The Effects of Child Abuse

by Rex
(Portland, Oregon, USA)

This story won't be formatted under any literary terms like MLA or Chicago formatting. Most likely chronologically very little at best. I'm aware that people care, and become concerned about child abuse these days, but until only a few short years ago it was always put on the abused to except and change, and except too change and forgive if you follow me. And even though society seems to be changing by now punishing those who abuse, or neglect instead of re-forming and punishing the abused, especially the abused children. I have done it all over and over again (forgiving, changing) that is. forgiveness would be my key to freedom I used to be told as a child over and over again. When I know now the only freedom I will ever experience is living my life and my own personal identity by moving away...far - far away from the only person we are supposed to care eternally about. Our parents you ask, sure except mine never paid a single dime in child support or gave me the time of day on their own free will. No, this abuse is deeper (our Mother) Mother is the name of God that is embedded on the lips of all children. But when Mother takes this gift and uses it for some strange bully twisted purpose, then how is a young child supposed to digest those emotions? It can't be done.

When we are children we really have no idea what is going on in the world unless we are fortunate enough to be raised by parents that show you and teach you life as it is, and should be in the open, and not hide it from you. Especially when they seem to be blessed with everything.

Oh everything is much clearer to me now but for years and years I would feel and carry the guilt that was embedded on to me by the abuser(s) and did not belong to me.

So what do you say or think when you are 13 years old and you act out...most likely begging for the proper love and attention, attention you have been denied for years, and instead of being whipped or sent to your room, or made to feel stupid or embarrassed this time you find yourself alone in a court room with Mother and Judge Cox, and during the conversation; after the judge tells your Mother this child has done nothing wrong she stands up next to you and yells she doesn't care, she doesn't love you, she doesn't want you, she doesn't want to take care of you and doesn't care who does then she runs from the court chambers leaving you sit there alone. then for the next three summer months you are locked up in detention with kids who had actually created some crime but still had parents who cared about them, forgave them, brought them back home, except you don't hear a single word from dear Mother, (Oh except for that she is out in the world covering her little fanny behind her lies to everyone that you are some kind of evil demon troubled kid.)

This wasn't the first time or the last dear Mom has been playing the all mighty bully in my life.

I basically had six good years of nurtured childhood growth. There was a time when dear Mom, and I lived with grandmother, (the only woman in my life that truly cared about me). Grandmother had a large family who visited a lot, and she took care of me when Mother was out doing her thing looking for Mr. Right, which most of the time was Mr. Wrong. But she couldn't get away with her hatred bullying ways then because I was surrounded by people who cared. No, it wasn't until after she became remarried and completely separated me from any family (forever). "I don't know what it is or it was with in her mind then or now, and just no longer care to bring it up with her." When I first took the blunt of her true colors I was very young but for instance there was a night when I was 7 y/o I was woken out of my sleep in the middle of the night with mom holding my left arm in the air and my step father standing in my bedroom door way watching her. I asked her what she was doing and she said something about tracks. Tracks, are you kidding me!

TRACKS! What are you talking about I asked (Oh-you know-you know). That was her favorite comeback to issues I had no clue about. "You know - you know."

I could write a book about instance like that before the age of 13.

So I ask you, was leaving me in the court chambers at age 13-14 alone with Judge Cox a good thing? (Of course not.)

You have no idea how life was thrown at me after that. I did not digest or mange feelings or have a clue to why I should. I was a little kid who wanted to be a little kid, and most of all I wanted to be with family. But I was too different, too slow, couldn't handle all of the beatings, and being set up as Mr trouble maker I guess.

It wasn't about being with family, it was about changing to accommodate them when it should have been the other way around.

What child abuse agency's offer now they did not a few short years ago, and many of the people working there should not have been.

Any way people "tracks?" as Mother called them I knew nothing about, at least not until I hit my mid to late twenties. What I did do was self medicate. Not just after 13-14 but before that so I could sleep at night - throughout the night. I would grab the cork off the whiskey bottles all lined up in the living room and take a shot, sometimes two.

In my teens I self medicated much diffidently without actually knowing what I was doing. Life is competitive enough for a child, how else do you hide the fact that you are uncared for at that age without trying to fit into another world you didn't belong in just to hide your young ghosts. I wasn't very bright and like the living values of my Grandmother I was very accepting, and caring, far too open minded. What does a child do when it is the 1970's and you birthday gift from Mother is a carton of Marlboro's and twenty bucks so you can buy a lid of pot? Year after year...HMMMM...what do you think. How does a child digest the emotions of knowing there is a family or relatives that just don't and most likely never did give a damn about him? I would see my Mother maybe three or four times a year then, just long enough to be smitten and then blamed for missing family events, or even local events because I wasn't around. "As if I had packed my bags and walked out on them or something." The only encouragement I would receive was some adult parental power trip telling me I wasn't good enough and how sick they made me out to be, and that I was the one out of control. Then on the other side of the adult world I would be told how my parents are no good for me.

Well eventually my life was out of control, and I'm leaving out many - many details of those final rebellious years, and even years of my personal surrender. Forgive and you shall be set free...that's what I was told.

Continued in: Part 2