surrogate spouse – Homeschoolers Anonymous

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Trigger warnings: references (sometimes graphic) to emotional, physical, religious, and sexual abuse.

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HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Auriel” is a pseudonym. Auriel blogs at Drying My Wings.

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Also in this series: Part One: Growing Kids the Abusive Way | Part Two: Isolation and Ideology | Part Three: Mini-Parents | Part Four: The Sound of a Sewing Machine | Part Five: The Aftermath of Childhood Abuse

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Part 4: The Sound of a Sewing Machine

Staring at thread and machinery, she allowed her exhausted shoulders to slump against the hardback chair.

With each repetitive motion, her hands deftly cut cut cut cut cut across the stiff grey table. Tic tic tic tic the machines whir endlessly, in and out, in and out. Rip rip rip rip!

Hours of work are undone by hours more work. Half-completed items lie in growing heaps. Reds, greens, blues, salts and peppers, all become a muddy pile of blah. Daylight dims as the girl strains her neck forward. Red eyes betray stray tears that struggle down her face leaving a salty presence among the rows upon rows of pretty yellow prints.

Her hair falls tiredly across her face. The soft skin of her feet are pricked and pierced by the pins, needles, and scraps that litter the floor. Each calloused finger burns from the glue that cements itself to her fingertips. Of course she longs for freedom. But her owners need not chain her leg to the chair. The girl cannot escape. She has nowhere to go.

The poor child does not even know she is a slave. They have lied to her.

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I was trafficked into slavery for forced labor.

Yes, you read that right.

I was trafficked into slavery for forced labor. As a teen, my mother asked if I wanted to do a craft business with her. After the physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse and neglect, obviously it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

If I had, I knew there’d be hell to pay, and I’d still have to do it.

Boom. I found myself working in a sweatshop 13 hours a day sewing for two months straight, and then for weeks at a time afterwards. I was a literal slave. Mom would not let me do school while I sewed, saying that this was my school (never mind the fact that she called it a business when it suited her).

I spent hundreds of long hours sewing, cutting cloth, embellishing each tiny item with complicated finishes. Furthermore, I was in charge of our website, web store and blog content, and all business records.

To add insult to injury, a person from the newspaper came, interviewed us, and made a story, with me smiling a painted story, telling lies, and gritting my teeth pretending it was fun.

Mom rarely lifted a finger to help me with “our business.” I cried so often. My nerves were shot. Even now, it’s hard to speak of. I wrote in narrative because somehow, that’s easier.

In between, I spent so much time trying to catch up on missed time for school. After hundreds of hours, I was never paid a cent. It broke at least 7 child labor laws in my country. Nevertheless, I was a passionate abolitionist. Through speeches, and human trafficking cases, I poured my soul into the hope that someday slaves would be free, even as I was a slave myself.

I finally escaped with the help of my dad at 16. Somehow, my pleading broke through to him, and he stood up to my mom, telling her it was over.

Even now though, I cannot bear to hear the sound of a sewing machine.

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To be continued.

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Trigger warnings: references (sometimes graphic) to emotional, physical, religious, and sexual abuse.

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HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Auriel” is a pseudonym. Auriel blogs at Drying My Wings.

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Part 3: Mini-Parents

For both of my parents, I served as a surrogate spouse.

I mediated their fights, hoping they wouldn’t escalate to violence. They would come to me as their confidant. Dad would complain to me about Mom, sharing his quandaries, wondering how to deal with her.

He even consulted me as to whether he should divorce my mom when I was 14, or if he should take her to a psychiatric hospital when she was suicidal.

My mother, on the other hand, was a lonely soul. Many nights, she’d climb into my bed with me and spoon me. Then, she’d complain about my father, their sex life, how she was abused by her family and my father. At 13, my mother declared that my father raped her. My father denied it. I was so shocked and torn, not knowing who to believe. To appease her, I would sit on her bed daily, listening to hours long diatribes about her marriage problems.

She would expose her naked body to me, change in front of me, climb in the hot tub with just underwear, have me give her shoulder and feet massages, bring me into public restrooms with her, use excuses to see my body and make comments from the time I was a tot until I was 17 and more.

I had no voice, no way to say no.

She was my mother. I didn’t like it, but had no idea it was sexually abusive. I did not know females could be sexual abusers. I thought this was normal for mothers to do. I thought all girls knew what their moms looked like naked.

My mom was chronically and mentally ill, and slept most of the day, leaving us unsupervised. If she got up, it was to rage, dole out beatings, blame us for how terrible she felt, and then to sit in front of the computer screen. I’d sit with her, patiently watching her computer screen, hoping she’d appreciate me then. But normally, she’d ignore me.

So, I took over as parent and ran the house. Eventually, I was in charge of watching, caring for, and tutoring my younger siblings, cooking all family meals, picking up and cleaning our huge house, and doing dishes. I taught my youngest sibling to read, write, do math, use scissors, play, everything. At age 9, I was calling for all the appointments, hotels, stores, rides, and play dates for my family… everything an adult would do, I did. On top of this, I was my mother’s caretaker. I made her meals, checked on her hourly, and cleaned her room.

The best way to describe it is that I parented my mother and all of my siblings.

With the belief in the homeschooling community that teenagers don’t exist, my mom called me a “young adult” at 12. I was the oldest girl, the responsible one. I just wanted approval and respect, and to keep the peace as much as possible for survival. Indeed, it seems that our parent’s love was conditional on our love. Our value was tied to our obedience, to our service, to our usefulness, resourcefulness. But with so many adult pressures, so much fear of violence, and our worth conditional to reception of love, there was a terrible price to pay.

I was taught to abuse.

I was taught to beat my dogs…hit, kick, shock them with the shock collar, all while the poor dogs cowered and yelped in pain, struggling to escape. I hated it, but did not know it was wrong. If I refused, I would be in trouble. Either way, I was damned.

With my 4 siblings, I started raising them from the time I was 8. Growing up in such an isolated, violent environment, violence was one of the few ways I knew to handle problems.

Being taught Ezzo methods did not help.

Yelling or name-calling could keep them in line. If they didn’t cooperate, I would grab, push, drag, smack the back of their heads, slap them, or kick them (I always told myself it was a light kick, so it was ok). I thought all siblings did this. I thought all families acted this way. Due to my extreme isolation, I did not know I was a bully until I was 16 years old! When I found out, I cried bitter tears of guilt and shame. I apologized profusely, and made amends to them. It pains me to this day that I could not take back what I’d done.

We were trained to keep silent about the fights and abuse at home or face severe punishment.

Moreover, there was so much shame surrounding it. I made it my responsibility to be the guardian of outgoing words. Concurrently, I was my parent’s pawn. I believed them. They forced me to be an apologist for the very things I despised. Therefore, to preserve my sanity, my mind forgot the abuse. I told folks what great parents I had, and gave my parents cards saying “#1 Dad” and “Best Mother in the World!”

I stood up for spanking rights, parental rights, homeschooling rights, courtship, no kissing before marriage, and so many other things that I internally was at war with myself over.

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To be continued.