My sister

I don’t talk much about my sister. Honestly I think at one time we were close but the rift that ripped us apart when Mom died totaled the relationship....we didn’t talk much.

Yesterday she called me because she was having a bad day.  We talked a little about the weather but as usual the conversation turned to our brothers.  She had gone to see David and he was doing well - not that I care but he’s well into his 76 year prison sentence.  He will die there or come out at 86 years old at this point. I’m hoping to be long dead so I don’t have to deal with him.

He murdered a girl on Mother’s Day.  He deserved death.  He murdered her in my truck, took it to a car wash and sprayed it out top to bottom and then brought it back and parked it in the yard.  He knew what he did was wrong.  We drove the truck for 8 months sitting in that girl’s blood.  The police said if I had seen the luminal and the amount of blood spatter I would have been ill.   The  old truck that started with a screwdriver that everyone who needed it would borrow and bring back turned into a death pit for a stranger....I thought someone left the windows down and it rained inside but all along it was the the car wash he took it to that flooded the interior.  I don’t care for him much - he made us parties to his murder.  I have to wonder  how much of that girl’s blood soaked into my jeans in the days and weeks that followed....Yes, I wonder how much bad karma I carried around with me every time I sat in the seat of that old truck.  It bothers me.

In any case, my sister......

She told me how the younger murdering brother saved her life as a teenager.

I guess at 13 she had taken enough abuse. She was tired and worn out.  So she got satan’s 9mm and put it under her pillow so she could commit suicide after everyone went to bed.  I guess Dwight saw her and took the gun as she got ready for bed and hid it.   He saved her from death.

She told me she definitely would have shot herself.  I was shocked.  I didn’t know she was willing to die to get away from the abuse. I was oblivious and in my own raging hell.  I felt bad because I should have known. What would I have done had she died?  It would have killed me.

She has a whole life I wasn’t a party to since I was kicked out with a 1 year old baby at 16.  Suddenly all of the pressure and hell I had shielded them from came full force on her shoulders.  Living that life took huge strong shoulders.

We did end the conversation with the agreement that our mother was as much to blame for the abuse. She had never admitted this before - the thing I knew.   Our mother was weak.  She was selfish. She didn’t save us because she knew that would entail having to raise four children alone and completely responsible- alone.   So she basically sacrificed four children to Satan.

I’ve known this for years.  I’m the realist.  I see things for what they are. I see people for their actions rather than those fake words and acts for the public.  She was a horrible mother who allowed her husband to abuse both herself and her children, pretended everything was perfect and then blamed us for not being perfect and causing all of the drama.

It was nice to hear her finally tell me she understood this. I’ve never felt able to say these things or to tell her the truth. She was broken and I tried not to hinder any healing she was able to do.  But omg it felt good to discuss how much our mother contributed to our abuse!  She was almost as demented in psychologically abusing us as much as Satan was for the physical.  They made the perfect team for destroying their children.

Isn’t it funny how much I wanted her approval even after all of that?  That I still tried to be perfect. That I tried to do everything possible to gain her love.   Diane did the same.  Always working to be perfect and beating ourselves up for making even the simplest mistake because that would kill her love for us.  We were truly self destructive in our impossible quest to gain the love of a psychopath.

It’s Been A While

Yes, it’s been a while. It’s been a tiring journey the last year. Things happened. People died. My brother went to prison again. It’s really sucked.

I’ve been working on some things. My level of inability to forgive being one of them. I try. Some days I succeed and others I fail.

My brother. He’s the baby. He was once such a sweet boy. Quiet. Shy. Soft spoken. He had a good soul. But when my mother died he changed.  He was 15 when my mom died. It broke him. He became something so completely twisted I didn’t recognize him. He turned evil. I wish it weren’t true but he did.

He started doing drugs and drinking heavily. He got married and had a little boy at some point between binges. I was happy for him. I thought he was going to survive. But he started beating his wife - badly. He went to jail a few times, she finally filed for a divorce and she wouldn’t let him see his son. It was for the best.

Soon after, he murdered our father. He shot him with a 12 gauge shotgun. I’m unsure of the facts because to hear it from my brother it was so garbled and nonsensical that I can’t believe any of it. He lies about everything and truly believes he is so cunning he’s convinced everyone of his stories. In any case, it boils down to a lot of drugs and booze in a house filled with unresolved hatred that lead to my brother loading, aiming and shooting our father in the head.  He died instantly.

I feel nothing about all of this. No sorrow for the man who was my father. No hatred for my brother for doing it.  I’m jaded I guess.  My brother committed murder and he spent about 13 years in prison for it.  He did his time.

He came out of prison with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.  This explained the erratic behavior, the lies....the psychosis overall.  But he was a scary man to be around. He frightened me. He was dangerous.  He once told me that although the demons told him to kill me in my sleep he wouldn’t do it....he wouldn’t do that to me.  I made him move out that day and changed all of my locks.  I know what he’s capable of.

So why did he go to prison?!  Murder.

He’s been riding the homeless shelter track for years.  He hopped from one to the next and circled back every few months. No one was allowed to have his phone number. He changed it monthly if not daily on his worst days.  He’d been arrested a few times for battery, terroristic threatening and skipping bail.  But this last time he was going back for a while for trying to kill a girl who shot him up with too much heroine (according to him she tried to kill him but who knows for sure). He ran and hid in shelter after shelter for months.

One day, though, he decided that he needed a fresh start.  So he went to a church where a nice elderly woman was working.  He asked for some food.  She was happy to help him. She had no fear and had no idea what he was.  He pushed her into a room, cut her throat, stole her money and car and left her to die.  She was 72 years old. She was a Christian woman who worked in the church to help people.
They tracked him down two weeks later. He had dumped her car in Indiana and he was hitchhiking south.

It’s hard to see the family of this poor lady on TV. To see their pain and know my brother did it. He killed her. He took a life - again.  I’ve been depressed over it. Embarrassed. Angry. Guilty. Numb yet not.  He’s gone to prison for life this time. I’ll never have to worry about him finding me and murdering me in my sleep. I’m relieved for that. But someone had to die to allow me to feel safe for the first time in 20 years.

So I’ve spent the last year in hiding.  I had to move and change my phone number.  I had to be careful that only trusted people knew where I lived. It’s like hiding from the abusive ex-husband and praying he doesn’t pop up one day to beat the crap out of you for leaving.  I thank God he didn’t know where I was because supposedly he was on his way to find me after he killed that poor lady.

Evil created these evil boys that grew into evil men. Both of my brothers are in prison for murder.  They learned from Satan who raised them to be evil.  How I survived his wrath I’m unsure. Somehow I was strong enough to stand firm in the light and I didn’t fall to the dark side with them.  I got lucky I guess.

Be careful out there!  You never know who the person is you’re talking to. Evil lurks in the most inconspicuous.

XOXO

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I'm tired!  Is anyone else tired?  I am emotionally just drained!  The last couple of months have been horrible!  My friend died....in a freak tree accident....he was just driving home from a sleep study and a tree fell on top of his car - right over his head....he held on for almost two weeks before they let him go.  So sad....and how does that happen?  How does a random tree just decide to finally let go of it's foothold in the earth and fall over at the precise moment a father and husband is driving in its path?!

I guess this is  how life works...you're trudging along with all of the negativity in the world and BAM!  Someone just plows right into your life and destroys it....and leaves you devastated.  I'm a pro at picking myself up after this has happened many times....put it in a box and neatly pack it away, chin up and keep going.

How long do we keep going before the boxes start to leak?  Before the shelves are so overburdened with our crap that they fall?  Honestly, I've held onto things for so long I forgot half of what happened....but it's there....deep in a box.

My mother died when I was 21.  She was there and then she was gone.  This time of year I always think of her....sometimes wondering why she didn't love her children enough and others remembering the random good times.  

The day she died we had a huge fight.  I was so angry at her!  I held that anger from all the things she allowed to happen until I finally let her have it!  I told her she was a stupid b*tch and she should have left him years ago and  done something for her children!  Wow!  Writing that makes it seem I'm a rather harsh person....and I guess I can be. 

Shortly after I left there so angry I wanted to punch someone in the face, I had to rush back to see my mother laying on the floor, unable to move.  Satan standing over her completely at a loss as to what to do.  I was able to get her dressed....although I left off her underwear....I remember all she could get out was 'unnerwear'....I promised I'd fix it after we got her to the hospital.  I stayed calm....we got her to the car....

I'm not sure how my baby brother ended up in the car while the others stayed home....but he sat on the back seat rocking and repeating over and over 'She's gonna die!  She's gonna die!'   After so long I couldn't take any more and I slapped him across his face and told him to shut up!  Again, harsh, but necessary because I wasn't ready to face that fact - especially after what I just said to her!

From the back seat I held her hand and I told her I loved her.  She was able to tell us she wasn't going to die....and she loved us....but she never spoke after that....she didn't come home....and she did, in fact, die.  

They flew her to UT Medical Center in Tennessee and I was left to care for three children.  I was an adult but I was not ready to be left behind with them to explain what was going on....I didn't want that job!  She was my mother too and I didn't want this responsibility - not now!  It wasn't fair that, again, I had to put everything aside, pretend it was all perfect, and not feel.  

When we were finally allowed to see her the day before they unplugged the life support I was so broken I was numb.  Her eyes were covered with a wet wash cloth and she was so still.  I still had hope she was coming home at that point....foolish as I was!  But there was a moment when all of that was shattered.  Me being who I am I had to lift the washcloth.  I had to see her face.  I wish I hadn't!!

When I lifted the washcloth here eyes were open and there was no color other than black.  Just black.  No white...nothing.  My sister kind of let out a whimper and I dropped it back into place as quickly as possible....she wasn't supposed to be looking for God's sake!  (They never listened).  

What I know now is that my mother's blood pressure was left uncontrolled by selfish Satan's complete inability to ALLOW my mother to purchase her medication and it spiked causing an aneurysm.  We lived so far out in the country that even though we got her to the hospital shortly after her collapse, it wasn't enough.  The vessel that broke was the main vessel supplying her brain and she would have had to have been in the operating room to save her (according to the doctors).  Her eyes were black because there was no blood flow....she was gone by the time she got to ER as there was little to zero hope for survival.  That was 25 years ago....I still feel the guilt.

I have good years where I only remember the good....I block the bad and don't let it in.  I dream of a wonderful mother who cooked and cleaned and mended clothing, all the while holding it all together like a champ!  The image she portrayed to the public....perfection....the perfect lie.  Those years are the best!  Other years I remember it all...and I hate her for it.  It's all her fault...she could and should have been strong enough for her children....to save us...to never allow the bad to touch her children.

However, my friend died...and he left behind five children and a wife.  He was one of the few people who got to know me and called me on my crap!  He was hilarious with a dry, kind of demented humor that matched my own.  He was a natural born smart ass and I miss him!  His death made me think of my own life and wonder what will happen when I'm gone....and it will be insignificant to most...and I'm okay with that....because my tribe is small...but they know me well.....I'm lucky in that aspect.

We all have something to be grateful for....find it....hold onto it...and thank God he gave it to you.  It will help you through even the worst times....even those times when you feel so utterly emotionally and physically drained that it's hard to get out of bed.  Just get up!  You won't die....you may only make it to the couch....but do that until you can do more....baby steps....

Let me die

I have to wonder sometimes how a person survives when everyone around them knows the hell they live with and never makes an attempt to stop it or to help.  I think the worst was our family that ignored the issues and yet continually talked bad about us because we were constantly in trouble for something.  We became the bad children, the black sheep of the family.  

My father's sister told me a story once that I guess I've forgotten over time.  She said I was about ten years old and I called her one night begging for her to come and get us because Satan was in a rage, had hit everyone in the house and we had run away.  She says I hid my sister and brothers in the woods and I walked until I found someone to let me use their phone to call her.  Now, at ten that means that my sister was seven and my brothers were four and five.  This means that three small children were hiding in the tree line beside the road for God knows how long before I could find a phone to get help.  Ridiculous! 

But that's not the worst part of that story....She continued on with how she picked me up and we found the babies and she drove us straight back home.  Yes, she did....where she found our parents asleep - totally unaware that I had packed the kids up and we weren't soundly sleeping in our beds. 

I do remember bits of a conversation with her and my parents sitting around the kitchen table and her being angry and telling my parents they needed to get their shit together and stop all of the nonsense....but that's about it.  However, I still wonder what on earth made her take us home!  Why would any sane, logical person know that things are so bad that four children ranging in age from four to ten, return them to their parents abusive home?!  I can't even tell you what I would have done as an adult but it sure wouldn't have been taking them home!  To the police maybe...or the hospital....but not home!

Things didn't change.  I was the bad guy - again - because I took those children with me and I put them in danger by leaving them alone in the woods at night.  Seriously!  I AM THE BAD GUY?!  Really?!  

By this time I had told every person who would listen.  I had repeated the stories so many times it became a mundane task of hoping someone would make an effort - any effort - to help.  What happens is the hope fades and people get so tired of hearing it that you become an aggravation. People avoid and ignore.  They stop listening because you are so angry, dead inside and you've said it so many times that you become like Chicken Little yelling the sky is falling!  But you keep trying....because one day someone will hear you....you hope.

I went to church and prayed my heart out.  At the front of the church there was a sign...a little boy with the saying God Don't Make No Junk.  I would stare at the picture and think what a lie it was.  God make me and I'm obviously junk.  If I weren't junk and I wasn't so worthless someone would take the time to help me.  Someone would be so outraged that Satan touched me, beat me, pulled my hair and called me names they would jump out of the their pew and take me home with them.  Someone would care enough to love me.  Secretly I hoped for this miracle but it never happened.....and still I prayed.

There came a time, though, when the praying became angry demands.  God wasn't helping me either.  Wasn't that what he was there for?!  Isn't it his job to save the little children?!  Doesn't he love little children?  I literally told God that I could not handle any more of this life he gave me.  That I needed to be free of it because I could not save everyone and at some point I'd have to save myself - or die....either way didn't matter to me.  Death was welcomed.  I didn't matter in the grand scheme of life on earth so he needed to let me go from my prison.  He didn't listen...or if he did he continued to ignore me...I started to hate him...because if the preacher, the Sunday school teacher, my family and God weren't going to help....well I can't even fathom who would....

I started sitting further and further back towards the back of the church.  Instead of heading to the alter every Sunday morning and begging for God to help me I bowed my head and told God he needed to let me die.  He needed to kill me!  Now!  Because if he didn't kill me I would do it myself.  I was twelve.  I wanted to die.  

Why?

I wish I could tell everything in one session....to get it out...to empty the boxes I so neatly packed, labeled and stored away.  But I can't...today is a moody day...it's hard to write.  The world is too 'peopley' for me today.

Do you  know what it takes to sit back and try to stay calm while your mother convinces a pastor you are demon possessed and need an exorcism? I do!  No...I'm not joking!  I wish I were....because the thought of any human being discounting a lifetime of begging for help, telling every single person you encounter you need help and then sitting down with strangers while you hear your mother whisper to them how you're a demon isn't exactly fun!  

Yes I was a troubled child.  Yes I got into trouble all day, every day.  Yes I had a mouth and I wasn't afraid to use it.  It didn't start out that way...I was a sweet child and I saw only goodness in people...I talked to strangers, I hugged people, I laughed and walked around in a hazy bliss.  And then Satan happened (for future reference Satan is that thing that others called my father).

I don't remember the first time it happened...maybe the time I remember so clearly was the first time...but it broke something inside me.  The rose colored glasses with a direct line to my heart broke.  I couldn't have been more than seven...maybe eight...but my little happy world turned dark and jaded.  My heart broke.  Life was never the same again.

That day Satan touched me...and as I felt the crushing weight of guilt stomp all over me and immobilize me to the point that I felt like a scared rabbit frozen in fear something in my brain screamed for me to MOVE NOW!  I'll never forget the strength it took for me to jump up and run away.  But I remember taking a breath at the door and turning to look back at the person who was my father....he didn't move...he didn't look at me...it was as if he wasn't breathing...and I slowly made my way to the bathroom where I locked the door and cried.

Do you know what happens when you harm a child?  They break.  Children are fragile in the naivety of the world.  They only know what is contained in the walls of the home they are supposed to feel safe in.  Do you know what happened to me that day?  I changed.  I was guilty.  What did I do?  How can I not do that again?  Why?  Why?  Why?  Yes....it changes you...It brings on feelings of hate...I hate him.  I can't trust him.  I don't know him.  He's not my father.  I don't want to be near him.  I don't know what to do.....who do I tell?  What will they do?.....Will they tell him I told?  What will he do to me?  He will kill me......I was a child and then I wasn't...because now I had grown up things to deal with.

I think my mother knew....she had to have known....mothers know, don't they? Do they not see the change in their child?  Do they ignore it because they have other mommy things to do and you're not on the priority list?  Or do they know and not care?  Mine didn't care....I know that now.  I'm not sure she even knew what to do...she was door mat, she was weak and had little life left in her.

I blame her for the future events that transpired after that day.  They are both responsible.  These wastes of life that brought children into the world to abuse and treat as chattel.  She brought four children into that house...and after that day I saw the truth and worked extra hard to shield my sister and brothers...because I was already broken and they seemed so happy...so carefree...I wasn't...I lost my happy...it died and hasn't ever really returned.

I made hiding places for them and when he was on his rampages I hid them there and taunted him into concentrating on me rather than them.  I tried to save them.  I tried to keep them out of harm's way until I could find help for us.  I told everyone!   Do you know how I know for a fact my mother knew what was going on and never lifted a finger to help us?!  When I was nine or so we visited my mother's family in another state.  Neutral ground for me.  We went to my grandmother's church that Sunday and as we sat there with the nicest lady I've ever met I told her everything....I'll never forget the look on her face...it makes me sad to remember it today (I think I broke her).

She told me she would be right back and other people came and sat down with my sister and I at that small table....they asked us questions and we both answered like we were discussing the toys in front of us...calmly...gravely.  Then my aunt came in and they whispered to her for a few moments before my mother came in and were whisked away and packed for home immediately!  Nothing happened.  Help didn't come.  Not even my aunt did anything....she never said a word...but even as a child I knew they were talking about what I had told them.  My only logical explanation is that my mother convinced them I was a liar and a big story teller...which is probably true because I've always been 'dramatic' according to them...and I'm okay with 'dramatic' but not with 'liar'. So I count this as let down #1 - not even family or the 'religious people' as I used to call them will help us....now who do I tell? 

Life went on...and it was worse.  I took a lot of abuse after that.  How dare I tell anything that goes on in this house?!  What happens here stays here!  But does it????  I'm thinking not!  The cute little girl was slowly turned into a stubborn, we shall see child who knew something was wrong and she would save herself and her siblings one way or another!  The problem with that was that it was too late...she would not be able to save any of them...no matter how hard that little mind with no experience in life, no stability of family and friends had no way to do it....no way to get away...no way to fix it.  Unfortunately, the little girl's parents knew this too and used it against her....no more church....no more play dates...no more friends...school and home....that's it!  They isolated her and the house from anything that would change it.....and that day a little more of her died....

Guilt

There are those moments when I look back upon the childhood I've endured and worked hard to find happy moments.  I do remember a Christmas at around 4 (give or take a couple of years) when we all woke up excited for presents and we found huge boxes in front of the tree....one was mine and one for my sister. We were hoisted into the middle of the boxes and rooted around in wadded up newspaper, throwing it here and there, so excited to find that HUGE present that fit into the biggest boxes we've ever seen!

We finally did give up.  We were confused and started to cry....even then we had learned that sadism was an integral part of life...  That's when our parents decided to end the joke and pulled two beautiful new bicycles out of their hiding place.  We were both more happy than ever!  New bikes!  It was a treat we'd not soon forget!  One that was never repeated.

I try to hold onto these few memories.  They are the guilt makers, but important.  These moments that make me feel as if there is something so absolutely wrong with myself, my sister and my brothers that it was actually us that caused the problems.  If we had been 'good'.  If we had just not done the thing that provided instant anger followed up by 'The Belt'.  The question rolls around in my head daily: Was it actually our fault?

Now, I do know it's not our fault.  Not totally.  We were children and children are well known for not doing everything they are told.  But, perfectionism was the only way in our house.  There were no mistakes allowed.  Mistakes led to beatings and hard work.  We worked off our mistakes and I'll tell you this - the work was in no way commensurate with the crime!  

That Christmas has and always will remain one my favorites.  It was a real Christmas.  There was no arguing, no drinking, no fights that ended the beautiful dinner my mother cooked....and although I can't say I remember every moment, I remember the important parts.

So this is my journey....to find the source of the guilt, anger and pain and then crush it like a spider!!!!  (I hate spiders...they are evil in case you don't know!) 

 

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

I would like to say that this will be a heart warming and beautiful blog that will make millions flock to read each day and gleam in it's wonder!  But, it most likely will not be....and I'm okay with that!  

What you will learn from this blog is how a child survived through insurmountable bullshit created by people who I call Satan's demons.  Those people who see, hear and know....yes, they know...they can see the outside and know something is wrong...but ignore it!  Those people who with their innate need to be selfish will allow children to live on....to live on it hell....I have to wonder if they see and are unavailable emotionally because they don't know what to do....or if they just don't care!  I have yet to find an appropriate analogy to cover this....maybe I never will.

I will warn you now that I say 'awesome' a little too much....and you see those long lines of ...... well, that's just me.......and there may be posts that contain more periods than words...but that's just me.  There may also be cursing and things that you will deem to be inappropriate for the soft hearted in the world....well, that's just how it is...and it most likely won't get any easier to look at!

This is my story.  This is me.  This is my way of working through the pain.  If you find it hard to read then you would have found hard to live.  But living is a must as hard and gory and depressing as it may be.