My Childhood Nightmare
I grew up real poor; my parents graduated high school and all that, but never made it much farther. My Dad had problems with his past, he’d gotten into drinking, he stopped the day I was born though, I was lucky in that. My mom was an undiagnosed manic depressive. Dad went from job to job to job. My sister was born when I was 3. We moved every 2 or 3 years when the rent got too high, so I never had close friends, not until I was 7 or so. When I had just turned 6 we moved into another new place, I was half way through kindergarten, it was mid January. Within a couple of weeks my Mom had a friend in a bad spot; she was leaving her abusive husband and needed some place to stay, and she’d pay half the rent. Her name was Patty and for a few months she and her daughter stayed with us and she had a boyfriend. Sometime around August or September she went back to her husband, but she’d been partially supporting the boyfriend who’d just gotten kicked out of his foster parents’ house. He was 19 or 20, his name was Aaron, I will never forget that name.
It started within three weeks of him moving in. My mom was at work, my sister was at preschool or daycare still (I think I’d skipped because I had a cold or something), and I can’t remember where Dad was.
The thing is, my parents had both been sexually abused when they were in their early teens, when I was 5 they told me all the things to be careful of and not to listen to. That if someone made up the stories about it happening with people who loved each other, or they were showing me how the world works, or they just really really cared, that I shouldn’t believe them. I should run away and get one of them.
That day we were watching cartoons on the television and sitting on the couch together. I had quickly trusted him, as most children would trust someone their parents considered safe. He put his hand on my shoulder, and it slowly moved down my arm and onto my thigh. He started stroking my thigh and I moved away, I was uncomfortable with that; it was close to one of those places Dad had warned me no one was supposed to touch. Aaron smiled and looked at me and told me that he was just trying to show me what would happen later. That any man who cared about me would do this, even my Dad, and that he was just trying to make it nice the first time. I got up and started to run out of the room, trying to leave the house since no one else was home. He grabbed my hair and pulled me back. He smacked me in the stomach, he didn’t leave a mark, he always avoided leaving marks. You can cause a lot of pain and never leave a mark. He forced me to the floor in front of the couch and had his way. I left then, I just shut my brain off, all I remember is his face over mine and then this weightless feeling.
He told me that if I told my parents would think I was lying, it worked because I had just gotten lectured about lying. That my parents trusted him more, and they wouldn’t handle liars, they’d send me to the foster care people and if I thought this was bad it’d be a million times worse with them. He told me that if I got sent away I always had a little sister who could take my place. I never told for her.
After that day it happened anywhere from once to twice a week. He’d come in my room at night, when my Dad was working night shift and my mom had fallen asleep. He’d grab my ankles because I’d gotten into this “horrible habit” of kicking him in the nads and trying to escape. That or he’d find little “surprises” during the day. He lived with us until June or July of when I was 8.
We moved to a different apartment then, I left the first friends I had ever made (though we weren’t close because of what I was hiding). I made more friends at the new apartment, I needed them desperately. My mom was completely gone, she had just broken down and disappeared. My Dad was having insulin problems, he’d gotten diabetes from eating hamburger helper every night. The problems threw him into these rages, his feelings of helplessness with my mom’s condition didn’t help. I was scared to be home. Three weeks after we moved I was scared to be outside too. Aaron would come, park his car, and he’d come get me from the courtyard. He’d take me into his car and make me do things with him; sometimes he’d take me to his apartment or some strange house. He’d always bring food for me. At this point in my life I’d been trained not to run, I’d learned running was just more painful than taking it. He only came once every other week, sometimes less but he made up for those times. My friends became my family, we made plans to runaway to New York together, we’d destroy this abandoned building nearby together, anything to gain some control in our lives. They were abused too. Only briefly, for a month, was I free from all the problems. My Dad’s mother and one of his brother’s thought my sister and I weren’t taking mom’s illness well, so they took us to their house while she was in the day hospital. They didn’t intend to give us back, but I fixed it, we loved our parents even though they couldn’t be there.
