STORY 3
STORY INDEX
I am sending this email because I don't know how to talk to anyone about what has happened to me, yet I am being forced to relive all the worst parts every time I close my eyes, and I am rapidly losing all ability to cope with my life (work, school, "family," and "friends"). When I was ten years old, my mother married her fourth husband. She met him while he was on parole from a four year sentence for drug trafficing. The first year of their marriage, J. (my stepfather) worked hard to drive my mother and me apart. He would steal things from her and, when she noticed they were missing, he would "discover" them in my room for her. He played all sorts of nasty tricks like that and, as a result, my mother was constantly threatening to send me to live with my biological father, of whom I was terrified (he used to push me around a lot). The winter of my eleventh birthday, my mother, J. and I took a road trip to Arizona. The first night, J. and I were sleeping in the back of the car. I woke up because I felt his hand on my stomach... I was terrified, this man had total control over my mother's opinion of me. He moved his hand farther down and slipped it into my pants, actually a pair of my mother's sweats. I started to roll away, and he whispered in my ear that if I moved, he'd tell my mother that I had *my* hand down *his* pants. He told me to scoot up a little, and I did. He put his fingers inside me and kept them there until we reached a gas station (I'm not sure how long it was, but at least an hour). I was so very sick... my mother wasn't five feet away and I couldn't say anything... and J. got out of the car and walked around the side of the station while my mother filled the tank. I was afraid to take my eyes off him. He took out his penis and masturbated until he ejaculated on the ground. I ran into the bathroom and vomited. He came after me and touched me some more, telling me that if i didn't come out of the bathroom smiling and saying I was just car sick, that he would tell my mother what a slut I was. Until the summer after my thirteenth birthday, J. repeatedly forced me to participate in sexual acts with him, all the while threatening to tell my mother that I liked it, that I seduced him; to tell my father when my mother kicked me out, and, eventually, when i refused to let him penetrate my rectum one afternoon because it was too sore, he held a knife over my left breast and threatened to cut it off and make me eat it. While he penetrated me, the knife slipped and I still have a three inch long scar. I also, at age 18, suffer from severe hemorroids and sensitive tissue. Earlier this year I realized how much this abuse had affected me... I went for years telling myself that I was intelligent and capable enough not to let the abuse affect me. The scars on my arms, my history of drug abuse, depression, fear of commitment, eating disorders and perfectionism told me differently. I finally admitted to myself that something momentous had happened. Since things between my mother and J. had soured, and things between her and me seemed to be looking up, I thought perhaps it was time to tell her. At first I couldn't say it out loud. I told her simply that J. had done some bad things to me. Then I told her about the Arizona incident, but made it a bit more palatable. She did not take it well. She screamed at me, asking me how I could do this to her... then she called J. and reconciled with him. They are still together. I called her on Mother's Day, and she told me that I can't distinguish reality from my nightmares, and that I never wanted her to be happy. She has called me every day since to tell me that I am the biggest dissapointment in her life, and that she wishes I would get psychiatric help to stop embarrassing myself with lies. Today is the first day she hasn't called. The worst part of it all is that my mother doesn't even know HALF of what he did to me, and yet she is physically incapable of processing even the small amount of information she *does* have. She told my sister and biological father that I was insane and accusing J. of abusing me, and then suggested to them that I instigated any and all sexual encounters that may have occured. I haven't spoken to my sister since, and relations with my father are strained. I hope never to hear from my mother again. I hope also that someday I can learn to feel bad about losing my family; as it is, I have trouble feeling much of anything. thank you for reading. I feel a little better already.
