A Few fragmented pieces of ME

I was born into a very dysfunctional family. My Father was a alcoholic behind closed doors. My Mother physically and emotionally abusive codependent in every way. I was the baby of 5 kids 4 girls and 1 boy. All of my siblings were a year to two years apart until me. THere is 7 years between myself and the next sister up from me.

We were raised in a very strict religious Pentecostal home. Church was not a option every time the doors were open. We were there and since we lived on the grounds of the church we were forced to be there more than we were at home really. Though we were really poor, both of my parents worked at the school and the church so that we could attend the Private Christian school on the grounds.

My Mother was a religious fanatic my Father went along with things to keep the peace, but behind her back he had affairs, talked garbage about her the church and even God at times. I didn’t have a relationship with my Dad outside of a occasional moment of watching wrestling on television, getting up at 4am and riding with him to the local coffee shop for fries and hot chocolate. And sitting with him on the sound booth at church on Sunday Nights. I remember he was funny. When you could get him to speak. My Mom ruled with such an iron fist silence was really the norm from what I remember. My older sisters used to yell me I was the favorite, that Dad loved me most. But to me he barely knew I existed.

There were many different situations that happened the year I turned 8. I started singing more with the family on the worship team. I remember feeling important and happy. All my sisters on stage with me. My Mom in the crowd smiling proud and up in the balcony was dad running all the sound equipment. It was a time we all did something together. No fights, no deafening silence. It’s really the earliest memories of Feeling happy.

One night before the church service began my Mom looked at my mismatched shoes and was mortified. I didn’t care. no clue how awful I looked and as mentally I’ll as my Mother was, she took it on a personal flaw of hers. She wouldn’t have it. She smacked me on the butt and ordered me to run home and change my shoes. We only lived bout 50 yards behind the church, but it was getting dark. I was scared to go alone. My oldest cousin offered yo follow behind me and so I took off like lightning. I got to the small 2-bedroom house. My sister and I shared the living room floor for a bed. My parents had a room, and my grandmother who was a nurse had the other room. My 2 older sisters were crammed in there as well. It was a full house. My Grandmother oddly enough was a former witch. She practiced Witchcraft for years and so the house had this scary dark vibe to it. She slept during the day and worked graveyard. She and my Mom hated each other so it was best they were on opposite time clocks. But it didn’t make the tension in the house any less. The house was haunted no doubt. We constantly saw dark figures walking around and stuff randomly flying off shelves etc. My sister was demon possessed once and it manifested in the back room and attacked my Mom one day. I’ll never forget the strength my Mom showed. Fearless. Just cast that demon right out of her. Back to my fear when I entered the house. I had plenty of reasons to fear, or to be distracted at least but the desire to get the shoes and get back to the church to be on stage with my family was stronger then any fear or distraction. I ran into my moms’ room and started searching the many piles of clothes and shoes. I remember hearing the front door shut and shortly after my cousin standing in the door way of my parents bedroom. I kind of glanced up as I was tossing things and he said did you look over there? As He pointed to another pile across from where I was. I said no and jumped over to it. I don’t remember exactly why words were said next. Clearly something shifted in the atmosphere and I became instantly fearful. I remember feeling so scared and stiff. It’s interesting as young as I was, having no previous situations involving anything with sex, yet something inside knew something bad was about to happen. As I said I don’t remember the words spoken. I remember him having a porn magazine in his hands. I remember him telling me you touch him and he had his pants pulled down to the middle of his thighs. I remember the smell of sweat and urine and he was sticky. I remember his moan and his repetitive groan saying “yeah yeah" I remember him pushing me down on the bed and taking his fingers and with force shoving them inside me. He was very rough and the pain was excruciating. He continued to try and make my hand stroke his dick while he kept thrusting his hand inside of me. I remember the tears falling down my face. I remember silently praying God would save me. I don’t know how long this went on. Couldn’t have been too long with church nearly starting when we left. But I remember completely detaching from myself. Becoming numb in a sense. I remember hearing him and having a knowing of what was happening, but his sounds were muffled. I couldn’t feel anything happening to my body. I wasn’t scared and I just simply detached from my reality.

The next memory is me running back to the church barefoot trying to get to the service and sing. The doors to the entrance were so heavy. Big glass doors with metal trim. The sound of them slamming behind me, the emptiness of the gathering room, the sound of my sisters singing without me. Looking back on it now, I can see this was the first time I believed that I didn’t matter. No one came to look for me. No one waited outside the chapel doors to rush me up to the stage. For months every Sunday morning and night we would have person after person come praise me for being apart of the worship team. My Mom would be beaming with pride. I guess with the constant words of me being the favorite. The true fact I was the baby, and the history of all the praises from members of the church. I think I did believe that I was special. I was important in a way. It never was a thought that they would go on without me like I was never there to begin with.

Standing there my body is throbbing. My feet freezing from running on the cold concrete. The room seemed so huge. So empty. Nothing looked smelled or felt familiar. I was devastated I didn’t make it back. I was now scared I had no shoes on. And I was crushed that I didn’t matter to anyone on my family. I don’t recall where I sat during the church service. I don’t recall how the service closed. But I remember like it was yesterday my sister Charity waving her hand to follow as we quietly began to walk up on stage as the soft music played and the pastor was doing the alter call. The place where I stood in front of the mic. With a sister to my left and one to the right of me that place that I longed for. Yo feel happy was gone. None of it was special anymore. Nothing felt peaceful or happy. Mom didn’t look like she was beaming with pride. In fact, quit the contrary. I don’t know what I looked like but by the look on her face it must have been really bad She was mortified I followed the girls up on stage for the alter call.

So not only was my childhood innocence taken from me. My place of comfort of joy and peace was now foreign to me, and my Mother had eyes filled with rage piercing me. All the while I’m singing about Gods grace and his love that keeps us safe from harm. Singing about a Father that will protect us and give to us everything the enemy has taken while my mother looks like she hates me and wants to harm me, and just a few seats down my older cousin stands there grinning from ear to ear not breaking eye contact with me. For a kid who had been in church since I was 3 days old. Attended a Christian school and could quote scripture at the snap of a finger. A child who saw demonic possessions and witnessed my Mothers strong faith in God stand firm on scripture and cast the demon out of my sister. A kid who witnessed many miracles before my eyes in the short 8 years I was alive. Miracles like my Mother raising her hands to Heaven, asking God to provide a specific need and time and time again, without fail that prayer would manifest in the way it was needed. In such a way no earthly logic or reason could explain it outside of GOD.. However, all of a sudden as the words to the songs I was singing were effortlessly flowing from my mouth by memory, it became very confusing to my heart and my mind, and I didn’t know what I believed anymore. I knew one thing for sure though. I was disgusting. Broken and I didn’t matter to anyone especially to God. He not only let it happen but he didn’t help me at all and it didn’t look like he was going to do anything to protect me from there on out.

Much of the next year leading up to the night my sisters ran away, my Dad got caught lying to my Mom and it all unfolded to my Dad physically hurting my sister Charity and my Mom saying they were getting a divorce. Mom and I moving to a sleazy motel for a couple weeks until my birthday having 1 present given to me that was actually used Gi Joe dolls my parents bought from my friend’s family. Talk about humiliating. And again, cementing the feelings of having little to no value to my parents. And as a added twist of dysfunction they gave me boy army toys when I was already struggling with where I fit in. I knew I hated boys. Men. Even my Dad was ick by then. Before we left the house on the church grounds l had moments of catching him masturbating down in the bus barn as the cheerleaders were doing their try outs. My Father never spanked us, never got angry, was a silent coward really. With serious sex addiction issues and lived inside of a Jim Beam bottle far away emotionally from all of us. I realized later in life I actually grew to hate him because he did nothing to protect any of us from the physical beatings or the frequent blow outs my Mother had that left us all leveled and seriously wounded in the after math.