My mother and father met in a parking lot, he a finely dressed Marine from the "wrong side of the railroad tracks", growing up in the ghetto of Waterbury, Ct and my mother from the "right side of the railroad tracks" of Meriden, Ct. They decided to elope. Where they decided to go, my mother still needed to call home for parental consent. In the background, my mother heard her mother' voice "Just give it, George. better she come back married thus than shamed and possibly pregnant". Under that blanket of shame, my mother cried out "no" because it hurt. But she had said "I do". Under a blanket of shame I was conceived as a product of marital rape, the older narcissistic version of my mother made sure I knew.
I grew up physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually abused, not just by parents but by similarly tortured siblings. My hair was not combed, it was yanked amidst a litany of "disgusting". I was not tucked into bed, I woke in the middle of the night with drunken breath as a cloud about me and my father's hand on my thigh under my nightgown, under my blankets, night after night. My hair grabbed and smashed against walls, an expression of my mother's frustration and disgust.
As my body began to bud, those buds were grabbed during "play"wrestling with my father. School was not safe due to bullies and eventually sexual assaults in the stairwell if I left class to use the bathroom. Family outside of immediate was not open to interfere for my father was the golden boy: youngest in a French Roman Catholic family who took them all from ghetto to millionaire. As I grew, billboards began to pop up: call this number if you suspect child abuse. I was not abused: no obvious bruises or broken bones and treated like every other female child in circle of friends and family as far as I could see.
The buds began to blossom. My crotch would be grabbed by my father while schoolmates pumped our gas, just to taunt, tease, embarrass and dare me. The dare did not become obvious to me until the day when my breasts were grabbed openly with full eye contact made. "I'll tell mom!". "Go ahead, I dare you to". So I did. "Well, I was going to divorce him anyways", was Mom's response. I had given them just what they needed for the Catholic Church to FINALLY grant the divorce they had been seeking...unbeknownst to me. So, Mom used it to get all she wanted financially in the divorce. When she returned to my Dad, a justification was needed in light of my "accusation": "She accused him because we caught her in bed with her boyfriend", it was given. I was 14, a "virgin" and not yet had a boyfriend. I was effectively vilified and painted the vengeful child amongst family. Help from that direction would not come to this day. Golden boy became "we do not speak ill of the dead" as the reason. As for help from "friends", that also would not happen.....
Coming home from a school dance with boyfriend and another couple consisting of my best friend and her boyfriend,...... We entered "home" to find my Dad drunk and passed out in his underwear on the couch. As I whispered good-nights, my father leaped over the couch and began to throw me against the walls of our house. I told my boyfriend to wait out back before they all fled. I ran up the stairs to my room and locked the door behind me. I leapt from the second story window into the arms of my boyfriend as snow fell all around me. Not a single one of them ever reported it. Just another evening with a romantic highlight of a boyfriend catching a maiden in distress. I returned the next day when I knew my father would be working to grab a few things and find my bedroom door, which I shared with a female cousin, broken off it's hinges and the room all torn apart. She never reported it either. The shamed, slandered, abused girl went out into the world, homeless first as a teenager.
Teen romances were highlighted with being pinned down, box cutter to the stomach by a boyfriend and raped by a "family friend's" cousin who was entrusted with giving me a ride to safety. All of for which, my mother blamed me for not being "subjective".
I finally married at twenty. His refusal to use any type of birth control resulted in pregnancy to which he was "surprised" and blaming. I withstood threats of being drugged in my beverages and subjected to illegal abortion to give birth to a beautiful daughter by c-section due to breech position after requesting techniques to turn her. "I'll tell you what", said the doctor: "we'll spin you 'round and 'round by your feet and slam you into a wall and then, maybe, just maybe, that baby will have turned and you can have her natural". C-section fit my husband's ability to "plan" the day off anyways...so at 21 I gave birth via c-section. A knife held to my throat as I was held up against a wall.......my daughter set in an infant carrier, unbuckled, onto the hood of a car which was then driven off.....I left my husband. "You made him part of this family" was my parent's justification for favoring him during negotiations. In my experience, men were always labelled the victims of my...I have no idea.
Subsequent relationships were marked by barricading myself and two small children in a room behind a door with a dresser because I refused to have an abortion-again by a man who had not made it clear he did not want children. A man, who later on, would have his friend who was a judge to take that unwanted child away from me via illegal orders verified as illegal by a lawyer who could only wish she could represent me because she was only legally allowed in other circuits......
I went on. I survive. That's what makes me a "survivor" of my story. I went on to be given $5 to go into a store for drinks on a hot afternoon in Kentucky to "visit family", only to come out to an empty parking lot in tank-top, cargoes and slippers one hot afternoon....on the street with nothing and nobody. I hitch-hiked "home" only to find all my worldly possession already sold to support a returned-to drug habit.....pregnant. I navigated truck drivers who thought a meal would win them sex and "christian do-gooders" who thought a "good deed" would win them slavery of me.
A man sent word he was interested and would claim the child as his own, if I was interested too. "Wow", said I, "A man who left me choice". Little did I know that, this choice was the choosing of the most deadliest abuser known to domestic violence circles. I call him an "abuser by proxy". These are those who use indirect means to cause, ultimately, the death of their victim without accusation/persecution/being found guilty/blame. They don't get their hands dirty.
Barreling down mountainsides in a vehicle without breaks, seeing frostbite on my infant's cheeks because we had to spend a freezing night in a tent to sleep, cutting up sweatshirts for diapers because the voucher we were given was gambled away "to make us richer". Ultimately kidnapped because he left and in a state of drunkenness returned, driving us off into the California mountains where dialing 911 received no reception......when back in civilization for supplies I escaped and called 911 at a Walmart, the police who responded told me "His word against yours......we're filing no report". They did, however, spend three hours seeking out a domestic violence shelter with room for us, despite "the ribbing" they'd get back at the station house for spending so much time helping. Wonderful: guilt for what they'd suffer for 'helping' me.
When time was up at that shelter (because all shelters seem to have this time limit where you're booted out without recourse if no plan of action is effective), my children and I hit the streets. Homeless, I built us up to a tent to sleep in and a bike with cart to get us about in. Eventually I landed us a position as caretakers of a property while the manager was off taking care of his other properties. That's when "abuse by proxy" kicked in big time. I woke one day to my abuser standing over me, having broken in the back door, with city police at the end of the driveway as I called county and "child abduction" unit descending like a swat team....my abuser had convinced other homeless people and "concerned citizens" to make reports of me being part of some cult that believed in intermarrying siblings. His breaking and entering was dismissed as first contact in the light of a no trespassing sign. I had to play the thirty day notice of movement game with discernment to finally reach a state where a non-disclosure of residential address was made a part of the restraining order. There I recovered..I healed...I chose no intimate relations until I *knew* what would be good for me and my children. I sought out family who I believe understood, only to be assaulted again and end up at ASPEN..........
As I transitioned from client to advocate, I saw the energy/nature of ASPEN change hands. I saw, as I perceive it, the very heart of ASPEN torn from it. I saw the victims they were to help prostituted out for federal funding. I was told "What happens in the house, stays in the house", in effect, as I was commanded by newly appointed Heidi to keep quiet about a victim being further victimized by the new house manager, Becky (to which I maintain proof on my computer).
Truck drivers who expect sex in exchange for a meal, "Christian do-gooders" who expect yard work in exchange for a night's sleep.... or "advocates" who expect public support and federal funding in exchange for a story.....no difference in my opinion. There's a multitude of capitalists of the victim. My silence of further victimization of a victim in ASPEN's care and keeping in exchange for Becky's new car payments, Mary's subsiding of verbal abuse by excuse to "teach" and Heidi's supervision for prestige....That is why I identify as a thriver. I shall succeed beautifully despite them each.
Ms. Crystal
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