Child Abuse: My Dark Legacy and How I Survived It

To tell my story, I have to go back to the beginning. The story starts with my mother and her childhood.

I was not born in the United States. I was born on an island, one that I will not name because I want anonymity.

I know it is not fair to judge everyone for what a few people did, but its hard not to. On that island, or I should say, the people of that island, seem to cheat on their wives, beat their wives, and their kids. It's a place where discipline is heavily used.

If your neighbor thought that you were not respectful for even a second, they could and would beat you. They would then take you home and your parents will beat you.

I know that some people will say that there is nothing wrong with discipline, but what you have to understand is their definition of discipline is far different.

Discipline to them means picking up anything that is handy and hitting you with it. It could be an extension cord, wire, belt, stick or even a cricket bat. Not much is off limits in their "discipline".

My mother was a child that carries the legacy of harsh abuse. She has four children and she gave birth to the first at the age of 16. Most of the women on the island gave birth at young ages.

However, one day my mother was just sitting next to me and she began to tell me things that I was unaware of.

She told me that she wanted to get pregnant. She went out to have sex to have a child. She was not trying to trap anyone, she wanted pregnancy for reasons so sad, that it had me in tears.

Her need to get pregnant began with her father. At the age of 10 he began to take her out of her bed and into the bathroom. He raped her and told her to keep quiet or he would kill her. She was terrified, so she kept it to herself, not even telling her mother or 7 siblings the truth.

She was raped almost every night until her mid teens. The sexual abuse stopped because she was pregnant. Back to the reason she wanted a child so badly.

You see, my mother quietly explained that she needed to get pregnant. She was terrified, absolutely horrified that she would become pregnant by her own father.

My mother went on to have three more kids after her first. The first child was with one man or teenage boy I should say. The other three belonged to another man. I hated my "father" very much to this day.

The man that gave her three kids was not much different from her father. He beat her. He beat her so badly that my half sibling only five or six at the time, had to run to get his rapist of a grandfather to come help his daughter. My brother hates our grandfather as much as I do.

He has clear memories that he cannot erase. One of those memories is of our grandfather doing nothing to help his daughter as her children's father beat her bloody. Of course my brother was too young to know that dear old grandpa was an abuser himself and certainly not a hero.

As it turns out, my mother stayed with that man because he scared her as much as her father did. In fact I became known in the family circle as the "rape child".

My mother had first met my "father" when she was 19 years old. They were on a boat and he dragged her to a room and raped her. When she found out she was pregnant, her father threw her out and made her live with her rapist.

When I was thirteen years old, my mother took me out of school one day and took me to the doctor. I still don't understand why she took me for tests but she had them run blood tests to find out if her rapist was my actual father.

I was happy to learn that he was not my dear old dad. It turns out that my mother was already pregnant with me when he raped her. She was in a good relationship with the man who fathered me, but they were forced to split up after the rape.

Abused by her father for years and then abused by her children's father for another six years, my mother was beginning to crack.

She told me that one day she was on the room hanging laundry and she suddenly wanted to jump and kill herself. To escape it all. She said that she couldn't. Her children would not let her go. You see, as she stood at the roof, she says that she saw our faces swimming in front of her.

If she killed herself, we would have no one around to protect us. She decided to live for her children. Unfortunately, the pain continued for her.

A few months later, she once again tried to commit suicide. The father of her children had just finished beating and raping her. That night while he slept, she took me and my brother with her to the beach.

I was four and my brother was 8 months old. It's a memory that I wish to erase, but for some reason I still remember, even though I was so very young.

My mother took both of us to the beach that night, but it was not for fun and games. She stripped herself and then my brother and I. Afterwards, she buried my infant brother in the sand and then buried me. She then dug another hole in the sand and buried herself.

I dug myself out and walked to the nearest home and told them what happened. My mother was found and she and my brother were both saved from death.

I asked her why did she try to kill her children and she told me that she could not live anymore but she could not leave us behind. To protect us, she decided to take us with her.

My grandfather is not a nice man. Not now and not then. Besides the sexual abuse of my mother, he handed out lots of beatings. He was also a serial cheater. He cheated on grandmother every chance he got.

However, it was two decades before I found out the depths of his depravity. It turns out that my mother was not his only rape victim. He has 7 daughters and he raped at least 5 of them. I'm not sure about the other two but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he raped them all.

My mother's older sister was not his child. My grandmother gave birth to a baby girl before she married my grandfather. I knew that my aunt did not live with them after a while, but as I found out later, my grandmother sent her to live with other relatives because she knew that he was raping her.

Yet she stayed with him even though she had other female children in the same house as him.

Grandpa may have given life to his daughters but he spent the next two decades taking it back one rape, one beating at a time.

Beyond my mother's suicides, we discovered that she was bipolar. Years later my youngest aunt was also diagnosed with a mental illness.

Even when the rapes stopped, he still left them with a lifetime of pain. Over the years, my mother and aunt tried to kill themselves but they failed. My mother spent years in mental institutions and so did my aunt.

There are periods in time that are missing from my memories. I don't remember being around my mother in my early or preteens. As it turned out, she was hospitalized all that time.

I don't socialize much, and I try to stay away from my relatives. It makes me furious when I think of them and their lack of sympathy.

This family is like so many others that hide abuse behind closed doors. No matter what happens, they want to keep it quiet. No police, no hospital, no help. Just move on. They worry more about protecting the criminal and do nothing to help the victim.

There was a funeral a few years back, and my aunt and other family members would be there. My grandfather came to the United States to attend. My aunt had not seen him after she left the island.

She was understandably upset about having to be in the same room as him. The family told her to behave and shut up. They warned her not to make a fuss, and as she quietly had another breakdown, she cried in the corner and was ignored.

My family has always amazed me. No matter what happens, a husband and wife should always stay together. They dislike divorce. Especially my grandmother.

I'm not religious, as in I don't go to church every week like they do. Some members of my family gave me the nickname atheist, even though I never said that I was.

I simply could not stomach sitting next to hypocrites every week. They sin all week and then they turn religious on the weekend.

My uncle by marriage is one of the biggest hypocrites that I have ever faced. He practically lives in church, but cheats on his wife.

His oldest child with my aunt is now 17 but he has a daughter by another one and this little girl is only six years old. The math alone screams cheater.

My aunt found out about his cheating because he was better at sleeping around than he was at covering his tracks.

His mistress went into labor and was taken to the hospital. She filled out the birth certificate and handed it to a nurse. The nurse looked it over and asked about the father's name.

My uncle and his mistress were not very smart. You see, the nurse was my aunt, and she was very interested in finding out why this woman was listing her husband as her child's father.

Once she realized her mistake, the mistress said that he was just a friend, and so she listed him as the father because he wouldn't mind.

My aunt is not a stupid woman and she was ready to grab her kids and walk out the front door. However, her loving mother told her to behave herself and stop with the divorce nonsense. Sure he's a cheater with a few girlfriends on the side. She needed to remember that he is her husband and she can't leave him.

In the end, my grandmother bullied her into staying with my uncle and they are still together years later. However, 3/4 of the family is aware that he's still cheating on her.

I choose to live my life and that means no dragging myself out of bed every week to attend church. It's not for me. Maybe I'll feel different as I get older but I highly doubt it. I find religion very controlling and I yearn to be free.

As I explained above, I stay away from religion. There are too many rules. At times I have to shake my head and walk away from my family and their hypocrisy when it comes to religion.

To them, I'm going to hell because I eat ham, but apparently God is more tolerant of liars, and cheaters.

There are so many things that I can't do if I chose to join their religion.

Kids should be home schooled or put in religious school

Worshippers should suffer in this life because big awards will be theirs after death

Marriage is forever with a few small exceptions

Pork products are forbidden because they are unclean
I am also forbidden from eating shellfish such as crabs and lobster and shrimp because they are dirty and God put them on the planet to clean the sea.

Followers should become vegetarian

I have nothing against their religion but it is my choice to stay away.

One day after a severe beating, I said to a family member:

"Your supposed to be religious, where does it say in the bible that you should abuse children?"

That family member smugly told me that God says to spare the rod is to spoil the child.

Apparently that passage is a confirmation on brutalizing your children. Yet they still wonder why I choose to avoid their religious teachings.

At different times in my childhood, it did seem that my mother was continuing the circle of abuse that started with her father.

Thanks to her mental illness and abusive history, she would grab her belt and beat me for the smallest of offense.

When our rooms were not cleaned, she lined up my siblings and I and beat us one after the other. When it was my turn, I was punished with that belt and I walked away crying. My mother was furious and before I knew it, she had thrown a can of roach spray at me and it slammed into the back of my head.

It didn't hurt as much as the belt so I barely acknowledged it. I went into the bathroom and cried for a few minutes and as I was about to leave I felt sweat roll down the side of my face.

I thought to myself, "wow I'm sweating". However, as I brushed away the "sweat" and looked at my hand, it was covered in blood. I moved into the hallway, just in time to see a family friend enter our home. She was a nurse and just happened to be stopping by to say hello.

She took care of my head wound and I was sent on my way. I still have the jagged scar in the back of my head. There are a few hairstyles that I can't wear because it fully shows that patch of flesh is missing and that i'm bald in that area.

Before the family friend left, my mother ranted and raved that it was my own fault. Everyone else took their beatings, she said. However, she says that I flew at her and bit her breast.

I can honestly say that I don't recall doing that. Either way, I guess I was punished twice that day.

For many of us, we remember the bad and forget about the good. I try not to but its hard when these memories come flooding back without warning.

I was beaten because I closed a door and it jammed.

I was asleep one night and woke up to my mother whipping me repeatedly with her belt. An older cousin told her that I threw the nintendo at her.

The real story? I was playing the video game and my cousin came in and shut it off, because I dared to enjoy myself, she suddenly decided that she would clean the room I was in.

The two of us have never gotten along because she seemed to always go out of her way to make me miserable. When she told me to leave, I dropped the controller next to the gaming system and left to take a nap.

Somehow my cousin equated putting the controller in the usual place to violently trying to hit her with it. Regardless, my mother never asked my side of the story.

To this day, what i remember more than the beating is my mothers expression. She was beating me badly and yet had a small smile on her face. It wasn't that she was enjoying beating me. It was simply a case of my child did something wrong so I "have" to punish her and then go back to what I was doing.

What I also remember is the fact that she had just gotten back from her bingo night. She lost that night and I firmly believe that she was taking her frustrations out on me.

My mother did not date tons of men and she didn't bring home a bunch of "uncles". She did date a few times but like so many abuse victims, she constantly chose men she should have avoided.

None of them ever abused us in any way, but she had the usual problems of them cheating on her, having another woman here and there and using her for the little money she had.

One ex-boyfriend that I specifically remember, also earned me a beating and it seemed like Deja Vu.

Home from bingo, she woke me up via her belt once again. As she beat me, she explained that her boyfriend claimed that I said the F-word to him.

I was never a child that used curse words or disrespected my elders. Her boyfriend had asked me around 9 or 10 that night, to go buy him some food.

I declined, explaining that it was too late for me, a 13 year old girl to be on the street by herself and it was also too far for me to walk.

Apparently, the beating was his revenge I guess. What will always hurt more is the fact that my mother chose to believe his version. I told her that I did not curse at him and she walked away saying:

"You keep it up and see what you will get."

I cried in my room. There was nothing else I could do.

Do you remember a movie titled "Harry and the Hendersons?"

I do. Even though I have not seen it in more than 10 years, I will always remember that it was that movie that dried my tears.

You see, at the end of this film, the bigfoot creature went back to live in the forest with the rest of his kind. It was sad and at age 12 I couldn't hold back the tears. Family members looked over at me and I spent the next hour wanting to curl up and die.

I was ridiculed repeatedly, for crying at a "stupid" movie. The adults called me names and told me how pathetic I was. That was last time they would EVER see me cry.

I wouldn't need two hands to count the amount of times I cried in the last 10 to 15 years. When I do get upset enough to cry it happens privately. No one sees me cry, I couldn't bear the humiliation if they did.

Beyond the crying, my other emotions were put away. Hugging, crying, kissing, virtually any emotion is uncomfortable for me. Saying I love you is not somthing that I can do.

I can't show emotions. It makes me feel weak. As I handed my mother a birthday gift one year, she asked why did I not kiss her, hug her and tell her that I love her.

I couldn't. How could I show emotions when they never showed me any sign of love and affection. As I told them before, I can't say I love you because I was not raised that way. I can't expose my weakness again.

Over the years, I have wondered why I'm different from most of my family. Different in that I care, sometimes to deeply. I'm easily disturbed and hate the thought of others being hurt.

Getting ready for bed one night, I heard a sound. To me it was horrific, disturbing. It was the sound of an animal in pain. I left my home and walked up and down the sidewalk. I tried to find it, to help it. The noise stopped eventually, but I've never been able to forget and wondered who or what had hurt that animal.

I'm not disappointed that I care about living things. I just wonder why I'm so different from the ones I'm related to. Is it because I was raised and primarily grew up in the U.S? Am I different because I know what its like to be hurt? I don't know.

Sometimes I just want to turn it off when I see or hear about horrible crimes on the nightly news. I can't just forget it, they stay with me.

However, I'm also happy that I'm not like them. The heartless ones around me. Sometimes they say things like its no big deal, while I have to leave the room because they sicken me.

Do you know how to get rid of a litter of puppies or kittens that you don't want? The answer you will recieve from those in my country is as simple as it is disturbing.

Tie them in a bag and toss it in the ocean. They are animals, so I guess in their world, they are meaningless. Over the years, they have tried to bring pets into the house but I have fought them over it. I will not allow them to bring an animal into this house.

They won't feed it correctly, won't take it to the vet and I will not stand for it. I'm no longer a defenseless child. I'm nowhere as strong as I should be. But I'm strong enough I suppose.