I was making friends and living a good life with my dad. The nights were quiet and peaceful. I didn’t see my mom for quite some time during the first year or so with my dad, and was told she didn’t want to see me. I now know she was hurt and angry that I left her and went to the man who hurt her so badly. I can imagine the hurt that she must have felt when I left but how could I have stayed with the abuse? Even at the age of 8 I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. I felt alone and scared. Those feelings were becoming distant to me. My dad never hit me or said anything cruel to me. He was understanding and spoke to me with calmness and questioned why I did things. He didn’t yell or hit. He enjoyed music and had a good time with friends and family when they would visit. There was a lot of drinking but I didn’t understand what it meant when he drank. I just saw him as happy, so loving, and having a great time. He played music every Saturday morning while cleaning, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Led Zeppelin, etc. I was raised on really good music! Young and fun! My dad was only 19 years older than me so he was still a kid while raising one. His famous line was I’m here for a good time, not a long time. Famous line! Aren’t we all?
It was 1980, I was 10, I remember my dad’s gf one day, yelling, “We sold the house!” I asked her what she meant and she said we were moving. They bought a beautiful new home, a detached in a new subdivision and they were so excited. A new home for both of them to start fresh and have a home they bought together to build a life.
I started a new school, again! I was a pro at this point. Our new home was really nice and big. My dad promised to put a swimming pool in for me so I had something to do in the summer. The property was a corner lot so it was quite large and dad made it so nice. His gf taught me how to garden, I hated weeding but I was being taught how to do things. I’m thankful for those chores today.
My dad drove a truck for a living and worked for a company called Mowet for years. He and his gf started their own trucking company when we moved into the new home. He needed a truck but couldn’t afford anything extravagant. He drove loads to NY with no heat or air. I would lie in my bed at night and pray to win the lottery so he could buy a new truck and not freeze or boil during his runs to the states. He’d be gone for 2 to 3 days at a time so it would be just me and his gf. We had so much fun. We would go shopping, to the movies, or watch our favorite shows together. But I started feeling left out when my dad would get home. I felt like I was being ignored. It was hard being an only child and all I wanted was a brother or sister.
Soon after we moved into our new home my dad and his gf got married. I was in school and was called out along with my cousin because we had a wedding to go to. I was on cloud nine. I loved his gf so much, she was a mom to me that I didn’t have. She was gentle and caring. Shortly after they were married, my wish was granted. My dad’s wife had become pregnant. I was so so excited to be having a brother or sister. My life was so good. In 1982 my sister was born. I thought she was the best. I did everything for her and protected her like she was my own. If anyone hurt her I was there to defend. I took her everywhere with me when I could.
I cannot clearly remember when it started. The shouting and crying I would wake up too late at night. I could hear my dads angry voice, and I could hear his wife begging him to stop hurting her. He was chocking her up against the wall. She was crying I can’t breathe. Please stop, she would beg for her life.
I would creep down the stairs and listen to them talking when he came too out of his blackout rage. He would cry and apologize for hurting her and beg for her forgiveness. I was shaking, I was scared, my heart was racing and I felt sick to my stomach. I knew I couldn’t come out of my room and that if he caught me listening I would be in big trouble, but I had to go and see what was happening. I heard him talking about his childhood and how awful it had been. His wife would comfort him and tell him he couldn’t do that and needed help with counseling, she would tell him over and over how much she loved him, and she would never leave or hurt him in the way his ex did or his mom.
I was hiding all these secrets and living in fear unknowingly. Living with feelings I didn’t know and didn’t know how to deal with them. I didn’t tell anyone because for some reason I knew not to. Was it fear, or did I think this is how it was? I remember thinking to myself many times, no man would ever treat me this way. I was very angry and on defense. Flight or fight or freeze. I froze.
It was nothing unusual for me, the fighting. My dad and uncle would fight when they played cards. My dad accused my uncle of cheating and fists were flying. Things were breaking and people were yelling. Me and my cousins would hide in the closet and stare at each other in fear like a deer in headlights waiting for the hit. My grandfather was actually pushed one night into the fish tank and it broke and all I remember was water going everywhere. The yelling. The anger. The faces of them all in the midst of it all. FEAR.
Fighting and yelling, that was a normal way of life for me, as well as the rest of the family. This was how my family dealt with conflict.
I was starting to become afraid of my dad and what was going to happen when he returned home from work. I started to enjoy being with just my stepmom and sister. Just us. Anytime he was home my stomach was in knots. Or if I was out with friends I was nervous to go home because I thought I would be in trouble, for what I didn’t know, I was just scared.
I was becoming more violent and expressing my emotions through rage and destruction. I would rip closet doors off or kick holes in the walls, or simply run. Run away, not knowing where I would go but I just wanted to run. I couldn’t handle my emotions properly and my stepmom was nervous about how I was behaving. She didn’t know the past and what he had done to my mom or what I had been through before she came into our lives. She knew that my mom had abandoned me, abused me for so many years, but to what extent? She didn’t understand that this was who my father was. A man with so much trauma that he would take it out on any woman who entered his life whom he loved. A woman represented hurt, pain, and abandonment to him and it came out when he drank.
The time my dad turned on me was during a party he was having. I was dancing with him in our basement that my grandfather and him had renovated. It was such a cool basement. We were having a great time until he stopped in the middle of our dance and asked if I was making fun of him. I laughed and said no daddy. The next thing I know he’s picking me up by the back of my pj’s, throwing me up the basement stairs, up the upstairs stairs and to my room. Threw me on my bed and slammed the door. I was so scared and upset. I wasn’t making fun of him, I was learning how to dance. How could I make fun when I was only 13 years old. I loved my dad so much and would never do that to him. I cried myself to sleep and once again self soothed. Nothing was ever mentioned about that night, I just knew to be very careful around my dad and to not make him angry.
Being Me Sober 