Post 5 Pivotal Moments

Once again, we were faced with moving to a new place.  This new place my mother chose was a trailer park, a short-lived but pivotal part of my life.  I remember hating and being embarrassed by renting a trailer in a trailer park, waiting at the bus stop for Kindergarten with all of the other "trailer trash", at least that's how I felt at the time and had heard the term more than once.  My mother was busy dating, going to bars, working...everything except being a mother to my brother and me.  The family next door babysat children, it was an older wife and husband couple who kept multiple children from the trailer park.  I don't remember exactly how many others they kept as the only memories I have of "others" are of one particular boy and girl who were my age.  Being together everyday after school the three of us grew to be close friends.  The older teenage daughter of the babysitters was also almost always there after school.  She seemed nice enough at first, allowing the three of us to play in her room.  I don't remember exactly how the abuse began, but I remember saying to her one day I was going to tell my mom and she physically picked me up and slammed me down onto the floor railing of her closet door which gashed open my head.  I remember her voice as she laughed and told me she would kill me if I said anything to anyone, that my mom and dad didn't care about me and that no one would ever believe me over her.  The next morning, I cried and begged my mom not to make me go to their house...she ended up making me spend the night as it was Thursday night with the girls at the club...at that moment I chose to never tell my mom and still never have to this day.
  I remember her making us touch her, she would fully undress and lay on her bed. It was confusing and awkward to five year old me.  If we wouldn't do as she asked, we would get hit by her and it was a blow you felt for a long time afterwards so we usually complied.  I remember the first time she made D take off his pants, how much he cried, we all cried often but she didn't care.  I honestly don't remember how long the abuse took place, but I can honestly say I had never been happier at hearing my mother saying she was moving in with another boyfriend...I got away.

Post 4 Time To Move

As you could expect, boyfriend one didn't last a very long time so my days in the dream house came to an end. The house itself was filled with torment... memories of my father, half drunk, dropping me off telling me to tell my mother how much he missed her... memories of my mother and her temper, I've been whipped by belt, tree limb, stick, shoes, flyswatter, belt with straight pins stuck in it, hand across more times than I'd like to think about, you name it. The one positive however is that this house had my brother in it with me, except for the weekends he had visitation with his father. He was my protector, my security blanket. It wasn't long after the move and a few more boyfriends later that life became even more unbearable.  I was 4 years old, attending a pre-school at the local elementary school where my brother attended.  I loved riding the bus home with him at the end of the school day, I remember feeling as if I was such a big girl.  On this one particular day, the bus kids were being unruly and the driver chose to assign seats.  I was assigned to sit between two boys I did not know and I couldn't find my big brother anywhere.  As the bus driver pulled away from the school, I remember feeling completely panicked, all that kept running through my mind was that our mom was going to be furious with him for missing the bus and he was going to get a spanking.  I distinctly remember the bus pulling up to our stop, I had been crying the entire time.  Our mother had just recently had knee surgery so she was wearing a knee brace and was on crutches and I have a hazy memory of her hobbling out to the bus stop asking where my brother was...which immediately changed to instant chaos.  The details of what happened are very fuzzy, I'm assuming because it was such a traumatic moment in my life, but I briefly remember my mother driving us to the school asking where my brother was and the lady in the office kept saying his father had already picked him up, and like that, he no longer lived with us.  His dad decided the life my mother was living wasn't appropriate and took him away, my mother did not have the means nor the "motherly" role model needed to pursue legal action so he was gone.  I would see him on holidays and special occasions, but it felt no worse than suffering his death.  He was taken away from me and I had no control over it, I didn't get to talk to him to say goodbye or tell him I loved him...just gone.