I know I always had problems staying at school from a very young age. I seemed to end up in the nurses office alot with a stomach ache. Which is the same thing I would tell my mom I had when she was going to leave the house and leave us at home with my dad. That must have been my way of telling her where he was touching me. In that general area. Of course at a young age you don't know what all your parts are so I must have just thought ........my stomach. And I knew it didn't feel good. I did not like school. Never did. Ever! I couldn't concentrate on what was going on there because my mind always went back to what was going to happen at home.
I remember not wanting to take a bath, we didn't have a shower in our house back then. So we took baths. I always seem to get to take one alone which was odd because when my sisters took one it was together. My dad was and is the cheapest thing going. My sisters would have to share the same bath water. We couldn't get clean water each time someone took a bath. I don't know if I was first or last but I know that if my mom was gone and I was bathing my dad would insist on coming in to wash my "back". I would hear the door handle turn and slowly open and he would come in with me. And you know he wasn't washing my back. He would start there but end up in the front. Rubbing his hands all over me. I hated every minute of it. I knew it was coming and there was nothing I could do about it. There was no one to tell and of course I could not tell him to stop. To this day I don't like anyone coming in the bathroom if I'm in there. He did this for quite awhile. And not just when I was in my younger years.
My dad was mean!! Not out right mean to where if you met him you would say OMG he is mean. Oh no on the outside of the house he was good as gold. A nice gentle quiet man. Always seeing if he can help someone, taking good care of his house, his cars. No one would believe that HE was doing what he was doing inside his house. And I know this for a fact, I'll talk more about that later.
If any of us four girls did anything wrong that we were not supposed to do, like laughing out loud in the backseat of the car while driving down the road. You know how kids do when they are all together in a car. Or goofing off while in a store, if he told us ,"Wait till we get home". He meant it. And I don't care if we did not get home for 8 hours. We got a beating. Not just a spanking. A beating. I've been hit more times than I care to remember. My little sisters remind you are 6 and 7 years younger than I. If they are goofing off when we were supposed to be asleep in our room, he would come down stairs with the belt, and make us line up. Spanking not one of us but all four of us. During the day he would spank whoever was causing the problem, not all of us. We would have to stand there and wait our turn while he beat the first one with that belt over and over. Then the next, and the next. It was torture. And the whole time my mom would be upstairs hearing her little girls screaming. And not come down those stairs and say one damn word. Tell me how you could do this???? I would die if someone was beating my boys. I could not take that. NEVER. Even to this day and my boys are grown men. I remember walking across the room in my Junior High years while my dad was watching tv and my mom was on the phone. My sisters were in trouble and sitting on the couch all in a row. I walked by and because I was not in trouble at that time, he got up and slapped me in my ear so hard it knocked me down on the ground. Out of the blue. Just knocked me upside my ear. I'll never forget that and never forget where I was when it happened. Who hits their daughter in the head that hard to knock them down?And what Mother stands there and watches it happen and says nothing to him? She was right there in the same room.
I used to blame my dad for everything bad that happened to me for years. But as I get older I now blame my mom more than him. She could have stopped this, she could have gotten us out of there and protected us. But she didn't. Years later she told a friend of hers that she let this happen to her daughters because she didn't want to give up the life she had. REALLY???? A mother could say that?? WOW!!
We were not allowed to go outside and play very often. We had a parking lot across the street from our house and all the neighbor kids would go there and ride bikes, play ball, etc. We would stand in the window and watch them. They'd come over and ask if we could go out. My parents would say no. The kids would beg for us to come out but usually it was a NO!. Even when I was in high school and dating age. I would have boys ask me out and never could I go. I never got to join activity at school, play on the volleyball team, be in school plays, go to school dances. I couldn't go to football games, all the things your friends were doing. Now I know it was so he could keep us quiet at home. He couldn't take a chance on me spilling the beans on what was going on at home. Not that I would have because I was scared to death of him. My friends thought I was strange I know. Because they could stay after school, they could try out for sports, for school plays, etc. I remember wanting to be in a talent show in Junior High so bad. I came home so excited and asked. NO!!! I was told. I asked, why?? I was told, "because I said so!!". You probably want to know what my talent was don't you??? haaaaa I have no idea. But I must have had a good one. I did not go to one Prom, I went to one dance at school and that was it. One dance in all of my school years. I was asked to go to the dances but always had to say no. It embarrassed me so bad to have to always say no to my friends. They were all out having fun and talking about it in school, I just sat and listened to their stories.
I know I'm bouncing around here but as I remember things I have to get them off my chest.
One day I remember it was summer and hot!!! St. Louis summers are brutal. My little sister did something wrong and we were outside. Dad made her go to the rosebush and cut off a switch. He beat her with that switch. And this happened several times in our childhood. I remember the welts on her legs and them bleeding. Then she had to stand in the corner with her nose in it for how long, I don't remember. If we did something wrong and we were in the house, he would make us stand in a corner for ever it seemed with our nose in it. If someone came over, it didn't matter we still had to stand there. We were not aloud to sit down. I remember standing there until I couldn't stand anymore. But if you sat, you knew you'd be punished worse so you stood there. Anytime he said he was going to spank us he did. If I heard him taking off that belt, I would tremble. Because one or all four of us were about to get beaten. Now I'm not talking about one swap with the belt. It was like he lost control and would do it over and over and over. With all four of us girls crying for him to stop. Again my mom was no where to be found. She was upstairs off in the other room, doing what? I dont know. Most of the time he would make us go outside and get a switch so he could beat us with that. That was worse than the belt I think. I went to school with welts on the back of my legs more times than I know. Back then no one cared, no one asked you what was wrong, it was no big deal.
That's it for today. It really is good for me to write this down. But I have to say that when I log on I get a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Once I'm writing it all seems to just come back to me.
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