child abuse

Home Is Where The Hurt Is: Mary’s Story, Part Two

HA Editorial Team16 Comments

Home Is Where The Hurt Is: Mary’s Story, Part Two

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Mary” is a pseudonym. The following series is an original non-fiction story that spans 33 pages of single-spaced sentences. It will be divided into 10 parts. The story begins during the author’s early childhood and goes up to the present. At each stage the author writes according to the age she is at.

Trigger warnings: various parts of this story contain descriptions of graphic, often sadistic, physical abuse of children, apologisms for religious abuse, deprivation of food, as well as references to rape.

*****

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Conclusion

*****

Part Two: The End of Happiness

Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be eight years old!

"Maybe tomorrow I will start to be loved again by Mom and Dad."
“Maybe tomorrow I will start to be loved again by Mom and Dad.”

I am so excited because Mom said that I can make my own birthday cake. I feel like such a big girl. Mom has been yelling at us a lot for the last few weeks but I know she won’t yell at me tomorrow because it’s my birthday!

I am so excited about tomorrow that I don’t pay attention to my mopping after supper. Now Mom is mad at me again because I missed so many spots. Why can’t I get it done right? I tell Mom I’m sorry and I’ll try harder next time. I hope this doesn’t mess up tomorrow. It’s finally bedtime and I know that the faster I go to sleep the faster tomorrow will come. So I am a good girl and don’t talk to Abby.

*****

It’s my birthday!  Mom says that, as soon as the kitchen is cleaned up from breakfast, I can start making my birthday cake. I am going to make a carrot cake. That is one of my favorites.

I get out all the ingredients from the recipe card and put them on the counter just like Mom does. Then I separate the dry ones and the wet ones like she said. I tried to be very careful to make sure I had each one right but somehow I got the flour and the baking soda mixed up on the card. I put in two cups of baking soda instead of two cups of flour. Mom came in just as I put the second cup of baking soda in and saw my mistake. She is yelling at me now and all I see is her angry face almost touching mine. She says that I’m stupid and lazy and can’t follow directions. She says that I just wasted a lot of ingredients and that she should never have let me bake anything.

I try not to cry but I don’t do a very good job and tears start flowing. She yells at me to shut up and get out of her kitchen. I run to my room as fast as I can to get away from Mom and grab Rita and curl up on my bed and keep sobbing. Why did she get so mad? I tried so hard. I guess I am stupid and shouldn’t be allowed to bake anything.  Rita’s yarn hair is very wet with my tears now but I know she doesn’t mind and I know she loves me.

Mom just called me back in the kitchen. I don’t want to go but I know I better or she will get even madder. She is still very angry when I get back and says that I have to make my cake and that she is going to be standing over my shoulder to make sure I don’t do anything wrong. I am scared now because I know she is looking for me to do something wrong and now I don’t want to make my cake. She makes me get back on the chair so I can reach the counter and start measuring. It is so hard because I still can’t make myself stop crying and I know she is getting madder at me. She tells me that I’m a crybaby and to shut up. I really try but it is so hard!

I finally get everything done and the batter mixed and in the oven and she finally lets me go. I am angry but I am careful not to show it. Everything is ready for the party now and Mom is back to happy again. I pretend I’m not mad at her so that I will have a good birthday party. John and Abby say that the cake is very good and I am very proud of myself and I hope that next year Mom will let me make my own cake without her watching me again.

I forget that I’m mad at Mom because they gave me such a nice card and present and I tell them I love them.  I do love them.  They are my parents. I am happy as I go to bed and hope that maybe tomorrow I will start to be loved again by Mom and Dad. After all they had made such a sweet card and I knew they meant it.

****

It’s now almost my ninth birthday and I really don’t care.  I have so many undone school assignments that I know I won’t have a good day.  Mom says I’m lazy and stupid. Mmaybe I am, I don’t know and right now I don’t care.  Every school assignment that she gives me I can’t do it right, so why should I bother?  She has a clipboard hanging up on the kitchen wall that says Mary’s undone list. John and Abby have one too. I hate that clipboard!  There are several pages on it.  All of them are filled top to bottom with assignments that she says aren’t done.  Most of them I already have done but she didn’t like the way that I did them or said I didn’t try and ripped them up for me to do over.  I also have a whole bunch of chores that Mom says I haven’t finished.  That means more trouble and more spankings.

I know it will not be a good birthday, so I pretend I don’t care.  Inside I am so angry at Mom but I dare not show her.

Shame

Fear and shame grip me as soon as I wake up.

The bed and my pajamas are cold and wet again. I am terrified.

The last time I wet the bed only a couple of nights ago, Mom got so angry. I am a big girl. Why can’t I wake up when I need to go?

I shake Abby awake and tell her I’m so sorry because I know that she will have gotten wet too. We jump out of bed very fast and take the sheets off the bed and I take them into the laundry room for Mom to wash, then Abby and I run to the bathroom to get cleaned up as fast as we can. We run water in the tub and take a bath as fast as we can and get dressed to go clean up our room.

I don’t make it back to our room before Mom is yelling for me to get in her room. I hate her room and am scared to go in because I know that she knows. She yells at me that I’m a big baby and that I’m lazy. She screams at me that I’m causing her more laundry and that from now on, if I wet my bed then I have to wash everything I messed up. I am crying now and I don’t understand why Mom is so angry. I want to wake up when I need to go but I just can’t. She is still yelling at me and I try to listen just so she will finish and let me go, but she keeps going. She says that if this doesn’t stop, then she is going to tell everybody at church what a baby I am.

Now I am really terrified.  She finally finishes but I know I am in trouble. We only have an hour to finish all of our chores and she yelled at me for almost 20 minutes after I had already used up about 15 minutes to get the dirty clothes in the laundry room and get cleaned up. I now only have about 25 minutes to clean the two downstairs bathrooms, empty the dishwasher from last night, vacuum all three bedrooms and the living room, and fold laundry. I know I am doomed.

I work as fast as I can but it is no use, I am only able to get the dishwasher empty and clean one bathroom before the timer goes off.  Mom yells at all of us to get to the kitchen and we trip over each other to get in there as fast as we can.  She goes down the list starting with John.  His chores are not signed off neither are mine nor Abby’s.  She yells for us all to line up outside her door for our spankings. John goes first and we listen outside as the belt hits him over and over again. I try to count them so I know how many I’m going to get but I’m so scared that I loose count.

I’m next. I don’t seem to be moving fast enough for her so she grabs me by the hair and drags me to the side of her bed. I try not to scream as she yells at me to pull my pants down. She starts spanking and I start counting to try to pay attention to something besides the pain. I don’t want to scream and I try not to make a sound but tears are running down my face by the time she reaches spanking number fifty.

She finally stops and yells at me to get out of her sight. I pull up my pants as fast as I can and get out of her room.  I run into my room across the hall and grab Rita to hug her and cry into her while Mom gives Abby hers. I am counting Abby’s so that I can put Rita down and run into the living room before Mom comes out of her room so I don’t get caught and Mom doesn’t take Rita away from me again.

She took Rita from me a while ago for two weeks and I just got her back.  I can’t lose her again.

As soon as the rounds of spankings are over, she yells at all of us to go into the living room for a family meeting.  We all know what that means and it means we are going to have a miserable day. Of course what is different than all the others? Even if they don’t start out like today did, they are all miserable.

We have now been sitting on the sofa for about two hours while Mom has been lecturing and lecturing and sometimes reading parts of Proverbs. Because she had been yelling at me first thing this morning, we missed family devotions so she decides that now is a good time to have them while she is lecturing. She finds the Proverbs about the foolish and lazy person and about the wicked.  She tells us that it is in the Bible that the foolish man needs to be punished until his wickedness is driven out of him. She says that we are the wicked and foolish people that God is talking about us in those chapters. She tells us that she cannot let rebellion go unpunished because she is God’s representative to us. If we rebel against her than we are rebelling against God.

She says that God gives people the authorities in their lives and that she was ours, therefore we are supposed to obey her without grumbling or complaining and especially without question. Then she starts down the same thing that I have heard almost every day for as long as I can remember.  She says that she is in a war against us and that God is on her side in that war. She says that she will not lose the war and we will be judged by God for not obeying her. She says that she will keep fighting till she dies, we die, or we are finally broken of our will.  Then she turns to Deuteronomy and reads some in there and tells us that, if we would only obey her, then there would be so many blessings. We would be happy as a family and God would not be angry with us.

I listen to her ramble for a little while and then I just start tuning her out.  I listen just enough so that if she asks me a question, I will be able to answer it. I tell myself that she is wrong. I do try to get my chores and school work done.

Right now I am getting angrier and angrier because I am watching the clock and I know how long we have been sitting here.  We have already long since missed breakfast and now we are only an hour away from lunch time and she is still talking. I know this means that we will miss lunch, too, because we have to have half of our school assignments done and signed off before we are allowed to eat lunch. I can’t remember the last time I had breakfast and this is the third day in a row that I have missed lunch.

Last night I only was able to have one of Mom’s five-minute, one helping meals.

I am so hungry right now that even if I wanted to listen to Mom I would have a hard time.  Mom is still very angry and is making herself angrier as she is talking.  She tells us that in the Old Testament rebellious children were stoned to death and that’s what we deserve. Now she is doing her fake crying and asking why we are all out to get her and to make her life miserable. She asks us why we can’t be good children like all the children in the home school group. She’s too tired to keep going so now she throws us all outside until Dad gets home to “deal with us” because she says we are out of control.

We are not allowed to take anything outside with us even our school work and we are not allowed to leave the back porch. I know this means that we will either miss supper too or only get a five-minute meal.  It’s so hot out here and I am so thirsty but I know better than to ask for water. When we get thrown outside, Mom says that we lose all the privileges of living in the house.

I hear Dad’s car pull into the driveway and am not sure whether or not to be scared or relieved.  Dad comes in the house and goes straight back to his room.  We can hear him and Mom talking through their bathroom window next to the deck.  Mom is talking very mean and is yelling.

We know that means things are about to get worse.

To be continued.

Home Is Where The Hurt Is: Mary’s Story, Part One

HA Editorial Team27 Comments

Home Is Where The Hurt Is: Mary’s Story, Part One

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Mary” is a pseudonym. The following series is an original non-fiction story that spans 33 pages of single-spaced sentences. It will be divided into 10 parts. The story begins during the author’s early childhood and goes up to the present. At each stage the author writes according to the age she is at.

Trigger warnings: various parts of this story contain descriptions of graphic, often sadistic, physical abuse of children, apologisms for religious abuse, deprivation of food, as well as references to rape.

*****

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Conclusion

*****

Part One: Early Childhood

I am so excited! I just prayed with Mom and Dad and asked Jesus to come into my heart!  Everybody at church says that’s such a good thing. I like everyone acting so happy with me.

"If they could figure out why she is getting the headaches then everything would be fine again."
“If they could figure out why she is getting the headaches then everything would be fine again.”

Mom says that I need to get baptized now. I know it means that I need to go in front of everybody at church and I’m not excited about that. So many people looking at me scares me so much, but Mom says that’s what God said I need to do, so I will try very hard to be brave. I’m only four, but I will try my best.

Mom just told me that it is time for bed, but I’m still so excited that I can’t sleep.  Abby and talk for a while and then she turns over and goes to sleep.

*****

I got baptized yesterday in front of the whole church! It was scary and I didn’t want that man to put me under water. I don’t like him at all. He always tickles me when I come to church and I hate that!  I’m glad he didn’t try to tickle me yesterday!  Tonight, Mom and Dad are leaving and we have a babysitter.  I like her a lot. She has her ears pierced!  Mom says that I am too young to have mine pierced, but I just can’t wait.  Abby and I play with her earings and watch her take them off and put them back on without even looking in a mirror!  I don’t know how she can do that.

Now it is time for bed.  Abby and I race to see who can get their pajamas on the fastest.  It’s close, but I won!  We go get into our bed and our babysitter turns off the lights and shuts the door.  We are not tired yet, so we start talking.  Abby asks me if I was scared to go in front of the church and I tell her I was, but not to tell anybody.  Then I start to tell her that she needs to ask Jesus in her heart because we do everything together and I want Abby to be with me all the time all the way to heaven!  She is my best friend and I want to be with her always.  Our babysitter comes back in the room and asks us why we are talking.  I told her that I was telling Abby about Jesus and she starts looking at me funny and then says ok, and leaves the room.  We don’t want to get in trouble for not obeying the babysitter, so we stop talking and go to sleep.

*****

It’s morning time!  I love waking up in the morning because I love breakfast.  It also means that Abby and I can play for a long time before it’s bedtime again.  After breakfast, we run into our room to play.  That’s our favorite place to play because most of the time, John leaves us alone.  Today we get out our Barbies and all our stuffed animals and our baby dolls.  We change our Barbies’ names all the time but our dolls are always Rita and Gail.  Mawmaw and Pawpaw gave me Rita for my birthday when I turned three.  She is my favorite toy and I love her so much.  I sleep with her every night because she is the perfect snuggling size.  Mawmaw and Pawpaw gave Gail to Abby too, but I don’t remember when.  Today we are playing “Ranch” first.  We like to play this in the morning because it is cooler outside and we don’t get too hot.  We spend a while drawing the maps to our ranch and marking what everything is, then we head outside to start playing.  Rita and Gail go with us because they are our daughters and the ranch is going to be theirs one day. So they need to learn how to take care of all the animals.

It’s getting warmer out here, so we decided to go in our room and play “Beauty Contest.”  We dress up our dolls in the prettiest dresses they have and then line them up on the bed for judging.  Abby and I are the judges but Gail can’t be the only one that wins and neither can Rita, so it is a tie!  They are both the most beautiful.  Now that the beauty contest is over, it’s time to play “College”!  This is always fun because we go get Mom’s huge nursing books.  They are the biggest books in the house and are so heavy!  That has to be what college is like.  We also get notebook paper and pens and scribble on every line.  We don’t know how to write words yet so we try to make the scribbles look like words.

Yay!  Mom just called lunch.  Today we get egg and cheese sandwiches, one of my favorites!  After lunch it is quiet time.  Abby and I are supposed to try to take a nap.  Mom says that we don’t have to fall asleep, but we have to try.  I’m too bouncy today and start jumping on the bed with Abby.  Oops!  We hear Mom coming down the hallway.  We lay down really fast and squeezed our eyes shut to pretend we are trying to sleep.  She opens the door and tells us that she heard us jumping on the bed and that if we don’t stop then we are going to have to stay in bed longer.  We really want to get up so we are very good and don’t jump anymore.  After Mom lets us get up we take our Barbies into the living room to play.  John is in there playing with his Legos and train tracks.  He built the most wonderful train track we had ever seen and we wanted to run a train on it so badly!  He wouldn’t let us though. He said that he was fighting a war and the lego planes were about ready to start bombing!  He starts making bombing noises and starts blowing up his wonderful train track!  We can’t believe it, he didn’t even run a train on it once!

He’s now finished blowing up his train track and by the way he is looking, he is trying to figure out what to blow up next!  Abby and I start picking up our Barbies really fast but he is faster and grabs one of Abby’s Barbies.  That Barbie’s name is Helen and he pulled her head off her body and then started yelling that Mt. St Helen blew her top!  We just watched a video about that volcano last week and he really liked it.  We start running to our room to get away from John and we try to shut the door before he gets there, but he is so fast.  He gets his foot in the door and we slam it on his foot.  He is so strong and he almost gets the door open then Abby and I get an idea.  We sit on the floor with our backs up against the side of the bed.  Then we put our feet up against the door and hold our legs out straight and lock our knees.  We finally get the door shut but we have to stay like that until he leaves because he has already broken the lock on our door.

All of a sudden it gets very quiet on the other side of the door. We start laughing and telling John through the door that he can’t fool us again.  The first time he did that, we were fooled and thought that he had gone away but as soon as we opened the door to leave he got in.  We are still laughing and telling John that we are not going to open the door when we hear a thud on our window.  I look over and there is John trying to open our window from the outside.  I run over really fast to make sure the window is locked, then Abby and I start teasing him.  We know he can’t get in that way, so we are not scared.

John looks really mad now. I glad the window is locked.  Wait, he just picked up his bat and is swinging it at the window.

SMASH!

The outside of our window is broken and we know John is in big trouble!  We are glad he is in trouble though. Maybe he will stop being mean to us.

*****

I am scared right now, Mom said everything was going to be alright before she and Dad left us with the babysitter and went to the hospital.  She told me that it was time for her to have our baby brother and that she was ok.  Why does she need to go to the hospital then?  Hospitals are where people go when they are very sick and sometimes people die there.  I don’t want Mom to go, I miss her and want her home.  I go hide from the babysitter in my room and cry.  I am worried about Mom and I want her to be ok.

It’s bedtime and Dad still hasn’t called, I can’t sleep at all.  Our babysitter comes in and reads me another story and tells me again that Mom is just fine.  I want to believe her but it is so hard!  I finally am able to go to sleep because I am so tired.

*****

It’s time to get up now!  Maybe Mom and Dad will be home soon. I want to see them. so badly.  After we finish breakfast, the phone rings.  We jump and try to be patient while our babysitter talks to whoever is calling.  She is smiling very big when she turns around and hangs up the phone.  She tells us that we have a new brother and that his name is Henry and that he is just as healthy as he can be.  I am so happy that I start screaming and Abby starts with me and we run outside because we can’t keep screaming inside.  Mom will not come home till tomorrow, but I know she is safe.

Henry is such a cute baby and I love having a baby brother.  I am such a big helper with him too.  I help Mom change his diapers and give him a bath.  Mom says that I can’t help feed him, but that’s ok, sometimes Mom lets me watch.  I ask her if it hurts to have a baby sucking on her, but she says no, that’s they way it’s supposed to be.  I ask her when I’m going to get the bumps that she is feeding Henry with and she just says that I’ll get them one day.  I always wonder how long away is one day. I am just so fascinated with Mom and I want to be just like her when I grow up. 

Everybody says that I look just like her and that makes me proud.  I am her oldest little girl and I am glad that I am so much like her.

Mom just called us into the living room, we sit down and she says she needs to ask us a question.  Baby Henry is sleeping in her lap and I try to be careful so Mom will let me touch him.  Mom tells us that she and Dad have been talking about her not going back to work anymore.  She said this means that she will be home all the time with us, but she wants to know if we like that idea.  I was so excited and happy — that means Mom would be home every night and would be able to tuck us in and everything!  I tell her that I want her to stay home.  Abby says the same thing and John says that he does not care.  Abby and I are so happy that we start to dance around the living room until Mom reminds us to be quiet because Henry is still sleeping.

Mom’s Medical Problems

I am so tired!  We have been at the doctor’s office all day long.

Mom brought us a picnic lunch and we had to eat in the parking lot.  Finally Mom and Dad come out, but we still have to stop and get Mom’s medicine before we can go home. This is the fifth doctor Mom has been to this month.  She has very bad headaches all the time and she is too tired right after breakfast to get off the sofa.  We have had sandwiches for lunch for so long!  I am so tired of them, but Mom doesn’t have the energy to fix anything and that is all we know how to make. I am not looking forward to supper either, Dad doesn’t know how to cook anything so we know that we will have cereal for supper again.

Why can’t anybody figure out what is wrong with Mom?  I miss her yummy food and her playing with us.  She can still help us with our school work because she doesn’t have to get up for that, but I want her better.  She is always a lot more irritable when she has a headache. It’s harder to get our school work done the right way to make her happy.  As we drive home, I am hoping that this doctor figured out what is wrong.  Mom finally tells us that he didn’t and that she has to go to another doctor next week.

This doctor is not in town and they have to go spend the night for a few nights. She tells us that Grammy is coming to stay with us while she and Dad go. I get very excited again. I love Grammy so much!  She is my favorite grandmother.  For the next few days, Abby and I are counting them down till Grammy comes!  This is going to be a great week.  She won’t make us do school work and we get yummy food again.  Grammy also always gives us lots of hugs and kisses and tells us she loves us.  I don’t know why Mom and Dad don’t do that anymore but I really miss getting hugs.

They finally know why Mom is so tired all of the time.  Her thyroid is not working anymore.  I don’t know what that is but Mom said it is a little thing in your throat that gives your body energy and because it doesn’t work anymore she hasn’t had any energy.  If they could figure out why she is getting the headaches then everything would be fine again.

Right now I am mad at Mom. Her headaches have been worse but now she can get off the sofa. She is angry at us all the time.

I don’t know why — we are not any different.

She didn’t like the way that Abby and I cleaned our room this morning. That is why she is mad. I am mad because she has been yelling at us all morning. I wish the doctors would fix her headaches!

To be continued.

I Was Trained to Torture Myself: Grace’s Story, Part Two

HA Editorial Team15 Comments

I Was Trained to Torture Myself: Grace’s Story, Part Two

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Grace” is a pseudonym

*****

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

*****

January 25

I’m finding that my story is more about my parents, and their relationship with each other, which is now falling apart, than it is about homeschooling or religion. Everything I learned about the world was from them. That knowledge motivates me to be a better parent to my babies.

I am trying to make my life more organized and manageable, and ask for help when I need it. I had been really good about not isolating myself and shutting down, but I did shut down last week and it got bad fast. I found myself staring at [my husband’s] rifle thinking it was an easy way out.

Usually I recognize the depression symptoms before that point and catch myself.

I hope that sharing this might help you to not feel so alone, because I bet you can identify in some way.

***

February 17

I’m going to talk about the depression and anxiety with which I struggle. This is going to be mostly about my life now, maybe not so much about when I was younger.

I have felt a tangible darkness in my life almost as far back as I can remember. And I think the anxiety started more around my teens. When I was younger depression took the form of guilt, and not measuring up. I remember learning about God in the earliest stage of my life. At 5 years old I felt the weight of my sin like a burden (remember Pilgrim’s Progress? Did your family have that book?) and gave my life to Jesus because I felt the need to be forgiven.

When I think about it now, it is amazing that I have continued to follow God, because that first conversion was very much out of a fear (afraid, not respect) of God and his wrath because of what my parents taught me. I have always been extremely sensitive, caring, and aware of others’ feelings, whether in general or their feelings towards me. I believe it is a gift, but it also has its challenges.

So here I was, 5 years old, feeling the need to be saved from myself because I believed that I was very evil. I’m not sure when the voices started, but I did hear voices as a child. I’m not talking about negative self-talk, which did happen later in life. I’m not talking about a still small voice that is supposed to be God. I heard narration in my head of what I was doing. My mind was tortured.

I believe it stemmed from witnessing and experiencing the violence my father dished out. I was “disciplined” by being spanked with a wooden paddle, which was bigger than my dad’s hand, and his hands aren’t small.

I learned later that he made the paddle himself. It sickens me to think about it.

I really do forgive my parents for the things they did, because I think they were doing the best they knew how, and even when my dad got a little nuts and hit us or threw us around, which was totally wrong, you simply cannot live a healthy life without forgiveness.

So as a result of being abused, which to me was not as hard to deal with as the trauma of watching my dad hurt my siblings or my mom, and seeing what I saw, I think my child-brain dissociated, and the part that distanced itself decided it was safer to tell the story so that perhaps there would be a happy ending.

This is all speculation.

Another theory about this is that I wanted to be able to blame myself for my father’s outbursts, because if it was something I had done wrong, I had control over that, I could fix that.

So I became a perfectionist and a control freak.

***

February 20

Anxiety has been a part of my life in a big way since I was 12. I walked in on my dad looking at a picture of a naked woman on the computer. I confronted him about it, and he said he didn’t want Mom to know. I waited until he fell asleep on the couch, and with my heart pounding out of my chest, snuck out of the house, over the backyard fence, and slept in my neighbor’s backyard until 5 am when my friend’s mom woke up. Then I scared her half to death by knocking on the window. She invited me in, and let me sleep on their couch until morning.

My dad came over, looking for me, and then took me out to breakfast. We talked about other things, and he finally said that he had told mom about what happened.

The thing was, it took me years, more than a decade, to realize the damage done by witnessing that one event. The anxiety and anorexia started at the same time. I became afraid of gaining weight, because in my young mind, that was the only thing I could see that was wrong with my mom, that she was slightly overweight, and not happy about it. I somehow equated my dad mentally cheating with my mom’s so-called imperfection.

My mom even remembers that all through my teens, I was never hungry. I didn’t even become aware of my eating disorder until I was in my 20s and didn’t gain enough weight with my pregnancies, and lost weight after I gave birth. At one point I was 111 pounds, and I’m just over 5’6′.

Counseling, years of counseling, has brought up all these issues, and I have been able to work through many of them and continue growing and maturing. There is much pain in my heart, but pain is what helps people grow.

So back to my story.

I was anxious, fearful, and never hungry. I was afraid, no, convinced, that a man would leave me, whether emotionally, sexually, or just plain get up and walk out the door, if I was fat. The thing is, my mom has never been obese. I never thought she was overweight. My mother is beautiful. Her eyes and smile are radiant. And she’s curvy, in a good way. I never saw anything wrong with her. But she was unhappy about her weight, and I picked up on that. So I thought it must be really easy to gain weight. I thought maybe I wouldn’t even know when I was fat. So I didn’t eat very much.

When I did eat a lot, I felt guilty, like I was doing something wrong. I’m not even talking eating a lot. To me, a lot is like what normal people consider a regular portion of food. This fear of being left eventually drove me to losing my virginity before I was really ready for it, to practically manipulating my ex-husband to marry me after we slept together for the first time, before we were married.

A lot of these situations were also exacerbated by my fear and religious zeal. I was so worried about trying to obey God so that I wouldn’t be in trouble, I tried to fix any mistake, and would many times mentally beat myself up because I had made what I considered the wrong decision, whether I had the information to be able to make a better decision or not.

I was mean. I was harsh. I hated myself, and hated on myself.

Negative self-talk was a way of life. Sometimes I joke about this being from the “Catholic” side of the family, because of the idea of penance, or atoning for your own sins. But Jesus… the whole reason he died was supposed to be to save us from these sins we’re trying to make up for.

My eyes are tearing up as I write this. So much wasted time spent trying to make things right that were already covered by God’s grace. Imperfection. God loves it. He loves us. It took me so long to know this, to experience this.

I had heard it many times but it meant nothing because my parents modeled self-hatred. I think this is the core of what tortures many of us: our parents’ modeling of behaviors.

It would be impossible had I not already been sharing it all along, in bits and pieces, with friends, and hurting people who needed to hear it. I so appreciate the opportunity to reach people on a broader scale. Connection is the heart of existence, I think.

***

February 26

There are plenty of times when I want to just have it out with people, but experience (being the scapegoat, especially having my dad yell at me, which I still have nightmares about on a regular basis) has taught me that:

1. Nobody likes being yelled at, and

2. The people who have made the biggest impact on my life are the ones who always assume the best of people.

I want to be like the latter, because it will have a positive and comforting impact on the people around me, and shows the love of Jesus. I will, however, attack religious zealots with great fervor. See Jesus v. Animal Sellers at Temple.

***

February 27

More about depression and anxiety. From January until April, my depression is hardcore. I had a miscarriage in late March, another in early April (different years), right after my grandfather died.

When I was 11 I was molested (in January), and again in April.

My sister was sexually assaulted in April when she was young, and was hospitalized as a result.

February is my birthday, Valentine’s Day, and the anniversary of my ex and my marriage. January was when I left my ex, and also when he took the kids from me and wouldn’t give them back.

One year I tried to commit suicide in April.

March I was served with divorce papers.

April he had his first supervised visitation and I started smoking.

The list goes on… These are definitely not in chronological order. But you get the idea. So, left unchecked, my auto-pilot goes into self-destruct mode during those months. It’s not too bad the first couple months of the year, and I can get through it alright, but once the end of March rolls around, I am a dead woman walking. It’s a struggle to do anything productive. The rest of the year, the depression is much more easily manageable.

This hasn’t always been the case. It’s taken years of counseling to even realize I had depression.

I could describe some of the symptoms, but my parents had always called it laziness. I thought I was just stupid, lazy, a bad person, and not good at life. Even though it’s clear that mental illness runs in my family, ex. depression, anxiety, possible bi-polar, and a distant relative was institutionalized when I was a kid. I know relatives who have eating disorders, paranoia, OCD, and aggressive tendencies. But almost none have been evaluated or diagnosed. I think it’s more about the stigma, and not enough information being out there about these illnesses, than refusal of treatment.

I think there is a correlation between mental illness and homeschooling. Not that homeschooling creates or affects mental illness, but that those who suffer from mental illness tend towards the option of homeschooling their children. When people with social disorders who have a hard time getting along with others are deciding on school options for their children, they may have the idea that their child may suffer from the same anxiety when around other children that they did when they were kids. I think unfortunately they may only think about this subconsciously, and not think about it as possibly a challenge to be overcome, but rather something to be avoided.

So we see a lot of socially awkward parents, isolating their children, homeschooling them, and the children may or may not be socially awkward, and whether this is a genetic disorder that is passed on, or simply something the children learn from their parents is something else to figure out.

I think another sad reality of people who choose homeschooling is that some use it as a way to hide abuse in their home. They are already paranoid about the authorities, especially in homeschooling-hostile states, and don’t realize how damaging, illegal, and cyclic abuse is. They also seem to believe they are above the law.

It really is like a separate religion.

And then when you have crazy cult leaders like Bill Gothard and make your children wear jean jumpers to the floor and dear God no shorts or tank tops!

It just makes the whole bunch look like nutcases.

So don’t drink the koolaid. Homeschooling is not evil, as I used to say, and neither is communism, and in a perfect world, they would work.

But this world is imperfect.

*****

To be continued.

For the media: Former homeschoolers rally against abuse

HA Editorial Team13 Comments

For the media: 

Former homeschoolers rally against abuse

March 16, 2013

A group of former homeschoolers are joining together to bring awareness to, and healing from, different forms of abuse in extreme homeschooling subcultures. The organization, Homeschoolers Anonymous (HA), is being coordinated by former homeschoolers across the United States, including California, Louisiana, Oregon, and Washington.

According to recent surveys, approximately 2 million children are taught at home in the United States. The total number of home-educated kids doubled between 1999 and 2007. While some are being homeschooled in non-Christian families, the National Home Education Research Institute claims almost three-quarters of those 2 million children have conservative Christian parents who aim to pass on their moral and religious values to their kids through home education. This makes religion the primary motivating factor behind this form of education.

HA’s creator is R.L. Stollar, who was homeschooled from K-12 and currently resides in Eugene, Oregon. He has a Master of Arts in Eastern philosophy and religion and is a freelance writer. Stollar says he came up with the idea for HA after realizing that many of his homeschooled peers suffered from some of the same emotional, mental, and physical problems that he does. Stollar says,

“I started talking last August to someone I knew in junior high and high school about some of the issues we both struggle with today. And it was interesting to see these similarities and that we both attributed them to the same things from our backgrounds.”

Stollar realized that many of his peers had stories like this. He decided to created Homeschoolers Anonymous to bring awareness to these stories and to inspire others to speak out. He intends for HA to give others courage:

“I think, for a lot of us, we are afraid to say what we feel, to say we have changed. A lot of us perceived the message of our world as ‘shut up, get in line, and prepare to take back the culture.’ That makes us, even as adults, timid and maybe even scared of community backlash if we were to say, ‘You know, I’m a different person now. I grew up, I’m an adult, and I have my own life.'”

Stollar connected with old friends on Facebook and made new ones. He found a community of people who shared the same vision. One of those people is Nicholas Ducote, who grew up in a family immersed in Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute (ATI). He has his Master of Arts in History from Louisiana Tech University and is currently working on a book about lumber development in North Louisiana.

Ducote considers his upbringing to be a form of fanaticism. To him, fanaticism is any manifestation of an ideology that knows no compromise and uses children as vehicles of ideological advancement. Ducote says,

“The quaint, happy, innocent life of a child can quickly be replaced by the stark absolutes of fanaticism. Muslim, Christian, and Jew are one in the same monster. Their fanatics take different names, they act in different ways, but they are all the same.”

Stollar, Ducote, and team of others are eager to see the launch of their vision. Homeschoolers Anonymous has partnered with a number of well-known bloggers to help bring greater visibility to their stories of abuse and healing. These blog partners include Libby Anne’s Love Joy Feminism, Heather Doney’s Becoming Worldly, Vyckie Garrison’s No Longer Quivering, and Julie Anne Smith’s Spiritual Sounding Board.

About the blog partners, Stollar says,

“I’m really excited to be partnering with these individuals and groups who write about, among other things, their homeschooling experiences. Honestly, they’ve directly inspired [HA] because of what they do. They’ve really paved the way to speaking out about abuse within certain cultures.”

One of the blog partners, Julie Anne Smith, is a homeschooling parent herself. Smith has over 20 years of experience homeschooling her children. She believes HA will help both current and former homeschool kids, even other parents:

“Homeschool students and their parents have become part of a unique culture yielding a mixed bag of results. The first crop of homeschooled students are now adults, establishing their own lives and families. It’s important to take an honest look at homeschool history by reading personal stories — describing the joys and even disappointments of those who paved the homeschool trail.”

While HA hopes to talk candidly about abuse within homeschooling and provide methods of healing from that abuse, the group is careful to point out they do not oppose homeschooling itself. Stollar notes that,

“This isn’t anti-homeschool in any way. At the end of the day, this isn’t even about conservative politics or Christianity. It is more about anywhere and everywhere that communities and adults use religious or political ideology to deny children their humanity and freedom to be for the sake of advancing that ideology. That’s a cult mentality. And wherever that mentality exists, you create emotional, mental, physical, and even sexual abuse and trauma for children. We want to be a strong voice in opposition to that mentality through our life stories, through education and information.”

Homeschoolers Anonymous will be launching their website tomorrow, Sunday, March 17.

*****

This news release may be reprinted without permission in part or in entirety for promotional purposes.

*****

 Media Information / Contacts

Official website: http://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com

Twitter: @HomeschoolAnon

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HomeschoolersAnonymous

Media contact: R.L. Stollar, homeschoolersanonymous@gmail.com

I Was Trained to Torture Myself: Grace’s Story, Part One

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

I Was Trained to Torture Myself: Grace’s Story, Part One 

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Grace” is a pseudonym.

*****

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

*****

"Home was a place to try and live up to impossible standards. I learned at home that nothing I did was good enough. Who I was, was wrong."
“Home was a place to try and live up to impossible standards. I learned at home that nothing I did was good enough. Who I was, was wrong.”

I think I’m ready to tell my story. The thing is, I’m a very thorough, detail-oriented person, so it might work better to make it into a series, like a blog. I would like it to be anonymous, but I’m excited about this and I hope my story can bring healing and people can identify with me.

***

December 2

This is what I remember from my childhood. My mother decided to homeschool us for a variety of reasons. She had gone to a public school herself, but she had children starting at age 30, so in reflecting back on her education, and because of the kind of violent crimes that were happening in the 1980s in schools, she wanted to keep her children safe as well as give them an excellent education.

I remember as a young child, maybe 8, my dad’s dad, my grandfather, promising me a dime for each state and capital that I could correctly recite, only to find out in my twenties that he had been extremely skeptical of home-schooling, and my mother always felt she had to prove to him that we were actually being educated. My mother didn’t have a teaching degree, but she did have Bachelor and Master’s degrees. This was a smart woman.

She did, however, make one decision I will never understand.

She married my father.

***

December 5

As far back as I can remember, my father had three states of being.

1. Raging.

2. Trying to make up for it.

3. Asleep.

When I got older I noticed a 4th, which was either glued to a tv or computer screen. And I suppose a 5th: Working.

The reason I do not understand why my mother married this man is that he was verbally and physically abusive to her on a regular basis. My mother was afraid of him. I could see it. I was afraid, too, but as I got older it turned into anger, resentment, and even hate.

One day as a teenager, I tried to drive away, and he opened the car door and told me to get out, and that I was not leaving. I sat there in the driver’s seat, contemplating whether kicking him as hard as I could right in his nuts would give me the opportunity to shut the car door and escape. I ended up giving in to his wishes to come back in the house.

I hated myself for it.

I remember my mom used to leave the house regularly for a “break,” which usually lasted a few hours. But one night she didn’t come home. She called my dad to let him know that she was safe but wouldn’t be home that night. I think she was gone for two days, at my aunt’s house.

When my mom refused to tell my dad where she was, he hung up the phone. Ok, correction, he slammed the tough plastic coated metal rotary phone on its hook repeatedly until it broke into pieces. It sat in his workshop in the garage for months, waiting to be fixed.

It never was fixed.

I hated looking at it, because it would send me into flashbacks. I got to know the feel of adrenaline pumping through my veins at a very young age. Some of the abuse and neglect I’ve completely blocked out, and some of it I remember so vividly I would swear it only happened minutes ago.

My mother is now in her sixties, has been married to my father for more than thirty years, and has in the last year decided to separate from him. As a teenager I cannot count the times I wished they would get a divorce. A good friend of my mom left her husband because of abuse and I was jealous. At fifteen, I was elated to come home from a college class to a phone call from my mom, telling me to meet her at a nearby parking lot, and we were going to stay at someone else’s house for the night.

She had filed a restraining order against my dad.

But two weeks later, he was back. My mother was a pushover and I was pissed off. I was not ready to see him. I realize now that pressing charges and sending his ass to jail might have prevented the hell my siblings and I endured for the next few years.

By the time I was 17, I figured out I could escape all the fighting by staying away from home as much as possible, and at 18, I moved out.

***

December 16

My mom taught me from a very young age to be “modest,” which meant loose-fitting clothes, practically wearing turtlenecks because God forbid you show cleavage. And no tank tops. Shorts had to be almost to the knee if not below.

Looking back, I have almost no pictures of me looking feminine, other than floor-length dresses or skirts, mostly for church. My mom finally let me start wearing makeup around 15 or 16, but not too much. Mostly just a little eyeshadow and mascara.

When I was 12, some friends took me to an airshow, and I wore my shortest shorts, which were still almost to the knee, and then rolled them up after leaving home.

This is a perfect picture of what life was like most of the time. Hide who you are at home, you are only safe to come out of your shell with other peers, kids your own age. Shouldn’t home be the place to relax and be yourself?

It wasn’t for me.

Home was a place to try and live up to impossible standards. I learned at home that nothing I did was good enough. Who I was, was wrong. Conform. Yet my parents continually taught not to conform to the world’s standard. Hypocrisy.

As an adult, I struggle to replace these fallacies with logic, and it is difficult because of how deeply they’ve been ingrained.

I am a tortured soul.

I was trained to torture myself.

***

To be continued.