| DD from the United States writes: My first memory of abuse is my mother making homemade stew and I hated it. I remember being made to eat it and throwing up into my bowl and still being made to eat it. I was 4 or 5. When I was 5 or 6, I remember being in the car with my mother and stepfather and a friend of my stepfather's. We stopped at a store and they left me in the car with this man. It was dark outside and he started to touch me. I remember screaming because it hurt and he grabbed me by my throat and told me to shut up or he would kill me. I shut up but kept crying and when my mom and stepfather came out, he told them that I was upset they had not taken me in. The entire trip to his house he touched me, and when I would whine, my stepfather would tell me to shut up. This man would then rape me when I was 7 or 8. My stepfather drank a lot. When I was in 3rd grade, my mother left me home alone with him one day. My stepfather called me into my bedroom and told me it was time to teach me about the birds and the bees. He raped me that day. Afterwards, he called me onto the front porch and placed my hand onto the outside of his pants and told me anytime I wanted to learn, just let him know. Several weeks later we had a program at school about the right kind and wrong kind of touching. After the program finished they told us if we needed to talk, to come to the office. I went and told them that my stepfather had touched me. That afternoon when I got off the bus, I told my mother about the program and that I had talked to them about what my stepfather had done. I missed a week of school because she beat me so badly. She sent me to stay with my stepfather’s uncle who lived in the country. He had a son who was about 15 at the time. At night I slept in the room with his sister who was about 17. Anyhow, they thought it would be fun to see me perform oral sex on this 15-year-old and his friend. The first time was on the 3rd night there. It happened every night for the next 5 nights. They had heard their parents talking about what I had told the people at school. I don't know if anything was ever said to my parents by the school, but I never heard of it again. After that I don't remember if there was more sexual abuse, but the physical and emotional abuse took everything from me. My mother and stepfather split and my mom had her new boyfriends. I cared for my younger brother and sister while my mother stayed out for days. Then she would come home and I would tell her we need food or whatever was we needed. She would scream at me that I sucked her for everything I could get. I was worthless and then she would beat me. Once she threw a can of Pledge at me and blacked my eye so bad the school sent me to the doctor. It was so bad they thought my eye was damaged. I had to tell them that me little sister threw the can. As I got older, I got wiser; I would get off the bus and stay in the woods until 9pm. Then I would go in. By this time my mom and Stepfather were in bed together. We lived in a 2-bedroom trailer. In the small bedroom were 2 beds. My sister had 1 and my brother had one. My brother always slept on the couch. I slept with my sister but she wet the bed. I always had to shower at night, and when I had to sleep with her when she wet the bed, I couldn't shower in the morning. They would laugh at me. I made the mistake of asking one night if I could sleep in the other bed. My mother told me I had to ask my 5-year-old brother for permission. He said no. My punishment now was I had no bed. I slept in the hallway with no pillow or blanket. That was until my grandmother saw it. She filed for custody but my mother was very good at lying. I was a good student but my parents had everyone thinking I was crazy and wild. School was rough because of the small town. Children hear their parents talk and all of my cousins would tell about the shameful things that I went through. The final straw for me was when I was 14; I skipped school to stay home; I was really sick. My stepfather had lost his job that day and came home early. I was lying on the couch in my PJ's. He came in and started screaming about how I had stayed home to meet a boy. He started beating me and kicking me. We fought until he got me down on the living room floor. I now know that one of the neighbors saw me home and had called my mother at work (she had them thinking I was a whore even though I had never been with a boy, I couldn't talk on the phone and never went anywhere) Anyway, she walked in as he was raping me. Instead of pulling him of me she started kicking me and calling me a whore, she then got on me and started choking me. The next thing I remember was being the hospital. The police came and asked their questions and the next day I was sent to a juvenile detention center. I spent the weekend there, and on Monday, I went to court. The judge tried to send me back with her and I told him I would rather die. They sent me back to the detention center. The following week we went back to court and my mother sat in front of everyone and said she had never in my life hit me or knew of any sexual abuse. She claimed that my bruises came from a fight with a girl in the neighborhood. And that I had seduced my stepfather. Anyhow, the Judge SENT ME HOME WITH HER!!! As soon as I got home I packed a bag and walked away. I married a wonderful man at 15 and I have 2 children. I think I did marry to escape, but thank God that the man I married is a good man. He treats me with respect and love. I have been married for almost 16 years to this man. I tried once to forgive my mother but it has now been 9 years since we last spoke. The saddest part of all of this is that my brother and sister think I am crazy because they don't remember any of it. So we don't speak either. I guess the end of this story is that even though I live with this everyday, what I went through made me who I am. I am a strong woman who even after all of this, marring at 15 having my first child at 18, I am a college graduate with a good career, a wonderful, solid marriage, 2 children who because of my wounds, WILL NEVER experience what I went through. You can move on, you move past it. The wounds will heal but the scars remain. | 
