I just stood there...
I watched her being beaten. I watched her fighting him off. I watched him rip her clothes, force her down and, ultimately, force himself upon her.
I watched it
and I did nothing
in my own house.
I can't even remember her fucking name.
I watched her being beaten. I watched her fighting him off. I watched him rip her clothes, force her down and, ultimately, force himself upon her.
I watched it
and I did nothing
in my own house.
I can't even remember her fucking name.
My grandmother had taken this girl under her wing. She had been staying at our house for a few days. She was a few years older than me, blonde, cute. I don't know what was happening in her life but she was there - until she wasn't.
I grew up being molested, I lost my virginity at 13 (and in a shitty way), my entire concept of love was fucked up, to say the least. Basically, if I wasn't treated like shit, then obviously, they didn't care. Because you only fight with/for the things we care about the most, right?
I was great at picking assholes who would treat me like I thought I deserved to be treated. I recall being forced into the shower and scalding hot water turned on as everyone laughed and held the door closed. There was the guy who would lock my head between his thighs and burn me with his cigarette. I'd been strangled, beat up, brutalized, raped, controlled - all by the guys who were supposed to "love" me. But - this was the first time I saw it happening to someone else. I was 16 years old.
I honestly have not thought about that day in so long and I don't even know how it all started but my grandparents were both gone (which was rare) and the guy I was seeing came over. At some point he began trying to talk to her and when she wasn't open to his flirting he began to step it up and get aggressive about it. I got jealous and we got into an argument so I locked myself in my room.
Then came the screams and crying.
I stood in the family room looking into the dining room. He had her on the floor, his knees digging into her upper arms as he was hitting her. Her kicking and screaming not stopping him at all.
I remember yelling and telling him to stop but he didn't even seem to hear me. Maybe nothing came out of my throat, maybe I just imagined yelling. I don't know. But I stood there.
I just fucking stood there.
He got her pants down and forced himself in, and I stood there. My throat clenched, tears in my eyes, and I stood there watching the nightmare unfold in front of me, like the many times as a kid, I would lay on the bed and watch the shadows dance across the ceiling from the trees and just imagine myself somewhere else until it was safe to come back into my head...I just stood there.
He finished, got up, walked over and grabbed me by the throat and told me to keep my fucking mouth shut, and walked out the door.
The girl got up and yelled at me for not doing anything and I defended him! I fucking defended HIM! What the actual fuck was wrong with me? She didn't deserve that, NOBODY deserved that. I justified the entire ordeal, placed the blame on her for being a fucking girl and encouraging it in some way. I am not proud of this, not in the least. But, karma has a way of coming back at you - I paid many times over for this, including being raped myself, but those are other stories for other days.
She grabbed her stuff and took off.
My grandmother questioned me about it all later and, like I was told, I didn't say a fucking word. I never saw the girl again.
For the majority of my life I was with assholes who treated me like dirt, really until I left my first husband. About that time I grew a brain and found myself...I also found the ability to run toward a fight lol. God help the person who is abusing someone around me as I'm the first to jump in and get in the middle to protect someone else. Many times without thinking about my own safety, but I'm guessing maybe this memory is where it stems from.
I can't even remember her name...
God Dammit, Alice!
I'd hear the gun go off in my head a million times to try to prepare myself for what it might really sound like. I had fired a gun, I knew how loud it was. I imagined the kick back and the smell...I tried not to imagine the impact but it was really hard not to.
I spent most of my years growing up listening to my grandfather and grandmother arguing. I don't remember what it would be about usually, but the ending was always the same.
My grandmother would say something, he'd say something back, and then after she responded it was always "God dammit, Alice! I'll just go on out and blow my damned head off, then you can be happy. Hell, you'll all be happy once I'm gone!" Then he'd storm off down the stairs to the basement. Occasionally he'd change it up and offer to take her with him too.
Being about 6 or 7 this was completely tragic. This was even more terrifying than when I thought my friend being grounded meant like hamburger - that scared the shit out of me...this was damn near mortifying.
I'd run to my room and hide in the corner between the bed and the wall and plug my ears and hum to myself just waiting.
and waiting
and waiting.
I'd hear the gun go off in my head a million times to try to prepare myself for what it might really sound like. I had fired a gun, I knew how loud it was. I imagined the kick back and the smell...I tried not to imagine the impact but it was really hard not to.
Eventually, as the years went by, I just kind of got used to it, and even though I would still brace myself for the sound, there were parts of me that wished that he would.
Crouched in my corner,
thumbs in my ears,
rocking myself...
Just do it already.
Put me out of this fucking misery.
Relieve me from this pain, and filth, and shame that I live in.
JUST FUCKING DO IT!!!
He never did, but by the time he finally passed away I swear I had imagined it 1000 different ways, many times by my own hands.
The Mechanics Of Love
As a very young child I was taught that nothing was given for free. There was a price for everything. If I wanted to go to a friends house, if I wanted someone to come over, if I wanted a new toy, if I whatever...I just had to be there to give in order to get.
Love was not based on emotion, it was just a word. "Love" was what you did to get what you wanted.
NOTE - There are explicit details contained in this post that may be emotionally difficult for some people.
PLEASE do not go there if you are not ready.
This is written to document my own personal journey.
I don't remember when it began. I've racked my brain so many times. It had just always happened. Maybe it started before the incident with the cousin. Maybe not. There is no beginning. It just was...
As a very young child I was taught that nothing was given for free. There was a price for everything. If I wanted to go to a friends house, if I wanted someone to come over, if I wanted a new toy, if I whatever...I just had to be there to give in order to get.
Love was not based on emotion, it was just a word. "Love" was what you did to get what you wanted. It was even thrown around almost as a way to kill the silence. I love you.
My grandmother would say it a thousand times a day. I know, I'm so lucky, that's such a wonderful thing... You know what, I don't ever remember sitting on her lap. I don't ever remember her comforting me. And, when I needed her the most, when I was at the end of my emotional and psychological rope, at 15 years old...she turned her back on me. Refused to protect me. This thing she "loved" so much. This child she took as hers, she believed that I was the monster. I was a fucking CHILD!
I'm getting ahead of myself....please pause as I recompose...
Sorry, some of this stuff is still really hard to wade through...
I was super close with my grandfather. He did stuff. My grandmother just sat and read and watched shows or talked on the phone. My grandfather cut wood, seined the ponds for fish, worked on the truck, he built stuff. I was a total tomboy, getting dirty was my favorite thing.
I had a few friends that lived nearby. My best friends when I was little were Jan and Angie. We'd play Charlies Angels all the time but I'd always get stuck being Sabrina. Jan was the prettiest, and blonde, so she was ALWAYS Farrah and Angie always got to be Jacklyn Smith cuz she was, well, I don't know why...I had to be Sabrina cuz I had short brown hair. I hated Sabrina.
After they moved it was Julie, she moved across the street (Read the Door To Door post) then it became Sandy. She had a pool and her mom was everything I had always wanted. She was beautiful and could play piano and did these cool crafts and cooked super cool fancy foods. She'd brush my hair and make me pretty. Sigh. I'll tell the story about them another time.
My grandmother worked as a teacher, then the librarian, at a school in Belton and she'd stay after classes ended doing stuff, so it was me and my grandfather most of the time.
If I wanted to go somewhere after school I knew there was a price. And I did it. I didn't think anything about it as a child. It was what it was, I thought it was perfectly normal. Everybodys daddy was like that, right?
He'd lay on the floor in the living room, or on the bed, or in his truck...I'd unzip his pants and masterbate him. Sometimes he'd put me on top of the freezer in the basement or lay me down and put it between my thighs till he got off. He never penetrated me. Not that it makes it any better, lol.
It was the price you paid to get what you wanted. It was how you showed love. It was how you earned love. It was just that thing you do.
We had a farm, my grandfather loved going there for the weekends, I think because my grandmother didn't like it. There was a shitty single wide trailer there with no air conditioning. It smelled of old people and rotten vegetables.
He grew nightcrawlers in the bathtub, right next to the toilet where his mom died, lol. (I vaguely remember it, I was really young but I do remember driving out there late at night cuz she'd called him and wasn't feeling well.)
He loved the farm. He loved to take me too. Maybe that's why I liked to fish so much. I'd spend all my time running the 10 acres and 4 different big ponds. I'd make mud slides into the water, sit for hours in the minnow pond and let them nibble on me, catch crawdads...
He'd get the entire weekend to fuck with me.
I loved it when my cousins came down. Not only did I love being with them because they were older and so much cooler than I was, but I could relax and not have to worry about anything while they were there.
Here's the thing though. Until I got older I didn't realize it was bad. I knew it was a secret but I didn't understand why. And I loved my grandfather. He was my dad. I knew I didn't like it, but I also didn't like green beans or liver - I still had to eat that shit.
By the time I was about 12 I knew. I knew it was wrong, I knew I hated it, I knew I wanted it to stop. I knew I was fucked up. I was dirty. I tried to avoid situations, I tried to stay away, but what could I do?
I was having severe stomach pains, like doubling over intense stabbing pains. Doctors said it was stress. I got shingles, again due to stress. My grandmother put me in therapy. I didn't say anything...I couldn't do it.
I didn't want my grandfather to go to jail. I didn't want to go away and live with my real mother - though I tried to reach out to her. I found out where she was in some shitty hotel but she was too doped up to even answer the door. The unknowns were a far greater risk than continuing to live the way I was.
When I was 13, my uncle and his wife were in town visiting us for about a week. At one point he invited me to come along as he went to some market to get stuff. During the ride he asked if I would like to drive. Well, duh! I was 13, of course I wanted to drive!
The trick was that I had to sit on his lap, just in case...so he could still control the car. As we got going he reached between my legs and began to rub me and grind against me. I told him to stop but he said he just wanted to show me what the boys were gonna be doing to me soon.
I broke down. I told my grandmother and grandfather about it.
My grandmother's response, I swear to God....."DJ wouldn't do that, he'd never do that" and that was the end of that. It was never to be brought up again.
I knew right then that I was completely alone. Nobody was going to save me. I just buckled to it I guess. This was what it was and it was not going to change and I just had to make myself accept it. I did sneak into the bedroom and stole his $300 in cash though. Motherfucker. Funny that he never said anything about that.
That was really the tipping point for me. I think that was the point I really started to act out. It was also when I first started cutting myself, though that didn't peak till later. I hid my pain well, kept my secrets and moved through as best I could. Little did I know what laid ahead.
Life After Beige
The after pain of the cut was sort of therapeutic. A constant reminder that the pain I was feeling was real. That I was still there - I could still feel. And the thing is - I had control of that pain. I could decide how much to cut, when to do it, where on my body and when it would stop. It was the only thing in my life I had control over. It was my goto drug for many, many years.
I used to be depressed. I fought depression for years. Actually even as a child I had depression. I also had stomach problems, shingles, bladder infections, and a whole lot of UTIs.
My grandmother would take me to the doctor all the time, nobody could "fix" me. I was a stressed out kid who became a stressed out adult.
Initially, I was a cutter. I didn't know that was even a "thing" back then. I just wanted a release. To feel actual, physical pain as a way to express some of the emotional shit that was inside me. Somehow, seeing the blood would make me feel just a tiny bit better. I wouldn't cut deep, just enough to see the drops of blood. The after pain of the cut was sort of therapeutic. A constant reminder that the pain I was feeling was real. That I was still there - I could still feel. And the thing is - I had control of that pain. I could decide how much to cut, when to do it, where on my body and when it would stop. It was the only thing in my life I had control over. It was my goto drug for many, many years.
I tried alcohol, though I'm a really bad drunk. Now that's not to say that I don't tie one on, occasionally. Back in the day - I tried to keep it perpetually tied for quite a while. But alcohol didn't work. I wasn't a "fun" drunk back then, I was a sad drunk and I hate hangovers and to this day, I will "will" myself not to throw up. I mean, seriously. I will do anything in the world to not puke. Even though I know I will feel better - I just can't....I can't. It's the worst thing in the world to me, lol. You'd think I'd get flu shots and things - but I'm too afraid it will backfire and I'd get the flu....seriously, I can't throw up.
In high school I used to get stoned. We'd get high all the fucking time. I'd laugh and laugh. This one time my friend Trish, her brother, and I were sitting at the top of her stairs one day and swore we were on a boat. We'd feel it rocking and just laugh our fucking asses off - at nothing. Actually, that was after smoking some hash. Still. I got high, it was fun but it wasn't the release I was looking for. Btw, I tried getting high again - just cuz, you know, it's legal here - now it makes me sick as shit. No joke.
We tripped acid, once. That was enough. Luckily it was a good trip. Actually it was a fucking hysterical trip. Holy shit - I gotta tell this one!
I was 17, living with Trish and her family. She had THE perpetual party house. It was movie quality legendary. No lie. Anyway, at some point she had the bright idea that we should do it. (See, I'm not the only crazy one)
So, there was a keg in the basement (it was also our bedroom). Ice leaking all over the carpet - it was fucking soaked. Some how I got it in my head that if I touched the ground I was going to melt into it. Of course, I got Trish on board with this because, she was my best friend and dammit I wasn't gonna let her melt.
We used Kleenexs and paper towels as our floatation devices. Kleenex +waterlogged carpet = mess
We had wet paper clumps everywhere in the house, all over our legs. It was awful. Her sister came home and was fucking PISSED!!! (oh, and did I mention it was her bedroom too....?)
I recall the toilet paper breathing heavily in the bathroom. Oh, at one point I was sitting in the living room looking into the kitchen as everyone was playing poker or quarters...I don't know. But, anyway, I swore I was watching tv. Every once in a while one of them would get up and act out a commercial even. It was cool till someone actually walked out of the kitchen and I freaked the fuck out! You can't come OUT! WTF!
It was funny and I never did it again. I was too afraid of getting a bad trip.
The next step in my life was moving to cocaine. I'll get to the Jeff story eventually, but when I met him, he was a dealer...so ya.
I was a quick addict. Snorted, never needles. Morning till, well, morning usually. Bloody noses and sores, didn't matter. The numbness in my teeth and the bitterness down the back of my throat was the sweetest thing I knew.
There were many times I was convinced I was having a heart attack. One time I nearly died and too many others when I had wanted to.
I saw many of my friends that became so addicted they became completely different people, did things that I'm sure they regret - hell, I am sure I did too.
I was knee deep in cocaine and drinking when I got the most sobering news. I was pregnant. Not only was a I pregnant, I was 16 weeks pregnant. You know - another story.....it's a good one too.
I got away from all that after that little wake up, but sought the legal solution for my depression. I got antidepressants. I tried them all. Most would make me sick to my stomach (see irrational fear of puking above), but then I'd find one that would work. I'd be an emotionless zombie. I'd know I was sad but couldn't cry no matter how hard I tried. I also couldn't get "happy", I was level.
Better yet, I was beige. Actually, I surrounded myself in beige. My house, my walls, my furniture...everything. I wore beige. My shoes were beige. My sheets were beige. My fucking dishes were beige. Neutral. I was emotionally stuck in neutral.
Inside I was dying to FEEL something. I'd spent so many years trying to numb it, to escape it, to change it and now - I had.
The chaos of my life was still surrounding me. There was no lack of drama, for sure. But as I finally started to get my shit together and stand up for myself and begin to grow my own set of balls I was also completely incapable of finding REAL emotions that I could grab hold of. Everything was in auto pilot.
It took a long time to find my colors. And, you know what, as I look around right now - the only thing beige in my house is the carpet. It's a rental house.
Me, some random stripper, and Trish. No, those are not my panties he's holding. He did have an impressive mullet though. This was taken at Joshuas in Grandview, MO. It was a club in a crappy hotel that we went to ALL the time. I was 21, I think Trish was still 20 - not even legal ;) Course, we did lots of things that weren't legal then LOL! I loved her dearly, one of my eternally EPIC BFFs
Loss of Innocence
I know, without a doubt that everyone will fuck you. Every One. I don't care who you are.
When you are young, you don't see people as different races, you don't see rich vs poor. People aren't born evil, racist, hateful, abusive, etc. They are taught that. Children learn from those they are surrounded by. Children trust their caregivers unconditionally.
They trust.
Unconditionally.
Devious little shit, wasn't I?
The definition of trust, according to Merriam-Webster is the belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc.
I've always said I don't trust anyone, but really...if we go by the definition, I do trust some people - but never unconditionally. I never have. I've come close. I trust Gary in as much as I've ever trusted anyone, maybe even a little more. But I know, without a doubt that everyone will fuck you. Every One. I don't care who you are.
That's not to say that I am always waiting for it - because I am a hard believer in the power of positive thinking. Positive energy works miracles. No bullshit.
What you believe you can achieve.
Trust is a hard thing. I have faith and hope when it comes to people, not trust.
Christmas, obviously. My new doll is up on the couch. I loved her.
It's funny how certain things take you right back to a moment. I recall I had this doll, she was tall, one of those walk-with-me types. She wore the same size clothes as me basically. So, that would put me at about 4 yrs old maybe.
I had this shorts set on. It was white with these tiny little green flowers on it. My doll could wear it too, though it was a little big on her. It was my favorite.
I remember being called into my grandmother's bedroom, I remember sitting on the edge of the bed. I remember the sound of his zipper. The shadows on the wall in the late afternoon sun. I can still hear him tell me to be quiet. To touch it. To kiss it.
She watched from a safe distance.
My doll.
She never told.
Neither did I.
It was a "cousin". Everyone was somehow family but I never understood who came from where and how we were all connected. His name was Willie, or Bill.
Thankfully I didn't see him very often. Thankfully it never happened again. He was just the first.
One little fucked up footnote to this story. When i was about 12, Willie came to visit. He had married a Vietnamese woman and they were getting ready to have a baby. They named her Sharon. I swear to fucking God. I wished so badly that I would have spoken up. But, in the grand scheme of everything else at that point, it wouldn't have mattered.
It begins with a baby on a bus
Don't get me wrong, aside from the dark and dirty secrets, my grandparents were good to me, they provided well for me, and I loved them because they were all I had and I knew no different. They were FAR better than the alternative of growing up with the people who gave birth to me.
Georgeanne and Mirl, my real parents
I was born in Minot, ND on the Air Force Base. My real dad was stationed there, married to my real mother. He was 18 and she was 16 - super young and dumb.
The story goes that my father came home to find me alone in the apartment with nothing on but a dirty diaper and a high fever, I was 5 months old. Apparently my mother was next door in bed with his best friend...Many stories have circulated about what horrific acts transpired after that revelation, none of them were good.
Ultimately, he shipped me on a bus to live with his parents, giving up full legal rights to me. I arrived in Kansas City in the middle of the night with pneumonia and no provisions. My grandparents found themselves parents again. He left for Vietnam.
My Aunt Helen and Uncle Don and 2 of my cousins, my real dad and my (grandmother) mom. This would have been shortly before I was born.
Dude looks like Gomer Pile, lol. It's okay, you can laugh. He was/is a really tall, lanky guy and should be instructed to never, ever, stand like that.
I was known as the "black sheep" of the family. I was Georgeanne and Mirl's daughter. Two fuck ups that had another fuck up, that was now going to fuck up my grandparents life.
Don't get me wrong, aside from the dark and dirty secrets, my grandparents were good to me, they provided well for me, and I loved them because they were all I had and I knew no different. They were FAR better than the alternative of growing up with the people who gave birth to me.
My grandmother was a school teacher who later became the librarian at a Junior High - in a different school district, thank God! And my grandfather, he was retired from something that he got a pension from. He was always doing different things. He had inherited a farm when his mother passed away (I was like 6 maybe, but I remember she died on the toilet, lol.)
Anyway, people would pay to come fish at the farm. He stocked the ponds with catfish from Arkansas and would clean and prep fish for various restaurants around. I was the ultimate tomboy. I ran around in cutoff shorts with no shirt. I had super short hair and everyone swore I was a boy. I was a hellova fisherman too.
I'll save the dirty truth of the farm for another post....
My grandmother had 2 grown daughters that were well into their own lives and in their 30's. My Aunt Barbara (Florida) despised me but my Aunt Judy (Michigan) was always nice to me. I had an Aunt Helen and Uncle Don and their 3 kids, my cousins, Rhonda, Terri and Debbie. I loved them. They were the family I wanted...and needed, but they didn't know that till much later in life.
My cousins, Terri, Rhonda, Debbie and Me (2yr old) Notice the saddest, ugliest Christmas tree in the history of EVER! It looks like it has cobwebs all over it!
The REAL Parents
Like so many others, my real dad came back from Vietnam all fucked in the head. He moved to Leavenworth, KS and got a job at the penitentiary there. He married some woman who had 5 kids of her own, one who was the SPITTING image of my real dad....it was never admitted to me though, but come on! She was Latino, her kids were all Latino and then there's the young boy who was a scrawny built twig with eyes exactly like me and my real dad....but whatever.
On the back of the photo it reads:
1305 hrs, Thu 23 July '70
V.C. Prisoner Of War Camp, East of Pleiku A.F.B.
(my real dad is the one holding a gun)
On far right, a POW interpreter, on my left, AIC Tarloton, a guard for POWs. On his left, two V.C. who was captured up on Monkey Mountain which is not shown in this photo.
Mirl Hobbs
They'd all come over once a year on Christmas Eve for dinner and he'd play "Dad for a Day". He was a stranger, he wasn't my dad. But I'd wonder why he never took me with them. If he was my dad, why didn't he want me? Why did he want all those other kids and not me?
I'd hide in my closet (that was my safe zone) and cry about it every fucking year - on Christmas Eve....ugh. You know what else, I don't ever remember getting a present from him. Not once.
He's currently living in Florida, in some back wood, nothing town, I think, with a different wife who is legit psycho. We never speak. I'll have to do a separate post about that whole fucked up situation. Seriously, like graveyard curses and multiple personalities....it's quite a tale.
No idea who the woman was. But, he did come visit at some point when I was about 2.
My real mother...wow, this one's good. How much time do we have? I'll try to condense it as much as I can.
So Georgeanne, eventually went under the alias of Connie, was 16 when she had me. She divorced my real dad and married multiple times and ultimately had 6 kids by 5 different men.
The funny thing is that we all grew up within 20 miles of each other and never fucking knew it.
I remember I met her one time when I was about 7. She came to the door one night and when I opened it she said she was my mother. She had a baby with her, my sister, Michelle. I don't remember anything else about that night and didn't see her again.
At one point, when i was about 12 we drove out to some shit-ass no-tell motel she was staying at in Independence, MO for me to meet her and she was so fucked up she couldn't even answer the door.
I finally met her, for real, when i was 18. After a long string of shit, my parents decided I should go live with her - a total stranger, in New Hampshire...they flew me out there and I was left standing in an airport not having a clue who I was looking for or if anyone would actually show up.
She was an alcoholic and a drug addict. A professional liar and had no basic respect for anything or anyone. She had two of my sisters living there, the only two that hadn't been taken away or given up. They were about 7 and 8 at the time and had been raised to steal everything they could get their hands on and run the prescription scams for her. They'd never had rules or boundaries of any kind, they were out of control. It was heartbreaking.
We ended up in jail together one time - that was one for the books. Got arrested with my real mother, lol. Stealing, of course. Not that I'd never been to jail before, but this time I actually hadn't done anything.
This is one of the few pictures I have of her. This was in 1991, surprisingly she's really lucid in this pic and looks to be doing well. Well, aside from living in the basement of her husbands parents house - with her husband, the two girls, and her mentally deficient boyfriend - who was younger than me....omg. I'll get to that one eventually. The girls had so many issues. I tried to be there, I did, but at some point I had to cut ties to protect myself and, ultimately, my newborn son. (another story, of course)
I recall one night, would have been in '91, sitting at the dinner table with mom and dad (grandparents). The TV was always on in the living room and they'd listen to the news while we ate. Anyway, they did this story about prescription scammers and I shot out of my seat and yelled that that was what my real mom was doing and sure as shit! By the time I got in there they were flashing her and her husbands pics on the screen! You know what, I called the tv station and tried to turn the bitch in lol.
I don't even know if she's alive currently. I went to a grocery store she was working at once and went through her line just to see if she'd recognize me. Nope...not even a glimmer.
Anyway - after all is said and done, I suppose I am glad I had the life I did. Maybe in my next post I'll talk a bit more about the reality of life with my grandparents. Maybe I should wait...we'll see.
My mom(grandmother) and me. I'm guessing it was my first birthday. I believe in the back that is "Aunt" May. She lived to be 103. My mom passed away about 15 years ago.
