I thought I had posted this in my diary, but I can't find it. This is a letter to my abuser. My uncle.
Dear Darwin,
I�m writing because there are things you need to know about me, and things I need to say to you that you�ve never heard me say before. I did make some remarks the last time I saw you, but you ignored them.
This is my last and only contact with you.
I�ve heard sadly, that you are very sick, and that your wife Sam has attempted to leave you. I don�t feel bad for either or you since I think you both deserve each other.
She�s a sneaky sad excuse for a woman and a hag, and you are an angry old man.
You weren�t always an angry old man. I remember being in the hospital after the attack in 1982 and you�d come visit with Aunt Rachel. You were especially careful to be gentle with Renee and me because we were covered with scars. Scars that were proof of angry cuts of a knife inflicted on us by our mother�s killer.
You saw everything. The recovery, the surgeries, the sleepwalking, my nightmares and the subsequent investigation into the homicide. The trial. You were there when I testified against Rodney in court. You knew how bad it had been for me. I trusted and loved you like the father I never had.
I gave you a chance to be my new dad.
You could do no wrong in my eyes. Even though you were gruff and tough I wasn�t scared of you in the beginning. Even though I�d lost so much in the attack, I felt like Renee and I had a chance to grow up happy. You did a lot of things with us that dad�s do, and for the first time I wasn�t standing there embarrassed at having no parents because I had you and Aunt Rachel.
We did so many fun things together. We went fishing and camping. I was in the girl scouts. We had so much fun together. Aunt Rachel was a photographer, and I know she took many pictures of us happy kids doing fun things together as a family. Those were happy years but short happy ones.
Then, in 1987, after we moved to Martin, Tennessee, things started to get tense at home. Aunt Rachel became moody, and you were home less and less. When you were home, you could be very mean at times, and I felt the love I felt for you slowly start drying up. You had a way of stomping the love right out of a person�s heart with our moods. The spot I had reserved for you in my heart got smaller and smaller.
And then, you started messing around with Sam while Aunt Rachel was pregnant. It should�ve been a happy time, with the upcoming birth of your 2nd child Sisal, but it was a very hard time.
Just when I thought life at home couldn�t be more unbearable, I came home from school one day and immediately Renee and I were taken to the hospital. Aunt Rachel was very sick; she�d collapsed in a neighbor�s mobile home. She lay unconscious on the floor for quite some time.
Our family was there. That�s when I knew something was wrong. I hardly had been able to see the Clenney�s anymore because you decided it had to be so, and suddenly they were at the hospital in Tennessee. My stomach knotted and twisted in dread.
You took Renee and me into the bleak hospital room to see Aunt Rachel, who lay stiff and motionless on the bed, on life support. I grabbed her hand, it was cold. That�s when you told us it was our fault that she died. That was horrible! How can you do that to children? You said we drove her to it, death. I racked my head to remember what I did that made her sick, but I couldn�t.
In truth, she had a cerebral hemorrhage, which is something you can�t predict or cause. But if anyone had driven her to anything it was you, with your cheating. You blamed her death on us.
How you could ever blame helpless children for her death is beyond me. It was a very cruel and heartless thing to do, and I have carried it in my heart for many years. I really did buy what you said, that it was my fault. I thought that you wouldn�t lie to me ever, so it must be true, even if I couldn�t figure it out.
Aunt Rachel dying suddenly at 33 was horrible for me. It was probably the worst year of my life. My dog died, my aunt died, and I started my period. As if death wasn�t enough, puberty exacted it�s own revenge. If that wasn�t bad enough, I no longer had someone to stand in the middle between you and me. There wasn�t a buffer anymore.
Renee and I had been through so much in our lifetimes. We lost a mother to homicide, we almost died ourselves, and just when we thought we were going to live happily ever after, our new mother figure, our aunt, died suddenly.
I know you were grief-stricken and that would have afforded you some understanding. But we couldn�t understand why you would get remarried a month after Rachel died to the woman you were having an affair with. A 24-year-old party girl to be exact.
As if having a new step-mom so quickly wasn�t enough, it quickly became apparent that you thought we�d been spoiled by Rachel and you set out to beat that out of us. Sam would just go to your room and close your door when you were beating us. She acted like it never happened.
The three years after Aunt Rachel died were pure hell. I remember being 13 years old and wanting to die. I hoped a truck would hit me when I was crossing the street. I thought about stabbing myself in the chest with a knife. I hoped I�d be electrocuted by a thunderstorm cloud passing over. I hoped I wouldn�t wake up.
Of course, another day would always dawn, and the cycle of abuse would start over.
In addition to your physical abuse, then came the sexual abuse.
That�s what really messed me up. You taking privileges with me that you shouldn�t have. You were a very low person for doing that.
You told me you were looking for lumps in my breasts. I don�t even remember what you said you were looking for when you touched me elsewhere. I still can�t remember why you insisted on giving a 14-year-old child, namely me, a bath and washing my hair.
You violated my privacy because you�re a sick pervert.
The worst thing of it all was that you had me so brainwashed that I didn�t believe I had any value. I didn�t believe what I thought and had to say was important.
I remember being so scared that you would kill me one day. The beatings were so intense because you hit me in the head, neck, back, thighs, anywhere you could reach. And you�d use your hands or your belt. You didn�t have to have a reason for hitting us, so you usually just made something up.
There was no reason to hit a meek 14-year-old virgin that made straight A�s. I got A�s on my homework, and A�s on my midterms and A�s as a final grade. And yet, I wasn�t good enough. You afforded me no dignity. I was so terrified of you that I didn�t dare talk back to you ever. Your reasons for the beatings were so laughable. I don�t think you really needed a reason to hit us. You just did it because you felt like it.
I often wondered if you�d ever treat my little cousins, your kids, that way. Now I find out that you do the same horrible things to Nic and Sisal. I sure remember you acting like they walked on water, but obviously when kids become teenagers you decide to start giving them hell.
No matter what I did, I felt like a burden to you. Not often did you miss a chance to remind me what you did for me. I�d like to point out that I�d rather have been in a foster home then be treated the way you treated me.
You beat me down until I felt like a hollow human being. I couldn�t feel anything at times. Sometimes I didn�t even care that you were hitting me. I�d just retreat into my mind to a safe place where I couldn�t feel what you were doing. I�d only begin to feel again when you stopped. That�s when I�d hurt.
Sure, you did put a roof over my head. You fed me. You made sure I was clean and clothed. However, that was about it. There was no decent treatment. No taking in consideration the hell Renee and I went through. No making up for what happened to us.
Sam could be really nice when she wanted to. Renee and I tried to like her. Sometimes we did. But when we didn�t go along with the deviant things she did, she�d just make up some offense so that you�d beat us again.
Worst part is even if you knew the truth about something she was lying about, you�d still go along with it and punish us. You have let that woman run off all of your kids. Why?
I can�t believe I almost reconciled with you a couple of years ago when I got out of the Navy. However, Sam was up to her crap again and she drove a wedge between us. How could you be so cruel to us and yet so spineless to her? She is a lying, conniving snit and I can�t stand her.
I can�t believe I was willing to forgive every rotten thing you�d ever done to me just so we could have a relationship. After all, you were the only dad I�d ever known. My mind was a little screwed up then, no thanks to you.
Well, I found someone that loves me for me, who accepts me the way I am, who doesn�t belittle me. He�s a good father figure, and I choose him. But what if he�s not my real dad? I love him anyway. He won�t hit me. He won�t hurt me. I call him, �Dad�, and I smile when I say it.
I remember you were surprised, to say the least, that we ran away when I was 15. You told us to get out and yet you are surprised that we did. Of course we ran soon as we got a chance. I think you thought we�d stay forever and let you beat on us. But we didn�t. We�re no fools. At the age of 15 and 12, we ran away, and didn�t see you again for 10 years.
It�s not like it would be a bed of roses wherever we went, but at least we wouldn�t get hit. We ran away because you were brutal and mean. I remember your threats that you used to try to make us come back.
I didn�t come back though:
Because I didn�t want you to ever touch me in anger again.
Because I didn�t want you touching me period, in any way, because you made my skin crawl.
Because I couldn�t spend another evening listening to you berate and beat my little sister for stupid reasons.
I�m still horrified at the way I was treated. I would never do my own daughter like that. Sometimes I�m scared I�ll be just like you and snap, but then, I have more restraint than you ever did. I wouldn�t harm a hair on my child�s head. She is beautiful and sweet and full of innocence. She doesn�t have the wounded look of someone who gets beaten on a daily basis.
I don�t have that bubbling anger inside so I don�t feel an urge to hit my daughter. I respect that she is her own person and entitled to her opinions. I�ve taught her to express herself respectfully.
Mostly, I want my daughter to obey me out of respect and not fear. I do not want my child to cower in front of me. That�s no way to live; it�s no way to be. You create victims when you treat people that way. You create people that expect to be beaten and think it�s necessary and that it�s what life is supposed to be like.
You created a domestic abuse victim, in Renee. Pat yourself on the back. She thinks a man must love her if he hits her. So, she ends up with abusive controlling men like you who beat her. It makes me so angry, but I cannot live her life for her. I blame you for beating the will to live a happy serene life right out of her. You conditioned her to expect to be mistreated. All Renee ever new was pain and sorrow. By the time she got into a home where she was loved, it was too late. Renee pasted on a smile for everyone else, but she grieved inside for the loss of a happy life and a loving home.
I have carried a lot of guilt inside me for years.
It used to be that when I thought about you it was always accompanied by a feeling of intense guilt. I�d feel bad that I despised you and held a grudge against you. Aah, but that is the nature of a child molested, to feel guilt. We feel guilt because the abuser drills it into our head that we are responsible and yet defenseless against such attacks on our person.
When you were hurting me I would dread any time spent with you and I�d go out of my way to avoid being alone with you. I�d go to many lengths to not incur your wraith or draw your attention. And yet no matter what I did my efforts were fruitless. You�d come looking for me like a vulture would a dying creature. You could sense my helplessness and then you�d pounce.
I�m not the sad one anymore. You are. You did horrible mean, deviant things to my sister and me. I didn�t deserve what you did. You should be locked up, but lucky for you the statute of limitations has run out. If they weren�t, I�d have your head. You know what you did, and someday you will pay for it. I might not be around to see it but I know you will pay dearly.
I don�t ever want to talk to you again. I want nothing to do with you. Now you know why I don�t call or write. No more delusions that I�m just too busy to call. I don�t want to call. I don�t want to see you because you make me want to vomit.
I pity you. You had the power to give us a good life and to develop loving lasting relationships with your �kids�. Instead, you chose to take advantage of it and me. You had the power to be a great influence on us.
The only influence on me you have now is that you�re a reminder of what not to look for in a man.
Hopefully, my sister will some day come to her senses too.
Melissa
10:37 am - November 02, 2004
Recent entries:
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%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
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