what happened to me and why i feel so damaged (heavy tw: rape, abuse, neglect, sexual trauma, sexual assault, pedophilia, addiction...)

When I was little I had a lot of pets, probably around age 6, I remember having angel fish that I named after Sesame Street characters. At the time I think it was me and my mom and my stepdad, who we will call M, all living together in an apartment in Oxnard, California. We had a cat, black and white, named Misty. I don't remember her ever being mistreated. I had a hamster named Susie, like the Rugrats character. She died because hamsters do that. I had a rabbit named Thumper, like from Bambi, who died of pneumonia, because my mom left him on the porch with a blanket over his cage, overnight, and it rained. The fish died. Misty lived for a long time. When she got older she got sick and my mom told me that she went to a kitty retirement home, and I believed that for years, until it came out that she had actually been put down. We tried to get another cat when I was 6 or 7 maybe, named her Tinker Bell, but Misty hated her so we had to give her back. If you couldn't tell, I had a lot of say in the names of the pets we had, but this is probably the only say I had in my life for a majority of, and it even got to a point where I didn't have much say even in the trivial area of pet names. We moved when I was 7 I think because M had gotten relocated there, but something happened and he was laid off. He then worked at Target for a long time, moved up into management. Then a shoulder injury happened, medical bills happened, and we got evicted from the apartment we lived in.

When I was little, we lived in a townhouse apartment. There were two floors. The bottom floor was the master bedroom, and bathroom, and that's it. It was dark and dingy and messy most of the time, and the TV was always on. I hated it, I hated the TV so much by the end of it, I never wanted to see a TV again, and I still don't particularly like them. My stepdad and my mom spent A LOT of time down there...I mean they came up to make meals or go to work and stuff like that but I feel like I hardly remember ever seeing them. I hated everything my stepdad cooked, I hated it. I didn't want to eat his meals, they were so disgusting and unhealthy. He thought that I liked it, but I didn't like his cooking, and I didn't like him. I tried to hide the food, or throw it away most of the time. Around 7, I started stashing my meals behind my night table, and got away with that for a long time. My mom found out when we were moving to San Diego, I remember being in so much trouble I wanted to die. Around that time I started trying to make myself throw up nightly, but I never could. Unless I was sick. I threw away my lunches at school, except for the pretzels and the treats. I remember I hated the meat M made in particular, I hated anything with fat on it, the texture of it made me gag, and the meat ALWAYS had fat on it. I also remember hot dogs being a staple, and I hated those too. I even hated the way he made macaroni and cheese, I liked the way my mom made it, and he made sure I felt guilty about that. I was being very slowly brainwashed.

Me and my sister shared a bedroom at this time, and she was in diapers until she was 4, and pull-ups until she was 6, and even after that she had accidents a lot. I remember her getting in trouble a lot for it, sometimes I would laugh out of nervousness when she got in trouble, a weird reaction, I know, but I definitely was not laughing at her suffering, because I knew the pain all too well. I was nervous that I was next to be yelled at, but at the time I didn't know the word ?nervous? so I couldn't defend myself with my words. I got in trouble for laughing, it was deemed an inappropriate emotional response by M. Very quickly, any emotion became an inappropriate emotional response, whether nervousness, or fear, or sadness, or happiness. I was afraid of when M would come home from work, he was always so angry. I remember being at the store and laughing and playing a game with my sister and the tile floors. But we were good, well-behaved children, and good, well-behaved children don't do that, so we were told to stop. One time, at DisneyLand, I remember being so miserable, because M wouldn't let us ride the rides we wanted, or do anything we wanted for that matter. The food was too expensive, the lines for the rides were too long. We came to have fun, and we never did. I learned to suppress all emotion to the point where I am still learning what it feels like to express myself through tears and smiles and laughter. I was taught that my voice doesn't matter, and it's taken a lot of time for me to develop the strength to stand up for myself.

I also remember M complaining about not being able to afford diapers when we would go to the store. But we could afford trips to SeaWorld every other week, he could afford going to the casino to gamble money away on slot machines, he could afford going to Mexico to illegally obtain narcotics to feed my mom's addiction to prescription medication.

What you need to understand is it wasn't just me and my sister being brainwashed and abused, it was my mom being abused, too. No, M never laid a hand on any of us as far as I know and remember. It was all emotional. My mom once said, he has emotional intelligence. Now she just says he's stupid, but upon reflection, I would say he had a great amount of emotional intelligence and he knew how to harm people with it if he chose to. It was all secret, all hidden away by this portrayal of the perfect family, but sometimes that temper snapped, and his true nature was revealed to others, but no one... No one thought to help us. Many said they knew something was wrong. But no one helped us. I don't feel like even Child Protective Services would have helped us, because no one had enough evidence, just as I currently do not have enough evidence to help get my sister the fuck out, because she is still there, and I know things have not changed, I have witnessed him abusing her. He screams at her and says she is just like our mother. He asks her if she would rather live with my mother, then gives her all the reasons (which are mostly lies) that she should not. Say what you will about me, but I love my sister and I would do anything to protect her, except throw myself back into the flame.

My sister had violent tendencies as a young child, towards me in particular. She would hit me or pull my hair. One time she bit me so hard I bled. She bit me a lot. Eventually that stopped. Now she just licks people to annoy them. And though I may have been angry with her for this or that, I never hated her. I love that girl with all of my heart.

During our time in the apartment, we had several different pets. I remember we had rabbits that we got at the swap meet. I hated the swap meet. I may have liked it at one time, but not when it was every weekend, not when it was another opportunity to be told what we could and could not afford, what were allowed to like and not like. Regardless, I loved those rabbits. But only one of them lived for very long, many of them died very soon after we got them; it broke my heart each time. I think it is worth noting that I loved animals as a child, and I still do. Animals are precious to me, every one of them except most insects. I remember M always blamed me for the death of the rabbits. Well, I felt it was mostly me, it was literally ?you girls.? We weren't taking good enough care of them, it was essentially our fault they died. My fault. It was always my fault. I cried each time one died and I remember he would always threaten me saying he would never get us another pet again. We were constantly being threatened with a variety of things... The rabbit that lived the longest was Butterscotch. He died after 2 years or so, I think. I hate myself for neglecting our pets, but I was a damn child, I didn't know how to be responsible and care for a living thing ? and no one taught me.

We also had many fish and a couple hamsters, all of which died very quickly. We did get another cat, named Periwinkle, and she and Misty got along while Misty was alive. Periwinkle went to a new home eventually... or I think the animal shelter. We weren't even supposed to have cats in the apartment, which is why she had to be given to the shelter. She also was an aggressive cat, but, gosh, I wonder why? Perhaps because she was being abused? I don't know for sure when it started, but I remember M would hit our animals with plastic bottles and with his hands.

We did have a dog for one year. My first and only dog. Callie. I loved her so much. She was a good dog. M hated her. He said she was too hyper and too stupid. Callie was not stupid. When I was about 11 years old, I took it upon myself to train her with cheerios; I taught her how to sit, stand up, speak, shake paws, and roll over. With Callie specifically, he would pick her up and hit her over and over and I would scream and cry and tell him to stop but he said ?this is how they'll learn.? He hit her with plastic coke bottles too, on the head. I loved Callie. She was my first dog. I loved her so much. We found a very kind lady to give her to when we got evicted. I cried a lot. I loved her. I knew she would be happier though; I hope that she was.

Looking back, I realize how helpless I felt. I wanted all of our animals to be happy, I loved all of them with all that I had. I wanted to protect them. It seemed like every time one animal left, or died, three more took its place. It was a series of heartbreak.

On a different note, in that same apartment, my sister, and me to an extent, were very messy. I mean, we had A LOT of toys. And I am not exaggerating at all when I say there were long periods of time when the entire floor of our bedroom that we shared was covered in toys, stuffed animals, and whatever else, at least a few inches thick, with a pathway cleared so we could leave our room. Because of this we were always called lazy, slobs, disgusting, etc. but no one ever taught us how to pick up after ourselves. No one set an example for us. I attempted to keep it clean but it always spiraled out of control. My sister rarely helped which I remember frustrated me to no end. Sometimes we would sit with our mom and clean everything up, it would take all day or more than one day. I remember M screaming at us once, and me and my sister just hugging each other, crying, down on our knees begging him to stop, but this was a threat he made a lot. He threatened to put everything we owned in trash bags, and throw it all away, so we couldn't be messy anymore.

By the time we moved into the first hotel we lived in, we already had a new cat, Fritter; two guinea pigs, Simon and Theodore; and a rat named Cinnamon. I loved all of them and I fed them fairly consistently, or at least I tried. No one was helping me or teaching me how to be responsible, and I had very little motivation to do anything, so the poor creatures lived in their own filth for most of their time with us.

When we got evicted, we moved into a cockroach and bedbug infested hotel:. We took Fritter, Simon and Theodore, and Cinnamon with us. We lived in that hotel for several years before moving back to Oxnard.

The hotel room was small. There was one bed that me, my mom, and my sister shared. M slept on the floor, a fact that he used to guilt trip us just about every night. Bugs crawled everywhere, on our food, in our pets' food, cages, and litterbox. They crawled on us when we slept. I've probably seen more cockroaches in my life than anyone ever should. We would get bites from the bedbugs that itched so bad, and there were fleas on the animals that bit us too. I feel absolutely awful about what our animals suffered through, and as far as what my mother, sister, and I went through, sometimes I became so sad that I feel hopeless that anything will get better.

During that time Cinnamon passed away. She was 3 years old, but I know she could have lived longer. M was feeding her things that I later found out were bad for rats' intestines. She died bleeding out of her anus and eyes in my moms arms, and we couldn't even give her a proper burial. She got thrown in the dumpster in a shoe box.

As a Christmas present, M got a kitten. She was the runt and stayed kitten sized into adulthood. Her name was Muffin and she was my baby. I loved her and she loved me, I protected her as much as I could.

Fritter was a different story. I tried to protect her too but nothing I said mattered or made any difference. M would get her high off of marijuana, which I recently learned is poisonous to cats. He also hit her. The thing I hated the most, though, is he seemed to get a kick out of ?sexually arousing? her to the point where she would growl at him, hiss, and yell (in a cat like way). I told him so many times to stop, that it made me uncomfortable. He always said something along the lines of, ?I'm not hurting her, she likes it.? Fritter got so sick. She had thin, brittle hair, bald patches, dandruff, she was bone thin but her belly puffed out. I couldn't save her.

The boys, Theo and Simon, I eternally feel guilty for not being able to take proper care of them...they lived in their waste while we owned them. I fed and watered them as much as I could. I just hate myself for not trying harder.

While we were living in that hotel, we took a trip, which I don't really remember too clearly. What I do remember is this: M wanted a ferret. A baby of his own, like Muffin was to me. So he got one. Her name eventually became Jazzy. When we brought her home, he realized ferrets are a lot like babies. I don't doubt that he loved her, and I often felt he loved that stupid ferret more than us. I never wanted her. I hated her sometimes.

It was while we lived there that I really noticed my mom's drug problem. She was in the hospital almost every few days at one point. I remember one particular time, a couple years after we left that hotel, she had just had her heart attack and was in the hospital, and for some reason M was mad at the doctors. He was so mad he literally said he would take his pocket knife and stab the next doctor who walked in. I was scared of him more than I ever had been. Every time my mom was at the hospital, he yelled at us for just about anything and called her to harass her.

While we lived there, it was the first time I was ever exposed to anything sexual between my mom and M. I always could tell when they were going to have sex, they weren't subtle about it, or not subtle enough. M would drug her. At this point he had taken control of her narcotics, he hid them and doled them out to her, as he saw fit. When they were going to have sex, he gave her anywhere from 6-8 pills at one time of some kind of narcotic. Many times I was awake to hear this; they said oh, put your iPod on, and go to sleep, it'll be fine. But I heard it anyways. I pray that my sister did not hear that because she is 5 years younger than me and shouldn't have.

Another memory I have from this time is that M would go to Mexico a lot. He always came back with new toys, and for me, little glass dragons, because I liked dragons. But the real reason he went down there was to get narcotics for my mom, when she ran out, as well as his boss' girlfriends or wives. And marijuana too, he smoked all the time. He would go in the bathroom and close the door, but I could still smell it, I hated the smell, and the smoke triggered asthma attacks, which he called melodramatic. I went to the hospital several times for breathing treatments.

After a few years, we got kicked out of that hotel and went to live in Oxnard with M's mom and dad. All four of us slept in the spare room, similar to the way we did in San Diego. I heard plenty more of them having sex, I was 15 and at this point it REALLY upset me. M always fought with his younger brother, who also lived with their parents. Several times both to his brother's face and behind his back, Mhas called his brother derogatory slurs because of his brother's sexuality. Once, I asked him to stop because it made me uncomfortable. His excuse was that he called his brother those names because he's a bad person, not because he's gay. Which is not any better.

When we moved, we brought all the animals to the shelter M's sister worked at. We surrendered Fritter, who was very sick by now; Muffin, my baby; and the boys. I know that Simon and Theo got adopted within days. I don't know the fate of Muffin or Fritter, but I truly hope that they found peace. I loved them all so much. I'm so sorry... I wish I could have saved them. Of course, Mgot to keep Jazzy the ferret. One thing I know about ferrets is they are sensitive to temperature. Another thing is they can get depressed to the point of dying when they do not have cognitive stimulation. She was kept in her cage in the car, and became more and more lethargic with each passing day. I don't know if she froze to death, or died of depression, but I am so sorry for what she must have felt. I wish I could've saved her even if I hated her.

Within 6 months or so we got kicked out of my step-grandparents house. We moved into the second motel.

One thing to note before continuing is that when you live in a hotel or motel, you have to be out every 28 days. What we did was go and stay a night or two in a very fancy hotel with a casino. I don't doubt that M has/had a gambling problem, and I guarantee that my parents spent much more money than necessary on hotel rooms and gambling. We were poor as fuck. I liked going to the hotels, though, because me and my sister had time alone to be kids while those two were out in the casino. Me and my sister, this is a memory that is strange but I will always cherish, we would play pretend. We would pretend to be characters from a book, movie, or show, and play through different scenarios that could happen to us if we were them. It sounds weird, but I really cherish those memories because me and my sister could just be kids and escape from that hell for a little while. We always hated when they came back, or I did at least. And I hated when we had to leave and go back home, I would cry sometimes. But I wasn't allowed to feel sad about it because it made them feel guilty. They felt like they failed us, and they made sure we knew it.

Another thing to note is that M has been (and still is) unemployed since I was 12. He was always talking about hitting the lottery and striking it rich, a pipe dream to keep us hopeful, and he always wanted to sue people for no fucking reason. Whenever we ate at restaurants, there was always something wrong with his meal. It usually ended up being sent back, and the second meal was no better, and he would end up not eating, making us feel guilty for enjoying the meal. He made sure we never enjoyed anything.

I was hardly ever allowed to see friends, unless all the requirements were met, such as me contacting him or my mom every hour or so while I was out, so they would know what I was doing, and things of that nature. I have been to very few friends' houses, to the point where I don't know what to do with myself when I'm in a home that isn't mine. It's a miracle that I was able to see my first girlfriend as much as I did. I know it was harder for my mom. She couldn't go anywhere or do anything without being harassed constantly.

The second motel we lived in had a bedroom upon entry, with a makeshift kitchen. There was a hallway to the other bedroom, where me and my sister shared a bed, and between the two rooms was a bathroom which was often occupied by M, smoking marijuana for hours. To me, this was much better than anywhere I had lived since the first eviction. But we had a lot of the same problems. There was constant arguing and fighting and screaming and yelling. Things were emotionally very bad at this time. M was out of control. He would sulk for days if we did something he deemed wrong, or disappointing, or whatever.

Around 15, my mental health started deteriorating to the extreme. I started cutting at night before I went to sleep, with scissors or whatever else, and I know my sister witnessed this. I can never forgive myself for that, I am her older sibling and I'm supposed to set an example for her. She cuts herself now, and it is my fault. I should never have exposed her to that. I am so sorry. I know she tried to stop me sometimes, and she was probably so confused. I'm so so sorry.

In November of 2011, I was sexually assaulted by a boy who went to the high school I was currently attending. I had a crush on him, and I was friends with him and his brother. I think around January, after I turned 16, my mental health was probably at its worst. I remember I was around 96 lbs. I was hallucinating. Birds, tentacles, shadowy figures all surrounded my peripheral vision. I heard voices in my head. One that I named Ana, to personify my eating disorder, she was the one who told me I was fat and ugly, to lose weight, to not eat. The other voices, there were an unknown number of them but the best way I can describe it is a group of people whispering very loudly to each other in a room. Once, they collectively told me to hurt a boy at school, someone I did not like at all because 1.) he had cheated on my girlfriend when they had dated, and 2.) he had said I was so thin I was unattractive among other insults. I remember feeling my body move towards him, the whispers told me to hurt him, but my girlfriend held me and tried to stop me. I ended up pacing back and forth in the library, and I remember feeling like everyone was staring at me, calling me crazy behind my back.

At this point I asked my mom for help. I saw a psychiatrist that I hated, who invalidated a lot of what I said. He put me on citalopram and topiramate. It seemed to help, at least a bit.

It's impossible for me to describe everything that happened, I suppressed so many of these memories and these are things that have come back to me, and I'm sure more will come. I'm writing down key points, things that stand out most for me. But there is still so much more.

The summer after my sophomore year of high school, my mom finally decided to divorce M. She often said she would, and it got my hopes up every time. She did this so often, that this particular summer I was afraid she would change her mind again.

My biological father overheard a conversation on the phone where M and my mother were screaming at me and at each other, at which point he came to get me and my stuff so I could live with him and my paternal grandmother. I remember very very little about the couple months I lived there, other than I constantly worked out and hardly ate, and I was frighteningly thin. I went to the hospital a few times for heart problems, I was abusing laxatives. Once, my blood work came back really bad. My electrolytes were low and my muscles were beginning to break down. I was always cold.

After that summer I moved in with my mom and her mother, the divorce was final fairly soon after that. Mgot custody of my sister, and things in that respect have been disastrous. I don't remember a whole lot about the years I lived with my grandma, but I was dismayed...she was abusive too. Not to the extent of M, but enough to make me feel hopeless once more.

In January of this year, I moved in with my father to get away, I wanted a life that wouldn't make me feel hopeless.

My father is a pedophile, a rapist, an abuser. I made the mistake of not believing he had problems. He had gone to jail prior to me moving in with him, supposedly for possession of child pornography. He told me that he didn't do it...I don't think that's true anymore. What is true, from my observation, is he makes excuses for what he does, and he believes they are true and that they make what he has done okay. He has a problem. My mother told me he raped her when I was a baby, which was her signal to leave. He molested my cousin. He most likely molested me when I was very young, though I don't remember too clearly if he did. I have memories of being very afraid when I was with him, and wanting to go home.

The two-ish months I lived with my father, it was awful. I was horribly depressed, and having manic episodes for the first time in my life. I had a couple panic attacks.

I saw a different side of my dad. I saw him masturbate in an open area of the house twice, during daylight. That's when I started freaking out, I wanted out. I found out about what he did to my mother... That night I stayed in a homeless shelter. I remember thinking how sad it was there, I was so scared, It was probably the most frightening, difficult night of my life. The next day, I went to the hospital and told them I was going to kill myself. The woman who wrote my 5150 yelled at me, saying that I wasn't going to get what I needed at a hospital. She accused me of trying to work the system. At that point, I was either going to get help, or going to jump from a high place to end my life. When I told her that, she finally wrote my 5150. I stayed in the hospital a night while I got medical clearance. The next 5 days, I spent in a locked mental facility.

Now, I live with my mother. It's not perfect. But this is the safest and happiest I've been since I was born. I have my own bed. I'm alive.

Currently, I suffer from various mental illnesses. I have trouble maintaining relationships with people. I am easily triggered.

I am at a healthy weight, which is good I suppose. I try and stay positive. I am trying to build a good, happy life for myself.

I am proud of myself for surviving. For not killing myself. I am proud that I am doing okay. Okay is enough.