My mother and I were separated for six years during the most crucial times of my development, between the ages of nine to fifteen. Before I can tell you how we reunited, you need a little background information to understand.
I was born in Long Beach, California. Within two years of my birth we moved to Big Bear Lake and my brother was born. I have very few memories of when I was younger than five, but the few I do have have stuck with me for years. My parents fought often. I have vague memories of them chasing each other through the house yelling. One time my parents were fighting and my father took me. He was going to take me on a drive with him, but my mother knew he had been drinking and tried to take me from him. She ended up with a bloody nose. I remember looking and seeing my younger brother standing in the front door way. Violence is how you corrupt the young soul. They may not comprehend or understand, but they never forget.
One day my mother left my father, on my birthday. I remember her talking to me before she left but I don’t remember what she said. My parent’s divorced when I was five years old. My brother and I spent most of our time with our father. We saw my mother every other weekend. My father worked a fulltime job with a paving company. He did the best he could to take care of us even though some days that included dressing us in the same outfits and sending us to school with raw Top Roman for lunch. But we loved it! For some time we lived in a barn in Big Bear where we slept on hay bales. Eventually my father was able to buy a house near the lake. He worked very hard and continued to succeed in his job. He dated here and there. He eventually met his second wife. That’s really where this story begins. She changed our future and our lives.
At first we thought she was great! She bought us things we needed. She was really nice in the beginning. She had a daughter with cerebral palsy who I became very close to. When they married she became our sole caregiver. My dad was always working so she was always with us. We started to look at her like a motherly figure. She sure acted like one and had the authority of one. My father let her raise us and discipline us. Whatever she said went. It became clear that in order to be happy under their roof, we needed to please her. For confidential purposes let’s call her Poison. I always thought she was so perfect and beautiful. I wanted to please her all the time and when I didn’t I was punished for it.
The first time I was punished by her was before they got married. I lied to her and my father told me I needed to fill an entire legal pad writing “I will not lie to Poison.” He had never done this before. His normal punishments included spankings and then that was it. This was just the beginning.
She was with us all the time and we knew her from a very young age, we started calling her "mom". This should've never happened. I had a mother that loved me very much. We would still visit my mother every other weekend and a few weeks over the summer. Visiting my mother was my sanctuary. For a while I wouldn’t have to worry about being scolded for going to the bathroom too many times or eating the wrong cereal. As time went on Poison started causing my brother and I to feel guilty for wanting to see our mother. She would talk negatively about my mother. She would manipulate me to tell her things about her and her life.
When I was about to turn ten years old, my dad took us to meet our mom so we could visit her for a while. We went to our normal meeting spot and waited and waited and waited, but no one came. My dad took us back home. That day I thought my mom forgot about us, so we were going to forget about her because as Poison would say, she didn't really care about us. That day I was so upset that my mother never came. I needed her and now I was left with only my dad and Poison. I didn't find out until years later that my mother was actually in the hospital! No one ever told my brother or I. My mother would call us and try to talk to us. She would beg us to visit her but we refused. Poison would give us so much grief for even talking to her after that, so to have peace in our house, we pushed our own mother away. It was too stressful as children to be in the middle of a battle between parents, so we succumbed to the easy option. That day we quit seeing my mom for six years. There were many days I thought of her and felt guilty. I remember thinking, “Wow, I am never going to see her again. I have no choice.” There was a time we came close to seeing her again. The police came to our elementary school. They questioned us about being abused because there had been a call made. My brother and I were deathly afraid to let our families secrets out. We never told the cops. Our father was known for losing his temper and lashing out at his children. Ever heard of “Kick the dog syndrome”? Well, when him and his new wife fought, we were the dogs. We did tell the police that we wanted to see our mother again. They promised us that they wouldn’t tell our parents. But when we went home that night, we were sent to our rooms and told, “Since you do not want to be a part of the family, you can stay in your rooms.” That was the very reason we didn’t tell anyone we really wanted to see our mother. We were afraid of punishment and isolation. We were afraid to live in misery.
During the time that my mother was not in my life I became increasingly unhappy. I felt like I was constantly being questioned and punished. Poison would even play my brother and I against each other. School was my sanctuary away from the house I lived in. Every thing I did I would get punished for from eating the wrong cereal to sleeping too long. You name it, there was a rule for it. As a child, like any other, I made my fair share of mistakes and wrongs. I would lie, cheat and steal. I would get caught every time. My dad and stepmom had to step up their punishments they thought. Originally my punishment for lying was to receive a spanking. My dad had us write out a contract and sign it. But I continued to lie, so they increased their punishments. They didn't think a good dose of love would work. Actually they thought by punishing me that they loved me. Before they would disciple me they would say, “We are doing this because we love you.”
In the fourth grade they started cutting my hair off as a punishment. They first time was because I lied about an unfinished school assignment. Poison was pressuring my dad to punish me or I would continue, so my dad called me to his room, grabbed regular scissors and started chopping of one side of my hair. He left one side long. I cried the whole time. It was crushing. I couldn’t believe my father was doing this to me. Before I went to school I tried to make it look like a side pony tail and sprayed my hair over. As soon as Poison saw it she said my dad wouldn't let me style it. Who knows if my dad actually said that. When I went to school that day I was mortified. My teacher even said, “I like your new look” and chuckled. Those days if I even looked in the mirror I began to cry. I cried a lot when I was young.
Over the years I got more haircuts for lying. When I was twelve I started stealing more than ever. My parents finally caught on to it. They came to my school and asked my peers what I had stolen and who I had given it to. That day they took me out of the sixth grade and I finished the year in my bedroom or the back seat of poison’s car. She would go visit her parents and since I was being punished, she would leave me in the car. My assignment was to finish an entire book and write a ten page essay….
And that’s when I stopped writing my story. I am not wasting one more minute writing of the pain Poison caused me and my family. My father is still married to her and nothing will ever be the same. She damaged me as a child. She changed me. She made me afraid. When I started writing my blog about the pain in my past I started experiencing healing like no other. I used to hold on to my pain. It was all mine and I lived with it every day. Bad shit happens. People wrong us. People use us. People hurt us. But if we give them our time and energy our spirits will die inside. I thought I was going to write a book about my childhood and the many tortures I endured that many do not know about. I stopped myself. I will not give Poison anymore of my time.
Today I have risen above my past. I will only write of the present and future. My energy will be used to spread light, not the darkness Poison imparted to me. Some people say you cannot get over your past and that it shapes you. Some people use a difficult past as an excuse to destroy themselves through drug use or violence. There are no excuses. We each have a choice of how to live our lives every single day. We have a choice to do the right thing. We are responsible for the lives we live. I don’t care what back ground you came from. You can rise above it and you will if you decide to.
Today I am happy. When I was child I thought I never would be. I have a husband who treats me better than any man ever has. I am no longer physically or emotionally abused. I have a beautiful baby girl who just turned eight months old. To dwell on the past means to miss the present. My present is too good to taint with hurtful stories of the past.
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