I Am Done Hiding – Part I

I have been once again contacted by an individual in the greyhound community who shared their heartbreaking story of childhood sexual assault and has asked me to share it with my readers. This story pulls no punches. It is not easy to read. Both my wife and I cried after reading it. This story shows the trauma, the pain of an abused child and also exactly how a child molester can and does alter the life and rob the innocence of the children they molest.

I Am Done Hiding - Part I

My story and survival begins before I was born.

My biological mother was an alcoholic, RX drug addict, and had a life threatening auto immune disease. Due to a blood transfusion, she contacted Hepatitis B. I know my mother did not want me. I survived medications that were supposed to make her miscarry me. Then I survived a saline abortion. I was due November 28^th, but was born Aug 3^rd.

My mother was in the hospital until I was six years old due to her auto immune disease. Sometimes she was able to come home for a weekend, sometimes not. My grandmother raised me and took care of her mother as well. My great-grandmother was Cherokee and we spoke our language until she passed. Soon after her passing my grandmother met a preacher and they began a common law marriage. This preacher forbid us speaking anything but English, and it was quickly learned that being anything but Caucasian was severely shameful. My hair, once black as night and down to my ankles, was cut short and dyed red. The preacher loved the movie “Annie” and said I looked like her. I cried. I hated that movie. I still do.

My grandmother worked near her house and allowed me to go home to fix a sandwich or watch cartoons rather than stay the full day at her work with her. One particular day, the preacher was home.

I was six years old the first time I learned about sex. I had bruises all over from trying to get away. I still remember hurting so much. My mom was home that weekend. She came to pick me up that evening. When I told her what had happened... well... I would like to tell you that he was arrested. I can't. Instead, I'm here to speak the truth. I was slapped hard enough that I got a black eye. My mother dragged me to my grandmother and the preacher and I was forced to tell them the “lie” I had told her and made to apologize for lying. That was the beginning of eight years of repeated rape by the same preacher. My only friend at the time, a Doberman, once tried to protect me. I was eight and had enough that day of the preacher and yelled at him. He grabbed me by my throat and threw me through the kitchen window. My grandmother witnessed it, but she only focused on my Doberman attacking the preacher. I remember her coming out to the porch and fussing at me that it was my fault for starting it, all the while pulling glass out of me. I still bear those scars on my back and arms. My Doberman was killed the next day by the preacher, and everything got much worse. I would go to school petrified of not knowing if he would be the one picking me up from school. It was nothing uncommon for me to have severe stomach ulcers from stress. I did my best to stay with my grandmother, but he would find reasons that I needed to go back to the house, and I was forced to go.

I never bothered telling my mom about the neighborhood boys. What difference would it have made that three boys pushed me off my bike and dragged me into the woods.

When I was twelve, my biological mother had a friend and insisted that I become her daughter's friend. I was never interested in either of them, but my mother insisted. She insisted one day we go to some family gathering of her friends. That night I found out why I was forced to go. I wasn't worth what my mother sold me for. As she sat getting high and drunk, I was gang raped by eight men. Of course it was all my fault. My mother being a psychiatric nurse was good at mind games. For years, I believed it was my fault.

The first time I went to see a gynecologist he was startled to see the internal (in addition to external) damage I had. I was told I would never be able to conceive or give birth to children. Never. Yet again, this was all my fault. Yet again another reason for my mom to hit me.”

Part II will be posted 6/23/17