A Story Among Millions - A life To Be Forgotten

When I was born on December 14, 2000, I was just so, so happy. I was talkative and trusting, and there is just something about my younger self that seems so appealing in my older(ish) years. My hair was silver, and my eyes were pure blue. I was happy to be alive - happy to see the light of day, and the craters in the moon at night. "Look, the moon is smiling!" That's what I would always say.

I felt blessed. I felt as if the moon could look down upon me, and evaluate my life from a safe distance. I felt protected, and smothered in it's pleasant beauty. The stars would guide my family home, too. At least, that's what my mother would say, and a few forgotten faces as well. They'd tell me the stars would watch over us all and protect us, which eased my fear of us getting into a car crash or being lost in the darkness. It was all so comforting to me. As I sat in the warm car beside my small family, I would track the movement of the stars and moon, and hold my security blanket tight to my chest.

I wish, even now, that I hadn't built my initial expectation of life too high. I thought that life would be grand and beautiful, and that everyone cared for another. I was wrong. Even before I had been given the gift of life, my future was already screwed. I was an unwanted child, that my mother had wanted to get rid of. My father convinced her not to have that abortion, and soon it became too late for her to go back.

My mother is a lovely, hardworking adult. Masked in her own undefined beauty, she was seen as unique and special to me. Not because I was her child, but because she stood tall and strong. Her life had been so miserable, yet she continued to fight when all hel* broke loose. For that, I love her dearly.

My father is hardworking too, but I cannot see the beauty in his soul. In fact, he worked so often and so hard that I didn't get to truly bond with him or capture his attention. My mother felt the same way when she left 3 years after my birth, but not solely for that reason.

I have one sibling; a sister 4 years older than me. She was born to a separate father, but our mothers will always be the same. During my time of childhood innocence and bliss, she had to grow up and suffer a great deal. I could sense only a limited amount of her pain, though I was too young to understand it. Not only did she grow up without a father, she was subjected to 4 or so years of pure hell and trauma. My father had hurt her, and I'm sure she could see much more than I ever will.

About a year about my parents separated, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. He's always been addicted to smoking cigarettes, and it surely showed. My first memories in regards to his cancer was seeing him with a tube strapped to his belly. He couldn't eat at the time, and he could only consume liquids through his stomach. I remember helping him press the syringe into the tube, and watched as the liquid disappeared into fat. He went from having a beer belly to being nearly anorexic - because he could not eat. He grew so, so sick...

When my parents split, my mother gained custody of my sister and I. We lived with our grandmother for a while (according to her retail of my life), then we moved into a house on the river with her brother and his wife. After that, she found a man she liked, and we went to live with him.

There is something... unusal about my early childhood. There is one event that I cannot put my finger on, and I've been left to question for eternity whether it actually happened or not. I thought for sure it had, but my mother insisted it wasn't real. She pretended it never happened. Here's how I remember it:

After we lived with our grandma, there was one man we briefly stayed with. We weren't there longer than a month, and that was the month of October. I remember that, because I dropped my mother's cake on her birthday, and I received a Halloween card in the mail from my grandma that I still have. Anyway, we were poor and needed a place to crash, while my mother was trying her best to earn some money. That was when she began leaving me alone for long hours of the day. The man we stayed with would give her back massages after a long day of work, and I remember asking one day if I could have one. My mother ran off to work, and I hopped up onto the bed so he could rub what he'd determined to be the "tensest part of a child's body" - the legs. So, that's what he'd massage while he watched TV. Sometimes, it was more than that; one day I was asked to lay on my stomach, and he began touching my bottom. I began to protest that it was an inappropriate area, but he convinced me it was okay. I don't believe I was wearing clothes.

At the time... I knew about a certain number of things. This all happened right after (or right before?) my father was-- UGH. This doesn't make sense. There are too many holes in my memory! My mother lied to me growing up - that's all she ever did! When did my sister report being sexually abused? When did we move in with my mother's boyfriend for the first time? The second time?

Either way, this happened. It had to have. The only reason I remember this is because it had happened to me. I had been touched inappropriately by a stranger, and that hindered my childlike trust and innocence. One day, his hand "slipped" to my private part - the true error zone. Sometimes I wonder why I reacted the way I did... Why I couldn't just sit back and let him ease his way to my body... After all, we were the only ones there, and it would have been so easy for him to take a hold of me. Yet, I freaked out. I protested and yelled at him, then quickly got off of the bed. I told my mother later that night, but he managed to convince her that it was all accidental.

Anyway, I... I grew up. There were so many ups and downs along the way, it was unbelievable. My mother had several different relationships, and they all ended up terribly. My father's illness grew worse, and I would always pray for his pain and suffering to cease - or for him to live. When I was 9, I could hardly look at him. It brought me to tears to see his face.

He had grown so weak, and his neck was so swollen and raw. He could get a few bites in then (some solid food for once), but it brought him a great deal of pain. That year, the doctors inserted a plastic tube, after cutting a breathing hole into his neck. His neck had collapsed from the constant breathing of smoke, and having that tube was vital to his survival. Oh... How it oozed and sputtered when he consumed food...

He had a job at the time, but they had to release him. His job was to cut the trees away from power lines, which is highly dangerous. He was forced to retire and live off of Welfare. I don't think he's willing to accept that. Every single day, and still to this day, he works around the house. We used to have a garden in the front yard together, but he stopped tending to that so he could grow his "medical" weed.

One thing I can never forget is the condition of the house he lives in. I had to grow up in that house (I visited every weekend), but I really didn't like it at all. I HATED seeing that house. Not only did his illness bring me to tears, the house filled me with fear and hatred. Hatred, for the evil trapped inside it. Fear, for the evil I was unable to be protected from by the moon and stars ( and angels ). For one thing, it REEKED of smoke and filth. He cleaned it constantly, but no matter of cleaning could rid that house of years worth of smoking. And, at night, he stayed up all night smoking and feeding the wood stove more firewood. The house would come alive with pure heat, and that is what captured me with fear and dread. I could never get any sleep myself.

That is all without the mentioning the childhood nightmares, that pierced into my soul every so often. They began when I was 5 (that's as far back as my blasted memory will allow). I had a nightmare of being chased by a self-driven tractor. Then, when something happened to my eyes and I began seeing "eye-floaters," I woke up terrified thinking the room was being overrun by microscopic bugs. I still see those things. Anyway, from aged 5 to about 10 was when my nightmares were most frequent. I would have reoccurring dreams of my father's house coming to life and killing me, or trapping me inside. Several nights, inanimate objects were brought to life, and the house began falling apart (it's very old, so that's why I had that fear). A few times, I had a fear of the house burning down altogether, and so I would have insomnia just to make sure the stove's door hadn't opened (it does that when the wood falls on it in a certain way).

Anyway, I've gotten off track. My mother... She wasn't exactly the best at finding men. She worked at a bar all the time, so you can imagine that's where she found most of them. The first one (after the divorce with my dad) was an abusive drunk. He would drink and pass out on the couch, when he was supposed to be watching my sister and I. My mother had to work 10 hour shifts, sometimes back-to-back, and she just couldn't afford to stay home with us. When she was finally able to come home at night, the man would get mad and claim she's had an affair. That's mostly what they fought about. I remember one night when she came rushing into my room. She locked the door, then climbed into my bed. I heard her mumble something about a lamp falling on her head, then, exhausted and drunk as she was, she passed out. I slept on the floor that night, anxiously getting up every few minutes to release my nerves in the bathroom. I was so frightened and shocked. Because, until that year, I had thought that the world was a much better place than this.

I do have to stop what I'm saying for a moment, so I can recap a memory I once had. While we were living with this man, I went outside one day and drew with some chalk. I drew a rainbow. At the time, it bore all this deep meaning from within my chest, but I couldn't explain that to my family. I didn't understand what I was feeling. One day, we had a few relatives over to hangout. I was sitting on the porch, beside the radio. This song came on... Oh, it sounded so beautiful. I turned the volume down, because I felt that a song that pretty sounded best in a volume that was suitable for the singer - not loud enough to be distorted and crackly. The song was called Under The Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I fell... in LOVE with it! I would beg my mother to sing this song to me at night. "...The city of angels. Lonely as I am, together we cry... I walk through her hills, 'cause she knows who I am. She sees my good deeds and, she kisses me windy. I never worry, now that is a lie..."

It took me several years before I realized the song was about suicide and drug abuse.

I'll going to skip ahead a lot of details and unimportant pain/memories. Let's just say my mother and her boyfriends fought a lot, my sister bullied me, I grew up with hardly any friends, and my father's relationship with me was decaying gradually. Got that? Good.

When I was 11, I became really isolated and depressed. By now, I no longer turned towards the moon and the stars. All I saw was darkness, and misery. I was left alone every single night; my mother had to work, and my sister was away with her friends. During this time, I ate to forget the pain, and I discovered the wrong type of music. What I listened to was depressing and bitter. I gained a bunch of weight, and I hated myself for it. I spent 2013-up to current day trying to get into the habits of starving myself. My grades in school slipped... I was making A's and B's in 6th grade, and F's in 7th and 8th.

2013 is a year I cannot forget. I lost something dear to me that year. A couple years prior, my father had gotten a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy for my birthday. She was born October 18, and shipped to me in December. Oh, how I fell in love with her! She was so sweet and beautiful. I saw beauty not only in her appearance, but her soul as well. She seemed to have this essence of care and grace - this aura of pureness.

I used to play out in the yard with her. She loved that. Her favorite thing was to run, and she enjoyed chew toys almost as much. When I visited on weekends, she would run up and attack me. I'd quickly sit in that white leather chair, and she climbed up to join me. When she was just a puppy, she could lay on my lap for hours. Even once she had gotten too big to fit, she still squeezed her way up there. It was so sweet! Never had an animal, or a human, made me feel so loved!

Actually... I had a breakdown today just thinking about it. I miss her so much!! In October 2013, my father and I got into an argument. Went I asked him to stop coming to my volleyball practices, he took it as an insult and thought I didn't want him around at all. I was only trying to protect him. Because of his history, and his appearance, nobody wanted him at my games or practices. Well, that did it. He left. I slammed the truck door and walked away, without saying goodbye to my beloved bundle of joy...

If she saw me today, she wouldn't recognize me. I'm not so sure I would recognize her, either. For my father is terrible at taking care of pets, and I did everything I could to tell him the "correct ways" to care for her. God only knows if he actually took my word for it. I hope he did. His own dog, Floyd, looks awful. His ear is infected, and he's so fat and unhealthy.

Rosie... Rosie Mary (insert last name). I miss you so much!! I hope you can forgive me. I really do. You gave me a reason to go to that hell every weekend, and all I ever did was yell at both of you dogs and leave you there alone. Yelling was the only way I could release my pain, and the anger, as to how my father was treating you.

Several months later, my father shut my phone off and told me to never call him again. That's fine, I guess... I cried like a baby, but everything is just "swell." Around the time when our relationship first began to worsen, I started my habit of self-harming... I would use a pair of sharp scissors to scratch my skin, then I started drawing blood with the blade from a pencil sharpener. The pain was my relief. It helped me forget about the emotional pain, as well as my loneliness. To this day, I have several keloid scars all over my body. 7 on my arm (more scars than that, but only 7 are stilled raised), and 23 on my thighs.

In 2014, my mother began dating a young man who had no place to live. He was homeless, so we let him stay in ours. At first, he was nice, and I actually had hope that he was different from her past relationships. I thought this would be the man that treated her right. Oh, I was dead wrong, and I soon realized my mistake a few months later when his personality began to change. He did the opposite of help my mother. He hurt her...

I didn't notice anything wrong until I saw the way he treated his dog. It was an old dog, who seemed to be sick and badly injured. That dog was taken away, and he got a puppy. He abused that dog so often. It made me sick! I could hear him yelping and crying, and sometimes I saw him kick or hit him. I had to look away. I had to run to my room and blast my music. When his owner would leave, though, I'd sit and cry with the puppy. How he was being treated wasn't right at all.

A couple months after that, he started to control what my mother did and didn't do. He wouldn't let her hang out with friends, drink alcohol (that's a problem there!), and he almost seemed to demand her attention - yet push her away when she wanted to be romantic. That alone upset her, which caused her to go out and drink anyway.

She had a problem. She's been alcoholic for a good chunk of my life, and she wasn't going to give that up no matter how much the man hated it. When she'd finally come home at night, he would rush to criticize her.

They would fight and scream and... I couldn't stand it. There were warning signs, but none of us could see it. He cost my mom her job as a bartender. He poured gatorade on her. Poured some beer on her. Shoved her down. Called her awful names!! My mind and body began to fill with anticipation and dread. As soon as they began arguing, I would be at my bedroom door in seconds, trying to listen to the level of the conversation. When the first yell would arise, I'd open my door and run down the hall. I knew he wouldn't hit her if I was in the same room as them; he wouldn't hurt her if I could see it.

There were some fights I couldn't stop. I could hear them... My mother would scream for him to get off of her. One night, he wrapped his hands around her neck and tried to strangle her to death. They were in his bedroom, and I wouldn't dare barge into that. I slumped down to the floor and started crying. There wasn't anything I could do to help my mother. I couldn't call the police - no - she'd never let me. She would beg for me not to.

Eventually we made it out of that mess, but not before my mother got her heart broken and I was scarred with a bit of trauma. Actually, to this day, I cannot stand loud noises... They give me flashbacks of all those nights he abused her.

Anyway, it is not December 5, 2015. In 9 days, at 11:59 PM, I will be turning 15. If I weren't so exhausted from sleep deprivation [insomnia], I might think of a great way to end this story. For now, I cannot. I might comment back later with something unique and inspiring to say.

In the meantime, if you would like to share your story, by all means go for it. Thank you if you read all of this. I would gladly return the favor by reading all of yours. If you've made it this far (without skipping around), begin your comment below with "ShadowElite." Bye, have a good day/ night. :) I need to get some sleep...