Part two
Angels and demons continued.
TW: Violent physical abuse. Mentions of rape (not detailed) and suicidal thoughts.
There is so much I want to talk about, but I don’t want to overwhelm the reader. I want this blog, this project to go wherever God wants to take it. I pray for healing during this process. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, and the emotions of the past are coming back, and I have to deal with them all over again. There is one particular event I need to get out, but I am afraid. I don’t know why. I think I’m afraid to go that deep, for the first time since I testified. I still haven’t physically spoken about what happened to me. Writing and journaling are the only way I can get my thoughts out. I write it, leave it, and I’m done. Very rarely do I ever re-read what I write, even now, with this blog. I go through it for edits, but I mostly skim. So, pardon any grammatical errors if I’ve missed them.
It’s not that I try to turn off my emotions, I guard them. I am still healing. I am still tired, and hurt, but not as much as before. It would be so painful if I even thought about it.
I remember being in college, I was working, and I was driving a vehicle my dad bought for me to use. Of course, I was paying him six hundred dollars from every paycheck, and if I needed gas, I had to “take it out in trade”. It was to the point that he would start to notice we weren’t spending as much time together. I was denying him more. I worked third shift and took night classes. I was mostly sleeping during the day. We were out of the trailer at this point. I had a basement bedroom. I loved it so much. It was my own space. I honestly don’t ever remember my dad crossing the threshold after it became my space. It wasn’t often he would come down to the basement. Almost like he couldn’t.
If he wanted me to do anything, I had to go to his room. My younger sister would be living with us again, and my younger brother, as well as my kid sister. There were three bedrooms on the top floor, the master, then my sister and brother had their own room. My kid sister would move to my room. She felt safe, and I was like a second mom to her. I would be the first person she would go to. She was about three or four years old at this time. The basement bedroom was used as an office before. There was plenty of room for me to setup a desk for my college work, as well as a toddler bed for my sister. During the day, I would go to school, then I would go to work, then I remember taking a night class. I’d come home, get something to eat, usually my dad would be waiting up for me…
I always, no matter what, no matter if I was an adult or not, had to tell my dad where I was at all times. I had to let him know when I was leaving. When I got to my destination. When I was leaving my destination, and when I got back home. If something came up, I needed his permission before I could make a decision. I remember hearing “you’re an adult! You don’t need your father’s permission” so many times, I would get defensive and offended. I thought it was just a form of respect. My dad had to know everything about everything at all times. It got to the point that I would start to realize there was something wrong if so many people kept telling me the same thing.
I was getting tired of being so strictly controlled. I wanted privacy. I wanted to make my own decisions, and not have someone know where I was all the time. It was hard to have friends in college because I couldn’t even stay afterward. I had to leave immediately, or my dad would start blowing up my phone. I remember during one semester, there was midterms and I really wanted to study and needed the library at the college. I stayed, and I lost track of time, that by the time I left it was late. (I think this is my first or second semester. I took night classes later, because I would also go to work after class, and I worked third shift… it still kind of blurs, even the college years.)
By the time I got home, my dad was so mad. My phone had died, and when I showed up, he waws waiting for me. I told him it was midterms, and I needed the library. He told me I would study at home; I could bring home what to study. I didn’t need to stay after school and hang out with friends. The thing is, I didn’t. When I went to study in the library, I did just that. I found a corner, pulled out my study guide, and took so many notes, that I was determined to know everything I needed to pass my course. My dad didn’t realize how passionate I was about my studies. I was determined to become a cop. I wanted to know everything I could to make it through the courses.
I was still very deep in my depression, and I wouldn’t really care if my dad was mad at me. He would accuse me of sleeping around, or dating behind his back, that’s why I wasn’t home on time. I would just internally laugh, and that was daring and a suicide mission on its own. If my dad even thought I was going to roll my eyes at him, he’d punch me in my face, or pop me in my mouth, splitting my lip, leaving bruises, and it was to the point where I didn’t really care. I really didn’t. How much more could he hurt me. How much more pain could he inflict. I couldn’t argue with him or defend myself because then I was being disrespectful and talking back.
Shortly before this became worse, my younger sister would leave this location, and never return. She would live on her own for a while. I was so angry at her when she left because she traumatized our kid sister. I wrote about that in a previous post, but my sister’s story is her own. I understand now, why she did what she did. I was angry at her for leaving me as well. I was now truly alone in this.
After she left, my dad had me clean her room, again, and I did. This time, he had me get rid of everything. He had me throw all of her clothes in the garbage. Any papers, journals, or writings she had would be read, then tossed. Most of her writings were ineligible scribbles, but there was a lot of anger in it. She hated me. She hated my dad. She hated living there. I didn’t understand. I went through all of her stuff, cleaned up her room, and prepared it for my kid sister. It would now be her room. My brother was in the room next door, my dad and stepmom across the hall. I still had the basement bedroom.
There was one night, I came home after a class, and it was about 10:30 pm by the time I got home. It took me about forty-five minutes to get home from the college, I remember there was a particularly hard topic in my criminal justice class that we were on. It was starting to seem familiar, what I was going through and what I was learning. It was becoming difficult to stay on these topics, because I knew the answers to the questions asked. We were learning about domestic abuse and signs. Spousal rape and incest, as well as pedophilia. My professor for this specific class was a retired police officer. He would often ask me if everything was alright. It was subtle. I trusted this professor. I loved the classes he taught, and I did my assignments and passed them all. Mostly essays, which he would surprise me by saying that my way of thinking was different. I could see things from a “victims” perspective. I worked so hard to pass those CJ classes, that I was determined to pull all-nighters if I had to.
So, back to the main part, I came home late because I was talking with my professor about an upcoming assignment and my thought process. I opened up a little bit about the abuse I endured from DB. I didn’t tell him I was still going through it with my dad. Not yet anyway. When I got home, my dad was questioning me why I was late, I would usually get home around 9:45pm. Then, my phone goes off with a text message sent at 10pm. It was from my professor. It said, ‘are you ok’.
I remember I was a little off that day, and my professor noticed. I always participated. This particular lesson, I had learned the real, legal definition of rape. The one thing that stuck out to me, was “penetration however slight by a foreign object or digitally (finger)…” I just remember feeling instantly nauseous. I was suddenly in my own mind, questioning and then realizing that this is what happens to me. This is what I am experiencing right now. I remember asking a question to the likes of “is it still rape if there’s no choice but to say yes”, and the answer was ‘Yes’. I was instantly ill. I think I took a few minutes after class and talked with my professor, and that’s when I mentioned the abuse with DB. That is when my professor texted me, after class. I waited for others to leave and worked up the courage to talk to him. The text message didn’t come through until after I got home…
I was an adult, I was in a criminal justice class, and I just learned the true legal definition of rape… How was I going to process this?
Back at home, my dad was questioning why I was late coming home, and he hears my phone go off. I don’t think anything of it, it’s not a big deal. My dad asks, “who is that” and I say it’s my professor. He takes my phone, looks at it, then throws it across the kitchen. He starts to mock the text. Making it seem like it’s something that it wasn’t. Then he starts accusing me of having an affair with this professor. That I was sleeping with a married man and started calling me names again. I have absolutely no idea what came over me.
I laughed.
I actually laughed, rolled my eyes, and said “You’re being pathetic”. I have never seen my dad move so fast in my life. He snatched me up by my shirt and turned me around and pushed me up against the foyer door. (It was set up like this, mudroom with sliding glass door, opens up into the kitchen, then leads to a foyer where the stairs up, and down are, then the living room. )
My dad had slammed me so hard up against the door, that the fancy curved handle bruised my middle back. I instantly felt ready to fight. If this was it, I was going to fight. He could do whatever he wanted; I was defending what dignity I had left. I knew I would never win against my dad. He knew that too, but if I was going to be severally hurt, I was fighting as hard as I could.
My dad punched me in my jaw, he held back. He could have easily broken it if he wanted to. He punched me because I laughed at him. I couldn’t seem to get the smirk off my face, I looked at him right in the eyes with such hate and anger. I didn’t care. He was going to feel all of my emotions, I was going to be completely defiant, I was not going to give in. He was furious I called him pathetic. He kept slamming me against the door. He eventually backed away, and he went back towards the kitchen. I was in between the foyer and the kitchen when he accuses me again of sleeping with my professor.
I laughed again and called him out on what he was doing to me. He shoved me so hard; I went flying through the foyer, into the living room, and I caught myself on the frame of the entryway. I went to pull myself back up. I had so much anger. I was beyond the point of no return at this point. My dad thought I was ‘rising up against him’ and kicked me back down. I yelled at him that I was only trying to catch myself, and he pulled me up by my hair, and threw me against the wall in the foyer. I felt the bruises forming on my chest where he shoved me…
I was shaking, my hair was a mess, I felt the welt on my face, he kept slapping me, he gut punched me. I was stubborn, I was not going to put my head down. My adrenaline was fading, and I was so scared. My dad had me against the wall, and he wouldn’t let me move. Every time he asked me a question, and I tried to answer, he would smack me, and my head would turn so hard. He wasn’t letting up. I know he was holding back. I didn’t realize until a few minutes later when we were having a staring contest. I wouldn’t avert my eyes. That would anger him also. I wouldn’t submit… I was so scared after being thrown and kicked, that when he threw me up against the wall, I lost all control of my body and wet myself. I was wearing shorts, and I couldn’t control it, and now, I’m in this staring contest, having just wet myself, and now I’m crying angry tears. I’m so humiliated, the first time something like this has happened. The worst physical fight I had with my dad. One of the last ones I had with my dad.
I eventually asked if I may be excused to clean myself up, and he allowed me to move. But before I could do anything, he hugged me! He apologized… again. I was done, I didn’t hug him back. All I said was “ok, can I go to my room now” and he let me… I couldn’t stand when he did that. I hated him so much in that moment, I hated myself even more. I was so angry with myself. I went downstairs, I had a bathroom down there, it was all mine. No one else used it. I went to the bathroom, cried my eyes out, dry heaved, and examined myself in the mirror.
I had handprints on both sides of my face. My hair was knotted, and some was torn out. I had bruises on my ribs, thighs, hips, chest and lower back. I also had bruises on my arms, shoulders, a split lip, a few scratches from his nails when he hit me, and a golf ball size bruise on the inside of my wrist from where I caught myself on the wall when my dad shoved me across the room. All of this, because I received a text message from my professor, asking if I was Ok, and calling my dad pathetic when he accused me of sleeping with said professor. (I never did by the way).
I went to my room, closed the door, threw everything from my desk onto the floor and screamed. It was sound proofed enough that he wouldn’t have heard me. I was done. This was it. If something didn’t change, I was finished with life. I remember this is when I completely surrendered, I prayed so hard and so long. I was broken. I was on my floor, weak, empty, and exhausted. I was sobbing and praying. I wanted out. I wanted it to end. All of it.
“God please make this stop! Why am I here? Why is this happening to me, Lord please take me from this situation, I can’t do this anymore!” I was desperate. I remember when I finally started to calm down, I had this out of body experience. When I remember it, I see it as if I am floating above myself. In the moment, I felt this presence. I felt warm, and loved, and held. In my mind’s eye, I see a bright being, with beautiful, large wings outstretched, wrapping around me, cover my body as I’m lying on my stomach, on my cold floor, praying that God hears me this time. This angel covers me, and holds me, and I am comforted. I hear a voice say, “Hold on, just a little bit longer, everything will be alright”. I was too tired to question, and I instantly felt peace. I fell asleep on my bedroom floor, and I woke up early morning, to clean myself up and start all over again. I was holding onto that comfort and warmth I felt.
I went to class a few days later with the same professor. He hadn’t heard from me, and he was concerned. Again, I waited at the end of class to talk to him. I still had the bruises on my wrists, and I “accidently” rolled my sleeves up. My professor saw the bruises and questioned what happened. I didn’t hold back this time. I told him, about the fight, and the accusations, and that it stemmed from the text he sent me. My professor was apologetic, and angry at the same time. He felt horrible that I went through that. He would always tell me, if there is anything you need to talk about, my office is always open. I would eventually confide in him the entire truth.
I know this was along read. I’m getting into my darker moments, what I call “towards the end”. Lord continues to guide me. Let these emotions escape me and let me heal Lord. I pray, in Jesus name. ~Amen.