When I was eight, my mother started dating my younger siblings father. At first everything seemed great, he took my younger brother and I out a lot. It was nice to have a father figure since my biological father died when I was four. Then reality set in. When he moved in with us, that’s when things started getting bad. My (now) step dad has a drinking problem, and he gets angry.
It started off small, him and my mom having casual arguments when he drank and then it began to escalate to him breaking our windows, throwing things around the house and calling my mother vulgar names. He called my mother a whore because she still loved my father who died in 2001. I was 9 years old the first time I heard him say this, as my mother broke all the elephant figurines my father gave her when he was alive. She did this to please my step father. This was the beginning of me going to bed crying every night as I would he would scream at my mother on a nightly basis.
Fast forward a few years, we moved to a new town for a fresh start. I’m about 11 at the time and I had to start wearing bras due to puberty. My step father went through my clothes and cut up the bras he deemed as “not appropriate”. He screamed at my mom and said she was making me into a whore just like her. At this point, he’s getting drunk almost every night and I’m still crying myself to sleep at the sounds of their screams.
At 12 and 13, I decided to try and defend my mother. I didn’t want my little siblings to have to cry theirselves to sleep like me every night, so I tried to end their arguments. This just turned all his anger onto me. One night I pushed him away from my mother and he pinned me down on the couch, proceeded to scream in my face and urged me to “punch him” so he could call the cops and get me in trouble. I was pinned down for about 10 mins as he screamed/taunted me before he got bored.
At 14, I had a new baby brother. I loved him so much. One night during my parents nightly arguments I heard my mom screaming at my step dad to get away from the baby and then heard the baby start crying. I rushed downstairs and shoved my stepdad away from my infant brother. My step father then proceeded to grab me and choke me. My mother had to hit him with a broom to get him away.
My brother that is closest to my age about 10 at this time, ran downstairs as he heard me cry “I can’t breath” and ran out of the house with me. A neighbor of ours called the cops and waited with us till help arrived. My mother lied straight to their faces, said I instigated the situation and was lying about him choking me. The female cop sat me down and said that since I had no marks on my skin, they couldn’t help me.
At 16, I made it a frequent thing to sneak out while they were arguing because I couldn’t handle it anymore. They caught me and accused me of having sex, and doing drugs. My step father told my mother to get my hymen checked to make sure I was a virgin still. I ended up being grounded for eight months unable to leave the house except for school. They took away my books I liked to read and I wasn’t allowed to pick out my own clothes to wear to school.
At 17, I was finally able to go to college. My boyfriend (who is now my husband) and I got a place together and I was finally able to be free of them. I’m so happy I got out alive and I’m now away from that toxic household. It is possible, and I never imagined I would be able to find a man so kind and loving like my husband. The wounds of my past still haunt me but with each day of making new and happier memories, the bad ones aren’t as focused anymore.
