In this blog I am going to talk about my abuse and how it affects my life now, but I want everyone to understand that how I am now is not shaped by only the abuse I suffered at the hand of Crawford. My young life was filled with ups and downs. I sometimes wonder if my earlier childhood or my emotional instabilities helped Crawford single me out as someone more easily victimized.
I was born to two 17-year old’s and while I don’t remember anything from that time period my mother has told me stories. Everything was not happy and stable. My father was jealous of the attention I received over him. He spent money at the video arcade, even if that meant us doing without. He pinched me when I sang. He didn’t care whether my mother was in the mood for sex or not.
My memories start around the age of 4. I knew who my biological father was, but Mom was remarried to another man. We called him Daddy Scott. I remember some of the arguments Scott and Mom would have. There was a lot of shoe throwing from my Mom and one time a threat of self-harm from Scott that was burned into my young memory. There are also dozens of good memories from that time. Watching Dr. Who, my little brother being born, playing games with other children, washing dishes, my first kiss, tying my own shoes, learning how to whistle and more.
I received my first kiss when I was 5 years old from another 5-year-old. It was a French kiss. We were hiding in a closet in my bedroom. We were laying down facing each other. We started smooching and then he stuck his tongue in my mouth. I asked him what he was doing. His response was, “Counting your teeth”. I look back and think now that someone must have been doing that to him; or else how would he have known?
I had discovered the joy of my own body parts by this time, and I remember masturbating a lot.
Mom and Scott’s relationship eventually broke apart and there was another divorce. I don’t know all the details or remember them. Scott got custody of my little brother, and Mom got my sister and myself. We went to live in a trailer behind my maternal grandfather’s house.
I have a lot of memories from that trailer even though we only lived there a short time. Mom started dating a woman. I don’t remember having any questions about it. I simply accepted like any child whose head has not been filled with preconceived notions about what society says should and should not be.
That woman was my first role model, and I wanted to be just like her. She taught me how to do hand stands. We dressed in jeans and t-shirts. I learned cart wheels. I tried to learn how to pee standing up, but that didn’t work out so well.
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I remember a little bit about the time I had my first mental breakdown. (Mental breakdown is a term I am using to describe a period of intense mental and emotional distress. I was unable to properly function in my day to day life.)
I’m unsure as to my exact age. We were kicked out of the trailer and my sister and I went to stay with my paternal Grandparents. I’m going to guess that I was around 8 years old. I remember crying uncontrollably and for seemingly no reason. I cried in school a lot. My teacher would tell me to go wash my face.
My mother has since told me that she took me to see the therapist she was seeing. He told her that I needed to be back with her. My mother quit the tech school she had started so to better herself, got a job and got a government apartment so we could all go live together again.
Mom dated a woman when we lived in the government apartment. She had seizures, though some of them were faked. A man came into our apartment one day. A stranger and started beating the crap out of my mother’s partner. I still don’t know why, or who he was. I remember him storming in through the front door, hitting her with it as it swung open. If she hadn’t gotten to the bat we had in the pantry, he might have killed her. I ran to the neighbors yelling for them to call the police that a man was beating her up in our apartment.
Mom dated a man when we lived in the government apartment. He had a beautiful Doberman Pincer. We weren’t allowed to have pets, so I was supper excited when he brought him over. He was physically abusive to my Mom and to the dog. I watched him slam them both up against the wall at different times. I remember holding my mother around her chest as she screamed and cried hysterically, drool falling from her mouth. I know she wanted to speak to me, but nothing came out but screaming. I told her it was going to be okay. We were locked in the bathroom of our apartment. He proposed to her and put himself on our government apartment lease. He wouldn’t leave. It ended up that, while Mom never married him, she did have to get a divorce since Common Law Marriage was in affect at that time.
During our time in the apartment I “went with” a new boy every other week or so. I also got my first girl crush. I thought she was the sexiest thing ever. She lived in the apartment complex. There was another kid, a boy, that lived at the apartments complex. I switch back and forth “going with them,” like a yo-yo. I was their first kiss and yes, it was French kisses. We would hide anywhere we could for as long as we could. Kissing was and still is my favorite thing to do. Toe curling, soft, moist, intimate, pleasure. I believe that if I had known how to go about having sex at that time, I would have gone all the way at 10 years old hiding in a fan fort in the back bedroom with either one of them. I had confidence, and I new I looked all that in my jeans and t-shirts.
Then came Crawford and my second mental breakdown.