandoned us that time. With my mom now gone, I needed to have someone help me with my daughter that I could trust if I was going to be able to work. I accepted the position in the other city and went to live with my friends.

Not long after beginning at my new unit, I received a call from my one of Julie’s children. She told me that she had gotten a strange phone call. A man had called her and told her that he was my husband and that he needed to find me. Oh my God, there’s just no way in hell he’s back. She did not have to tell me how that dick-bag got her phone number. I knew exactly who would do that to try to hurt me. Sir Coward was trying to reach me. Why was he calling me over 15 years later? I swore on my own life that if that coward every tried to mess with me or my kids again, it was on!

I stepped outside and lit a cigarette and dialed his number. He answered and I said things to the effect of, "What the fuck do you want little coward?" He did not expect that from me. Was he expecting it to be Little Debbie on the other end of the line? Probably. I had been through too much before him and too much because of him. I was just out of the first reunion with one of my kids when this little coward showed back up. I wasn't playing with him. I needed to make my point right then. I continued, "Don't fuck with my family or you're going to end up real hurt. Don't call my family ever again and so help me God if you ever try to get near me or my kids, I will make sure you never have the chance to again!" I didn't stop there, "You do realize I’ve had law enforcement training since you were around, don’t you?" He said he didn't know that. "I am not afraid to protect me or my family from your pathetic ass!" He was silent for a moment and then said, "Are we still married?" Shocked, I asked him how he wasn't able to know if we were still married or not. He only had to go to the courthouse to find out that I had long ago divorced him. He hadn't responded to it so it went through without him. It took me years to figure out how to get divorced. "I was in prison," he replied. "Good!" I was done talking to that little puke so I reminded him again that he better not ever come around or contact me again.

I put up a good show on the phone and made myself clear, but I was triggered and part of me went right back to those days with him. Part of me went right back into the trauma about my kids. I hate that mother fucker more than any other human being on this planet and I don't feel one damn bit guilty that I do. There is no place in my heart for any sadness for him. None. If he died I would love to shit on his grave. I don't give a damn if anyone is upset that I would say that. Nothing is as bad as what he did to me and my children. What I didn't tell before in this book was what else Sir Coward did to my son. I have tried to type it here, but it's too much for me to handle. It was not molestation, but it was violent and cowardly. I am so tempted to name him in this book, but I am not the monster that he is. I don't want him physically hurt. He knows exactly what a useless piece of filthy coward flesh he is. He has to live with that knowledge forever. Let him. If any attorney or agency ever figures out whom I am talking about, (and some might,) and if they ever need a witness to testify about his violent past, I would do it in a heartbeat. That offer stands forever!

After his phone call I was not ok. Just hearing his voice again sent me off the deep end. I was reliving nightmares. Sir Coward was back and though I laid into him, at the time I didn't know if he was gone for good. Obviously the person that gave him Julie's child's phone number was banned from getting mine so he had to go through my sister's kid to get to me. Would my sister's kid be strong enough not to give out my info next time as well? Would he hurt my sister's child to get the info? Did he already have it? What was he in prison for? Who does he know now? Where is he living? Is he talking to other people in my family? Is he going to show up behind me again while I drive down the road? It was enough to drive someone completely insane if they thought about it a lot, which I did.

I tried to just stay focused, but I was becoming even more hyper alert of my surroundings. I even taught my daughter a few more things just in case a "stranger" tried to kidnap her. If that wasn't more than I could handle, a bit of the harassment from my old unit had made its way up to my new one. Big system, small community. My daughter was still sick at times and her school teacher was actually mad that she was a gifted white child and told her so. She made my daughter read books well beneath her reading level. Was this teacher really bullying my child? Were my child and I ever going to catch a break? I went to the school after work one day and I handled the teacher and when I was done some members of the school’s staff were standing behind me clapping at my "Don’t you ever treat my child that way" speech. They didn't like her either. I was in my uniform, and I simply no longer cared about maintaining my composure. I was sick of everything including myself. Nobody was going to bully my child.

The couple we were living with were older than me and I didn't just think of them as friends, but as family. The husband was now telling me that he loved me even though we had never even kissed or done anything else to head in that direction. We were just really great friends. That did not end well and started an entirely new situation that I was unprepared to deal with and that I handled completely wrong. The dynamics of that situation would eventually be made worse by an unexpected and emotionally charged second reunion. (Again, I will not discuss the reunion details here. Again, no one was ready and no one was healed enough to reunite no matter how badly anyone wanted it.)

Before the reunion, but while still having to manage all of the other stressors, I ended up having a one night stand with a supervisor from work. It was all starting again. I just could not break free from the traumas or men. I couldn't get away from myself. Though I knew clearly what I did or did not want in my life, I did not always respond as if I did. I didn't really know why, other than I had been through so much. I was well into what I can only imagine was depression mixed with intense anxiety. I had Sir Coward’s reappearance and not long after that, a major unexpected reunion with someone that was in my life back when I knew Sir Coward. What a coincidence. What timing. I did my best, but it was far from good enough according to what I've repeatedly been told. I was not supposed to be affected by anything. I was just supposed to take it all. Mostly, but not always, I did.

On the outside I was acting confident, but on the inside I was still Debbie. It was well over thirty years since I was first raped by my father. The unhealed major traumas that his actions led me right in to, had begun to return to my life. Literally. I had to pretend to be tough and strong, my little daughter was counting on me. I was trying to keep my daughter and I from going under while trying to emotionally deal with everything that was taking place. It did not always go well and what I thought would be good decisions turned into more nightmares. I did my best to secure my daughter from any fall out. More often than not, I was able to. I was really good at the recovery and moving us on. I was really good at pretending I wasn't exhausted and I was really good at convincing her that we were alright. She had been affected by the abrupt second reunion more than the first one because of the dynamics at play with that reunion. Since she did not need to know all of the other details about what was happening, I tried to ignore the details and just console and focus on her. I was trying so hard to not let the traumas of my past cause her damage. I mean that on several levels.

With everything going on with the couple that I had known, the reunion, her teacher, and chaos at my job, we eventually ended back up at Brad's. Brad and I were still married. It was enough to just deal with Brad and his negative comments towards my child and I all of the time, but while there I was still trying to emotionally deal with what all had recently taken place. While at Brad's I would end up meeting a man online who was a police detective in the town that I considered home, the very same town that the reunion had just taken place in. The same town where I signed the papers and the same town that Levi committed suicide in. This detective's name was Howard. He was very thin and tall. He had tattoos and jet black hair. We hit it off and talked often online. I was really depressed though and doing my best not to be, but he took notice and even took it upon himself to message a friend of mine to see if I was alright. That bothered she and I but I ended up letting it slide figuring it was nice to have someone care. He came up to visit and I ended up finally filing for divorce from Brad. In Nevada you can file in any county so I picked a small county so that it would be processed faster. There wouldn't be much back log. Even though Brad and I were not together in a loving way, and even though he had made it clear before that he did not want to try again, he was mad about my filing for divorce.

I couldn't figure that out and when he came to the office to sign the divorce papers he said to me angrily and almost in tears, "You should've waited just a bit longer." As if to hint to me that he had been starting to come around to the idea of getting back together. Seriously? Now even more guessing games? More what if? Why didn't he just tell me how he was feeling? Why this game at the signing of our divorce papers? Too late. I had already tried several times. I was so confused. I left Brad's house with the detective to move back to our home town. I got my own apartment because I didn't want to just move my daughter into his home. I was trying to go slower and make things correct in our lives.

I saw his house and it was a beautiful home on the outside, but filthy on the inside. He had several children, and he too was going through a divorce. Remember how I was having such serious doubts about God? This is where it got even worse. Since he was active in his church and also a Domestic Violence Detective, I didn't see all of the bright red flags and felt that I was safe in dating him. Any concern that I had, he would come up with an excuse for. He was a Domestic Violence Detective so I listened as he explained those things away. He had agreed to the fact that I wanted my own apartment so that things could progress at least a bit more slowly than they had in the past in my former relationships. So that had also made me feel better about the relationship. His family was really wonderful as well even though I could see a few red flags with them I ignored them because his family seemed much healthier than mine. They had to have been doing something right. Reunion issues were still happening and my daughter's health issues were as well, but we were alright. I just had to keep being stronger than I felt.

With everything going on I took to never shutting off my cell phone, but I was getting worn down from everything so one night, I shut my phone off. I snuggled up with my daughter and we slept and slept and slept. I woke up feeling more rested and I turned on my phone. There were multiple voicemails from my father. "Your mother is in the hospital, she's in a coma." According to him, she had woken up unable to breathe. According to him, she woke him up waving her cell phone in his face because she had dialed 911 on it and couldn't speak.

My mom and I had previously discussed what I should do if something happened to her. I was in charge of her medical health if anything ever happened and I knew that she did not want my father near her. She was in the southern state in a coma in the hospital and he was the one acting on her behalf even though they were now divorced. For that reason and reasons of the heart, I needed to hurry up and get to my mom's bedside. School was out for the summer so I did not have to worry about that for my daughter, I called Howard and asked him for the financial help I needed to get to my mom. Howard helped me with the money to rush to my mother's bedside.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I was extremely stressed as I left Arizona to go be with my mom, and reunion issues got even worse. When we finally arrived at the hospital, and just as I was entering my mother's room, my phone rang. I was seeing for the first time, my mother's comatose state. She was hooked up to medical equipment and it was more than I could handle seeing. I stopped in my tracks and I answered my cell phone right as I was staring at my mother, "Hello?" A voice on the other end of the line announces, "Sierra, your divorce is finalized."

I tried keeping my daughter at the hospital with me, but that wasn't right. The weather outside was horrible and she needed to just be somewhere else. I had gotten in touch with an old friend that lived in town and asked her if my daughter and I could stay with her. She was a tremendous blessing to us at that point and I was and always will be thankful for the way she put herself out to help me during this time. I wasn’t always at her house because I was at the hospital trying to handle everything with my mother. I was constantly crying. Whenever my old friend wasn't working, she would watch my daughter for me so that I could be at the hospital with my mom. She was such a blessing to us at that time.

Like I have previous stated, my mom had already signed documents making me in charge of medical decisions. My dad was pissed that I was there. "There is no reason for you to be here!" Really. She had told me multiple times that if something ever happened to her that she did not want him near her. With his violent history of death foreplay scenarios, she did not want him around her body. I had to stay near her. I had the power to legally remove him from the room, but I did not do so because he looked distressed and also because my siblings who were out of state were still in denial to the fact that he had never changed. I did not want a family dispute while my mother was so sick.

I secretly asked the hospital staff to check my mother for any signs that my father caused her hospitalization. They just looked at me confused no matter what I told them about him. I was so exhausted. I rarely fell asleep the entire time I was there. I was crying all the time and reunion issues were not helping. I was losing my mom forever and I could already feel the pain of it. I told the doctor to please lower the medication he was giving her to keep her in a medically induced coma. While she was in the hospital she had caught more infections so I had to start deciding what to do. Where I was once being told she would probably pull through if we did this or this, she was now close to dying and I needed to know if she wanted to keep fighting. I wanted to do right by my mother's wishes. I felt horrible being the one that had to play God with her life. There was also plenty of other chaos that I was trying to handle. Losing my mother was more than enough to deal with at the time.

She wasn't a “vegetable” like she had always discussed she would be when I was to make medical decisions. She was on a breathing machine and in a medically induced coma. She now had more to fight off and I needed to know what to do. I did not want to make a decision for her without knowing what she wanted, even though I already pretty much knew. They pulled her out of the coma just enough for me to ask her, "Momma, do you want to keep fighting?" She nodded yes. I asked her if she wanted my dad there and she tried desperately to pull out her breathing tube to talk to me, but she was still very much in need of it. I pulled her hand back down and they gave her more medicine and she was back inside the medically induced coma. If she had removed that tube she might have died. I did not need to know what she might have told me. I just needed her alive. I needed my mother to make it through and fight back. Things would be alright if she just pulled through. "Mom, just make it through. We need you!" "Please mom, please," I'd cry at her bedside while holding her hand. I did as she wished and told them to keep trying to save her.

During the time that I was there I routinely and dutifully kept in touch with each of my siblings. They did not seem to like that I was in charge and they would often call my dad instead of me for updates. Julie was to be second in charge of her medical decisions if I could not make them for any reason so I really tried to include her in the decisions that I was making. I did not have to do that, and I knew (and my mom knew) that if she had been in charge ahead of me, I wouldn't have been consulted at all. I did not want to do that to Julie even if Julie would've done it to me. Julie was now living out of state and no longer responsible for her children so I asked her if she was going to leave the state she was living in to come help me with our mom. I explained clearly that our mom was taking a turn for the worse. I let all of them know that. Julie refused to come. I had heard rumor that if she returned to the state she would be arrested. It didn’t help me knowing that. This was our mother dying.

It frustrated me that after all my mother had tried to do to raise us during her abuse and while trying to survive the effects of trauma, my siblings had excuses for not coming to see her while she was in the hospital. My mother hadn't come and seen me when I almost died. She abandoned me a ton of times and left me to fend alone in multiple ways growing up and as an adult. I was still at her bedside. Of my sibling group I was the only single parent with a child full time in the house, but I was there at her side. I was really upset with my siblings, but I tried to stay calm. I kept them informed even if they had to double check everything with my dad. My dad showed up just about every single day but only for about 5 minutes or less. If he loved her, why wasn't he staying at her side? I would've let him stay if his heart had called him to do it. Every time he showed up he was on edge. I really had my suspicions, but I could not prove a thing and any time that I tried to explain to the staff that my mother was an abused woman and that my father had a violent history of strangulation type sexual activities, they simply looked at me like I was exaggerating because when he would show up at the hospital he talked really sweet to them. Over time, he mostly kept avoiding eye contact with me. I finally demanded that the staff stop giving him information. He would have to look me in the eyes if he wanted to know how she was doing.

I was also in touch with my mom's best friend Violet, the one who never seemed to want my mom to be in my life. There was no way I wasn't going to include my mother's closest friend. During these calls she was patient and loving. She knew how close my mother and I really were and she knew that because of my family, I was completely alone dealing with everything. The time came too soon when the doctors told me that the infections were overwhelming her body, I had to decide what to do. My two decisions were: Sending her to a home where she would be permanently in an induced coma and on tubes and she would probably never wake up or, I had to let my mom die. I was both honored and horrified that I was left to make this decision. I had to be the one to decide that my mother had to die, the woman that I had spent my entire life trying to save.

I called every one of my siblings and told them it was time. It was heartbreaking to hear the pain as their voices cracked. They were a thousand miles from her bedside, but I had come up with an idea on how they could say goodbye to her in a dignified way. I called each of them separately and explained that I would put my cell phone on speaker and then I would put it next to her ear. I explained that if they waited 10 seconds before talking, I would be out of the room and they could say goodbye to her privately. I told them to simply hang up when they were done so that they did not have to wait for me to re-enter her room to hang up the phone. I would wait awhile outside the room and then I would go back into her room to call the next sibling and tell them to do the same thing. I also did this for her friends. As mad as I was at my siblings, there was no way I wouldn't let them say goodbye to our mother. I told each of them I had to let her go soon and that if they wanted to say goodbye in person they needed to hurry up and come down. Not one of my siblings showed up at her side while she was still alive.

The day that my mom went to the Heaven she had always dreamt of, I told my sister's children that if they wanted to be in the room holding her hand with us, they could. I understood that sometimes it's very hard to believe someone is gone if you never had the chance to say goodbye. I felt that way after Levi committed suicide. I left the decision open to anyone who wanted to be there, they could stay if they wanted to. My mom's best friend Violet was there and Howard showed up too. Not everyone who came to hold her hand managed to stay in the room. Hearts were shattering.

I stayed, my father stayed, my mom's friend, stayed. I had called in my mom's church pastor to pray over her, and he was there. My boyfriend Howard was holding me up as all of the tubes and most of the medications were removed from my mom. I had decided that I wanted her unconscious so that she would not feel any pain. It was explained to me that once they removed the tube it would be like drowning. Oh my God, my mother had to die drowning, I thought to myself. My father used to try to drown her in the tub so that he could masturbate. I was horrified at the thought. Whenever doctors would try to do tests on her throughout her life, things that required her to wear a mask or have anything around her neck, she would panic because of what my father had put her through. It was always a big deal for her when she had to have tests ran like that. I did not want for her to be alert so I asked them to keep her drugged so that she wouldn't think my father was drowning her. This is so unbelievably hard to type.

As we all stood around her I held onto her hand and Violet held onto her other hand. The room was horribly silent. I whispered through tears, "I love you, Momma." A single tear rolled from her eye down across her cheek and I knew that she had heard me. I had heard that hearing was the last sense to go. One of her very Christian friends that lived back in Illinois had told me over the phone, that when it was time for someone to die, that they would sometimes try to hang on for their loved ones. She advised me to tell her that it was ok to let go if I saw her struggling to go with God. When I saw the tear fall down her face I could not hold in the gasp of tears that burst from deep inside of me. It was loud and it made my mom gasp for air as if to wake up to help me. I wanted to scream for her not to leave me, but I knew that if I did, she would try to hang on and that she would suffer. I used every ounce of strength that I had left to say, "I'm sorry, Momma, I'm ok. It's time. Jesus is waiting for you." Her body relaxed and she let go.

Everyone quickly left the room, and Howard caught me as I began to fall to the floor. I tried to compose myself as the nurse entered the room to deal with the machines. I was disturbed by how cold the nurse was to just walk right in so quickly and do what she was doing with no regard for what had just happened. She may have been used to patients dying but I had never watched my own mother actually die before. Without hesitation I asked her if I could be the one to pull the sheet over my mother's head and she said that was ok. I didn't want this woman touching my mom. I went to hold my mom's hand one more time but she was no longer as warm as she had always been alive and I needed to immediately leave the room.

Howard was outside talking with everyone as I entered the hallway outside of the unit. I collapsed onto the floor. It was over. My momma had left me forever. My father shook his head as he walked away. Violet said she would wait for me when I was ready to come downstairs to meet up with her. We now had to go to the funeral home to make the arrangements. Howard sat down next to me as every part of my body shook. I would never be able to save my mom. Her life ended the way she always was afraid it would. Drowning, and I had let my father be there for it because I was still too unhealed, and my heart and mind were too open, to take a stand. Howard would later tell me, “I know you told me so many bad things about your father, but he really seems like a great person to me.” Great. Just great, Mr. Domestic Violence Detective.

My daughter was at my friend's house so when my mom's friend and I met up downstairs I told her that I needed to see my daughter before we did anything else. I didn't have the house key on me so I knocked on the door. My friend already knew that my mom was dying that day but I had not told my daughter. My daughter heard my voice and ran and opened the door. She looked up at me as sweet and as softly as she could and before I could tell her that her grandma had gone to heaven, she said, "I know, Mommy." I thought my friend had told her without my permission but she swears she did not. She says my daughter just seemed to know. Maybe she did. It just did not matter and I did not raise any fuss about it.

My mom's friend Violet took my daughter and I to get something to eat at my mom's favorite restaurant. While there I spoke on the phone with each of my siblings and asked them to help me come up with the money to cremate her body. That's what she had told me she wanted. I was to place her into the ocean she loved. Every single sibling got mad and said they deserved to say goodbye at an actual viewing. That they wanted for her to have a memorial service. My sister said there was no way she would let our mom be cremated. I was not going to go against my mother's wishes again. I knew exactly what she wanted. I just need for them to pitch in to help, and it would also be cheaper. It was her wish. They refused and swore they had no money. Not one single dime to help with the cost. Yet they were still demanding a viewing at the funeral home.

Violet told me that she knew what they were like from knowing my mom for so long. She told me that she and her husband would pay for anything that I needed to get my mother to her final resting place without any family chaos. She even made certain that my daughter and I had something appropriate to wear for the service. I was so grateful. I told my siblings that Violet would pay for the service that they were demanding and refused to help pay for. They seemed to have no problem with it.

Violet and I went to the funeral home and made the arrangements. The room my mother would be in where we could hold a service for her was beautiful and it had stained glass windows and dark Spanish tiles. The pews were just as beautiful. She and I chose a rental casket to lay her in for the service and we picked out memorial cards and chose what they would say. I asked to have a photo put on them and they said that was ok to do. The day of the service we discovered that the memorial cards that we had picked out were wrong. Her photo was on them, the message on them was correct, but the image we chose for the back was not correct. I was a little sad about that but Violet told me my mom probably chose it herself and to just let it go. I smiled at the thought of my mom making that decision and it made the cards all the more special.

The funeral home said that I could choose music to be played for her so I asked Howard to get me the song, Angel by Sarah McLachlan. Many bouquets of flowers began to arrive at the funeral home. There were flowers from Shane, Brad, and many other people that I knew. There were flowers from just about every person that knew how much I loved and protected my mom. There were flowers from many different states and even flowers from my brother's friends. It was a beautiful sight to see so many amazing flowers against those stained glass windows and dark pews. My mom would've been very happy if she could have seen that room. It was the most beautiful service that I had ever gone to.

My brothers arrived from out of state with their children, mostly. My daughter was able to get to know some of her cousins for a moment. It was precious to see each of them dressed up and laughing outside and playing in their dresses together. They danced as if they were doing the bunny hop all in a line. They sang, they giggled, and my daughter and one of the littlest of my brother's children walked over to a statue of Jesus and knelt down together to pray. If my mom was able to see any of this, she was at peace.

Julie did not show up at all. My mom's personal friends from church arrived and my friend who had been watching my daughter for me was there as well. She brought along another friend that I was getting to know as well. I was thankful for their support. The service was plenty full and everyone was able to get up and speak if they wanted to. I chose to speak, and I barely touched on her life of abuse, but it was clear to all who knew the truth, I was making a point with what I had said. I closed my time at the microphone with an obviously broken heart, "Momma, you were there for my first breath, and I was there for your last." Other people spoke for a moment as well and one small child gave an amazing speech that I will never forget. It was the sweetest thing that could've happened at that moment. I played the song I had asked Howard to bring and it brought everyone more tears. It was the perfect song to memorialize her life with and as the song was playing, the only other sounds were tears falling.

After I played that song, I also made sure that Canon in D was played as well. She loved to play that on the piano. She had taught herself to play by ear when she was very young. It was her passion. Pianos, keyboards, puzzles, and cats were her passion. Before my mom had died, while her heart was still beating, I sat with her and my daughter in the room. It was before I knew she was certainly going to die. I asked my daughter what we want for Grandma to send us and she said, "Kitties and clouds." While my mom laid there in a medically induced coma I made a secret promise to her. I also told her, "If you die, prove to me and my daughter that there is a Heaven. Send us puffy white clouds shaped like kitties and yellow butterflies all year long." There must be a heaven. After her service everyone stood around telling stories about my mom and how much they loved her. My dad said to my brothers and I, "I don't care if you guys want to hate me, but don't hate your mother, she was a good woman." My brother's all hugged him. I just stood there watching it all take place.

I asked some of the people there, some family some not, to let me take a picture with them doing the peace sign. My mom was a wannabe hippie in disguise. They were happy to and some little cutie even drew a picture of a peace sign. As I went to put items into the casket that I wanted cremated with my mother, I saw something beautiful. I grabbed my mom's best friend Violet and we watched together as my daughter and a couple of my brother's young children caressed my mom's face, held her hands, and sang songs to her. They were not afraid of her dead body. That was their grandmother and they loved her. The entire service had been an amazing tribute to her. It could not have been better. After leaving her service it all became an entirely different story. I said goodbye to everyone that came and discussed with my siblings how we would place her ashes into the ocean, and where and when.

Howard approached me and said that my mother’s friend Violet was bad mouthing me to him behind my back. What? Why? “I don’t know, maybe she doesn’t want you to be with me?” Later she would send us a fairly large check as an engagement gift, but she was still bad mouthing me? Just like she used to do with my mother. What a confusing woman. I was also confused because on the phone with me after my mother passed, she was often nice. We’d have long conversations. Later, I would let her know that I was leaving Howard and why, and she said to me, “He’s the best man for you. He’s a cop, he’s perfect.” As if I was supposed to take it. This woman that knew all about domestic violence was telling me that I was wrong for leaving him simply because he was a cop. That gave me a bit of doubt in myself because though I knew he was not safe to be around, this woman was telling me there was no way he could be at fault because he was a cop. Not this shit again.

After my mother’s service, more and more I was feeling as if I was just in a robotic state of mind. I was giving hugs to people who I did not want to hug and acting as if everything was fine. I felt alone while trying to please everyone else and hold everyone else together. What I really wanted to do was to scream at my siblings and my father. I wanted to just grab my child and get us the hell out of there. I didn't do that though, I dutifully gave hugs even though seeing my father so much lately made me not even want to be touched. I listened to stories about my mom and tried to pretend I was stronger than I actually was. I was about to erupt, and then I did.

While walking out to my car to leave, Howard didn't ask me for a hug. He did not ask if I was alright. He heatedly said, "You gave everyone else a hug! Why didn't you give me one?" He had a hissy fit right there in the parking lot minutes after I walked away from my mother lying in a rented casket. I was speechless and livid! Howard continued talking from the passenger seat as I backed the car out and then headed down the road. In what I can only describe as the fit of a two year old he would not back off saying things in a whiny voice like, "If you loved me, you would've hugged me" and "I guess I'm not as important as your family." When he would not relent I was overcome by an intense level of anger and I slammed on the brakes right in the middle of an intersection. I looked over at him and I said, "It's over between us. Go back home." His response? "Oh I see how it goes, your family is more important than I am to you." What the hell. This person that I was planning to marry knew what my childhood had been like and he knew all about my feelings and troubles regarding my family, yet he didn't seem to know me at all, and I was starting to see his true colors.

My old police friend had warned me about Howard when he found out that I was dating him. He told me in no uncertain terms not to get involved with Howard and that Howard had an abusive history that was allegedly known throughout the department. I thought my friend was over-exaggerating and maybe a little jealous of my relationship with Howard. Now I was beginning to see that he was correct, but I still wanted to believe it wasn't all that bad. I mean how could he have an abusive history? He was a Domestic Violence Detective! Surely the department would've fired him long ago if he had anything like that. Right? Surely he would not be a detective at the bare minimum. Right? Did I really walk right into another abusive relationship? Indeed I did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I found papers that Howard had when I ended up back at his house after I had broken up with him. Going back near him might have been stupid, but had I have not gone back and found those papers, who knows what might have happened to me. It's a double edged sword. I wish I had the strength at the time to get my daughter and I stable back then, but I did not, and I ended up returning to Howard's house. I tricked myself into believing that since he was the one holding me up when my mom died, he couldn't be as bad as I knew that he was. I want to say "Big Mistake Sierra," but I can't, because I was vulnerable to him deep inside myself, and I need to forgive myself for that. I was an unhealed survivor and he was regarded as a hero in his profession. (but only by title.) I also can't say it because had I of not found the papers, shit could've become even worse.

The papers were further proof that I was right in leaving him the first time. I went to Internal Affairs because the papers showed Howard was indeed running my name illegally through police databases. There was concern, but not too much at first, because the dates were from about the time when we first met. He was allegedly just checking me out through the police computers as we began dating. When I was finally told how many times Howard had really run my name through the databases, I was floored. It was a lot and according to what I was told, long after we began dating! Didn't the department have some way of knowing when one of their officers was running someone's name so much? I heard that they did, but I am not certain. After being told how many times he had actually run my name I was even more afraid and angry. Disturbing! I asked the attorney, "Why are you only charging him with six felonies?" He responded, "Don't tell me how to do my job!" Well, alright then tough guy, I'll just write about it here. He had apparently run my name so many times that his indictment was swift. Internal Affairs called me and told me that his indictment was one of the fastest they had ever seen. They had solid proof. So why not charge him with more?

They charged him with computer tampering. I don't know, maybe they were protecting my identity or maybe there was no stalking law on the books then. Maybe it was the easiest way to prevent him from still being a cop, he was obviously troubled. I was still disgusted that he wasn't being charged with every single one of the times that I was told he ran my info. It wasn't only my name that he was running. I also knew that Howard had a handheld device with software on it, given to him by the department that he could use in private to do searches. He told me that the department could not keep track of who he searched on that, and I do not know if that's true, but I was really worried about him or his friend having access to it as things unfolded. I had told Internal Affairs that he had shown the handheld device to me. It was frustrating that he wasn't charged with every one of them. Now, I don't recall the names, but I do recall spending election night at one of Howard's friend's houses with him. We all had a good time. That person, I do believe worked at the office of, or possibly was a government attorney.

When I had first gone to internal affairs, I wanted for them to get him anger management or something of that nature, but when I found out how many times he had actually ran my name, I wanted him charged with all of them, but they only chose six. The actual amount of times that they told me he ran my name was incredibly disturbing.

Victim's services kept in touch with me and let me know that reporters would likely be all over the court house whenever he had to go to court. I opted not to go because I was out of state and also because I did not want to see his face. Why was I out of state? Because finding out that the person I should've been able to trust the most in this world, a Domestic Violence Detective, was actually a very creepy person, triggered me badly. Knowing who his close powerful friend was didn't help. For my own safety, and that of my child, I won't say who his powerful friend is here.

After going to Internal Affairs, I filed a protective order on Howard and an Injunction Against Harassment on his friend, but I also knew that not leaving the state meant that I would be in the same town with these two and many of their friends. I quickly left the state and I did not go to court to continue the injunction against his friend. I was told that his friend did not get into any trouble despite him running my name for Howard without a legal reason to do so. The friend allegedly stated that when Howard asked him to run my name through his more powerful database, he had not met me yet and thought he was helping Howard with a case. Fine. Whatever, but I think that if I was in the powerful position that his friend was in, I would've probably checked out the case before just blindly running information for the likes of Howard. It was also said to me, that the powerful database that the friend used was for the public and that anyone could use it as he did, except on the search documents it said "Law Enforcement" and not “public.” If it was a public database, Howard could've used it himself, why did he have to ask the friend to do so? Just a question. It’s not as if Howard didn’t know how to run my name, he obviously did it plenty of times in his own databases.

I will also note that even though the names of these individuals are not included here, their names and all pertaining documents are now absolutely in other hands. If anything should ever happen to me, all of these individuals names. (and more,) are known. I also want for everyone reading this book to know that I would NEVER hurt myself and even if something looks like an “accident,” all will be dealt with. I have information in plenty of hands now. There will be no law enforcement conflict of interest if anything happens to me. Now let’s get back to the story, shall we?

I was too damn tired and broke to fight anything that was taking place. A notch stuck in my brain to be very cautious in trusting any person in law enforcement ever again. I still had my other police friend though, and we were talking quite a bit during this time, and according to what I read regarding the Internal Affairs investigation, I don't think a certain individual involved in the case realized that fact. I hope that their laughter that I read about made them feel better. Ethics much?

Even though Howard could've allegedly been charged with more than the multiple computer tampering felonies he was actually charged with, he was able to quit before his termination date because they let him know when that date would be. He was also able to plea down so far that he was pretty much free. He was free to walk the streets. He was free. Justice denied. I know for a fact that he was telling everyone it was my fault, he blamed me for his firing and legal troubles. He took no responsibility for it in my regard. None. Such a good Christian! I also found out that he did in fact have another restraining order put against him from another person he was in relationship with before I ever had to get one on him. My other police friend had been right about Howard after all.

Amongst the papers that I had found that prompted me to go to Internal Affairs were other papers regarding another individual. They included a typed log with hand written notes about another person's social media friend list. He would go and check her list and then note who was still on it and who wasn't on it, seemingly obsessively. It was disturbing and before I went to Internal Affairs, I asked him, why he was doing that to her. He basically said that it was because he felt that she was a liar and he wanted to shove it in her face if her friend list didn't always match what she had told him. This was a love interest of his. Nice. No red flags there!

I didn't just hand over the papers for our safety. I went to Internal Affairs very concerned for that woman's safety as well. I hesitated at first, my child and I certainly didn't need more trouble, but I knew that I needed to go and just turn the papers over. I was also given other information regarding his time with the department. Why was he still allowed to be a cop? Well, he wasn’t anymore, but he and others did manage to get into my head and set me on a journey of further fear. I knew that he had a horrible temper. Those holes in the walls of his house were there for a reason. I had seen his temper and hissy baby fits plenty! I started thinking about all of the red flags I had missed or ignored. All of my prior traumas like Sir Coward and my family were now mixed with the fear of being stalked by a cop. The domestic violence agencies would say things like, "Get a restraining order where you’re now living," or "Don't get another restraining order because then he will find you." “Men like him don’t stop.” I stayed in this more fearful state for many years, and with some domestic violence shelter that my child and I ended up in, it became more and more clear that we were on our own, and that this cop’s actions also took a toll on my child's psyche as well.

My daughter was now old enough to know what was going on in and around her life, and she had also seen his temper. I made a horrible mistake getting involved with him no matter how great of a guy he seemed to be. Wouldn't a Domestic Violence Detective know better? Wouldn't he have seen an abused woman like me coming from a mile away? I was told that he would have. I felt stupid, naive, and gullible. Trust for cops was pretty much completely shattered even though I had previously wanted to become one. Thank God that I never had the chance to really become a cop. I’d have to work with people like him and others I had already experienced. Maybe God was watching over me after all. Nah, he just had one of his Christian followers entering me into databases, so no, I wasn't ready to believe that was the case just yet. While trying to get us to some feeling of safety, I chose to move us out of state. We were settling into our new place as the case against Howard continued. There were still unhealed reunion issues and the loss of my mother to process as well. I was also still having issues with my family, of course.

While I was saying goodbye to everyone at my mom's service, before Howard had his hissy fit, I was asked to stop by my father's house for a family gathering later that night. I already knew what family gatherings were like so that was not something that I wanted to be a part of. I didn't want to be near Howard and his bullshit either. I had just said goodbye to my mother for the last time earlier that day and I was still confused about my emotions regarding the decisions that I had to make for her. I was still pretending to be ok and I was still pretending my family situation was tolerable. Sort of. I just wanted to drive away from all of it. I got in my car and drove and out of guilt and the feeling of duty, I ended up driving over to my dad's mobile home where my family had gathered.

I stayed outside in my car in the street with my engine running. I just wanted to make an appearance to keep the peace. We still had to lay her in her final resting place. I did not want to go onto the front patio and actually talk to anyone. They were all drunk. They had plenty of alcohol on the table and seemingly inside themselves. What struck me right away was how they had money for booze but not a single dime for our mother's service that they had demanded. I was not surprised. They always have booze money. Always.

John walked up to my car and said in tears, with his booze breath, "You look like mom." He kept saying, "I love you sis." My heart was getting sucked back in. Who wants to despise their own brother? I drove away with a shred of hope in my heart that my family could heal together. The day came when we had to lay my mother's ashes in her final resting place. It was nice, but very sad as I watched them let go of her ashes. I really wanted to get out of there. I was feeling very intense emotions. I gave hugs and chatted with them for a short time. While hugging him, John told me "Now she's in heaven and she won't have to see all the ni**ers I'm sending to hell." "You're not going to hurt anyone, you're just sad about mom," I responded. "Yes I am, and if you don't join me, you're fucking dead too." Good feeling gone. Maybe it was just sadness, I tried to convince myself. I frick'en knew better. That's how unhealthy I was emotionally.

Why was my heart so damn stupid? My life was full of chaos and loneliness. I knew how dangerous my brother John could be, but I also knew his heart. He sometimes had a really big heart. If I'd see one of my relatives sad, no matter whom it was or what they had done, I'd feel sad for them no matter what they had done in the past. (mostly) I hated my heart. I hated it even more when John would call me drunk and crying while I was still going through everything else. He liked telling me his violent plans. I wanted a family, my child wanted a family, but why did it have to be this family? I was a mixed bag of emotions. I was so completely confused. I was terrified. Between my family, my mom's death, reunion issues, and worrying about Sir Coward, I was on the run. Sometimes I ran in place, but I was definitely running.

I was sick to death with worry about Howard and his level of anger at me at what he had done, and not himself. I was really messed up inside over losing my mom and with everything else going on. In fear, my daughter and I bounced around trying to figure out what to do. How could we feel safe again? We could start over. We could try to hide and just start over. I considered changing our names but in the end, with all of her medical issues, all of her old records, I didn't see how I could make that work. I needed to keep that trail of her health and lab reports so that they could figure out what was wrong with her. If I couldn't trust cops, how was I going to trust doctors with her private information if I changed her name? Even in some of her medical records they would write that she was a boy or other things that were incorrect. I just figured changing names would do little to help. It had done little to help the first time that I changed my own.

I was still trying to figure it all out when I came out of a shelter one morning to discover my break line was destroyed. I drove the car before I knew it had happened and we were very lucky that we only drove a short distance on a mostly flat road. Was it Howard and friends? I did not know. The local cop said it wasn't intentional, but my officer friend said it was definitely intentional. Most people who saw the image of the brake line felt it was cut. How was I to know? I was not a mechanic by any means. The shelter staff, even though we didn't know what was really happening, struck the fear of God into me by telling me he will probably never stop.

Whether he or his friends did it or not didn't matter, my nerves were shot for the next several years. Would I turn around and see him? Would I ever be able to focus enough on any of the traumas at all? Just one? Could I get passed one? It also didn’t help me to know that I had trusted the computer tampering cop with Sir Coward’s information previously. Would he tell that little prick where to find me? The shelter staff thought it best that I move out of the shelter for our safety and the safety of other residents. They were worried about him too. A computer tampering cop with cop friends? Can he be completely sane? Who would give up their career in law enforcement to use the databases like that? A normal person with many years on the force? No, he seemed to be an unstable person with many years on the force. I agreed to move out of the shelter. Mind you, we had been in several shelters moving around out of fear and also because of certain actions by advocates. We would be told statistics about stalkers and we would be told that it often ends in death. We were getting more and more paranoid with every interaction with advocates that meant well. And some that did not. My child, most of all, no longer trusted advocates at all, for so many reasons.

I found a landlord team that said that they would not run a background check on me. We were all afraid that if I had too many background checks, Howard would be able to get my address and since he only blamed me, who knows what he might do. We were all settled in and the head advocate of that shelter that we had just moved out of had already started having me clean her car, clean her house and baby sit her child. I didn't mind. I needed the friend and I loved to clean anyway. She said she received a back injury at another job in a far away state. I wanted to help her. I never saw her hurting, but I saw plenty of other things and so did my child. She began using me more and more.

She and another advocate, her co-worker, would go gambling and drinking together. Since my daughter and her daughter were close in age, she would let my daughter come over sometimes. I had a really hard time trusting that situation, but I did not want to shelter my daughter because we were already in hiding and she needed some semblance of life. The advocate had taken my daughter and hers to go see a movie and she asked my daughter if she wanted a treat, of course she said yes. My child did not pick the right treat. She was told to have gummies but those make her gag and vomit due to a texture issue she can't help, she asked for a different treat. Not only did she tell my daughter how inappropriate that was, but she called me and told me that if I didn't punish my child, she would! Hell no! I never left my daughter in her care again.

My daughter also told me that while she was at this advocate's house, she and the other child were sat down and taught not to touch any of the drugs in the fridge. I guess there were a lot of bottles of pain medications. When I cleaned her car I found several empty bottles of wine and when I would clean her house it was the same scenario. This woman should never be an advocate in my opinion. When I was not able to clean her house because my daughter was sick again, she told me that my daughter could no longer play with her daughter so I went over and cleaned with my sick child so that she would not lose her only friend. It was not the children's fault and they shouldn't have to lose each other.

One day the advocate asked me to watch her child so that she and the other advocate could go gambling and drinking. I told her that I had things to do the next day and that I didn't mind watching her daughter if she would come back at a decent time. I was already having other issues that I needed to deal with. She said she would be back in time and my daughter was excited to have her friend come over to play a video game. They were playing video games when I ended up speaking on the phone with the other advocate. She said I had to watch the other advocate's child all night long because they were having a really good time. I repeated that I had things to do the next day and said if she would come by before 7:00am, I would be willing to keep her all night. I just needed to be able to do what I needed to do. My child was in an online school program because she was so far ahead, because of her health, and for safety reasons, so we had to manage that as well. My landlord would watch my daughter, but probably not the advocate's daughter too. The advocate started cussing at me and yelling about how I owed them because they had let me stay at the shelter. She then put the head advocate on the phone (whose child I was watching,) and she started cussing me out too! I asked, "Why are you cussing at me?" She threatened me with, "Remember, I know where Howard lives!" Fuck. She went there.

You see, when you enter a shelter, they ask for the perpetrators’ information for safety reasons. Before we moved to that shelter, we were in another one in the same state. While at that small town shelter, I began therapy and had my child enrolled in school under a false name. Her name was real on the papers, but no one but me, staff at the shelter, and the appropriate school staff knew her real name. I was doing everything I could to get stable and safe. At this small town shelter the staff took a liking to my child and I and we really adored them too. That was until the staff began fighting amongst themselves and put me right between them. One advocate helped me get a cheap car from her husband and would take us to her house for dinner. Another advocate would sit and talk with me for hours. We were all friends. It was nice. It was safe. We were feeling better. Oh but when those two advocates got under each other's skin at work, I was caught in the crosshairs and did not know how to handle it. It went downhill from there so I moved us to the shelter of the drunken advocates thinking it would be better.

While on the phone threatening me I told her to have someone come pick up her child. She was irate and screaming and said that some guy she knew would come get her kid. I asked her daughter if she knew the man because in the past her daughter had mentioned she was fearful of a man in her mom's life. Her daughter said she felt very uncomfortable with that man. I did not inquire further about why she was afraid because I did not want to interject myself into a situation and have the child feel pressured to talk. I had every intention of calling services in the morning to let them know what was happening in this child's life. I let her mom know that she was uncomfortable going with the man and then her mom, this wonderful domestic violence advocate, went one step further and threatened me even more with the knowledge that she was connected in town and how they would believe her over me.

Soon there was a knock on the door and I asked the child again, are you ok with this? She said she was, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't hold her child back or her mom would call the cops and say I was holding her child hostage or one of her other threats. I avoided this woman at all costs after this even though the shelter was pretty much across the street from my apartment building. Even though my daughter was now very depressed at losing her friend.

I was getting pretty close to my landlords. They were a husband and wife team and they were always very nice to us. They went out of their way to get us furniture and they had us over for the holiday. With no chance to catch my breath, I started having issues at work. I was a very well trained Correctional Officer now working in a juvenile detention type facility. The rules that they had went against what I had ever been trained to do or not do. I recognized the legal ramifications of something happening if I did as they asked. I was under a lot of stress so it just was not going well. I started missing work which sent me backwards financially. I began testing for the prison system in the state I was in and since you're supposed to be honest during those interviews, I did just that. I was told that they wouldn't hire me, despite my level of training, because I had quit my previous job at the state without a two week notice. What? I was being harassed there and I had other things happening! He did not care. I’m not certain that was the real reason that he said no. Maybe, it was.

One night I was out bowling with my child and the landlords. I told them I knew my rent was late and that I was sorry, if they could just wait one more month, I would catch up somehow. During this time my father was acting more like a father, to my surprise. Why was I back talking to him? It was suggested by an advocate that I ask him to do the right thing so that we could begin to heal. When we were bouncing around still, I had sent a card asking him to be truthful about what he had done so that I could have certain members of my family in my life that were always enabling him and his lies. Though he never did that, he understood about Howard (plenty of people in my family hate cops,) and he offered to send me a down payment on a used car because the one had the break line damaged, other issues, and I needed to work. I was surprised he helped me the way that he did, but I was thankful and I hoped things were finally starting to turn around. In the situation that I was in with Howard and advocates, it was easy to drink from the poisonous well that my family was. I was desperate for any type of support that I could get.

While at the bowling alley, after explaining that I needed more time on the rent now that I had a car payment too, they told me not to worry about it. That they had it covered. Had it covered? I told them that I refuse to let them pay my rent themselves and then they gave me a big surprise! They told me that the owner of the property didn't even know we were living in the unit. I was stunned. It took awhile to sink in about what that really meant. It hit me. They were cheating the owner out of money! Where did the money go that I had already given to them if the owner had no idea we were even in the unit? There was no way I was going to be living there illegally or under bad conditions. I had nowhere to go with my child, but we had a car that would make it further down the road than the last one, so I packed up our stuff. I sent the landlords an email stating that I did not appreciate them putting me in that position! What did my father have to say about this? "You're about as worthless as blah blah blah." He was real good at starting rumors in my family too. So there was that.

When I tried to explain to my dad how I was still struggling because of what he did to me all those years, he said that he never did anything wrong. He had said that many times through the years when I tried to clear the air and get over it. He was never going to give me my truth back. I would continue to be the trouble maker of the family if I spoke about it. I was not supposed to be affected by a single thing that had happened to me. If I wasn’t still pretending, I was the trouble maker.

Well, there we were on the road again. My child and I never minded being out on the road though, we liked the freedom of not having to deal with anyone and we would find interesting things to see. We finally ended back at Brad's house. We were divorced but still talking to each other at times. There were times when Brad really wasn't a great guy, but where else were we going to go? Another “safe” shelter? Ha! No. At that point, that was not an option. At least at Brad's house we had our own room and I knew his work hours. I could avoid him most days. We had our own room with everything we needed in it. We could just stay in the room more often than not. I did not have a lot of options without any money. I thought about going back to the brothel to work. What would she think of me? What standard would that set for her in our already messed up lives? I couldn’t do it.

I even considered putting her in a foster home, but the thought terrified me and when I asked her if she wanted to go live with one of my old friends without mommy for awhile so that I could get us our own place, she totally panicked. I really didn’t know who I could trust to send her to. I was just trying to think of options. I didn't want to be separated from her, others wouldn't be able to handle her complicated health issues, and she didn't want to be separated from me. I also couldn't stand to have her away from me because of how I had lost my other children. She was still far ahead in school despite years of chaos, so that was good. The fact remained that I needed to get us settled without advocates, ex-husbands, and family. Was I prepared to do it? It was breaking my heart that my child and I were moving around trying to get the right help and not finding it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

While staying with Brad, I ended up meeting a really nice guy and I'm serious, he was a really nice guy. He was a single dad and his children were amazing. We all got along and we loved being near each other. We ended up moving in together and it was really nice, there was no downside that I could see. He was nothing like the others. I began looking for work and we discussed getting married. His family was wonderful and he had a great job. His children were terrific and they loved my daughter and I and we loved them too. One day while my daughter and I were home alone we heard a horrible sound. The car that my father helped me get, that I still owed money on, that was safely parked on the street, was being drug about thirty feet down the road. I ran outside to find neighbors chasing the driver’s car down the road to try to stop her. My car was precariously balancing on its muffler, and it was totaled. I couldn't tell if the woman was drunk, high, or both but her boobs were hanging out and she was trying to stand up straight. Mine was the second vehicle she hit and caused damage to on her little journey.

Since mine was the second car hit, and she was only covered for ten grand on her insurance, I was screwed because the first vehicle's owner got the insurance money. The courts have ordered this woman to pay me but, to this date, I have received only about one third of what she owes me, and that was paid out over several years. She would rather go back to jail repeatedly, I guess. Now without a car my boyfriend stepped up and helped me get one. It was a little car, and it didn't cost too much, but it was enough to make me feel indebted to him. I hated that feeling. I still do. He never held it over my head but that was residue from the traumas that others created inside of me. I now owed another man something. That did not sit well in my soul. It did not matter what he said, it was in my head that I owed him. People had said that before, “You don’t owe me anything,” but then they would throw it in my face later. I knew the deal. That caused me some stress and I started trying to make up for it, but didn't feel that I could. I didn't feel worthy of his unconditional love. I owed.

Then his ex found out we were discussing marriage and she seemed to not like her children loving me the way that they did. They would often beg me not to have to go to her house, but that was not my decision to make. They were not my children. I'd spend nights watching them cry and just holding them. It breaks my heart to think about them right now because one day fear and trauma got the better of me. His ex allegedly damaged the car he had bought me, and I just could not be indebted to him any further by having him fix it. I was frustrated that she was allegedly causing trouble. We started fighting.

We started fighting about every little thing. He didn't like the music for the wedding and I was sick of his ex living right behind us. His kids were always sad and he would make half way promises to move, but not follow through. Everyone was getting miserable and he was allowing his ex to keep us that way because as he says, "She will just take the kids from me." That didn't make sense because he was such a great dad, and I tried to be patient. They began a legal war with each other, and I wanted to stand by him, but it was becoming something that I did not want my own child caught in. If she was allegedly willing to call child services on a good dad, what would she do to hurt the woman who was now with her ex that her own kids loved so much? It was more than I could handle because I wasn't far removed from anything else I was dealing with. Things were coming at me really fast and I couldn't handle it.

We ended it mutually and peacefully, but his kids were crying and begging me not to go. I was far from healed. I was pretending to be ok when I entered this relationship. I wanted to just be ok. I wanted to be with him and his children. Trauma won again. We ended up back at Brad's house again. This time he and I were fighting more than ever. If we weren't fighting the house was unbelievably quiet and tense. He would make terrible comments about my daughter. He would put down her singing and he would talk down to her and just generally be annoyed at her presence. This was the man who held her as a little baby and said, "You will never be hungry."

I asked him to sit with me at the table and talk and he admitted to me that he hated being around kids. He did not want to have them in his house or be in a relationship with a woman that had them. From there the tension in the house just continued to build and we had a really bad fight where he ended up standing in front of me threatening me by look and words. He was about to punch me when I said, "Go ahead, just do it." Does that sound familiar? He started to move and I could tell he was about to do it, I moved out of the way in time. He had left bruises on my arm from biting me at another point, and did something else another time, so I knew I didn't want to see Brad again no matter how much I cared about him. That meant I was finally getting stronger. Could I maintain it? Mostly. We were in touch with one another over social media after this and he needed to know a very basic thing about me that any good husband would have already known. He needed the information so that he could get a passport and though we were divorced, he said that my business mattered for his passport. It struck me that he didn’t know such a basic thing about my life. That finished it up for me. I have no desire to talk to him again.

I told Brad when he got home the next day that we were moving out. He gave me a small amount of cash and I thanked him for the money and told him how much I appreciated it. We pretended nothing had happened, hugged each other, and my child and I were back in the car on the road. There was a point where we tried to go to a shelter, but that shelter had a rule that we were not allowed to leave it at all. It had its own school so that we didn't have to leave. The children at that shelter were harsh but their parents were worse and we were trapped inside with them. We left. Desperately I went to an agency and asked for help. They said that they could help us with a once in a lifetime cash assistance program, and we tried, but the area was extremely expensive. It's where a lot of famous people live. I realized we would not make it there. I would not be able to make enough money to maintain stable housing in that area. We finally just stayed at an acquaintance’s house in Las Vegas. We didn't know her very well, but she had helped me get a hotel room when my we needed one before. I paid her back and she had told me that if I ever needed anything again, to come find her. She had known abuse in her life too, so she was sympathetic. She had a brand new house and plenty of room.

She said we could stay as long as we needed to get on our feet. She had a nice home, but was a heavy drinker so I wasn't sure that was the best idea for us. I knew what a potential alcoholic could do to ruin lives. I'd seen it plenty before. I told her I needed to just rest for a while and figure things out. She was alright with that. She was giving me time to process and think in a fairly safe environment. I appreciated that a lot. I needed rest and so did my daughter. We discussed childcare arrangements if I worked at a casino. I was worried that there wouldn't be childcare available if I had to work nights, but we learned that there were 24 hour childcare centers so that was kind of neat, but disturbing too. What do they do with children all night? I knew that my trauma was making me paranoid, so I shut out the thought. I started looking for work. One morning I woke up to my daughter crying in pain. Not only was she crying in pain, she was three times larger than normal. She was swollen from head to toe.

I rushed her to the emergency room and they could not find a cause. They were just as perplexed as I was, because though she had health issues, swelling up three times larger was not one of them. They told me to get her back down to her Arizona specialist right away. I didn't have much money left, but I had enough to get us there. I was able to get her back in with her old specialist in Arizona, but by then her swelling had come down quite a bit and he couldn't figure it out either. It was just another confusing mystery to embrace regarding her health. We were used to hearing, "I have no idea and she may never get a diagnosis" from doctors.

My daughter was begging me to let us stay in Arizona and I really wanted to stay too. I also wanted her near the doctors that she already knew and that already knew her history as well. Arizona was where we belonged. It was definitely our home. I had no job or money so I sold my car to get the money. It was enough for a couple month’s rent and a deposit. We were broke. Still fearing Howard and my family, I needed a landlord that wouldn't run credit. I also needed to find a cheap apartment. I managed to find one that was ok, but far from nice. It was alright though because we were back home. She had her doctors, and she was smiling a lot.

Since I had to sell my car to get us settled, we would take the bus when I had enough change or walk in the Arizona heat when I couldn't afford it. One day while sitting at a bus stop my daughter grabbed my arm in panic and then I saw exactly what she had seen as well. One of Howard's children was driving by. I told her not to worry, but I was worried. I tried to just keep moving forward and stay calm no matter what I felt inside. I did not want her having grown up stress. She had enough to deal with already. I started getting us set up with resources to keep us on our feet. We only had an air mattress to sit and sleep on in our apartment, and we had to re-inflate it every couple of hours. We didn't mind. It made for some fun and laughter.

I started noticing that whenever my daughter would get out of the shower, she would have red marks all over her skin. I told her to stop taking such hot showers, but then we noticed all temperatures of showers would leave the marks. I did not know what to think of that and I figured she was sensitive to the water in the area. I was trying really hard to believe that she wasn’t having another medical symptom. That would be the last thing she would need.

When we moved into the apartment, I had noticed that one of the windows was a bit broken and the landlord promised he would fix it. I was outside talking to a neighbor one day and he told me exactly how it broke. He said that we were living in an old drug dealer’s house and that what I thought was dirt and paint on the window was actually blood. I needed to make this work for us so I did my best to clean it up and then I did my best to board up the window completely since my landlord didn’t return to fix it. There was the great day when the police had to knock down a neighbor's door as well. I just tried to stay focused.

It was time for us to start doing normal things so we would walk around looking at the mountains and I would take her to the library because she loved books so much. Our TV only received one channel and it wasn't in English, I did not want her bored so the library was ideal. We started going to church and she chose to give her life to Christ. I had chosen to never baptize her until she made the choice herself. I never wanted to push religion on her given my experience with churches, but I did want for her to know God, whoever that was for her.

The day that she gave her life to Christ, a wonderful Church Pastor sat with us and spoke to her about what that meant. At the end of it he told her not to expect some big sign from God. There would be no big show from God. He went on and on letting her know not to expect anything. We opened the door to leave and when we stepped outside, there was the brightest and biggest triple rainbow any of us had ever seen. The Pastor knew at that moment his message about no big sign from God meant nothing. We were all laughing and she and I took some pictures of her with the rainbows before they faded away.

She was very happy and laughing. It didn't take long for that laughter to end because as we walked home, despite them living all the way across town, we saw Howard's child again. Then we saw him again. Then someone else involved. And again. It was random, but it seemed much too coincidental. They did not live or work near us from what I knew. My old friend the police officer didn't know we were back in town either, so he couldn't have told. I kept us as low as possible. Hundreds of things went through my mind and my child was getting spooked no matter how much I said things would be ok. Did I accidently put utilities in my name? Was it a job application online? Was he able to get into my medical assistance application because the offices are local and he knows so many people?

We liked going to that church. We went several times to different things that they had going on. Bible studies, after church things, and so on. When I couldn't figure out if seeing the vehicles was a coincidence or not, I spoke with the Church Pastor and I asked him if there were officers that went to the church and I told him why I was concerned. He said there were. Coincidences or not, the day we came home to find our door tampered with, it was time to leave. Not like I wanted to call the local police department to tell them about it. Things began to shift on us again. I went back to the Church Pastor to tell him my concerns and that I thought maybe we should think of moving. I was trying to stay and go at the same time. I didn't want to be paranoid, but things were happening. I couldn't be certain of who was doing them. I really liked the people at the church and though our apartment sucked, we were back home. The Pastor spoke with me and he said he also felt we should move, but he didn't say why. I told him I had no money to move and he helped us with tickets for a train.

Now that I was even more concerned, I didn't tell him the truth that we had no place to go on a train. Even if I knew where we were going, I would not have told a single person in that town, simply for peace of mind. He bought us train tickets out of state, but in that state was another drunken abusive family member. While we were on the train, I spoke to the staff onboard and explained our situation. They made sure that my daughter and I were going to be ok and he let us ride all the way to a major transfer point and he had me talk to a knowledgeable employee once we got there. That employee got me in touch with a shelter in another state. They were very generous with compassion and helped us get there.

Once at this new shelter, we settled in and I spent hours at the school explaining our safety concerns regarding the cop, my family, her health, and getting her into gifted classes because she was still so far ahead. The school counselor I spoke with said he understood and I gave him her birth certificate and all of the school and medical records that I had with me and he sorted through them, taking out the ones that he needed.

While I was at the shelter waiting for a meeting, and while she was still at school, I received a phone call from a local detective that stated I must have kidnapped my daughter because the school had no birth certificate for her. This detective was blunt about it. It was abrupt and this detective made it sound as if they believed it was factual. I am separated from my child while she is at school during this! Total panic mode! I ran to the advocates and told them what was happening and it was so strange, that they couldn't wrap their heads around it either. Or could they? Prior to this day the advocates wanted to get me to talk to the local cops about another identity change. Cops had nothing to do with an identity change so I was like... Nope! I kept asking for a ride to the school because it was rather far and I obviously wanted to get to my daughter. Finally another resident drove me over. When I got there I was in tears and unbelievably stressed and worried. The male counselor that I had previously given her birth certificate too was mad as hell and brought me into another room with another school employee. They said that they couldn't tell me everything, but yes, they did in fact have her birth certificate and that the school principal was the one saying that they did not have it.

He said he was trying to show the principal that they had it, but she wasn't listening or something. I demanded to see the school principal and I asked the male counselor to go get my child and bring her to me. As I sat in tears angrily telling the principal all the reasons why she had probably just put our safety in jeopardy, and caused more chaos in our lives, she simply shrugged and said sorry in a nonchalant way as if it was no big deal. She left the room. What the hell was going on here? I spoke to the detective again and then a thought occurred to me, was I in the city where Howard grew up and became a cop originally? I was indeed in the state, but was I in the city? Oh my God. We were definitely in the state. Now, I can't say for sure that's why any of that happened, but what the hell else was happening? Was I just being paranoid? Could a principal just be that cold for no reason? I didn’t know. What was with the shelter advocates? I had no idea. Some of them were absolutely terrific, but there was one that really concerned my child and I one day.

My daughter had heard about a child that committed suicide and it affected her. I could see that she was sad, but she wouldn't talk about it. Just in case she wasn't comfortable opening up to me, and just so that she could see it was safe to trust advocates, I went to the children's advocate and asked her to take some time with my daughter and see if she would talk about her feelings. I was trying to trust and I was trying to show my daughter that it was safe to trust. When my daughter got out of that meeting she said that the child advocate kept asking her, "Does your mom have a boyfriend?" "Does your mom see any one?" "Does your mom go on dates?" Endless questions about my personal life (which didn't exist anyway,) and nothing at all about my child's concerns about the child that committed suicide. My daughter was very uncomfortable and I was as well. I confronted that advocate in front of other employees and I said, "Why were you asking my child personal questions about my love life when you were supposed to be talking to her about how she was feeling regarding the dead child?" Everyone stopped in place and turned towards her and she quickly left the room without saying a word.

Now with the principal and detective doing whatever this was, we did not feel safe at all. It did not matter what the reasons, good or bad, were. I was very concerned and a different advocate was concerned too so she quietly gave me some advice. Move. It had been a hard time for us up to that point and before long I was calling another shelter out of state far from where anyone would know us. I only had enough money to get us so far. The advocate at the new shelter spoke to me for a very long time over the phone as I told her how little I trusted advocates. She reassured me it would all be alright. She said the area had plenty of jobs too. We had nowhere else to go so we went. She knew we were low on funds so she offered to send the train credit card information or money for us to eat with, but I refused. Once we got there, it was good and the shelter staff were all nice. It was a small shelter with only a few rooms. It felt like a home, mostly. The head of the shelter told me they had a secret person who would help certain families get clothing and whatever else they needed. I did not want a hand out so she finally agreed to let me work it all off. They gave me money to buy us new clothes, and shoes. They even helped me put a deposit down on a cheap car. I painted various walls, I sorted, I shoveled, I cleaned, I cooked, and I ran many errands for the shelter staff. I even had another job for a short time.

One of the shelter staff would call me and have me go places with her. To pick up her kids or go do this or that. She was really nice, but I felt obligated to go with her. What happens if I say no? The thought concerned me. I was vulnerable to say the least but I really liked all of the staff too, so I tried not to mind too much. They were helping me, and though I was working it all off, I felt I should continue to help anyway that I could. I should continue to keep them as friends. More and more they were leaning on me to do things around the shelter, I did not mind that, but I was not able to focus on healing or getting us stable and out of there. More and more two of them were saying I was their friend. I was definitely sucked in. I kept working hard around the shelter. I stayed away from other residents as much as possible to avoid conflict. That wasn't always possible. People were getting pinned against one another because of how this shelter was run. We stayed in our room a lot. When we weren't in the room, I was doing something to undo the continued debt that I felt I owed.

Then two advocates started butting heads. Of course. Why did I think it would be any different? They wanted me to rat one advocate out about what they had told me about other residents. Not this shit again. I had to tell the truth because I wouldn't feel right not doing so and then more drama ensued. One of the advocates called me in tears about the other one. Then it went the other way. Then the first one left a voicemail in tears begging me not to leave the shelter, and said that I was her only friend. I was already gone when that voicemail was left. Though I adored these people, I knew I was not getting the help that I needed. I was not strong enough to be strong for people that were supposed to be strong for me. I was not the advocate. I was a client in need of help. I decided to never trust another advocate again. I understand that they’re human, I get that, but my child and I should not have to be going through all of this when we were so desperate for help. It's funny (not really,) that every time I'd see an old friend, or old acquaintance they would judge me harshly for moving us around so much, but they would never listen to me when I told them why. I was simply a horrible person for it. I was judged this way before my child ever existed when trying to get out and get help, and that never changed. In society we are told, "Reach out," Yeah. Ok. Sure.

My child and I needed a break from all of the "help." We talked about where to move and we felt that a place with sandy beaches would be an interesting place. We were a long way from there though and thankfully there are really good people out there in the world, because random strangers gave us gas money all the way there. It was a hard journey, but we made it and we bonded a lot while driving down the highways. We talked about the beach and we dreamt of our new life. We'd get a little house, I'd find a job, and she'd go to school and still be ahead. When we arrived, I took her right to the beach. We needed to just sit. She needed to play and laugh. I needed to connect with the world around me. I was detached. We just needed to be. On the way there we managed to get a hotel and while at that hotel she had the weird red rash again from the water. She said it didn't bother her so we continued on.

At the beach this day she came out of the water covered in hives. She also said that her stomach was really hurting her. We sat down awhile together and watched the waves. She was starting to feel better so I spent a small amount of the money that I had left to get us showers, get her a present, and both of us something to eat. We had food on our trip, thankfully, but today was her birthday so I tried to make it more special. Now that she was feeling better, we were having a good time again. I was pretending for her that we would be just fine and that it was ok to laugh and relax. We'd be fine. "Everything's ok." Deep inside was I trembling and trying to figure out how to get us some help without dealing with advocates, my family, or my exes. Before we could even eat she started getting sicker. I found the local hospital and she was admitted for several days. It was nothing too major, but she made me swear not to discuss it here. She was able to rest a lot in the hospital and they put her in a beautiful high tech room with tons of fun things on the TV, like the internet, and even a game system. She was able to order as much food as she wanted as often as she wanted once they told her she was cleared to do so.

By the end of the second day of her hospitalization I was completely worn out. I was hungry. I had very little money left and I was afraid to spend it on food for myself just in case she needed something. I finally broke down and asked a nurse if they had any extra sandwiches. I explained to them our situation and I did not have to tell them I was stressed out because it was clear that I was very stressed out. They made sure that I had food for the rest of her stay. I had attempted to get us into another domestic violence shelter because they are safer, but I was told that since I wasn't hit in the last two weeks, I couldn't stay there. Another shelter I called said that they did not understand why I was worried about Howard finding me. "Who cares if he knows where you are." Umm. Hmm. Really? Domestic violence and stalking 101: Don’t let them know where you are if there is any reason to believe that you or your children could be harmed. Advocates were getting on my nerves to say the least.

I was feeling more and more isolated and getting more and more untrusting of anyone and everyone. If you can't trust advocates, a Domestic Violence Detective, and family, who could you trust? I was worried that if I took her to a homeless shelter, it would be the worst thing for her. She would be exposed to God knows what and we were both worried that her health couldn't handle it. Domestic violence shelters are sometimes cleaner than a normal homeless shelter. I was afraid that some man might try to hurt her as well. What were we going to do? I had to figure it out, and fast. I might have been dying internally from everything, but I still had legs to stand on, I wasn't done trying to get us to safe new lives yet! She was counting on me.

When my daughter got out of the hospital I went to a church and they gave me a little money. I offered to work, but they said they were happy to help and they wouldn’t allow me to work it off. We still needed more money to get settled. I called an old friend. I was told that Howard was still talking about me. What was I going to do? I was going to suck it up and do what I had to do. I needed a place for her to rest her head ASAP. I stopped at a gas station and I asked strangers to help me. Some amazing people did. Some didn't and they would say horrible things, and though that brought up some painful memories of my own childhood, there was no way I was going to let them get to me. I was not going to let our world collapse because of rude people. I swallowed my pride and I kept asking strangers for help, I kept fighting back tears. Some people hugged me. Some people bought her food. I noticed that the richer a person looked, the more unlikely they were to help. Those with the least would give what they could. Even a homeless drunk man started asking for money for us. He could have kept it for himself, but he didn't and he brought every dime right back to me. It was heartwarming and I gave him a blanket in return.

Soon enough I was able to fill up our gas tank, get a night in a hotel room, and had some extra for more gas. My daughter got hives again that night in the hotel after taking a shower. This time they were painful and itchy, she said. It could not be the water chemicals because now it was sweat, different states, and the ocean as well. My daughter climbed into bed with me as I took out a map. We sat together and dreamt of a new life. She really wanted a beach and I really wanted away from the south. It reminded me of things I wanted to forget. I can't stand snow, so my dream of moving to Maine was out. We sat there for hours snuggling and just dreaming. We talked about all the different places we had been. I tried to help her forget the people that wronged us in our lives by discussing all of the cool things in each state we had been to. We dug in the trunk of the car for makeup and hair clips. We got out the nail polish and we had "beauty night." I cleaned out the car and refolded everything we owned. I found her favorite book and stuffed animal. She was enjoying watching television, but she knew the rule. Since hotel rooms have porno channels or channels that show things about sex, she had to wait for me before she could turn the channel again.

Once we were done with all of that we decided where we should go. We would never make it there though, because we ran out of money as far north as we could get on what money we had. I decided to call a local shelter, but this time, I would not tell them the truth. I told parts of the truth. A man was abusive to me. We are from out of state. This is as far as we could get on the money we have. Can you help us? The advocate invited us to their offices and once she opened the security door I asked her if I could talk to her away from my child. Another advocate took my daughter into a room while I sat down and told this woman everything. Expecting her to say we had to leave, she actually said, "Thank you for telling me everything, I believe you." Then she said, "Just because we are advocates does not mean we have earned your trust. Trust is earned and a title does not automatically earn it as you already know. I understand why you did not tell me the truth on the phone." I knew we were in a better safer place. The shelter itself was not great, but most of the advocates were. They quickly helped us with housing, furniture, and everything we needed for our new apartment. While there, we survived the dreaded "Hurricane Sandy." Thankfully, we didn’t get the brunt of it. We were within walking distance to the beach at our new apartment. My daughter was very happy, but the hives kept coming.

We were also within walking distance to the food pantry that I went to as often as I could so that she would never be hungry. I was starting to have terrible pain in my legs and my daughter was still sick. Fevers, joint pain, and hives anytime she was in water or sweating and now in the rain too. She was also showing me how she could write words on her skin. They had once told me that when she hit puberty we would find answers to her medical issues. Well, she was past her first cycle and now everything was more medically confusing than ever. Once we were settled in I set her up with a Dermatologist, Rheumatologist, and a Pediatrician. I had started taking pictures of her hives. I also started taking before and after videos of her getting into the tub or shower and out of the tub. (obviously covering up any private parts.) Before she would get in, no hives. After she got out, hives. Hives would be on her torso, neck, and back. I tried cold water, hot water, and warm water and it did not make any difference.

Another thing we noticed was that while taking a bath, her legs were unaffected, but if she stood in the shower in the water, her legs would swell up and turn red and purple. The hives would itch and be painful and they were getting worse. Sometimes lasting up to an hour after the hives first appeared. I took all of these pictures and videos along to the Dermatology appointment that I had set up for her. The doctor knew right away what it was. Really? Finally an answer! She said that my daughter had Aquagenic Urticara. What the heck is that? It's a water allergy, basically. Yes, she can drink water. It is cells under her skin that are apparently the problem. Ok, so why is this happening? Nobody knows. How does that match up to her so called mild immune deficiency and systemic auto inflammatory disorder? Who knows. No answers. Is it one big mystery disease or three? What happens next? No answers. More fear for us both, but I had to keep my head on straight.

I took a fairly good job with the city and I had to work nights at times. I was told that she was well past the age to be left alone in the house, and though it made me uneasy, we had to start living normally, whatever that was. Between trying to work, the weather, her health, and my old traumas still unhealed, I was way past exhausted. I was trying so hard to get us on solid ground and I often talked to an advocate about whether I should or should not reach out to certain people. When is a healthy time to start dating again? Just normal life things that I needed to learn to do in healthier ways. I was trying to do so much better and fight against the anxieties and horrible self-talk I was taught to believe about myself. I knew I was a good mom despite everything we had gone through. The advocates kept trying to convince me of that, but that was about the only thing I was certain of. I was a good mom. That was a start. Now I had to learn to be a human being that could function better.

A guy asked me out and I went on a date with him and there was no chemistry for me so it was just friendship. Another guy asked me out and I tried but was not interested. After awhile, I realized I wanted to be alone. No men. I wanted it to just be me and my child figuring it out and healing. It felt great knowing I made that decision and I do not regret it one bit. There was no one else to answer to. Nobody was hurting me and nobody could potentially hurt her. One less worry. I did not want a man in my life at all. I focused on keeping up with work. I did my best to maintain relationships with friends that I could talk to online so I wouldn't be so isolated. I had managed to get her to a variety of doctors to have old tests ran on her again because doctors said that there were newer better tests. We still needed answers so that she could feel better.

She also managed to break her ankle at school. She had broken that same ankle while roller skating in the house during an ice storm a couple years before when we were still dealing with Howard’s court things. We were stuck inside the house with no electricity and all that we could hear were trees falling. I had gotten her some hand me down skates and we had little furniture so I told her she could skate on the tile floor. She managed to skate right into a door and break her ankle during the fall. This time she said she was playing soccer at school and a boy tried to kick the ball away. She had walked on it all day without realizing it was broken. One more thing to deal with was what I was thinking, but outwardly we made a good time out of her having to wear the cast on top of everything else. She is a pretty funny kid and often makes it easy to laugh.

The Dermatologist referred her over to an Allergy and Immunology Doctor and he took control of those aspects of her health. We tried various medications to get rid of the hives and eventually we found one that works well enough that she can be in the water to shower and sometimes swim. Since it is so rare to have Aquagenic Urticaria and nobody really seems to know what could happen if she's exposed too long, she carries an Epinephrine Pen to save her life if it is ever needed. Thankfully it has never been needed though her lips do sometimes swell when she cries.

We were doing pretty well despite everything we had gone through and even though some of our small apartment complex neighbors were alleged drug dealers. Sometimes we had to witness scenes of domestic violence out in the parking lot that our apartment faced. Besides those moments the other thing we absolutely hated about living there were the F 18 fighter jets that would seem to fly well past the hours we were told they were allowed to. I liked the sound of freedom, as they say, but at first it was very unnerving. The apartment would shake. They were literally right above the apartment and they were LOUD! Over time we got used to their noise and sometimes we would purposely go outside to watch them. They were really cool, but oh so loud. They had an entire ocean to fly over I thought, but I realized our apartment wasn't far from where the landing area was. I came to appreciate the noise. It was a diversion and it was the sound of freedom. Freedom.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Even though we had a two bedroom apartment and she also had bunk beds, I always slept on the couch, just like my mother had always done. I had to be near the only door we had on the second floor. I was still very much traumatized, but trying to maintain "normal." There were cockroaches everywhere when we moved in, but I had sold my car to keep us above water again, so I used plenty of that money to make sure they'd never return. I even managed to quit smoking after I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. I was so terrified of dying from diabetes and taking medications that I fixed my diabetes with diet alone after I had learned everything I could about it. We would take long walks together when it wasn't too humid outside for her. The humidity didn't just cause her hives, it also made the joint pain so bad for her that some days she couldn't walk without crying. It was very stressful for me, but worse, it was much too hard on her. I hated seeing her in pain like that. I just had to keep pretending everything was normal until it would actually become normal. I had to just be ok. I had to turn our lives around. She deserved it. She did not deserve such a traumatized mother. She did not deserve the abusive people that had been in our lives. I had to make life right for her. I was going to do it no matter what it took. Someday we would have our lives back.

It's strange how you can get used to the sound of F-18s above your head. I woke up one morning abruptly because of the F-18s. Not because of the noise, but because there was no noise. I woke up to silence. It was unbelievably quiet. As I often did for safety reasons, when I woke up that morning, I went around checking all the windows and then opening them for fresh air. When I got to my empty bedroom, I walked over to the window and saw a horrifying sight. Thick gray smoke and it wasn't that far away. I knew immediately that an F-18 had crashed. I had always worried they would crash into our apartment complex, but I tried to push that thought away, and now that thought was in my head again. That F-18 crashed into a different apartment complex. It may be the sound of freedom, but it's also the sound that doesn't help someone with severe anxiety issues. I was happy they grounded the F-18s, if only for a short time. I felt horrible for the pilots who had to now get up into a plane when they just had one of their own in a terrible accident. Heroes. I was glad that they were able to stay on the ground for awhile. A flurry of thoughts raced through my head. Were we really any safer here? There's a million ways to die at the hands of someone else. I tried so hard to push the thought away, but I was having trouble with it. I just had to become stronger, relentless. Keep going. Wake up to another day and just get through it and be strong doing it.

I wanted to just sleep and sometimes we would pull the mattresses out into the living room, close all the curtains, turn on the TV, and we would just sleep, wake up, sleep, wake up, sleep. We loved those days. Just sleep. Not think. It was nice to be able to relax my mind enough to sleep and she was a good sleeper already, but she enjoyed our sleepy days too. Things were finally calming down, if that's what you could call it. At least we were able to sleep better now.

While working one evening I received a call from my daughter and she said, "Mom, there are cops everywhere out the living room window, but don't worry, I'm hiding and I have a knife!" Holy hell. What now? I tried to stay calm and firm, "Go put the knife back in the kitchen before you get hurt, now." "But, mom!" "Now." There was a local cop standing near me doing security and I asked him what was going on a few blocks away. He told me what it was and it was just idiots, but there were a lot of cops and my daughter was afraid. I had to leave work and run home and check on her. She was more afraid of the cops than the bad guys. My daughter was more affected by everything that I had tried to hide from her than I had known. I still didn't know the half of it.

I wanted to find Howard and just deck his ass. I was getting madder and madder and less and less afraid. My daughter was still very afraid, but my anger was growing and it was making me stronger. We had lost our home state. She had lost friends. I had to hold her while she cried about losing her friends and that broke my heart every single time. We had lost everything and that idiot seemed to be out there living as if nothing had happened at all. He knew as a Domestic Violence Detective what his actions could cause in a survivor like me. That asshole. All of these assholes in my life. Fuck 'em! I was pissed to say the least. Anger, frustration, and determination were now quickly taking the place of fear.

I wanted to just put everything back in place for my daughter. Give her Arizona back. Find her friends. Not fake smiles that I knew we were both still doing. She had to listen at the school bus stop every single school morning to children calling themselves "Ni**ers or Ni**as" and she knew how wrong those words were. She would hear them talk about drugs and guns and sometimes they would call her racist names too, bully her, and act threatening. One of them had an app on his cell phone that he would use to taunt her with. It had the sounds of rapid gun fire. I had to wait for the bus with her in the mornings and wait for it when she came home as well. We complained to the school transportation people, but it only made things worse. One day the school bus was pulled over because these mouthy children started a fist fight with each other and an officer passing by saw it. Did the bus driver pull over because of the fight? No, it took the officer pulling the bus over. My daughter couldn't even go to school without seeing violence and being afraid. That was not ok. Since she was now even further ahead in school, and since we had been through so much, I had sent her back a grade so that she could socialize and learn to live normally. Was this the normal she was supposed to adapt to? Since the F-18 crashed so close to her school, she was worried about that as well.

I had begun talking to certain members of my family over social media. My father was diagnosed with a deadly form of cancer. I wasn't even close to knowing what I felt about my dad dying. I had always wished he would die, but now that he was, I was really torn. I talked to the advocates that were still in the shadow of our lives and I broke down in confusion. I felt that talking to the rest of my family would be ok because they couldn't really do anything but say stupid things on social media, and I was getting stronger every day. I was tired of feeling isolated and alone and I had so many nieces and nephews I wanted to get to know better and have them know us too. My daughter should have family so I figured maybe her cousins would be helpful to her since she was not making many, if any, friends where we were living. If she could just have a few of her cousins, but keep the distance of others, I'd hoped.

My brother John and I actually started getting closer over social media. He seemed different in some way, more loving towards me, more understanding some how. I never really paid too much attention to politics before other than strong opinions formed by watching the news. John was really into it and I started getting further into it too. Was it a diversion from my anguish, maybe? I don't know but it was cool that John and I were finally bonding over something and occasionally he would get super protective over me to anyone trying to disagree with me over social media. That was a nice new thing.

John was still making comments regarding violent things that he shouldn't, but I hoped he was just being a big mouth. Nobody was going to listen to me anyway. Now with my father's cancer diagnosis, I tried to step up more to help my family through it. I knew what it felt like to be alone doing everything when one of your parents died. I felt worse for my siblings then my father but I tried to keep the peace with him too so nobody would hurt like I had been hurt when my mother died. It wasn’t easy. I struggled.

Our lease was ending and she kept begging me to go back to Arizona, and I was not protesting. It was, after all, our home. Was I finally strong enough to fight back? I moved my daughter and I back to Arizona, but in a city hours away from Howard and company. There was a bit of family drama, but nothing I couldn't get us through. My father was dying as I was trying to get us settled. Suddenly my father's mother, my grumpy old grandmother, died. She had moved to the same city as my father did after getting a large settlement for her land, I guess. Not only did he tell me two different stories about how she died, but John also told me another version and he unknowingly gave me more details. My father told me that the police were investigating, but was this the same department that let him slide about finding the child pornography things on his computer? It did not add up for me, but she was cremated and that was that.

My father decided to move from the southern state and go live with my brother Jared in Illinois. That way he would be closer to all of my brothers and my brother Jared took control of all of the details including finances, I guess. Where did my father even get any extra finances to manage? Oh that's right, he had told me that when my grandmother moved near him, he had access to her bank accounts. He said that he had asked her for the money to help me put that deposit down on that car he helped me get. Now I was thinking to myself, that's the same woman that wouldn't help me with $500 to get my children back, and she’s now willing to help me get a car? I think I was really starting to wake up from the fog that had been my life for the last forty years. With my father dying there was still plenty of other chaos ahead to focus on.

My father was quite ill when my brother Jared said that my father had arranged a small inheritance for each of us while he was still alive. I was out of state so out of that small inheritance I bought plane tickets to fly us up to Illinois for a short time. I was also to use that small inheritance to buy my Grandma C's truck off of my siblings. Apparently after my grandma died, it had been transferred to my father's name and then stuck in a pool for the children to separate. At least that's what they told me. I have no way to know anything different. I just paid them money out of my small inheritance for it. John bought my dad's truck from the sibling inheritance pool as well.

The truck I bought was low in miles and in fairly decent shape and I was happy to have it for us since we had just moved back to Arizona. It did eventually end up having a few minor issues, but any minor issues were big for us when money was tight. The reminders that the truck brought weren’t helpful either. The plan was we would just drive it from Illinois to Arizona once our visit was over and that’s what we did once our journey back to Illinois to see my dying father was complete. Our new life was on hold for a short time and that was ok, the school didn't really know what grade to place my daughter in. There had been some confusion, so part of that was on hold as well. Once it sank it that I was about to see my father again, I started smoking again. Damn.

I needed answers from my father about why he was such a violent, cruel and obvious pedophile pornographer. I really debated on whether or not I wanted to see him at all. Could I stay strong seeing him so sick? Would I accidentally smile knowing he was dying? I felt guilty for thinking that, but then I didn't. I just went back and forth in my head over and over again. I cried, I cried some more, and then I decided I simply needed to see him or live with the "what if" regret forever. I had plenty of "what ifs" on my plate already. I was determined to be a grown ass survivor and not the little girl my family liked to push around in the past. It was ok seeing my siblings again on that trip. Odd, but ok.

While my father lay sick and dying in the hospital, I managed to hug him and buy him a stuffed animal. My daughter got to know some of her cousins and she saw some parts of the truth of my family. I was sort of glad that she could finally see more about why we stayed away and I also saw that I needed to keep her away from certain individuals now that they were older. The cycle had trickled down in various ways onto the next generation and in many instances, it was not pretty. It really bothered my daughter. I told my daughter that it was really important that we keep cool heads. I needed to work up the nerve to confront my father before it was too late. She had a couple other cousins she remembered from my mother's funeral so she was ok with staying if she was able to see them. She really took a liking to one she had just met. It was nice to see her happy.

We stayed to ourselves as much as possible and I found myself fighting of a few triggers, but there was business to attend to regarding his soon passing. John was sometimes a bit distant, but Jinx was not. I even apologized to Jinx’s wife for some horrible things I had said about her in the past and I just tried to make amends. She pretended she did not know what I was talking about, but I knew that she did. My anger was at my family, not her. So I was wrong to displace it that way. I felt bad and I wanted for her to know that. I had always really liked her, so I felt terrible for running my mouth like I had done, I was concerned about one of my brother's children when I ran my mouth and it wasn't fair to her. She's a good person as far as I know despite my family making fun of her and John always saying how much he hates her "faggot loving ass." John would always pick on Jinx. When elections were happening, I even started picking on Jinx, acting as if I knew what I was talking about politically, but John was just plain brutal towards anyone who disagreed with him, including Jinx. If I didn’t agree with John about something political or otherwise, he would tell me to go kill myself or threaten me in some other way. I kept trying to continue the relationship and be understanding that he obviously had serious mental health and alcohol related issues.

Finally the day came when I needed to get us back to Arizona. All of us went back up to the hospital, but this time I asked to be alone with my father. Jared hesitated in letting me, I could tell, but I wasn't really going to take no for an answer, and I think he knew it was best just to let me do what I had to do. Nobody wanted a big family scene at the hospital. Jared’s wife had in the past said to me, "We love your dad, so whatever your problem is with him, it's YOUR problem," as if she had been in our family for over 40 years. Whatever. Thanks, Lady. I wondered to myself if she would have felt that way if everything I went through had happened to her or her sister. Would she tell her sister, "It's YOUR problem?"

I walked alone into my father’s room and he woke up as I entered. I forced myself to sit down alone on the bed next to him. I used every single ounce of strength that I could muster and I quietly asked, "Do you have anything you would like to say to me?" That's not what I expected to come out of my mouth. I thought I would call him horrible things and pay him back! I thought I would let my anger fly! I thought he would go straight to hell knowing that I hated him for all the horrible things he had done to my mother and I. For everyone his violence hurt! "Do you have anything you would like to say to me" was never a consideration, but that's what fell from my lips.

He stared at me a moment and his eyes filled up with tears. He wasn't very strong anymore. He was really close to death, and he could barely get the words out. "I'm sorry for everything I did to you." There it was. Finally. He apologized, but it did not seem to be enough. The apology I had waited for my entire life was not spoken in front of anyone else. He would never admit it in front of others. He wouldn't give me my truth back, he'd let people still lie and stay in denial long after his death. He was crying though, so did he mean it? Or was he afraid of all of Jared's bible talk that he had been laying on thick in recent days. I even laid on bible talk hoping he’d do right! His apology, it just was not enough, but I thought that maybe after I drove away, it would be. I hugged him goodbye. I felt nothing. I knew that was the very last time I would ever see my father again and I felt nothing.

I walked out into the hallway where Jared and his wife had secluded themselves away from everyone else, and I said, "He apologized." Jared looked at me as if he had no idea what was I talking about. I didn’t care. I said my goodbyes and I drove away with a strange calmness. I wouldn't call it peace, but it was something close to calm. It was a healing journey driving back to Arizona, for the most part. I was still glad he was dying and I discovered deep inside myself that I was even a little glad that he was suffering. I felt guilt for awhile, but then I didn't. I was a little wishy-washy about my feelings when he died because I didn't really know what to feel. When I did recognize what I was feeling, I felt guilty for it so I pretended even more that I was sad that he was finally dead. That part of my life was over. I could close that door, I felt like he couldn’t hurt me anymore, at least physically.

Maybe now my siblings and I would all get along. Both of our parents were dead. They could no longer enable him and upset me, and I could no longer help my mom and upset them. We'd all be happy and get to know each other again. If only life were so easy. I got closer to John over social media and via the phone and texts. He kept calling me "Sis" and I would call him "Bro." Jared wasn't on social media yet and Jinx would avoid John on it because of how brutally cruel John would get. Recently though, Jinx and John added each other, and I found that to be really strange because of certain dynamics, but I'll keep that to myself. Online, I was getting closer to a distant cousin from my mom's side. John did not like him at all for the dumbest of reasons and due to hypocritical views I had once agreed with. I had met another cousin from my mom's side before, but that did not go well. That cousin was using drugs. I had met this new cousin that John didn't like when we were younger so it was really nice getting to know him again. John would say rude comments about people like this cousin I was getting closer to, and as I started getting closer to him, I began to see even more hypocritical things that had been instilled into me growing up. I was now seeing more and more how very wrong certain opinions were. I was discovering that I didn’t like how those beliefs felt in my heart.

John had sometimes said some disturbing things to me on social media, during calls, and while texting and I would try to divert him away from saying those things. I'd bring it up to Jared but he would just say the same thing as my father always said, "He's just being John, ignore him." He was hard to ignore because when I was going through things with the computer tampering cop's indictment, John had me on the phone threatening to commit suicide for more hours than I'd like to tell here. How many years had it been since his first suicide attempt? Decades, and that means he has also been suffering for decades. In my family, “Just ignore him,” was still a dangerous game.

On that call, John was playing Russian roulette or something while he was on the phone with me because I could hear the trigger being pulled at various times while he cried and ranted. He was in terrible pain and if that wasn’t terrible pain, he was messing with my head again. Either way, it wasn’t even close to something that a stable person would do. He told me that if I hung up, he'd do it. He would commit suicide. He told me that if I called the cops he would kill every single one of them and I knew that he had the potential and the means to do it. He had more than one gun and he worked someplace that he could get more of them, he said.

My brother John did this to me again when I lived in the apartment across the street from the shelter where the drinking advocates worked. That night he told me he was going to kill innocent people. He was going to go on a rampage. He did all of these things while I was trying to keep my child and I on even ground as much as I could. It was traumatizing on top of any other traumatic thing I was already experiencing. There was always something going on with John in the background of my life. I do not care what the government’s definition of terrorism is, when he was saying those things, he was a terrorist in my opinion.

I called various agencies in his state and mine. "It's not our jurisdiction. Call the other state." When John gave me more details about his plans to kill "every mother fucker" in his way "innocent or not" I tried even harder to get someone to listen to me about him. Nobody would. If I didn't already have enough shit to face in my life and get over, I felt certain that soon I would also have to get over his suicide or whatever murderous rampage he might go on.

Whenever there would be a news story about a mass shooting, I’d have to stop and wait to see if it was my own brother. It is still a constant fear. Between him and others, I am always searching for threats. Another relative told me that he also is afraid that John will be the one to do it someday. That relative also told me disturbing things about time that he had spent with John. Then after my dad died, he seemed more “political” than ever, to the point where he wasn't making any sense. He would contradict himself and he would post articles contradicting what he said he believed in. He would call himself a “Patriot” but American Patriots are good people and come from every political side. Good American Patriots don’t go around threatening to kill innocent people they claim to be fighting for. Whatever he is or was planning, it’s not going to make him a hero. It makes him a coward, not a patriot. I began to be less opinionated about politics because I didn’t know what to believe. Politicians are confusing. Red tape is bullshit. I was confused, and I still am confused by red tape and politics. What I do know for certain is that what John was telling me he was going to do, would not be “patriotism,” it would be terrorism.

All of his friends that were similar to him in their political beliefs, that I had started getting close to in my political confusion, I began pulling away from. I'd spend time on the phone with John asking him to get help at various times and he'd say in desperate tears, "I've tried that Debbie! It doesn't fucking work.” “They don't listen," and various things of that nature. He even provided to me a list of songs I was to play if he did anything. If he were to go on a rampage, I was to play certain songs in memory of him as if he was some American hero. He even let me know some of the songs that he would play while on his rampage, basically. He was clearly making plans. Nobody would listen to me. I was even told something like, “It’s just the booze talking.” That came from someone who never had to grow up with him and see him do disturbing things while sober. Heartbreaking and I tried to love him through it. I know the pain he probably has inside of himself and I had to try to put aside my own pain many times to handle his. More than anyone in the nest may ever know, I was dealing with John’s bullshit. Nobody will ever know how much hell I went through because of John. I couldn’t possibly write it all here.

I was a bit relieved the day John posted on social media that he had been contacted by a government agency, but of course he laid the blame on someone else. Whoever got the cops to finally watch him did the right thing. Even though I felt sad for John, I was glad the cops were watching him. I hope they get him some help and that certain people in my family stop denying his dark side. I bet politics will stand in the agency’s way just like it does for everything else though. More red tape. I have doubts that he will ever get the real help that he needs and I can no longer focus on his pain and the pain he has caused me and others. I wrote him a message letting him know that I couldn’t handle being so conflicted anymore and that I wanted nothing to do with him, basically. I had been a bit afraid of doing that for years. I figured he’d kill me or himself like he had said he would if he ever lost his sister again. Because of what Levi had done and because of John’s history, I had no reason to doubt him. This time though, I no longer cared. John’s bullshit had finally pushed me too far. Now that we are away from Illinois, I will never accept him into my life again no matter how much I love him. That’s another healing step. I really do hope he gets the mental health help that he needs some day before he does something terrible.

As for my relationship with my other siblings, I have not spoken to Julie in many years. There is no love loss there. I don't feel like I've lost a sister anymore. She is a stranger to me and I'm absolutely fine with that. While recently up in Illinois for my child's health reasons, Jared and I helped each other out. I needed a place to wait for our apartment and he needed some help with chores, errands, etc.. It was a nice time, for the most part, but some old traumas were playing through my mind. I tried to put them aside as best I could. When I had to go pick him up from the bar because he was too drunk to drive, it was a bit triggering, but I was happy that he had called me to help him out instead of him driving drunk. I was proud of him for that call. I did my best to be cool with my brothers while living up there for the sake of peace, family, and safety. It worked out ok, but Jared got a bit upset with me saying, "Why won't you ever leave my own niece alone with me?" I made an excuse because others were near, but he knows exactly why.

I had also tried to talk to Jared openly several times about his boasting about or acting as if our father was some great guy. All of my brothers do this, and I have asked them to not do it in front of me or email things of that nature to me. I've asked this for years, but it has never stopped. I never had a lot of healthy boundaries, but that one was important to me. It was for my healing. If they could just stop talking about him like some hero in front of me, I would feel supported by them even if that was all that they could do. They wouldn’t do it. If I spoke up and reminded them not to do it, I would be told yet again, "Get over it!" A relative even tried to hold the fact that I became a prostitute over my head as leverage for their anger because I spoke the truth, as if I ever hid that part of my reality. I was a bit amused when that individual thought they knew me well enough to try to hold that over my head. For years that person has been nothing more than just another toxic outsider in my life. They don’t even really know me and if they knew how they were spoken about in the nest, they’d stop protecting or “pretending.” If they were healthy and or innocent, my speaking the truth would be welcomed and healing for others could begin. There are others that need someone to speak up so that they can heal from the generational cycle of abuse. The silence and denial have been enabling further abuse.

Inside the nest it was as if my boundaries did not matter, only theirs did. I had to continue to shut up about my real feelings regarding our father or it would seem as if I was the one causing trouble. It did not matter if I had understanding about why they would do it, it didn’t matter how long I had been asking, I was wrong for asking them to respect that boundary according to their responses to it. If they wanted to do it amongst themselves, fine, who am I to say anything about that? I just asked them to quit sending me emails about how great he was and I asked them to stop saying it to me etc.. I could not heal in my own way and also have them near me. If I healed in my own way and put up boundaries regarding our father, they'd just do as they pleased anyway. I was to only heal under their controlling terms if I was to have relationships with the people in my family. Conversations I tried to have with certain siblings had to be in secret so as not to offend anyone with the truth or the truth of my feelings.

One of them makes out to be a great Christian, but I’ve had enough of those types of Christians to last a lifetime. I had already moved away from Illinois with my daughter and I was clearly pulling away from my family and beginning my healing when my father’s birthday back came around. Sure enough, I was sent another “family” email about how they missed him etc.. I had repeatedly asked them not to do that. Email themselves that sort of thing, I didn’t need to be reminded about him or that my boundary didn’t matter to them. This time I responded and I let them know, in no uncertain terms, exactly what I thought of my father. I didn’t hold back at all. I was done with the nest denial and I was done watching the nest denial harm the next generation. I let the truth of my feelings and the truth of my father fly.

I was having a lot of triggers during that recent trip back to Illinois for my daughter’s health, but I was trying hard to focus on what I needed to do. Before we moved to Illinois for that short time, every trauma door flew back open because of something that took place. Some were obviously still open, but some trauma doors had closed. Now they were all wide open. Once we were in Illinois, I really tried to stay cool, but with those trauma doors flung open, everything I felt was raw emotion.

Now that I was back in the city that I had lived in with my mother when I was a teen, a shit storm of emotions, triggers, and flashbacks were on top of me. I had no idea how much moving there would really affect me, especially now that I had my own daughter about the age I was when my father reappeared in that state. There were plenty of overwhelming triggers. There was the memory of the day I gave birth to my son, and that hospital was only two blocks from our new house. There was the memory of asking my father why he had hurt me and him saying, "Because I thought you wanted me to." Those apartments were just down the highway a short distance from where we were now living. Those apartments were also where I was used by men for sex so that I could get something to eat. There were some of the friends I had online that I had known from my teen years who now wanted to see me, but I couldn't. I wanted to, but I emotionally could not see some of them. One of the ones that I finally did visit with pushed some boundaries he should not have. We had been chatting online for years and sometimes we were flirtatious, but I never expected him to try in person as I thought we had moved on from that and were just really great friends with knowledge of each other’s heartache. I was barely strong enough to resist what he attempted but I was strong enough to correct him. Small healing victories.

There was the memory of the night Shane had gotten drunk and pushed me into the closest, likely causing me to go into labor. Those apartments were right behind the nearest mall to where my daughter and I were living. There was the place I used to cruise and get picked up by adult men for sex, right down the road. There was the memory of John in the cab. More than what I have written about in this book, there were memories, and I was standing alone right in the middle of them, with no real support. I was even mocked because I wasn't handling my pain very well. I was isolated emotionally without a doubt, and I was crashing hard.

I could no longer deny what a dysfunctional family I had. I could no longer deny how it had affected my own children. I could no longer deny what it had done to me. I wasn't sleeping well trying to keep up with everything. I felt unsafe. So much was happening. Too much. Flashbacks, the shakes, tears, and certain people weren't helping the situation at all. The more I tried to stay strong, the more I was drowning in my pain. The more isolated I became, the more memories rushed in. I needed to get out of my head and I couldn't. Forty-five years later and I had finally hit the wall. I blocked my entire family on social media before my father’s birthday email came. I had a new phone number and I didn’t give it out to even those closest to me. My family obviously had my email address, and I ignored incoming emails until his birthday email came around. I was trying very hard to get them out of my life. I needed healing. Whatever they had going on, I wanted no part of. I want nothing to do with any of them, ever again. Even the ones that I love may never be allowed back in because I know too well what the nest does in those situations. They will attempt to manipulate or confuse anyone supporting me.

I had gotten another job while there, and I wouldn't tell friends or family where I worked for safety reasons. My child, now in my old high school, was showing signs of stress. My stress wasn't helping her stress and vice versa. I tried to date someone, but he was married. He said he was going through a divorce. He kept showing up and wouldn't take no for an answer. He’d write me letters and show up in the alley near my house. I’d push him away and he’d show up at my work. Then we’d text and call. I started getting really sucked in. I was falling for him. I saw myself headed down an old trauma response road. I backed out once I got my head on straight. It didn't matter how much I cared about him, he wasn't healthy for me. Yes, I was finally REALLY seeing how much pain I had inside of me and YES I was finally strong enough to fight back. I was finally recognizing my trauma responses forty plus years after my father had first put his filthy child pornography hands on me.

I put myself in therapy and I couldn't stop chattering during the appointments. It was really overwhelming how much I was going through. The therapist leaned forward towards me as I sat on the couch across from her and she looked me dead in the eyes and said, "There is no doubt that you have PTSD, NONE! No doubt at all!" I had heard it before, but this time it really sank in. If people could have PTSD from a single thing, how many levels of PTSD did I have? I didn’t dare ask because I didn’t know if the question would be considered ridiculous or not. PTSD for one thing is plenty. I swore I was going to stay in therapy and get through it. I had to somehow find a way to peel off one hundred layers of trauma and work on them each one by one, but whenever I'd get into her office, I'd just start rambling. I had no idea where to begin the healing or close a door. I think it frustrated us both a lot. I also had my child and I talk to some therapists together too so that we could better understand each other's pain and processes. We learned a few things about each other and ourselves. There was a lot still going on and I had to hide most of it at work. At work I was in line for quick promotions because I was working very hard to succeed and that led to even more chaos thanks to people who I won’t name here.

As my daughter and I began to settle into the realization of how much damage had really been done to us and how much damage we could do to each other’s hearts out of stress, we started a slow healing process. We have a ton to overcome. We've taken steps to regain our lives and she will soon graduate well ahead of where she should be for her age. We still don’t have answers for her health, but thankfully now, she can tell the doctors herself exactly what she’s feeling and when. For my daughter and I, the vicious cycle of generational trauma that began the very first time my father put his filthy hands on me, ends here. Over forty years later.

There are countless nights that I still feel sick because I forever have to wonder if another pedophile is raping me by looking at the images that my father took of me. I have to wonder forever where the images ended up. It’s made worse by the fact that I found out that the house we had been living in when my father was abruptly arrested, became known as the “Palace” and an alleged party house. Did a meth head or partier find the images? Where did the pictures go? I once asked Jinx about the house and he told me that he had been driving past it one day, many years after we moved out, and he stated that he saw that it was on fire. He said that he was told it was a training fire for the fire department. This is the country house in the small town that none of my siblings lived by at the time of the fire from what I gathered. When I called that local fire department to inquire about the fire, they told me that it was not a training fire like Jinx had told me it was, that it had been a suspicious fire. I started asking all around about where the pictures ended up. I spoke with the county and others. No answers. Where did the child pornography pictures go that my father had taken of me? No one seems to be able to tell me. Did someone find the images in the basement? Did they sell them? Did he sell them before he was arrested? Did another pedo from my family get their hands on them? Where did they go? Could they be online now with advancements in technology? Are they on some dark web? How many men have raped me in their minds due to those images? It haunts me.

When someone is caught with child pornography I see people making comments on social media like, “It was just a picture! Not a real rape!” Seriously. Not just an image on a screen. Real victim and those are life time crimes. What amazing person could I have become if he had never touched me? There will probably never be justice for me and I've begun coming to terms with that, but if telling my story publically helps lawmakers see the damage that a pedophile can do to destroy an entire life (and generations to come,) than maybe it will help someone else some day.

Lawmakers please remove the time limits for prosecution of pedophiles and please never give them the opportunity to re-enter one of their victim's lives. The punishments must be much longer and the justice system needs to start working for survivors, and not against them. My story, this book, shows exactly the damage that can be done by a pedophile. He destroyed my family. We all became dysfunctional because of my father, the original abuser. His grip was strong enough to last decades.

Just because a survivor’s body isn’t murdered doesn’t mean that the most important part of them wasn’t murdered. Souls, hearts, and minds are murdered by pedophiles, after just one assault.

A survivor should never have to feel guilty for speaking their own truth. If people are hurt that the survivor told their truth, because of denial or maybe they didn't know everything, it is not the fault of the survivor. Had there of been no crime there would be no crime to talk about. The blame goes right on the abusers. I know I've made plenty of mistakes and now I know why I made them, trauma. I can only own them and try to move forward in a healing way. I should have been helped when I was a child. That very first police officer. The one after that. That church. Siblings that became adults well ahead of me. They knew! They pretended it was all ok, but they knew. I tried to be understanding of their own unique situations, but no longer. They knew. Uncles knew. Aunts knew. Therapists knew. Judges knew. Advocates knew.

There was a lot to try to overcome alone and I have a lot of overcoming still to do, but I forgive myself for what I didn't know about trauma and its hold on me. Now I can be open about it. Goodbye nest.

As for therapy, that's where I started this memoir, right? I was telling you about Mr. Tacky Sweater and his unprofessional comment. I wish I could end this story on a happier note where I am now in therapy, but I can’t. Why did I start this memoir right where I did? Sadly, I just tried to get into therapy again and that's what happened when I did. "I wish I could've watched you when you were a stripper." Nice, eh? I won't be resurvivorized!

Maybe the anxiety will leave me one day and maybe the panic attacks will end. Maybe, just maybe, speaking my truth out loud will help. Maybe the tremendous strength that Little Debbie had is more than enough to sustain Sierra.

MORE FACTS

Now that I’ve spoken to lawmakers and told my story and let them know how a survivor and the next generations are affected by their red tape residue, here’s what’s left of what I have to say:

A special message to those in need,

I grew up with some seriously hypocritical values given to me by hateful hypocrites. "Pretend we are a good family." Hate in my family looks like this: We are all supposed to believe that my pedophile father was a great man. Certain individuals want to hide and deny what he's done for their own comfort no matter how much it tears apart the family and they refuse to recognize how their denial has cycled into the next generation in other forms of hardships. These people would rather deny a survivor the truth if that truth is uncomfortable for them at all. “Shhh, don’t talk about it, we’ve all moved on!” Clearly, denial hasn’t let anyone move on very far or we’d have, at least, a slightly healthier family, wouldn’t we? Maybe certain individuals aren’t in denial. Maybe they just have something to hide. “Pretend.”

Now, let's compare what I was taught to believe with some facts:
(Mind you, there are family members who will rally against me for going against "pretend" and laying out the facts. I obviously no longer care what any of them have to say.) Ready? Here we go.

FACT: I have family members who hate all homosexuals and I was raised to hate them too because they were not Christians and it was a "sin." One of these relatives going so far as to threaten my life if I did not agree that "faggots" should die. FACT: My father would buy male hookers and then cruelly tell my mother, while raping her, about how worthless she was at giving head and that the males sucking him off were better at it. So, ummm. Why again is my father your hero?

FACT: I have family members who hate everyone on welfare. Many of them say how worthless people on welfare really are. Especially those with other skin colors. FACT: The loudest mouths in my family that speak out about welfare recipients are the very same people who not only grew up on welfare themselves, but their own children had to grow up on it or are still on some form of it as adults. FACT: When my father went to prison we were forced to go on welfare because my mom was a highly traumatized individual. Where was the hero father? He was eating steak in prison on a pathetically weak charge while we dug in the trash for food. Why again is my father your hero? Oh and for that matter, could you get your own children and grandchildren off of welfare before you run your mouth about those that are on it?

FACT: “Blacks are not worth life,” according to certain relatives of mine. "Kill all ni**ers" one of my relatives would say. I used to have a horrid belief system due to my upbringing . I’ve said some dumb shit myself and I’ve received plenty of it as well. I see people, no matter the color of their skin, hating each other. Why? One is no better than the other. FACT: My mother was raped by black men, but she was raped endlessly at the hands of my white father. She ended up becoming very close friends with several women of color that made her feel like someone cared. Did you ever give her that much peace and kindness? So if it ever crosses or has crossed your mind to hate all black people and use what happened to her to justify your hate, you would do well to remember that my white father was also a rapist! Why again is my father your hero?

FACT: I have family members that say that all pedophiles should be shot because they do not change, especially if they're Muslim or any color or religion that isn't "white" and Christian. I don't think I need to add more to this fact. Why again is my pedophile father your hero? Because he "changed" and is white? Let me hip ya to some información: FACT: He never changed! Does it bother some of you to know that while your daughters were very young, he was looking up sites about little girls being raped? No no, this was not in the 70s when I was little. It was decades later. Now think back, how many times was he alone with any of your little daughters because of your "pretend he's changed" game? You knew. You absolutely without a doubt knew. It should make people wonder why my father is your hero.
Peace!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To the law enforcement employees, individuals, certain old friends, churches, shelters, food banks, strangers, and advocates that did actually help me the best way that they could during these times, thank you! You made a difference. You helped keep hope alive. I think that, as much as possible, you should keep trying to avoid the red tape.

An extra super top secret message to a Ninja: Don't touch my cookies, get out of my shower, and stop stealing my peanut butter! PS, I’m proud of you too.

Dual combined messages for dual mixed blessings: (in no particular order) I want to scream at you in frustration because I feel that you let me (and in the end, others) down so hard, but mostly I want to apologize to you (again) because I know that I let you down too. It hurts how much I let you down. I'm sorry I couldn't handle holding all of the worms that fell out of the can by myself. I hope that there will be a chance for us to trust each other again someday. Thank you for being real though. Your emotions always showed, as frustrating as that was. I think you're a bit more like me than you might like in that regard. Since you seem more like me than you care to admit, I bet that statement probably pisses you off and that you will mock me for it. Am I right? One thing is for certain though, I found west! Foshizzle….. If you ever need me, I'll be here waiting. (on the back burner.) I still laugh about the picture. I bet your true colors would've been an amusing show. I'd of liked to have seen them. Interesting? Indeed. Thank you for the unintended extra motivation to write this book. It’s strange how things work out. The lights were never bright enough once I lost sight of the shore. Too foggy. Thank you though. Here's the hug I could never give to you (hug.) and (hug.) Take care.

M One, I want to apologize to you. Your kindness was met by my anxiety, I am so sorry. Thank you for being the strong person that you are. You have a lot to be proud of.

M Two, I liked your demeanor the best. Thank you.

A, I think you’re fantastic. Thank you for everything.

J, Pain in the! Thank you for being so willing to help all of the time. It mattered. Big.

Trucksy, Yowza! Thank you!

Rhiannon, always remember….. Thank you.

To Angels, I did not know how all of this trauma and so much more that is unspoken here, would change the course of all our lives. I am sorry that I was not healed enough to be stronger in the storms that we all ended up being in, both together, and apart. The entire situation (and the things I will never speak of about each of you,) knocked the wind right out of me when I was already having trouble catching my breath, and though at the time I was doing my best emotionally, I wish I had done MUCH better. I am immeasurably sorry. If speaking my truth out loud somehow provides more insight and understanding and gives you much needed answers, further forward movement in healing, and peace, then it is worth telling it. I love you and I always have. I wasn't ready, even though my heart was. I am sorry. Thank you for surviving. I love you. Just look up at the moon.

To 2.0, I don't even know where to begin. I could fill an entire book with silly stories of us and saying "thank you," to you will never be enough. You make me laugh when all that I really want to do is cry. I do not always let you see the tears, but you have seen plenty. We have had our ups and downs and growing pains. We were learning this life together, whether you immediately knew that or not. We have had to deal with your hardships, my old traumas, and plenty of new life changing events together, and often all at once. I can't even begin to picture what my life would have been like without you in it. Your teenage years may be the death of me, but your smile makes it all worth it. Your excitement over the silliest things and your desire to grow into your unique self has taught me more than you may ever know. Simply watching you exist has changed everything for me. I taught you how to read and how to tie your shoes. I've given you every lesson that I could think of on how to stay safe. I have taught you and taught you and taught you, but one thing must be known to the entire world: It was YOU that taught ME that life is worth living better. Blessings do come, and you're one of them. I think back to the day that I wrote on the first page of your endless series of "baby" books, "Don't break each other's hearts" was what I wrote before you even knew what a heart was. Little did I know that we would both end up breaking each other's heart. I wish that you never had to know what PTSD was and that your mom has it. I wish that the mystery gene inside of you that causes you misery was something that a mother could fix. I wish that you never had to know poverty. Thank you for every single moment that you have existed in my life. You are not a weight. You are what lifts me higher. You may be 2.0 to everyone reading this, but you are 1.0 to me. Always. Dooery, Baby Girl. Dooery.

DOCUMENTS COULD BE TRIGGERING. PLEASE VIEW WITH CAUTION.

I have acquired plenty of documents and they are stored in various places and are also in various hands. This is far from all of the documents regarding events that have taken place inside this book.

TO VIEW DOCUMENTS THAT HAVE NOW BEEN INCLUDED AS OF THE 2018 'MEMOIR REVEAL' UPDATE: CLICK TABS THROUGH-OUT THIS WEBSITE.

*****TRIGGER WARNING FOR ENTIRE WEBSITE INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ALL IMAGES, AUDIO, AND VIDEO(s)***** VIEW AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION!

In some of the documents included on this website, it is my mother speaking about some of the abuse.

Author Sierra D. Waters.

Thank you for reading Debbie. I hope that it gets people thinking about PTSD (CPTSD) in the sense of sexual abuse (rape) and how the laws need to be changed. Remove the time limits for prosecution and make punishments stronger for pedophiles. Survivors of childhood sexual exploitation are not just images on a screen. They are real victims and it is a life time crime that can destroy generations of family members in various ways. Please contact your law makers. Do not be silent about sexual abuse and its dangers. Be heard.

Victim blaming and shaming are all too common in families where the secrets are dark. Please do not facilitate further victim blaming. That only enables abusers and those with something to hide.

In reviews, (and elsewhere,) please leave messages of support for survivors that are fearful of telling their truth publicly. The more survivors heard, the more that we can change together. Thank you.

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Contact law makers. Ask them to remove the CRIMINAL Statute of Limitations on Childhood Sexual Abuse ( #CSA ) and Childhood Sexual Exploitation ( #CSE ) - Removal of only CIVIL Statute of Limitations helps few survivors. We aren't all victims of churches or the wealthy. Lawyers don't tend to take on cases where large amounts of money aren't involved. Imagine never having justice. Please contact your lawmakers on social media, via the phone, email, or through regular mail today. Thank you for taking action beyond "thoughts and prayers."

Childhood Sexual Abuse (rape) destroys generations.