This is a story of how I acquired scars, physical, emotional, and psychological.
When I was a child, my parents, being in need of a babysitter and not knowing anyone capable, looked to an ad in the local “Penny Saver” free flyer that was put out in the foyer of grocery stores. My mom, doing some diligence called all the references that were provided to verify that the babysitter found was qualified. As it was however- the person providing references could give you any number of a friend or family member. The arrangements were made and the babysitter was booked. The logistics of the start time meant that I was being dropped off first at that place, while my brother and sisters were off at school. I recall wishing that I could have been off with them somewhere instead of inside that house. I just wanted to be with my brother and my sisters who I loved and looked up to. Abuse didn't start right away, there was a period of weeks of adjustment and settling in before the masks and pretenses slipped.Monsters can only mimic people for so long before they’re seen. The babysitter herself was a tall blond woman with a nose that was upturned in a way that accentuated her large nostrils. Mom chastised me once for being rude and laughing the first time that I saw her because I didn't understand how she got the nose of a pig snout. The babysitter had two kids of her own. One boy with short strawberry blonde hair and freckles about five or six years older than I was, and a daughter with long brown hair that was slightly younger than her brother. When we were introduced, I thought that girl was the prettiest girl that my four year old self had ever seen. She was my first real in person crush. I wish that wasn't the case, I wish that there was some other formative situation that gave me a first impression on attraction. Psychology says that subconsciously as adults, we try to fix the broken pieces of our childhood with behavioral patterns that seek out what was broken in an attempt to right the injustices we received. This house and that girl were a broken foundation that built an entire mindset of being unlovable and unworthy of love that towering beliefs were built upon.
The psychological abuse was the first thing that I remember happening. The babysitter had an affinity to cruelty and toying with perceptions. I often wasn’t fed while my siblings were at school. She liked to taunt me about being hungry , elated in her promise to feed me, and laugh as she denied me food. I was banned from setting foot in the kitchen but she’d ask me what I wanted to eat. The moment I told what I was hungry for, her she would tell me that specific food I had said was in the kitchen but I wasn't allowed to have any. She'd laugh as I would break down crying, partly in hunger and partly in anger. “We have pizza, do you want some pizza!” she would exclaim. I'd do an excited little childlike dance as hope would fill my little body. “ It's in the kitchen” she'd say. I'd walk into the kitchen and she'd say “You're not allowed in the kitchen, looks like you don't get any pizza.” There wasn’t pizza. There was just hunger. I was then sent to “time out” where I would often be left until I fell asleep. If I made noise, I stayed in time out. If I asked if I could come out, I stayed in time out. I know that time out is a normal teaching and gentle way of teaching kids discipline, but not the way this lady would do it. I spent most of my day punished until my siblings would arrive after school. There was always a bit of a shift when they arrived since my brother was older and more aware. He was protective back then. He developed a suspicion over time when he noticed that every single day I was in the corner when he walked through the door. There wasn't enough evidence to be sure something was going wrong, after all, we were put in time out at home and I was by all admission a very strong willed child. But every day it was the same thing, every day I was punished at the same time, and even children begin to recognize patterns over time.
The incident with her son was a different form of abuse. Sex isn't something that is easy for me to discuss outright, and sexual abuse even more so. I remember it though. I had been put in time out that day and was sent to stand int the corner but her son told me to come into his room instead. He was wearing green G.I. Joe army pajamas and he kept peeking out the door like he was doing recon for some secret mission. Anxiety was born in me here, as I began to worry I was going to get in trouble since I wasn't standing in the corner and if she noticed I'd get punished longer. He zeroed in on the fear as most all abusers do. He weaponized and said “do what I say or I’ll tell on you” as he stood in front of the door to keep me from leaving. He took down his pants and he told me to touch him. I didn't want to, but I was also afraid of the punishment I'd get from the babysitter from not being where she'd explicitly and repeatedly told me to be. I was paralyzed by fear and shame when he took down my pants and touched me. When he heard his mom's footsteps coming out of the kitchen he shoved me out of his room with my pants still down. I stood in the hall in terror, fear, and confusion. I was met with anger, hostility, and punishment. There was no investigation, no questioning why I was standing outside her son's room with my pants down- something that had never occurred up until this point. No explanations, just wrath and blame as if this were a choice that I had made. She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me back to the corner where I again stayed for hours.
The physical violence came from the daughter . Maybe, in hindsight I understand her to some degree. I doubt she started evil, but we’re shaped by our elements. If we’re growing in dysfunction, dysfunction becomes normal. Even as an adult I try to understand her anger and violence. Maybe there was abuse by her brother, maybe it was the abuse by her mom. I don't know where her father was but he was never there, but she was fuelled by anger as sure as blood flows through veins. When my brother started catching on to the repeated confinement of standing in the corner, the Babysitter had figured out how to inflict suffering by proxy. She would lock her daughter and I in a room for hours, and her angry daughter would not take that well. When I wasn't being locked in closets she would beat me. She would also lock me in hampers for hours and hours until my arms and leg would pain from being in the same position. I began to grow and affinity for small spaces because when I was locked in them, I wasn’t getting beaten. In the back yard there was an old rusted swing set with a rickety slide. When we were allowed outside the daughter would wait until I was at the top of the slide and push me off of the side. I remember landing on my back and the wind knocked out of me thinking I was going to die because I couldn't breathe. Her mom sat on the porch watching it happen numerous times with a look like I deserved it. I just wanted to play and be a child. When I told the babysitter about the injuries, the beatings,the pain, her response was always the same. “You're lying. My daughter would never do that.” and I was punished for telling the truth. Shame and guilt were forced upon me as injustice was exalted. In their eyes, I deserved affliction. Was deserving of pain and suffering. I was an abhorrent imposition to them, not a human in need of food or understanding.
I was trapped. My voice was stolen by the punitive retribution that comes from speaking the truth to those that not only hate hearing it, but hate those who speak it. Every day my mom would drop me off at this house of suffering. Every day I would cry and cling to her and beg her to not leave me here. Every day she would tell me to go back inside before she got in her car to leave. Every day I would run as fast as I could chasing her car for blocks begging her to not leave me there. Every day I would sprint towards the one that was supposed to protect me, love me, shelter me from evil. Every day re-enforced the idea that I was not worthy of love, not worthy of justice. Every day I would walk back in the middle of the street to the house crying. Every day, the cycle of abuse continued.
Now, had my mom known what was going on- there is nothing that would have stopped her from homicide. In conversations I've had with her over the years she expressed so much sadness and remorse for not being more aware. I hold a great deal of grace for her at the time. She was detoxing from drugs and alcohol. Her marriage was in shambles. Her husband couldn't stay clean and sober. She needed money to support her kids as she was losing her income. She should have seen it, she should have understood something was wrong- but I understand why she didn't see the trauma. At the time she had thought it was separation anxiety from a strong willed child. In her mind, I needed to learn that she had responsibilities and that she'd see me at the end of every day like usual. I don't hold anger or resentment towards my mom for not understanding. She didn't know, and she couldn't see. When someone is surrounded with matters that cloud perceptions, overwhelm the senses- the mind will seek sensible explanations.
My brother, due to his perceptiveness, began to be a recipient of punishments himself. My mom arrived one day to pick us up and found my brother in the front yard being forced to mow the lawn to keep him out of the house. She asked him “Why are you out here? Why are you mowing the yard in 110 degree heat with no water?” “I'm being punished,” he informed her. It was about this time that Dad was starting to piece together that all those “normal” bumps and bruises from “falling down in the play ground” and all the scrapes on my body were happening far too frequently to be normal childhood clumsiness. I wasn't falling down with bumps and bruises at home, just Monday through Friday under her “supervision.” He and my mom began discussing the things that weren't adding up in the stories that the adult babysitter was telling them, and us kids presenting with physical, mental and behavioral problems. There was one specific day that my dad finally understood that it went beyond neglect. The daughter had been particularly angry. Locking me in the hamper for hours wasn't enough to satiate her need to inflict pain that day. She lashed out scratching at my face. She grabbed my right arm and she tried to claw my veins out on my right wrist. I had gouges of my flesh ripped out and my wrist was bloody. The beaming red anger in her face and the glowering contempt in her eyes were unforgettable. She had done damage that couldn't readily be covered by a “he tripped" narrative. I cried out with blood smeared across my arm and ran to the babysitter. I stood there bleeding literal proof of the damage and injustice that was being inflicted on me. She had to believe me now, I just wanted her to understand. Proof was pouring out of my body. I didn't comprehend that she had no intention of understanding- she was choosing to not confront the evil in her children, the evil within herself. “I'm bleeding, your daughter hurt me” I choked out between tears. “You're lying, and you're in trouble for bleeding on my floor.” Her daughter had just tried to rip my veins out, and to this day I still have the scars to prove it, but I was punished. I have permanent damage on my body, but she cared more about wiping away blood on her floors. When my Dad arrived to pick me up he stood in the living room, looked at the bandaids all over my wrist and asked me what happened. My dad was someone I trusted. My dad was someone safe. I told him that she hurt me. The Babysitter tried to laugh it off as “kids being kids”, telling my father that I was making up a story. My dad knew. He'd figured out that at best this woman was negligent in watching his son, and at worst, was harming him. He spent the next ten minutes setting her straight about how she'd failed. I don't know if he knew that I needed to see him stand up for me or if he was just so angry that he didn't care how it went down, he would speak and she would hear. He sent me out to the car and he continued to say what he had to say after I left. I never went back there after that day. He and my mom decided that we were to never set foot in that house again.
I still battle the damages done in that moment. I still battle with myself at times in finding love that is sincere and authentic, and accepting it. I still try to understand why people hurt each other the ways that they do, are they evil? Are they broken? Are they hurting and have grown in a place where they only knew dysfunction as if it were normalcy? I chose something though because of this. I chose to be something else in spite of circumstance. I chose to be a protector, one that gives love, and tries to heal the broken pieces in people. I choose to be someone that I know is worthy of love and loving right. I choose to be someone that shows up, because I know absence. I know pain. I know injustice. I’ve bled for it. All the time I find myself confronted with the brokenness of the world and the sufferings that mankind inflicts upon itself. I have to remind myself to make the conscious choice to not join it in perpetuation- to make the conscious choice to allow myself to be open to possibility for people to change and grow. I have to remind myself in spite of the evidence that I am worthy of love. I have to open myself up to love, because if not, if not… we just become unforgivable monsters in houses of suffering.
