In 6th grade our family changed churches for the fifth time in six years. We started going to Puckety U.P. Church. I liked it there and I would do anything to stay there. It seemed we moved around a lot, so I never really attached myself to a place, until now. Thru Jr. High, youth group was my escape. I loved getting out of the house to play some silly games or even talk about God; Sundays were the only thing I looked forward to. Half way through 7th grade, I met what would be my two dearest friends ever. Zach made me laugh and I was in deep need of some happiness. I was good at playing off that everything was fine to the outside world by being silly or loud. Then I met Ashley, we just clicked and she accepted me for who I was, with no questions asked. I started spending as much time with her and her family as possible; that is if I got my chores done in time. (sound familiar?) Her mother caught on quickly that something was wrong; and I remember the day she pulled me aside and asked me flat out what was wrong. For some reason I couldn’t lie this time, so I just cried. She took me in as her own and I was so thankful for that family. 8th grade was the best year of my life, even though I knew matt would graduate in the spring and life would change. And so it did.
I cried a lot after matt left for college, even though we weren’t really close, I felt he was my protector. Mike was busy with all his ‘cool’ friends and hardly gave me the time of day, which I can understand since I’m his younger sister. Entering 9th grade seemed so hopeful, since I only had to make it four more years at home. I had an after school job of teaching swim lessons to little kids so my day was packed. I think that’s when I started the whole ‘stay busy, life will go faster and don’t think about pain’ kick. My day started early with school, stayed after school to manage the swim team then stayed to teach swim lessons. I didn’t get home until after ten most nights, but I didn’t care as long as I wasn’t near Lynn, life would be ok. Not sure why I really felt that way towards Lynn, I think I started to resent her for pretending to be ‘sick’ and quitting jobs. I resented having to pick up the slack and never having her support. Mike was the star, he could do no wrong and Matt was usually forgotten about. He just faded in somewhere among all the craziness. That was life and I learned to deal with it anyway I could. I started back in Jr. High smoking every now and then; but I really picked it up after I was cut from the swim team and asked to be a manager. Smoking relaxed me for awhile, then I started to need something stronger, enter my new love-alcohol. When I drank, my worries melted away, I could laugh and not stress about cleaning something even at my friends houses. I never had a lot or did it often; it was only when things got really bad with Lynn that I would resort to drinking.
I began turning into two different people; the fake me at school, church and home vs. the real me with my friends. As long as no one at church caught on to my real life, I would be fine. That wasn’t the case, my youth leader matt was on to me and I had no idea how to push him away. I wanted to tell him so many times, everything I felt and how hurt I was but I couldn’t risk him saying anything to Lynn and her pulling me out of that church. So I keep silent, keep being the outgoing, loud mouth that everyone knew and loved.
As much as I thought I had life figured out, I was still young and naive. I didn’t think much about the rude comments boys would make, I just shrugged it off because I didn’t have time for a relationship. I wish I had realized what high school boys were really like, but I was so concerned with home life I never gave it much thought. He was on the swim team and road the same activity bus as me; in fact we had the same stop. We lived out in the country, but it was still a pretty busy area. He would usually follow me off the bus to chat a bit before we went our different ways. The more time went on, the more vocal he became about wanted to have sex or other sexually acts. I wish I saw the signs then, but I was too young and figured that NO meant NO and he would move on to someone else. But that didn’t happen. I felt scared riding that bus home and I didn’t have swim lessons to teach then, so I bugged mike for rides home but he just told me to ride the bus. I wish I would have told him why I wanted a ride.
It was January 28th, snow on the ground and really cold. He followed me off the bus but I kept walking, I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. He ran up to me and grabbed my arm; I froze as he motioned his head towards the woods and said ‘let’s go now’. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t move my feet to run I just stood there, hoping a car would come by. He guided me to the unseen area, pushed me down on my knees and said ‘I’ll be nice and not take your virginity, but you need to start sucking’. After it was over, he walked away and I just stayed there in shock praying for God to forgive me. I got up and ran home, thankfully no one was there; I jumped in the shower and washed myself over and over until the hot water turned cold. I brushed my teeth at least a dozen times. I crawled in bed and laid awake all night crying. What just happened?
I was at youth group that next Sunday when I hit one of my guy friends because he touched my arm during a rowdy game. I went outside and starting crying. Another girl came out and I told her partly what happened. She said ‘it’s ok just ask to be forgiven’, I knew then I had to keep it in and never talk about it again. That lasted a whole week. The following Sunday my youth leader finally sat me down after church to ask about my sudden mood change; I couldn’t lie to him this time. I cried as I told him what happened. I begged him not to tell Lynn cause I knew exactly what would happen, but he had no choice he needed to tell her. The last few months of 9th grade were a nightmare; Lynn made the biggest deal over the situation, not because her daughter was hurt but because she craved the attention herself. I don’t remember much of that summer, I spent a lot of time calling kids from the swim team to see if they would testify against ‘person X’; I usually got cussed out or hung up on but I also got some girls that confided in me that he had done the same kind of thing to them. So I fought back, not for me but for them. I found a courageous young man that over heard the comments ‘X’ had made to me and was willing to testify against him. The hearing was later that summer and with enough evidence the case was moved to trail sometime that next year. I wasn’t looking forward to 10th grade; the end of ninth was so horrible I couldn’t face my peers again. But I pushed on, not sure how but I had to.
At some point during the fall, my brother mike said he hated me because he lost friends from all of this mess. Lynn told me that I must have wanted to be raped; then changed her mind and said she didn’t believe it even happened. She called for a plea bargain, I didn’t have any support to do otherwise and I wanted it all to be over. A year after the event happen, I was in court surrendering and letting this man get away with it all. Two weeks after court, when everything was all over and I had only 4 more months of avoiding him in the halls, Lynn pulled me out of public school. That was it, I HATED HER. I didn’t get any credits from that year because I was 3 weeks away from that semester ending and having those grades count. I was placed in a very small private school without my say. I went from a class of almost 400 peers to a class of only 12. Why did she wait to take me out? Why didn’t she take me out last year when she found out; that I would understand. I would understand her not letting me start 10th grade, but I still don’t understand why she took me out after it was all done. That is Lynn’s irrationality. I figured if I had to be in this school, I’d make the most of it. Lynn already thought I was ‘an out of control bitch of a daughter she never wanted’, so why not live up to those standards. Since good grades, holding a job and running the house weren’t good enough, I thought why not make her life a living hell and show her a real bitch of a daughter. I started drinking as much as possible, even before and during school, I smoked everyday and broke every role as often as I possibly could. But that wasn’t enough.
I hated life; I hated Lynn and everything she said to me, every mind game she played with me, every night she stood outside my door yelling while I cried myself to sleep. I couldn’t stand that a God would allow such things to happen, so I rejected Him. I would still play fake at church, since it was still an escape from Lynn’s hell but that was getting more difficult to do. One of my classmates caught on pretty quick that something was up with me. Considering 90% of the kids in that school were ‘bubble Christians’ , 5 % were there cause they got kicked out of public schools and the remain 5% were the leftovers, they didn’t fit in the other two groups. I didn’t care what I said, who I said it to or what happened to me. Mike saw through all of that, we would talk all most every night on IM. He knew my story before I even told him. I wanted to push him away so badly, but I knew I needed a friend too. Another classmate made a comment that stuck to me; “if you can handle any physical pain you can handle anything’. I started cutting my arms that day. I knew I could never kill myself, but I figured I’d create physical pain so that I would ‘forget’ the emotional pain.
I became a lifeguard sometime that spring and had a summer job lined up, so I needed to stop cutting. I managed to push down any feelings I had by cleaning more often. I worked as much as I could in the summer and even signed up for a week away on a mission trip. I would find out that my youth leader was leaving that summer, my world was falling apart. Even though I didn’t tell him everything, I know he knew what was going on and he seemed to really care, which was huge for me. By fall I had lost my only support, and mike was leaving for college. I was happy for him to go, since he told me he ‘wanted me to die’ all summer long, but I was scared to be alone with Lynn.
I was proud to establish the bad party girl status, along with my new friends, Erin and Shannon. I just wanted that year to be done; I wanted to turn 18 so I could finally leave her. I found support through my Bible teach, Mrs. Pollock. She would come get me on weekends for ice cream and call me during the week. She knew how Lynn was. But Lynn started with some new games. My friends from public school would call and she’d threaten them if they ever called again. She tried to push away Mrs. Pollock or anyone that tried to reach out to me; including my old youth leader and the new one that came along. I was trapped by her. I buried myself in a sick cleaning routine. Thursdays were always the kitchen floors; I would sweep, wash them by hand with regular cleaner, then with bleach then with cleaner again because Lynn hated the smell of bleach. Each day I created something specific to clean and I had to do it perfectly. I was forbidden to talk or hangout with Ashley but we found our ways to get together. If I dare ask to go out with friends, there was always some sick reason I couldn’t or some demand I needed to meet. I was forced to leave my job cause Lynn got sick again and couldn’t take me to work. We would go the ER at least once a week, just for the doctors to say, ‘there’s nothing wrong with you’ or to nicely say ‘maybe you should see a therapist about your anixity’.
So I stopped asking to go out, I found an escape in running. I hated to run but I always felt better afterwards cause it was my time alone to vent and let it all out. By spring of that year things were so bad, I was willing to do anything to get out. Lynn had pulled one of her stunts with me and I had enough. I pushed her into her room and held the door closed so she couldn’t get out. She climbed out the window, walked to the neighbor’s house and called the police on me, again. I left; I figured they could deal with her, so I went for a run. Ten minutes later a police car pulls up beside me and the officer said, ‘your mom is claiming you tired to kill her and are running away-again’. He drove me back to the house and said this really needs to stop; I said you’re right, take me in I did want to kill her. He looked so confused as he made the call for an ambulance to take me to a hospital for a psych evaluation. As I sat in the back of the ambulance, he got in and said ‘I get it, I hope this works’. Lynn was screaming that they couldn’t do this, she didn’t think I’d really go thru with it. Her little game didn’t turn out as she planned.
I was drug tested, examined and asked a million questions. I told the nurse everything; I told about the things Lynn did and I told her I all the things I did. She asked me if I wanted to live at home any more, I told her NO, so she made arrangements to get me in a halfway house. Lynn wasn’t allowed in my room and I could hear her screaming across the hall. They nurse looked at me and said ’if anyone needs to be put away, its her.’ They put a security guard outside my door and when mike snuck in to yell at me, I asked the guard to remove him. I was there all night, waiting to hear if I had enough proof of abuse to let me leave Lynn. The nurse came in crying and I knew it wasn’t good; she said ‘mental abuse is hard to prove and they won’t take you. I have to by law release you to your mother. But promise me the second you turn 18 you’ll leave and NEVER look back.’ She gave me a stack of papers with phone numbers in case it turned physical, wrapped me in a white hospital blanket and told Lynn to not talk to me until tomorrow. I laid in the back seat as Lynn yelled the whole way home, I wasn’t listening to her I was counting down the minutes till I turned 18.
I started to cut again and one of my classmates told Lynn. All hell broke loose that day, I just learned to not talk or even look at her. I just stayed in my room or in the basement watching the laundry wash, rinse and spin out. I just needed to make it thru the summer. I signed up for camp that summer; Pine Springs was the only place I felt safe. I started going the summer before 8th grade and went every summer since. I never let on that anything was wrong; I just enjoyed not having to clean or feel scared when I fell asleep. This summer was a 2 weeklong camp, called Mountains to Missions. The first week was spent canoeing thru the PA Grand Canyon’s, the second week I shadowed a lifeguard that would touch my heart so deeply. I was told later that Lynn called the camp to get them to remove me from going on the trip cause I was ‘a danger to others and out of control’. The camp saw thru her and gave some excuse as to why I still needed to come! Thank you Noelle! I was bitter and wasn’t looking forward to ‘God things’ but 2 weeks away was a dream come true. During the first week, we were placed alone in the woods for 5 or 6 hours. At first I just sat there, I didn’t want to pray and thinking let feeling come out; I couldn’t break, I still had to be strong until I was 18. I think an hour went by until I started yelling at God. I was brutal, I wasn’t about to be all nice and praising when I felt so betrayed by Him. I vented a long time before I just starting crying. I stopped yelling and just fell down crying for the remaining hours. I choose to give my life back to God that day, I choose to let Him help me thru my senior year and over come all the pain I was feeling. I was new person; I wasn’t going to let Lynn hold me down anymore.
After camp I threaten Lynn to take me out of private school and but me back in public. I told her if she didn’t I would drop out when I turned 18 and didn’t care if I finished. I took charge and stood my ground. She agreed and I went back to public, I rebuilt the friendships that were once threaten by Lynn and wasn’t about to take any crap. When I turned 18 I got some money so I bought myself a car and chose to stay at Lynn’s until graduation. Senior year went by without much trouble. As spring approached, the decision on where to live next was my only concern. I had a cousin that offered for me to come live with her and her family on the other side of the state. I was excited to leave Lynn and let things cool down; I hoped that maybe we could work things out after we took some time apart. Ashley and her family begged me to move in with them the day I turned 18, but since she was now at a different school it was too much to change addresses and schools if I lived with her. So I told her I’d move in for the summer until I left in the fall for my cousin’s but they wanted me to stay with them permanently. I wasn’t sure what I was really going to do come fall; all I knew was I was about to graduate and work at Pine Springs with Matt for half a summer.
Lynn was nice to me my senior year, mostly because I had money and she wanted it. So played along; if I wanted to go somewhere I just went no questions asked and id pay a bill. We used each other but it worked. Somehow Lynn found out about me leaving in the fall and she was back to your usually mean self. I had one week to go so I took the abuse. The day before graduation I was loading my car for the weekend; a bunch of us girls were going to have ‘one last sleepover’. Not sure what provoked Lynn this time but she was in my face yelling that I couldn’t leave. I tried to explain to her the plan but she just kept yelling. I had enough so I got in my car and she stood holding my door open. I told her to move and leave me alone, she refused. So I put the car in reverse and took my foot off the break causing the door to bump her. She reached inside and hit me across the face, then ran inside saying she was calling the police. I yelled, ‘I’m never coming back’ and I meant it. I drove as fast as I could to Ashley’s house and when they saw the red mark on my face they wanted to kill Lynn. I called the police to let them know the situation, cause I knew Lynn would say I stole the car. (Even though I paid for it and the insurance, I let her trick me into putting it in her name so the insurance would be cheaper.) The police said ‘keep the car and don’t go back, if it goes to court you will win cause you paid for it and she manipulated you.’ Ashley and her mother came to my graduation; Lynn and Mike never made it in since I had the tickets.
I wanted things to be better, I didn’t want to fight but I was addicted to her abuse. I would call just to hear her yell at me. She would start out with ‘please come home we love you and miss you’; by the end of the call it was ‘you’re such a bitch, I hate you’. The best call was the following:
Lynn- come home we miss and love you, please come at least talk about all this.
Me- ok fine, I’ll be there at one
Lynn – Oh we won’t be home till 3 so you’ll have to come then
Me- why can’t I just come at one and wait for you to get home
Lynn – cause you can’t get it. We changed the locks cause we don’t trust you
Me- you don’t trust me? Yet you want me to move back home? How do you say ‘I love you come home’, but change the locks? How does that work?
Lynn- well I’ll have to give you a key. We just can’t have you coming and going as you please and taking stuff.
Me- what am I going to take that pisses you off, my underwear or the gold we don’t have.
Lynn-Well I bought you some of those clothes
Me- you want my shit stained underwear too, you can have them instead of me then. *click*
I wouldn’t talk to her for a long time after that. I had to trade my new car in for a used piece of junk so I could pay my phone bill and car insurance. I lived with Ashley and her family until I went to camp later in the summer. Matt was there but he didn’t give me the time of day. I felt so hurt. He was the only one I really cared about from the family and he too turned on me. While at camp my aunt and uncle asked me to live with them and I accepted. I found a job at the YMCA I really enjoyed and focused on working as many hours as possible (yep back to staying busy). I asked Lynn to pick a councilor for us to go to and would pay for it, the gas it cost her to go and lunch for the day. She found someone and we went once, she complained about them cause they wanted to see her 3 times a week on top of our meeting. I was willing to pay for that but she used the ‘I’m too sick’ excuse and stopped going. So I stopped talking to her.
I wanted to return to camp in 2004 but I needed to make up for the money I wouldn’t be making in the summer; so I worked full time at Wal-Mart and part time at the Y for 3 months until camp start. The summer of 2004 was so healing for me. I decided to end my relationship with Lynn completely, since she wasn’t willing to get help. I also became very close to 3 other girls; we called ourselves the Green Neck Gals. I was happy and at peace. Maybe life wasn’t fair but I didn’t have to go back to that ever again. After camp I stayed in touch with my Gals and worked at the Y. Even though I cried a lot over my family, life seemed to be getting better. I wanted to go to college and make a better life for myself. By the time I finished all my paper work, it was too late to go in the fall, so I had to wait until January. I knew Waynesburg would change my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment