Laurie Morgan

Laurie's Testimony

It seems like starting from my childhood is logical, but I'm not going to write my life's story, at least not today. Instead I will just tell you some pertinent facts about my childhood. I was a very unhappy child. I don't remember when that started. My Mom remembers a day when I stopped skipping and singing on my way to school, and while I believe that school broke a large part of my spirit, I am sure that my heartbreak really began much sooner.

My Father was in the Army when I was born. To me, that says a lot in itself, but for anyone who doesn't know, that means that he was rarely around. My earliest memories of him are of the "spankings" he administered, which were really just violations of my bare bottom with a belt or hand, and that is all. I don't even remember the reasons for the spankings, but I do remember asking him on at least one occasion why, if he really loved me, did he have to hurt me. I don't remember his answer. At the time, all I knew for certain was that what he was doing was very wrong, and my little mind was horrified at my Father's helplessness in the face of his own rage. His cliché explanation that spanking me hurt him more than me, left me feeling even more confused and angry.

Later memories of my Father are of the gifts he gave when he would visit. Even at the age of four or five, I understood that his gifts were a cheap replacement for time with him, and I accepted them as such. I would grow eventually to expect the presents, becoming quietly hurt and offended if something I had anticipated was not sent.

My Mom was physically "around" more than many Mothers thanks to her various teaching jobs over the years, but she was emotionally unavailable to me for a number of reasons. Not the least of which was her own background of sexual abuse. Since I became an adult, my Mom has told me that when she was first pregnant, she didn't want to have a baby. But when she finally resigned herself to having me, she resolved to do whatever she could, to make sure that she didn't "screw me up" because of her past. For instance she breastfed me for nine months because she had read that breastfeeding helped Mother and baby bond.

Another significant fact is that my Mother married my Father for the sole purpose of curing herself of homosexuality. A cure that didn't "work." At least not the way the Minister that concocted the idea had hoped. My parents divorced when I was five. I am still brought to tears remembering my Dad telling me his good-byes in the middle of my bath. Naturally I was unsure what his departing meant. At that age divorce could have meant a separation like death, or just more of what I had already endured. I couldn't have known, and that feeling is indescribable.

Over the years, people who knew about my Mother's lesbianism probably imagined all sorts of ways this would affect my growing up, but the most significant to me was the "step" parents her relationships brought into my life. The first one was Nana. Nana was a married woman with two daughters, one a few months younger than me and another a few months older.

I think that my awareness of my Mom's relationship with Nana at the time was limited to knowing that they liked to spend a lot of time together. A lot of the time I remember them spending together was time in the bedroom as a matter of fact, during which time Nana's daughter's and I would entertain ourselves with sexual games that Nana's girls would teach me. I am not sure where that behavior originated, some of it may have been innocent exploration, but I also believe that those girls must have been molested too, because of their unnaturally extensive awareness of sex.

After Nana left our lives, unwilling to leave her husband, the second woman that my Mother brought into our lives was Linda. Linda actually moved into the house with us when I was in first or second grade, so I'm sure that I was aware of the nature of that relationship at the outset. I was of two minds about Linda. I wanted desperately to love and be loved by this person who seemed to be in a position to be a parent to me, but at the same time, Linda was hateful and angry towards me almost all of the time.

It seemed to me that at that young age I couldn't ever be adult enough for Linda. She angrily ordered me around and verbally abused me for any reason she saw fit. I was blasted for every little childish action, from holding my pencil or fork wrong, putting my elbows on the table, chewing my gum with my mouth open, to breathing too loud. At other times Linda could be remarkably tender, inviting me to truly love her as a parent, but dashing my trust sometimes only hours later with a new storm over my "bad" behavior.

Linda lived with us until I was about ten years old. In that time, she blamed every problem that her and my Mom's relationship had on me. She eventually gave my Mom an ultimatum: either send "the kid" away to her Dad, or lose the relationship. At first my Mom tried compromising by forcing me into "counseling" with a lesbian therapist to try and "fix" my childish behavior. I spent most of those sessions with my tired and confused heart hidden under crossed arms but occasionally I opened my mind to hypnotism and visualization treatment, because I was beginning to lose confidence that these problems weren't really all my fault. After all my Mother, my only advocate and friend, was pleading with me to "just try" and make it work.

During this time my Father, who had long ago moved 200 miles away, married Ginger. At the time I saw Ginger as a dream come to life. Although I only spent a few weeks out of the year at my Dad's house, Ginger meant a lot to me. Ginger was an Avon lady, which equated in my prepubescent mind to a fairy princess. She wore perfume and makeup. She was pretty and dressed in hip, sexy clothes. And most importantly, she had my Father.

Ginger was everything I wanted to be. Ginger made pretty clothes for me and helped me get my ears pierced. Ginger gave me advice on how to style my hair and makeup. She let me try on her clothes and nail polish, and talked to me about sex and boys. There was only one flaw about Ginger that I wouldn't find out until later. She had been sexually abused as a child too. So, as I see it now, we had our low self esteem in common.

After Linda left when I was about nine years old, my Mom met Barbara. Barbara had two kids, one about my age and one about two years older. I liked Barbara a lot when she was "dating" my Mom. Once again I had two playmates while my Mother did adult things. Only this time we had our experience of living with lesbian Mothers in common, and felt a sort of camaraderie.

My Mom and I had finally been on our own in a small apartment since Linda left, which was great. We got along best when we were alone. But soon my new school had become my enemy. I got braces and had short ugly hair. We didn't have enough money for me to have the trendy clothes. I stuck out like a sore thumb, and the school bully easily picked me out as a target for abuse. I was punched and knocked down, teased and threatened right in front of teachers, and no one would help me. Even the principal of the school would only wring his hands when my 50 dollar running shoes were stolen from my locker. (Those shoes were more expensive than any pair of shoes either my mother or I had ever had up until that point.) Three months before the end of the school year, I was saved by a fall that put my leg in a cast, giving me an excuse not to return to class.

So, I was excited when my Mom and Barbara decided we would all move into a townhouse together in another city. However, not only did I now have my problems to cope with, but I suddenly had live-in siblings and a new step mother with their own. Barbara's ex-husband had been an alcoholic who left his wife and two kids in poverty. As a result, these three women came with their own special brand of dysfunction, and my codependent Mom welcomed them into her care like strays.

High school was a blend of mania and depression for me. I lost my virginity at age thirteen to the first boy who said he loved me, who then told me to get lost a week later. My second sexual encounter was with an older classmate who had really wanted to date my "sister", but as a result of my neediness and enthusiasm to please, I was easier to "get." He would come to our house at night and tap on the bedroom window we shared, and if she wouldn't sneak out of the house with him, I would. Those experiences were quite humiliating and painful, and left me with a pretty dim view of sex and love.

My next sexual experience was with a sweet boy that actually loved me as much as I loved him. He was even willing to come to my house and meet my Mother, so she got to know him as my first love. I confided in her that we felt ready to have sex, so she helped me to get birth control. She even held my hand and comforted me through a pregnancy scare that year. My Mom and I kept growing closer.

I broke up with that boyfriend after one year because he was too nice. That may sound a little strange, but it wouldn't be the last time. I just didn't know how to behave when someone was treating me well, so he had to go. I had one other significant relationship in Highschool, and that was with Chris.

I met Chris at a dance club for teens when I was a Junior in highschool. Dancing was one of the more tame forms of entertainment I had taken up since 8th grade. In 8th grade I experimented with alcohol for the first time, getting drunk every weekend on stolen liquor from Barbara's stash, which I replaced with water. I started smoking clove cigarettes that year too. Barbara's older daughter introduced us to them and we began buying them at the corner store, smoking them outside on the patio when our Moms went out.

It wasn't until Highschool that I switched to doing LSD on the weekends and marijuana between (and instead of) classes at school. Those drugs were easier to get and hide, and their effects lasted longer. God only knows why I decided to quit doing drugs my Junior year, but I was still getting drunk occasionally for fun by the time I met Chris. About that time I was having a medical crisis in my life, where I would catch every illness I came into contact with. My condition baffled all the doctors I saw on a biweekly basis, but I was so weakened that I couldn't get out of bed most mornings. I eventually had to have a special teacher come to tutor me twice a week at home so that I could (barely) complete that second semester of my Junior year.

Chris and I felt like kindred spirits right from the start. We would call each other on the phone and talk for hours on end. We seemed so alike and felt truly understood by each other. My home life was filled with tension and strife, because Barbara was an unfair and disrespectful mother figure. She believed that my illness was a sham and treated me with hostility and contempt. My personal belongings were confiscated and thrown away if they were found to be distasteful, because of infractions that my sisters committed. Thankfully, because I had access to a car, I was eventually able to escape into Chris's family when Barbara became verbally abusive to all of us. All the while I was telling my Mom that she needed to get out of the relationship. I had grown to feel responsible for her because I could always see that she was in trouble before she had the guts to get out of it.

Continue Story. . .