Today is the last day of National Child Abuse Prevention Month. I’m thinking of all of the children who are enduring what I endured myself years ago. I hurt for them. All month I have sat thinking of the children fixed in homes under “stay at home” orders. I’ve thought of the adults in their homes who are usually not there at all times under normal circumstances. It makes me feel dirty. Here I sit an empath wanting to feel it with them because I was them. I’ve imagined what it would have been like had I been a child during the pandemic. We will begin phase one of reopening tomorrow here in Florida. For many children in Florida, this will be the start of decreasing sexual, emotional, and physical abuse opportunities for them.
My parents fought constantly. They fought over money, food, bills, his affairs, his wandering eye, his laziness, and their mutual unhappiness with one another. She withheld sex to make him do what she wanted and because he wanted to use her as one of the porn stars he enjoyed watching. She longed to be loved by him. She’d “loved” him since kindergarten and entrapped a young man who didn’t want her with a pregnancy while they were still in high school. There wasn’t much love between them. There was codependency and responsibility. She was the younger girl thinking a baby would solve everything and make him love her. She felt a baby added value to her for him. He was a horny teen who would bed any girl he could and had no intention of settling down. This caused so much narcissism on both of their parts. Religion bound them because of a baby and their families held them to it. I am so beyond thrilled that this is not the case anymore for young people when they become pregnant.
This month would have involved them fighting and him drinking nonstop. Yes, let’s just add a dash of alcoholism to the mix. She’d use the time making me her Cinderella, slapping me across the face if I dared breathe wrong, and as a second mother to her second child. She was always so harsh in her judgments of my attitude and efforts to do as she said. Her frustration at my very existence would further agitate me because I was filling her shoes in every way imaginable.
My father’s grooming would consist of telling me how beautiful and perfect I was, how very sad and lonely he was, and how horrible my mother was at being his wife. He was stuck and I was his one bright spot in life. It was up to me to please him and tend him. I gag writing that. If only I could go back into my little body for a few weeks and scare the devil out of him. Oh, the things I’d say! The thought pleases me to no end. It causes a smirk to stay for some time on my face. I’d go right back to school and tell, tell, tell. I wouldn’t tell, in fact, I would protect him. I would hold his mucky sins as my sins because we were in this together he said. Us against her. That man sure was a master manipulator.
Had I been home during the pandemic he would have stumbled to my bed, his breath stinking of beer or Crown Royal mixed in Coca-cola, and started to have his way with me. How many nights would that last? He would have been overly needy of release and drunk more days than not. My mother would have been considered essential as a Walmart Cashier and later a Department Manager over stationary. She would be gone and I would be alone. He wouldn’t get much work as an upholsterer during this time.
During my only off moments from them both, I would be expected to care for my baby sister. I’d catch hell for not being joyous about it. I would want to just disappear and escape into my woods outback or into my room. I lived out so much fantasy in my mind. It’s seriously the only reason I survived. Well, that and my countdown to freedom as soon as I could manage it. I was strong though. I lived with “after this is over” in my heart.
I’m sending my warrior spirit out to every one of those dear ones tonight. May they tell, may they fight back, and may they realize they are better than their abuser in every way. For some of us, this virus is nothing compared to the monsters we encounter at home.
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