It never occurred to me to confront you until I recently saw Oprah talk about how she confronted her child abuser. I have no intention of seeing you ever again if I can help it. So a face to face meeting is completely out of the question. It's not like you would ever really listen to me or take my words as value anyway. Instead I am confronting you here. On my blog and on my terms and in my own timing.
You stole my childhood from me. You knowingly and joyfully took all of my ability to have a care-free and stress-free childhood. It was not happenstance. Parts of it were even planned.
You made me stand outside for hours and hours in the hot sun just because I refused to hug and kiss you. As a little girl, you woke me up in the middle of the night to interrogate me regarding who I loved more, my mother or father. You told me over and over that if I didn't love my mother more, she would die and I would be the only one at fault for killing her. You grabbed a cleaver and forced me to hold it and then forced it up to my mother's neck the night I told the judge that I
loved my parents equally. I was in the fourth grade.
You made us sit at the dinner table for hours and hours and hours giving us lectures on all that we did wrong. Which was nearly always- I'd say 99% of the time is a very conservative bet- made up and only in your sick, delusional head. It never mattered what exams were the next day or projects left to finish. If you wanted to scream at us for three or four hours on a school night, we had no option but to just endure. You abused me and my mother for hours, days and years. Everything set you off. You blamed your rage on us.
You never hid your rage and abuse either. We did that for you. Even when a guest was over and forced to endure the misery, we knew what was expected. Cover up for you. Pretend it wasn't
that bad. Act normal. Unlike many abusers who remain behind closed doors, you had no qualms with bringing it out in public. Restaurants, driveways, churches, school functions, birthday parties, holidays, and then some. Making live even more stressful trying to not only manage what happened inside the house but also trying to keep things looking semi-normal outside the house too.
Friends never came over to that house because their parents wouldn't let them near you. As an adult, I don't blame them. And as a kid, I understood and was relieved. It was easier to just keep it to myself than explain your fits of rage and terror in front of company. But a little girl shouldn't have to understand why her friends aren't allowed to play with her every other week.
Remember the time that you picked out paint for the powder room? And then you went and bought the paint for the powder room. And my mother painted the powder room, per your request. But you hated the color and punished everyone for days because she secretly switched the paint color on you. Even though it was the paint that you picked out and purchased. You might not remember that, seeing as how it is just one teeny tiny example.
Remember how you would threaten my mother with your gun? And threaten to kill my father?
Do you know that I used to get down on my knees and pray to God for a bruise from you. Dear God, please let him hit me, just once. I knew that would be my only way out of going to your house. But I suspect you knew that too. The difference being that I was only seven, eight and nine years old. I said this prayer over and over straight through high school.
Remember how you would tape all of my calls to my dad when I was at your house? And years later when I was a teenager and finally got up the nerve to confront you about it, you were all boastful and smiling proud of your sick self?
Remember how you made up sick and false accusations about my grandfather, one of the kindest, most loving, loyal and noble men ever? My father? Me? And spread them all over town? Oh no? Well let me give you one example. After I stopped speaking to my mother, you went about town telling people that I was doing drugs. I was a teenager. A minor. And I was that kid who never did a damn thing wrong. Ever. You knew that. But you got a disgraceful pleasure out of telling the world crazy big lies about me. What kind of adult makes up crack-smoking stories about a child?
Remember how you wouldn't allow me to be in choir concerts or theater plays at my church because it was my dad's church on the bad side of town? (It's actually in one of the most expensive and exclusive areas of south Florida, but that's besides the point.) You wouldn't allow my mother to drive me to activities at that church so I had to miss out on two years of things until I could drive myself. How you bashed every single person who went there? How you refused to let my mother attend my concerts because it was my dad's church? How that church was my saving grace growing up. It was the one place that felt like a safe home. And how the month my father moved out of state, you took up membership. How you again went about saying horrible things about me and my father. All while faking religion. Proof that going to church and talking about church-y things have not a damn thing to do with one's relationship with God and their true inner character.
Now I tremble in fear every time I have to go back to that church for a wedding or baptism. An actual physical reaction. I shake knowing how much you love to cause a big scene. You have taken the peace that once came from walking in those doors. You have taken away the only place I ever envisioned getting married. You stole my effing church!
Do you remember all of the nasty, horrible things you said to me, your sons, my friends, my family, my father and my mother? Do you remember all the nasty, horrible things you said about everyone I have ever known. Including family members and church members for whom you now put on a fake show and pretend to be some God-respecting do-gooder.
How about all the holes you punched in the various walls during your dinner lectures? Remember any of those? Or the belt you used to threaten us with? How about refusing to let my mother maintain any of her friendships after the two of you got together. How about controlling every action she took? From her clothes to job to hairstyle to words to thoughts to finances...they all had to be approved by you. And were subject to set you off at any minute. If she dyed her hair the wrong color she would get in big big trouble.
How about how we had to have your approval to so much as take a walk around the block? You were the ruler. And it was all subject to change at your pleasure. You could approve us to walk the dog around the block and by the time we got back, we were in trouble for leaving the house. Remember the time you approved me to go out to dinner with friends (as in a friend and her parents) when we were in Utah that year? But I didn't come back when you (in your delusional head) thought I should be back (we were for the record, back when stated we would return after dinner) and you went off for hours? I came back and was immediately included in the punishment and reminded for years that I should continue to feel guilty for the situation.
Remember how every year on my birthday you would tell me that I didn't deserve to be celebrated? Because my birthday was a day when I should thank my mother. That I didn't deserve to be told "happy birthday." Remember that? It was every February 22nd to be specific.
Remember all the birthday parties that I wasn't allowed to attend for my friends because they were on my dad's side of town (like 20 mins away- we're not talking about any great distance) and on your weekend? Not because there were other family plans going on. But because the parents were friends with my father. Of course they were. Normal parents are all friends with each other. That's how it works when you are in elementary school.
Remember how you would lock my mother away for hours in the bedroom just screaming at her. More lectures. Sometimes those would last all day. Sometimes all weekend. No end and no beginning. And never a known reason.
Remember when you convinced my mother to kidnap me? Kept me from family. Changed my school. Took away all of my friends. Refused to let me speak to my father. I was in the third grade and remember every bloody minute of those many horrible months.
You took every fiber of happiness from my childhood. You just stole it. You lied and cheated and stole your way through my sweet pig-tail days.
You have no shame. No guilt. No remorse whatsoever. You take zero responsibility for your actions. Your are smug and a bully. And in your mind, pure perfection. You think you can do no wrong.
You are a satanic and sadistic bastard. You are evil personified.
But I am an adult now. I left when I was 16 and to this day, it remains my proudest moment in life. It has not been easy. I still have a few really bad days each year. Particularly when people tell me I need to just get over it and be nice. Um, I am nice. And compared to where I was (emotionally) 20 years ago, I am over it. But moving past it internally does not mean I will let the crazy back in physically.
I remain firm in what I said that July 03rd night so many years ago. I told y'all I was leaving and never coming back. I meant it then and have meant it every skinny minute for the last 17 years. A child has little say in her upbringing. But as a teenager/young adult, I very much had a say in shutting out the evil.
You took my mother. You took my family. You took my childhood. You took my ability to trust and open up to people. And you took my blasted church.
But I have true friendships. And inner peace that comes with leaving the dark lord behind me. I am not all the way there. But I am a million times better for walking away from your sick and twisted ways. My walls have no holes. I don't own a cleaver. And my belts are all made of colorful ribbons. No one is fearful of entering my home. Screaming and lectures are a thing of my past.
Inch by inch and year by year, I am learning to feel a little less shameful about my early years.
I have nothing nice to say,
KK
I know some of this has already been discussed on this blog in earlier Monster Monday posts. I also know that this is not particularly well-written. But it's OK as I write these for myself. I have been on a journey to find true forgiveness in my heart for both my mother and her husband, Satan, for about 16 months now. This is part of my process to let go of the past...
