Forgive

And
Forget
Brutally Broken

1
Contents
Chapter 1 – My Youngest Memories 3
Chapter 2 - The Pink House 16
Chapter 3 – Returning Home 27
Chapter 4 – The Evil Lady 41
Chapter 5 – The Unwanted Wedding 53
Chapter 6 – Life with My Step Family 63
Chapter 7 – The New House 78
Chapter 8 – Stepdad’s Odds 90
Chapter 9 – The Foster Kids 97
Chapter 10 – The Christian School and the Summer 107
Chapter 11 – A 12-Year-Old Questioned God 121
Chapter 12 – Becoming Mean 136
Chapter 13 – The High School Days 147
Chapter 14 – My Relationships 161
Chapter 15 – The Break-In 189
Chapter 16 – Fontana Home 201
Chapter 17 - A Strange Lifestyle221

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 Chapter 1 – My Youngest Memories

It is natural to get disappointed in life after getting hurt

by certain events. The resentment and frustration can drag you

down to the pit of negativity, leaving you lose all your hopes, in

just a go. It happens when you expect from life and things do not

turn out to be your way.

However, on the other hand, sometimes situations also

come out unexpected that are out of your control. This happened

to me since life threw so much upon me while I was just a child.

But I somehow learnt from my experiences and taught myself

how to distinguish among people.

Nonetheless, if you learn to fight back the evils in your

life, you can stand victorious. You can always have hope even

when the boat is sinking. It is just the matter of how you deal

with your pain and try to get over it in a healthier way. Your past

can be atrocious but your future can turn out to be jubilant.

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 It has almost been 15 years since I wanted to write this

book. At first, my intention to write this book was to unmask all

the evils that surrounded me. But as I grew up and matured, I

wanted to write this book for closure for myself. I am, therefore,

penning it all down for all those who have gone through sexual

abuse and think that their life has been destroyed. This book is

for those who feel that they will never have a better life. I want

them all to know that their past does not define their future. They

can still live a happier and successful life. I want this book to be

a source of motivation for all those who are going through

depression and suffering because of people who want to harm

them. I want to help them make better choices or change

anything that needs to be changed in their lives.

I didn’t see my mother since I was 5 during the days I

was living with my grandmother. That is when she was dating

my stepdad. This time, the stay was a little longer than usual. I

never realized what path my life was going on as I was a kid of

only five. But something still bothered me about going back

home and living with my mother. As a matter of fact, whenever I

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would ask my grandma about when I was going home, she never

had an answer.

I didn’t realize what was happening until, one day, my

grandmother took me to my mother’s fast-food job to see her. I

was so excited that I jumped to the back seat and stuck my head

out the window, waiting to see my mother. I felt like it had been

forever since I last saw her, but I never knew that something else

was waiting up ahead for me.

When we reached to see her, she finally came out and

started walking toward our car. I had stuck my whole body out

the window, thinking she too would be happy to see me. But she

walked right past me to the driver’s side where my grandmother

was sitting. They were arguing about something. I overheard my

grandmother saying, “Your daughter misses you. She wanted to

see you.” Instead of acknowledging me, she rejected me once

again.

I was so heartbroken and hurt. I knew that my

grandmother had noticed my reaction to my mother’s act of

ignorance. Because for the next few days, she tried so hard to

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make me smile. My grandmother always knew how to heal the

heart my mother would break over and over. This was the first

time from where my lack of attention began.

Meanwhile, my mother was busy dating my stepdad

while I was being taken care of by my grandmother. A while

later, my mother and stepdad told me that they had met in a bar

after talking over the phone. It was evidently difficult for my

mother to accept the lies he had told her. He had lied to my

mother of what he looked like and also about his age.

When she met him at the bar, she found out that he

looked exactly the opposite of what he said he was like. He told

her he was a blonde guy and had blue eyes. But to her dismay, he

actually had black hair and brown eyes, the complete opposite.

He wasn’t even as young as my mother. Instead, he was 20 years

older than my mother. Surprisingly, none of this mattered to her

as she still married him, perhaps out of love.

My stepdad and my mother owned a construction

company together. He had a house built for my mother after a

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couple of years of their marriage. Over the years, we always had

what we needed. We even had a housekeeper.

I come from a religious family background, where we

were not allowed to have a social life. We were strictly

instructed to go to church and then come straight back home. We

were ardent Christians, except that my mother took religion to

another level. All my life, I had to wear long skirts, and we were

not even allowed to cut our hair, wear jewelry, or watch TV.

We could only listen to religious music and couldn’t

have friends that were outside of our church. When we went

swimming, we had to swim in our long skirts or what they called

Cool Locks, which were apparently like long shorts and looked

like skirts. However, if we disobeyed, we got paddled with a

paddle made out of wood.

Besides being ardently religious, my stepfamily was also

quite well-off, so we never struggled money-wise; rather, we

suffered emotionally or, in my case, sexually as well.

My youngest memory is of when I was a toddler. I had

just woken up from a nap, standing in a plain white wooden crib.

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I was looking around, trying to find my mother. The open

window with light blue sheer curtains caught my eye. I stayed

staring, and I noticed a brown door with a crystal-shaped

window in the middle right across the window.

Later I found out that it was the front door to my

grandmother's house, where she lived with the rest of my

mother's siblings. I remember I looked behind and found a doll

in my crib with thick blonde curly hair. The next thing I did was

that I took off my diaper and started to rub my private parts on

the doll. Not sure why I would do this, but this memory has

stuck in my head ever since. Everything else that was about to

happen in my life, somehow tied up to this memory. I don’t

remember anything else from our old house where I lived as a

toddler.

The house I remember the most was this little 2-

bedroom pink house. I lived there from the age of 3 to 6. My

mother was a young single mother with two other children

beside me - a sister and a brother. I was told that she was 14 16

when she started having children. She had a roommate who had

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two children. I later found out that her roommate dated the same

man my mother had once dated. I think that’s why at times, they

didn’t get along.

My sister and I had our own room, and we had a set of

little chairs and a table. We also had a big Humpty Dumpty in

our room, which was so fun to play with. The living room of this

house had a couch, a love seat, a brown coffee table, and two

statues of monkeys holding bananas.

There was a stereo in there as well where my mom

enjoyed playing music. I remember some of the lyrics to the

song that my mom listened to. I am not sure why, but there was

this one song that always stayed with me that had lyrics, “I wear

my sunglasses at night.” I remember this song until today

because my mother used to sing it along in her beautiful voice. It

was so soothing that sometimes I used to get mesmerized by it.

My mother’s room was in the back of the house. In front

of the house, we had a little swing set.

Molested by my mother’s best friend’s dad

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 Since I was too small to go to school, my mother would

leave me at her best friend’s parents’ house so that she could go

to work. The lady of the house would greet me with a smile and

sit me on a small love seat or couch to watch TV.

One day, she covered me with a little pink blanket and

gave me some snacks to eat. I was watching TV when her

husband came and sat at the end of the little love seat where my

little legs rested. There was enough room for him to sit. It was a

two-seater sofa with a printed fabric cover.

When the lady left the room, he quietly asked me to pull

down my underwear. He helped me so I could pull them down

faster. I was scared looking around for the lady, but she was busy

washing and folding clothes in the next room. The man

proceeded to touch my private parts. As soon as he heard the

lady coming, he stopped touching my private area. But other

days, he went on doing it and touching my private parts for

longer.

As he would touch me down there, his touch would get

more aggressive each time. I wanted to cry as I needed my

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mother, but I realized I was with strangers. I was so scared, and I

didn’t understand what and why this was all happening to me.

One of the times, the lady walked into the room and

pretended not to notice anything as she continued to walk by.

But she soon turned around, quickly moving toward the couch

where I was seated. She pulled off the cover and saw what her

husband was doing to me. She was enraged, yelling and

screaming at the top of her lungs at her husband.

Then she turned to me, grabbed me from my arms,

looked me straight in the eyes with tears in her eyes, and said,

“Never let anyone do that to you, that is wrong.”

That day I learned something new. I learned that nobody

was allowed to touch your private area. I never went back to

their house again. I never knew why, but I was happy that it was

over.

Sister’s babysitter

Growing up in an unsafe environment, I went on being

the victim of sexual abuse from a very young age until I was 18.

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Sexual abuse became a norm in my life. It all happened because

I was a neglected child. My mother used to let others take care of

me while she herself was busy with her own stuff.

My mom struggled for someone to take care of me while

she worked. She ended up leaving me for one day at my sister’s

babysitter. That babysitter’s sons were somewhat the same as the

man I had just gotten molested by, except for the fact that they

never took off my clothes. But to me, it felt the same.

I was scared, and I don’t know what ended up

happening. One day, the babysitter took me away from the room

I was in with her sons. She sat me in the kitchen with her. I

didn’t know for what reason she took me with her. Maybe she

realized what was happening, and she wanted to put me in a

safer place.

She put an old coin on the table and told me not to put it

in my mouth or I would choke. It’s like she told me to put it in

my mouth because that’s exactly what I did. I started to choke,

and the lady helped me until I threw up. I can’t believe I had

done that. Looking back at the memory of it, I still wonder why

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did I starve for attention. It was because I was willing to put

myself in danger just to get attention. I have now realized how

important a mother’s love and attention is for a child as it is what

matters the most to them.

My mom was fourteen sixteen when she had me. In

other words, I was the result of sexual abuse. My mother was

sexually abused by her stepfather from the time she was 4 until

the age of 14. My grandmother moved them out of the city

without the stepfather, and my mother got pregnant with me

because she was already sexually active.

She was 16, and my biological father was 27. They were

never together as it was just a one-night stand. I sometimes think

that maybe the reason my mother didn’t give me much love as I

deserved was because she herself was broken up inside. She was

also torn apart because of the sexual abuse she went through as a

teenager. She had lost her innocence at a very young age and

probably events in her life had turned her into a coldhearted and

bitter person who at one time in her life became so selfish that

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she only thought about her own happiness, which is

understandable.

As a kid, we didn’t know how to live life because of the

way we were sheltered. We were brought up in a discrete

environment where we didn’t know much about the world. Now

when I think of all the times when I got sexually abused, it feels

like that it followed me everywhere I went. I regret that we never

learned to say NO to certain things, which is why they keep

sabotaging us in many different ways chiefly physically.

I now realize that being a toddler, I never knew this was

bad stuff for children of my age until that lady told me. I thank

God for people like that lady in my life who taught me that it

was bad for kids. Otherwise, people would mostly stay quiet and

ignore the importance of making children aware of such critical

situations.

I had no idea how to distinguish between good and evil

because my mother never told me. I blame her for not letting me

know about sexual abuse. It was her duty to prepare me for the

evils of the world or even train me to fight the vice if need be.

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Technically, it was all her responsibility, but she turned a blind

eye and kept ignoring me with her work, letting me at the mercy

of several babysitters.

Had I learned to say NO, had I not given a chance to

allow anyone to do with me what they did, perhaps, my life

would have been different from what it is today.

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 Chapter 2 - The Pink House

The four years that I spent in the pink house were among

the unforgettable times of my life. I can never forget the room

my sister and I shared—those little chairs with a table and a

gigantic Humpty Dumpty. I loved the stereo that my mom used

to play music on and sing along the songs; it was one of those

things in the house that made her happy. Another thing that made

us, kids, happy was a little swing set in the front yard.

My mother loved to explore new places and things. She

had lots of friends in town and outside since she loved to

socialize. And this is the very reason she made acquaintances

wherever she went. She had friends from her school and

workplaces. Even if she went to a bar or a club, she never

hesitated to start a conversation with a complete stranger. This is

how her social circle grew bigger by the days as she met people.

She loved to hang out with them and party. Sometimes, she

would spend time with them in bars and clubs, and other times

she would invite them frequently to our little pink house for get-

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togethers in our front yard. All they did was smoke, drink, and

chat.

One time my sister and I were sitting at our little girls'

red and white table when a man came into our room. I had never

seen him before; neither did he look familiar. He must have been

one of my mom’s friends. His face is still a blurred memory in

my mind, maybe because I was too small to memorize the faces

of people who I saw only once.

Unfortunately, my mother had given even her male

friends access to our house. It was her responsibility to protect

us, but she was indulged in hanging out with her friends that she

forgot to secure the boundaries around us. Now I realize that we

spent an insecure childhood as little girls, and we suffered the

consequences.

The moment that man rammed into our room made us

scared that we gushed with fear. At first, he acted like he was

interested in what we were playing. Soon after that, he started to

tie me up with a nylon rope to my little red chair. He then picked

me up while I was still tied to the chair and put me on the bed.

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 I could not understand what he was actually doing to me.

I had no idea what was going to happen to me or how I should

have reacted. All I knew was a horrifying feeling at that time. He

then got on top of me with my clothes on and started rubbing his

private part against mine. I could feel him, and I didn’t like it at

all.

As a kid, I felt so claustrophobic that I couldn’t breathe.

The man was so heavy as he moved up and down over my body.

The more he moved, the more he pressed my tummy to where it

was difficult for me to breathe. He whispered in my ear how

much he loved me in a low and sexual voice.

But why would he say that to me? What kind of love

was it from an adult to a child of my age? What kind of love was

it that gave me pain and discomfort? Above all, what kind of

love was it that came from a complete stranger? I never

understood that; after all, I was only 3 or 4 years old. In fact, my

tender mind wasn’t even ready to accept what had just happened

to me.

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 I turned my face to the other side, struggling to breathe

since it almost felt like I was being smothered. I was terrified

and screaming inside, calling out my mother to come and save

me. But how unfortunate of me, as a child, to be ignored by my

own mother to this extent that she never heard my cry for help.

Not then, not ever.

When he was done doing that filthy thing with me, I just

laid there for a minute. I was shocked at this man since I didn’t

know who he was and why he would do this to me. To this day, I

still can’t recognize his face clearly in my memories. Why do I

remember every single person that abused me except this one? I

even wonder today if it is even possible that it was someone I

trusted. If I find out now that he was someone I knew and

trusted, it would be the biggest shock of my life. I might end up

having trust issues with people around me.

I never told my mother about that incident because I

knew what good she could have done for me to protect me from

strangers. I started to realize that she used to ignore me as much

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as she could. So, it would have been useless to complain about

that man.

Watching my sister from the window

That weekend, my mother had another party outside the

front yard of our little pink house. I stayed in my room because

that incident had scared me to death, and I didn’t want to go out.

But my little sister got a chance to go out where the party was.

I didn’t want her to go and talk to those people, but I

couldn’t forbid her. So, I kept a watchful eye on my sister the

whole time through the window of my bedroom. Since I was

already aware of how a man could hurt a child, I started feeling

very protective of my sister in my own way at that young age. I

never took my eyes off of her that entire time she was out at the

party. I saw a man holding her and having her sit on his lap. I felt

that something was off, but my sister didn’t seem to mind it.

Whoever he was, it seemed like my sister enjoyed his

company as she smiled and responded to each of his moves that

pleased her. I, on the contrary, was completely displeased with

what was going on between them. Neither did I like the party

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and my mom’s friends, nor did my sister being frank with that

man pleased me.

Seeing her getting that cozy with him gave me the

creeps, and I was scared for her. If I had caught that man doing

something nasty to my sister, I would have rushed outside to

save her by all possible means I had in that little age. I wouldn’t

have cared what my mother or her friends would say about me in

a stance to save my sister. Thankfully, nothing bad happened to

her that night, whereas I was on my mark for her.

That man remained a stranger to me until I found out

that it was her uncle from her real dad’s side. I now think to

myself, as an adult, how I ever felt like it was my job to protect

my sister. How can a child of my age feel that protective for

someone? It is when they realize that they are alone, and there is

no one to defend them. I guess I had understood that as well

when I came to know that my mother was never going to help

me out.

My mother’s fight with the roommate

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 I experienced a couple more memorable events in that

pink house. One day, I heard my mother yelling at her

roommate. The noise grabbed my attention somehow. I have no

clue what they were arguing about, but I saw my mom run

toward the car, hurting the other girl’s arm as it got rolled up in

the window. I was so scared hearing the screams and watching

them fight because I didn’t want anyone to be hurt. In such a

situation, I felt helpless as I couldn’t protect her; after all, she

was my mother.

When mom saw me standing in the corner, terrified and

crying, she picked me up and took me inside the house. She

wiped off my tears and assured me that everything was okay.

However, I was old enough to understand that fighting and

screaming were not okay.

Stepped on glass

My mom's uncle lived next door, so he often came over

with his kids. We all would play together, and I loved their

company.

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 One day, we were running around outside our little pink

house, and I accidentally stepped on a piece of glass that cut my

side foot pretty badly. Hearing my screams and cries, mom came

outside and rushed me into the bathroom. She started cleaning

my injury, and I kept crying like a baby. It was for the first time I

felt that my mother really cared for me. I felt great getting

attention from my mother, so I exaggerated my pain so that my

mom would take care of me more. I also made up a story that my

sister and second cousin had planned to put the glass there so

that I would cut myself.

I was trying so hard not to lose my mother’s attention

with my story even if it wasn’t true. But there came my

misfortune again. All of the care and attention went off as soon

as I was bandaged up.

As I write this, my heart hurts so bad, thinking how can

a mother not see how much her baby needed her. Sadly, it

happened to me. Through this book, I want to spread awareness

that even the least important people in your life also need special

attention.

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 However, at the same time, on one hand, where I was

protective about my sister, I was also sometimes pretty cruel to

her.  I would bang her head on the wall and push her towards the

floor. I took all of my anger out on her and I regret it to this day.

I feel I was one of the reasons why my sister is broken till this

day for which I am extremely sorry. Dear sis! If by any chance

you are reading this, I want to apologize to you for my rude

behavior and for everything that caused you harm because of me.

I regret it and I am sorry.

My cousin got raped

One of my cousins would come over on the weekends to

play with us, and I loved playing with her. One day, while we

were playing outside the house, an older man from the side

called us over. He invited us into his house and offered us a

lollipop. I already had trust issues with men from my past

experiences, so I stood by the entrance of the door while my

cousin walked inside to get the lollipop.

The moment she stepped in, the old man grabbed her

and began to rape her. He overpowered her because she was just

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a little 5-year-old girl. I was so scared and being of the same age,

I didn’t know what to do. I froze there because I didn’t want to

leave my cousin alone.

I knew I could be the next victim, but I could tell that my

loud cries made the man very angry. He asked us to leave after

he was done raping my cousin. I will never forget the face she

made from the pain the man was inflicting on her. We ran back

home, and we both went our separate ways. We never spoke

about the incident until we were teens.

Just as I learned from my past experiences that never to

let anyone touch my private area, I also learned not to trust

strangers, especially if they were men. Those events made me

stronger at the age of five and made me think that I was able to

rescue my sister if anything bad happened to her, but this time it

was my cousin. I feel so guilty to this day that I wasn’t able to

save her from that old man.

I never realized what stopped me from going inside that

old man’s house. I could have stopped my cousin as well, but I

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don’t know why I didn’t. Is this something that I should blame

myself for, or was it because I was too young to take chances?

The story of my life up till here made me realize one

truth, and that is that we were surrounded by a bunch of

pedophiles. If only I had known how to defend myself and take

action against all those men. If only I had had hands that strong

to punch those men in the face and feet that fast to run away like

a hare.

I admit that, as a kid, I was hungry for attention, love,

and care. So, I thought that maybe harming myself was a good

idea to get noticed. Nonetheless, that didn’t involve any of the

incidents of sexual abuse.

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 Chapter 3 – Returning Home

My childhood had been a rollercoaster ride full of

anguish and worrisome situations. At times, I felt that there was

never going to be an end to my troubles. Other times, I craved

for love and attention. Being the eldest among my siblings, I felt

the pain most of what we went through in our childhood.

My Loving Grandmother

Since I yearned for love and care as a kid, I can never

forget my loving grandmother. To me, grandmothers are of

grand significance as they hold a special place in our lives. They

always seem to have the patience that most mothers fail to have,

just like mine. My grandma meant a lot to me for the things she

did for me.

My grandma had been weighing on my mind ever since I

started writing this book. I want to talk about her in this book a

little and tell you how she was there for me when I needed

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someone in my life. For a while, she became everything to me. I

never received much love, care, and attention from my own

mother as much I did from my grandma. She showered me with

love that I desired, so I wanted to hold on to it; she took care of

me better than my mom. She bought me things and took care of

me as if I had nowhere to go and no one to rely on. So, she

became my one and only guardian.

My grandma had a way of making it all better; I don’t

know how, but she always did it. She always seemed to have the

right solution for every situation. She was also a great cook, of

course, better than my mom. I wondered why her food was more

delicious; maybe her love for me was the secret ingredient.

My grandma never let me down. She always used to

hear me out when there was no one on my side. She made me

feel worthy of love, care, and that I deserved it all. She used to

spend time with me whenever I needed her; she always listened

to every bit of my nitty-gritty I shared with her. I enjoyed

playing with her because she would never get fed up, no matter

28
how many rounds I went. She always had time for me that

seemed to never end.

One morning, she came to our house to see me. I was in

my room, terrified and confused. I had wet my bed when she

came into my room. She realized how scared I was and made

sure if I was okay. She picked me up and took me to her house,

where she washed me up. From that day onwards, I stayed with

her for a while, and she took care of me.

My grandma was such a happy person. She loved to

dance while she was cooking. When she was dancing, she would

always turn to ensure I was there. Such was the attention I got

from her.

My grandma always knew how to heal the heart that my

mother used to break over and over again. She was the best

medicine for my scars as she took care of me both physically and

emotionally. She stayed calm and polite during most tantrums

that were thrown by my mom, letting the dust settle down on its

own.

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 To my surprise, my stay became a little longer than

usual this time. Whenever I asked her about going back home,

she never had an answer for me.

Uncle and the firecracker

One day I was playing outside my grandma’s house, a

thought suddenly barged into my head that my mom didn’t want

to see me anymore. I had lost hope of seeing her and my sister

again. I had no clue why my mother wouldn’t want me. Things

were quite confusing for me to process back then. It was

tormenting for a child of my age to go through negligence and

feelings of unwantedness and ignorance. Therefore, I always

kept myself busy with something in the house.

One day my uncle (mother’s brother) came up to me and

asked how old I was I. I had no idea because I was too young. It

felt like years had passed on so quickly and abruptly that I had

almost lost track of time somewhere. Every day, I had a different

story lined up for me. So, my uncle guessed that I was eight

years old, and I agreed. He then asked me if I wanted to see a

firecracker. I had no idea what a firecracker was; when he asked

30
me, I was so excited to see what it was. He pulled out a plastic

spoon and a match from his pocket. He lit up the match and flick

it up out of the white plastic spoon. I was flabbergasted by the

sight of a firecracker and thought it was the most amazing thing I

had ever seen. I had so much fun playing with my uncle that day

and seeing how a firecracker worked. I was really excited and

thought he might take out another one to entertain me, but he

didn’t.

Soon my uncle became the person I loved and trusted

most in the world. I looked up to him and wanted to copy

everything he did. No matter how good he was with me, he used

to swear a lot. As a kid, I never minded what he spoke out

because I didn’t know they were bad words. So, I imitated him

and used cuss words. He was fun to be around, and I wanted to

be funny too, like him. He was also the one, besides my

grandma, who helped me to forget that I was missing my mother

and sister.

My two uncles would mostly take me everywhere they

went, which made me feel loved. I enjoyed their company

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because I felt wanted. I even played house with them in their

room and adored spending time with them.

One night, when my grandma told us to go to bed, my

uncles planned to stay up. So, they said to me, “If you ask my

mom, she will let you stay up because you are her favorite.”

Unfortunately, that didn’t convince me. Later, my uncle said that

if I hit my face hard on the wall, she would let us stay up all

night. So, with the help of my uncles, we succeeded because my

nose started to bleed from the bang on the wall. At last, his plan

worked till there. My grandma cleaned up my bloody nose and

let me sit on her brown leather sofa to watch shows with her.

Regrettably, my uncles still had to go to bed.

Another time, my uncles took me to the wash with them.

They liked to climb the sides of the wash, and that day was extra

special for them because there was plenty of water in the wash as

it had rained. My two uncles walked along the side, telling me to

stay put since I was too little to follow them. They told me to get

back from the edge because I could fall in. I didn’t listen to them

because I wanted to do what they were doing. So, I climbed

32
down into the wash and started walking alone on the sides,

which were a little slanted. All of a sudden, I fell in, not knowing

how to swim. I opened my eyes under the dark water, and I

could barely see the sun shining. Suddenly, I saw a hand

approaching me inside the water. It was my uncle who grabbed

and pulled me out. As he was drying me up, he told me that

everything was okay. I stared at him with gratefulness, and on

that day, he became my hero. 

My grandma was also very protective of me. One day,

she took me to the grocery store. On our way back, the car door

from my side accidentally opened while she was driving. I

almost fell out, but she grabbed me with all her might. If she

hadn’t gripped me and pulled me on that day, I wouldn’t have

been alive. She saved my life. She didn’t realize what she made

me feel that day. She actually made me feel so protected and

secured. It was something I had never felt before. In quite a

while, I got used to living with her. I was convinced that my

mother was not going to return.

Finally Going Back Home

33
 One fine day, while I was playing with my little tea set

in the backyard of the house, my grandma came up to me. She

was in a strange mood that I couldn’t understand at that tender

age. She said to me, “Get ready! You're going back to your

mother's house.” Naturally, I was so excited. But I couldn’t get

what my grandma wanted me to do for real. Her feelings seemed

to be jumbled up in a deep whirlpool of happiness and sadness.

She didn’t even know herself how she wanted to feel dropping

me off at my mom’s house. Maybe she was worried about me

going back home.

Maybe grandma had it on her mind how my mother was

going to take care of me because she had seen how my mom

ignored me most of the time. At age 6, I was being illtreated and

underfed at mom’s place because all she cared about was her

work or her friends. I was unable to get grandma’s feelings until

the last minute I left the house.

I guessed that grandma was worried about me because

she was the only one who loved me. As a child, I didn’t get it at

that time. So, I was more than happy and excited to reunite with

34
my mom, not knowing what her reaction would be after seeing

me. I couldn’t wait to reach home, unaware of the fact that I

would have to bump into a shocker right away. Though my mom

was happy to see me, she was happier about other happenings in

her life. I soon found out that she was going to get married to a

guy she had met a few months ago. He was 20 years older than

my mom, but she still loved him.

I also got to know that we would be moving into her

husband’s house. It sounded exciting to me because I could see

the real happiness on my mother's face. I forgot my own

cheerfulness and was thrilled about what my mom wanted. I

thought things were going to be different because I was finally

going to have a dad. I was so excited, but I had no idea it would

be the beginning of my journey to hell.

My mother’s soon-to-be husband lived in a really old

home with his parents. The house was white stucco, and the

paint was peeling off. There was also a hole on the side of the

house where we could see inside the house. There were two

bedrooms, a washroom, a bathroom with a white bathtub, and a

35
kitchen with a brown table. There was also a yard outside the

house that had some old trees planted. There was a guest room

house on the side of the house, which looked longstanding as

well. There was a front and a back door to the house. The

condition of the rooms was also unsound as they had really dirty

and old carpets. We all slept in the back room while my mother

and stepdad slept in the front room. 

It was hell living in that house since my stepdad was

physically abusive toward us, and his children were around my

mom’s age while I was only six years old. He always made us

feel it wasn’t our house. Since we were living in his house, he

made it clear that we were strictly supposed to obey his rules.

The first night we spent at his house was the most

unfortunate one. That night I got molested by my stepdad’s older

son, who was not less than a creepy creature. That was the

beginning of me being abused by him until I turned 16 and put

him in prison. The interesting part is that no one knew I sent him

to jail with the help of a social worker who created a report and

presented his case to the authorities. Yet nobody knew it was me

who provided her all the information.

36
(the highlighter part of the story is told in another chapter more

correctly. Can you add another story here it’s ok if its not truth

just so it goes with my story)

That social worker would come to see us every month at

our house. One of those days, she came over and reached up to

my room to talk to me separately. I had already been tired of

telling people about our situation, and we needed help regarding

sexual abuse. Therefore, when she asked me, I blurted out to her

about everything that we were going through. I somehow began

to trust her and thought that she would help us out. I told her that

my siblings and I were being molested by our stepbrother ever

since my mom married this older guy, and we moved into their

house.

I had my head down and started crying after telling her

everything. She caressed my hair gently as she sat right next to

me on the table in my room and said, “I am not sure if all this is

true that you have told me. But I do know that something wrong

is going on in this house. I promise you that I will find that out,

and whatever you are going through is not going to pass from

this day.”

37
 When she left, she told me to stay in the room and not to

come out. She went downstairs while the police came over. She

talked to them and went on with the case.

I used to cry so much when I was a kid that I would sit

in my room and punch and kick my stuffed animals out of anger

and sadness. Each teddy bear would be someone that hurt me

emotionally, physically, or sexually. I would talk to the bear as if

it were the perpetrator and ask why they would do that to me.

Many times, my mother would walk into my room

because we were not allowed to lock the door. She would find

me crying and get so angry, saying, “You need to stop feeling

sorry for yourself, little girl.” I hated her for that because she

couldn’t see the hurt I was suffering.

I was a child who had been abused and molested all her

childhood, yet I was trying to find love in either people or places

or even things that made me feel happy. It could be anything

because all I wanted for myself as a kid was to be loved, cared,

and given attention to.

38
 When I grew up, I learned to distinguish between truth

and fake. I taught myself how to let go of all the fake things in

life that weren’t lasting. As an adult, I understood that my

grandma was not actually what I thought her to be. She kept me

with her to help her clean the house and do chores like that. It

breaks my heart to realize that the person I counted on most of

my childhood was not what I assumed her to be. Yet, despite of

her real purpose, she kept saving me in whatever situation I was

as a child. She even took good care of me for which I am

thankful to her.

Besides, I now reckon that it was good for me to be

blinded by the truth about Grandma’s real intentions for keeping

me with her. If I had known it earlier, I wouldn’t have been able

to survive the time I spent with her because then I would know

that everything, she did for me was for a reason.

A lot of people are in the same situation, yet they don’t

realize it. Always learn to distinguish between good and bad.

My whole childhood was about telling people what was

happening to us. Unfortunately, nobody would believe me

39
because my mom told them I was a liar. This was the reason why

I had to wait until I turned sixteen and acquire help from outside.

I want to tell all the mothers out there to trust your

children. Let them speak up for themselves to you. Don’t make

them hesitate to come and talk to you. Know your child

thoroughly because, as mothers, only you can judge what they

are feeling at what time and occasion. My mother never listened

to me, but I want all mothers to listen to your child and believe

them.

However, today as well, people around me don’t believe

that a person as successful as me could have gone through so

much trouble in the past. So, to clear things up in people’s

minds, I want to tell everyone about my journey through hell

since my childhood. I want people to know that my hardships

have made me stronger and turned me into the person I am

today, happy and successful.

You should never stick to your past or bad memories

because they will never let you grow. I left it all behind with my

past life and moved on with a new beginning and new goals.

40
41
 Chapter 4 – The Evil Lady

While I was going through all the domestic child abuse,

trying to adjust with my stepfamily, I had to come across another

malevolent person in my life, the mother of my mom’s husband.

She was an evil woman.

My mother let us stay with the evil lady so she could

watch us over while she was in a hospital bed at home. She had

us sit beside her bed all the time and never let us move an inch.

Being bored, I would lay down and look under her bed at

all the mechanical parts. The twisted wiring and connection

fascinated me, making me curious about their path. I used to lay

down under the bed for hours and look at the installation trying

to figure out where they went.

The evil lady would continuously ask my sister and me

if we were under her bed because she didn’t want us to go down

there. We would usually respond ‘No,’ affirming her that we

42
weren’t there. Unfortunately, something unusual happened one

time.

One day when my mom left both of us with the lady, we

sat down on the floor and started playing with our toys. After a

while, she slept on her medical bed while we kept playing beside

her bed on the floor. When she woke up, she could only see my

sister but not me. She panicked and angrily asked her if I was

under her bed or not. Being confused and frightened, my sister

answered “Yes,” but I wasn’t under the bed. Since my sister was

on the other side of the bed, the evil lady thought I was really

underneath.

The evil lady irately reached down and pulled me up by

my hair. I screamed out loud as it hurt so bad. I cried, clarifying

her that I wasn’t under her bed, but she didn’t listen to what I

said and kept hurting me. While she was dragging me on the

floor by my hair, my sister looked scared and felt guilty for

putting me in so much pain. I think she was only trying to be

honest, but she didn’t realize what the evil lady was capable of

doing.

43
 The evil lady was cruel enough to make me and my

sister cook in the kitchen at age seven. It was a difficult task for

us because we couldn’t reach the stove. Handling knives and

kitchen scissors was another tough thing for us as we could hurt

ourselves. She was quite physically abusive toward us the days

we lived with her. It didn’t matter if she was in her hospital bed

because she functioned as equally as a wicked walking person.

My grandmother was my savior, even though she never

knew that she was. When she found out how this evil lady had

treated me, she came to pick me up. She always knew that

something wrong was going on with us. Therefore, when she

scolded my mother, she would take me to her house to protect

me. So, she took me to her new house, which was bigger. When

I stayed over the night, I slept with her on her bed.

Her new boyfriend didn’t like me much, so obviously he

didn’t want me to sleep with them in their room. I was pleased to

know what my grandmother answered him about me. She told

him that before he came into her life, I already existed. I loved

44
her for that but never realized how her love for me would

eventually ruin her relationship.

Despite all the differences grandma had with her

boyfriend, she got married to him and had a baby. I loved this

baby so much as we became close. It was like a new chapter

opened up in my life with his birth. I loved his face because he

was white like snow. He had the most beautiful big brown eyes

that I can never forget. We did everything together because he

was fun to play with.

I found it pretty funny to have an uncle who was even

younger than me. We connected and always played and laughed

together. His father was very protective of him. He didn't like it

when I played with the baby’s toys. My grandma used to defend

me against her boyfriend and told me that it didn’t matter if I

played with her baby. However, I stopped playing with my baby

uncle after my grandma’s boyfriend objected. It scared me to

hell because I thought he would hurt me, which I didn’t want to

happen. I was terrified, and I didn’t want him to do anything

45
terrible to me because, at that point in my life, I was convinced

that men hurt kids.

My grandma took special care of me, which I liked most

about her. She told me that to have beautiful hair, I needed to

brush 100 times every day. I always wanted to have hair like

Rapunzel, so I did it faithfully every night until one day, the evil

lady asked me what I was doing. I told her what my grandma

said to do to have beautiful hair, but I think something inside her

lit up a spark of jealousy.

The next day she chopped off all of mine and my sister’s

hair right off. I don’t think if it was a coincidence because, from

every angle, it looked like she did it on purpose. I don’t know

what hatred she had against our hair that she decided to cut them

off. Letting those harmless hair go away was very unreasonable

of her. I cried that whole night because I loved my hair so much

because of my grandma. I wanted to grow them out long, but

they were no more. It was another incident that took place,

taking away my precious thing from me.

Met my step dad’s kids

46
 After many days, my mother took us to meet her

husband’s kids. The oldest daughter was a pretty wild one as she

liked to sneak out to meet men. There was a time when I wanted

to be just like her because she inspired me so much. I thought

she was so pretty and had such a beautiful smile.

She used to live in her own world and never had time for

us, the little ones. However, I still liked her until she tricked me

into getting raped. Once again, I failed to recognize the right

people in my life.

Her brother was a ruthless and mean guy. All the kids

slept in the same room on the first night in that house. My sister

and I slept on a king size bed that was in the room while the

others managed to sleep elsewhere. In the middle of the night, I

somehow woke up and heard my sister crying. To my

astonishment and disgust, the stepbrother was on top of her

smothering and pushing her down. I pulled his shirt at once and

deviated his attention from her to get on top of me. He quickly

left my sister and came over me and slobbered all over my face.

47
However, I felt brave because I wasn’t afraid for myself. I just

didn’t want anything to happen with to?my sister.

I loved my sister so much that I would cross the line to

save her. I always made sure nobody hurt her. Whenever a man

would hold her, I would stare at them until he would put her

down. I felt scared that my sister would be abused the way I was

being abused. My sister is the type of person to hold things

inside. She never said what she felt when she was a little girl.

A cruel truth that I found later was that I wasn’t the only

one the stepbrother had hurt before. He had a couple of evil

games that he made us play with evil intentions. One of them

was with sandpaper in which he would make us stretch out our

arms and scrape us with sandpaper until we bled.

It seemed like he enjoyed hurting us like a sadist. He had

another weird game to play with us that he called “The

Experiment.” He used to fill a cup with dish soap, ketchup and

anything that he could find in the kitchen and then made us drink

it. My taste buds are still burnt from the disgusting taste of that

48
awful liquid. However, by then, I had known that if I didn’t obey

him, he was capable enough of hurting me.

Mother’s husband’s father

Let’s not forget the father of my mother’s husband in the

story. He was the grouchiest person with the worst attitude I had

ever known. Maybe being married to an evil woman did that to

him.

He lived in a guest house behind the main house, where

we occasionally had to take things to him. One time I was sent

by my mother to take something to him while my brother was

already there. I saw the step-grandfather nibbling on his ear. I sat

on his bed close to him so that he would stop doing that to my

brother. I offered myself to him because by then, I had

understood that adults cause harm to children. I gave myself as a

bait and saved my little brother from getting abused. As soon as

he got me, he started to nibble on my ear and laid me down on

his bed. Thankfully, it didn’t last long as I always avoided

staying too long when I took things to him.

Stepdad throws me on bed

49
 One day my mother asked her husband to babysit us

while she went to work. My sister and I were having a good

playtime outside the house. While we stood in front of a water

cooler that went right through the house’s wall, it felt so fresh

because it had sprinkles of water squirting out.

Suddenly, my stepdad came out angrily out of nowhere

and grabbed me by my shirt. He lifted me up and threw me on

the king-size bed where we slept. He started to scold my sister

and me and asked us to leave his father alone. To this day, I

don’t know what his anger toward us was about, but I feared him

from that day on.

My own mother’s behavior

My mom had this weird habit of staying in her room and

not being very interactive with her own family. It was like we

never felt her presence with us as if we had no mother in our

lives. While she was away, the stepdad would make us do all the

domestic chores like doing the dishes and scrubbing floors. He

was a strict and cruel person that my mother didn’t know of.

50
Even if she had known, she would have let him do anything to us

because she seemed to care about nothing that happened to us.

Several times, I heard my grandma tell my mother that

she knew my stepdad was abusing us, but my mother defended

him to the end, also knowing what the pedophile stepbrother did

to us. 

On the very contrary, my mother was very religious,

which we thought was a strange side of her. We were sheltered

from the world because she would never let us go out and have

fun like normal children. To this day now, I still wonder if she

was really protective of us. It was confusing for me to

understand; on the one hand, she was extremely religious, but at

the same time, we, the children, were continuously molested at

home, and there was no one to save us. I was being molested

since I was in my crib, and nobody saved me.

To this day, when I share my story with people, they fail

to believe me because they wonder how my life has not yet been

torn apart. They are surprised to see me happy and peaceful. This

51
is what I want everyone else to understand that tragedies can

never take you away from what is meant for you.

Let the past be in the past. All you need to do is to let go

of your wounds and tears and let time erase your scars.

Pondering over the fact that the gashes in my life were brought

to me by my own family, I came to a point where I decided that

whatever happened in my past does not define me. I have to

move on from what I have already been through in my life and

start over. I decided not to let anyone else take control of my life

since I was the one responsible for my own acts.

You don’t have to have people in your life if they don’t

invest in your happiness. Some people are of the idea that they

have to put up with their family even if they bring harm to them.

Let me tell you that you don’t have to do that. Don’t allow

anyone to take control of your life and harm you even if they are

family. Recognize and differentiate between people around you,

know them well and if you find them damaging you, let them go.

52
 What matters the most is your happiness; if you don’t

have it, the people in your life wouldn’t matter. How will you be

able to spread joy when you don’t have it with yourself?

53
 Chapter 5 – The Unwanted Wedding

My mother was an independent woman, even when she

had us her kids. She never thought about us while making such

big decisions in her life, like getting married. She had never

planned about her wedding with us, which seemed as if we

didn’t matter to her. However, moving in with the stepdad before

the wedding was quite a big change for us, yet she didn’t

concern us. This is the reason why I call this wedding an

unwanted one.

I was seven years old when my mom decided to get

married. I never had the slightest idea that this wedding was

going to bring a remarkable change in our lives as my mom took

us to live with her new husband. Since her life revolved around

her own self, she never took it seriously to at least ask us her

children once if we wanted to live with her husband. And so, the

consequences turned out to be extreme.

54
 When the wedding day came, my mom told me to put on

my flower girl’s dress and stand beside the pedophile

stepbrother. I wasn’t happy at all like other kids who enjoy and

have fun on such occasions. Whatever we faced after this

wedding was because of my mother because she never asked us

or concerned us when she was moving towards making such an

important decision. She had no idea how her one move could

bring the biggest difference in our lives, affecting us in an ugly

way. She never warned us about anything; rather, she stayed in

her own cocoon and in the life that she enjoyed living.

The Wedding Day

On the wedding day, my mother had all her friends over

at the party that was arranged at my step dad's house. We were

living there at that time. My mom’s friends helped her get

dressed for her special day, and she looked so happy. She was

filled with glee and couldn’t stop smiling. I was there noticing

my mother’s overwhelmed behavior.

However, what I didn’t know was that my mother was

carrying this man’s baby, whom she was about to get married to.

55
My mother walked down the aisle so elegantly, and it looked like

it was her dream wedding. She was all dolled up, and her groom

was wearing the same color suit as her dress. They both looked

very happy together.

The Honeymoon

After they got married, they took a honeymoon vacation

together. My mother once again left us with an irresponsible

adult, my stepsister. One of those days when my mom wasn’t

there, she decided to throw a party at the house. She called up all

of her friends, and they partied all night getting drunk.

There were also many men at this party that made me

uncomfortable. I started to feel scared, so I looked for my step

sister. I opened the door to the room to see if she was there, and

she was. I was stunned to see what she was busy doing.

She was on top of her cousin's man while her cousin was

on top of her man. I was too young to understand what was

really happening. I ran to the bathroom and started crying. When

she saw me, she came up to me and started asking me what was

56
wrong. She even put me in bathwater just to calm me down. I

was all wet in my pajamas from sitting in the bath.

After a while, she left me and went back to her friends. I

was still sitting in that room where she left me sobbing in wet

clothes. A few minutes later, I heard a commotion from

downstairs. I quickly got up and went down to see what was

going on. People from the party were gathered near the front

door while I saw an ambulance parked outside the house. My

heart started beating faster and pounded in my chest.

I was scared and curious to see who it was the

ambulance was taking away. I went forward, diving into the

crowd, making my way towards the subject. I was astonished to

see that it was my stepsister lying half-unconscious on the

stretcher. Something serious had happened to her at the party

that an ambulance had to come for her. My mother and stepdad

didn’t find out about this incident until way after.

As I grew up, my hurt began to turn into hatred for my

mother. Questions like where was she, why wasn’t she there,

began to arise in my mind. There was a big fat WHY standing in

57
a constant position in my head all the time, questioning my

mother’s behavior towards us or particularly me.

When she was there, she would be in her room with her

new husband and new baby. I didn’t even know he really existed

until I saw him and met him. My mother never introduced us to

our new baby brother; in fact, she was probably caught up in the

celebration. I once again felt so rejected as she never made time

for us. She let my stepdad discipline us, and at the same time,

she let people hurt us too, which was pretty ironic. This is the

saddest part of my story, which was a bitter reality. The

complete contrast in my mother’s personality could be seen

when she acted as if she only cared about a few people in her

life, excluding her own children. Facing utter disappointment at

a tender age from your loved ones is one of the most unfortunate

experiences in life.

Before the death of my stepfather recently, he talked to

me about this entire scenario of my mom not concerning us

about the wedding. He agreed that it was wrong what my mother

did as she decided to take us with her without our consent. He

58
said that it was inappropriate how our mom threw us into a new

family that we couldn’t adjust with. He understood if I was angry

about that as a child.

As a kid, all I wanted was to have a perfect little family

with my mom and sister. I wanted my mom to understand the

fact that we needed her and that she shouldn’t impose her

choices upon us. I wanted my mom to be more concerning about

us and realizing what we wanted from her. It was nothing but

unconditional love, care and attention.

Sometimes mothers need to understand that their

children are whirled with them. They need to take their children

into account at the time of making an important decision as they

are a part of their life as well.

I hated my mom throughout my childhood because of

the fact that whatever I went through as a child was all because

of her. Every time I went to talk to my mom, she would turn me

down, saying, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

I had cried a lot and have remained depressed at a very

young age. I used to lock myself in my room and cry, using my

59
stuff toys as the objects for taking out my anger and frustration. I

had so much hurt in me, and I was brutally broken from inside

for what I had been through as a kid. It wasn’t only me who was

being molested by that pedophile stepbrother. There were

fourteen of us together, including four of my mom’s children,

two of my stepdad’s children and ten children from the state who

were the foster children.

I never understood the sex part; rather, I just only knew

that he was hurting them. I used to see the other kids crying with

pain and anger, and I just couldn’t stand and watch them. So, I

tried to tell my mom, but she would never listen to me. She used

to go to her room and lock it while I shouted outside her room to

please listen to what I wanted to tell her. Meanwhile my stepdad

would come out of the room and yell at me and say, “leave your

mother alone.” However, my mother would never listen to me

and rather let my stepdad punish us. I somehow wanted to make

this all stop because I didn’t want my siblings to get hurt.

Now when I think about that time, it makes me only

wonder about the fact that my mom had always been absent from

60
the scene. She was never there for her children. All she did was

to go to her room and be in her own world. However, the son

that my mom had with the stepdad was the only kid in the house

who was protected from the vicious intentions of the pedophile

stepbrother. The kid always stayed with my mother, and she used

to keep him with her all the time. It was us, the rest of the

children, who never experienced parental love.

In fact, my mother knew what was happening around the

house. It was because one of the times, the stepbrother also got

caught by my mother while molesting one of the kids. My mom

kicked him out of the house and sent him to his mother.

Just when we thought that it was all over, and he was

never coming back, my mom brought him back to our house.

She told us that he had repented from his sins, and God has

forgiven him. But it got even worse this time as he raped my

sister.

At the same time, even though my sister went through

all this, she also became close to my mother. She became her

favorite child since she did whatever my mom told her to.

61
However, when we were growing up, my sister came to me and

told me how she couldn’t stand my mom. Up till now, I haven’t

understood that part about my sister, not liking my mom.

The only reason I comprehend for my sister being

mom’s favorite was that she never snitched and told my mom

things that were happening around the house. This is why my

mom always thought that I was a liar. She thought that I made

things up.

Evil lady dead

Meanwhile, in the middle of my sufferings, one more

thing happened that let an inch of the burden I had off of my

chest. It was again at that time when my grandmother came to

pick me up from my mother’s house. Being a kid, I could easily

get appeased with small chunks of happiness, for example, my

baby uncle (grandma’s baby). I loved to play with him always,

which is why I always looked forward to going to my grandma’s

house.

That particular day when my grandmother picked me up

from my mother’s house, she received the news that the evil lady

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had died. The evil lady had died in the hospital bed at her home,

or should I say, at the house, we were living in. Ironically, my

grandmother looked so happy, and I felt that happiness too.

Good riddance! My grandmother then took me back home with

her to confirm the news and spend some time with the family of

the deceased as a matter of following the customs. When I got

there, my jaw dropped to see the empty bed of that evil lady in

which she would lay in. She really was dead.

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 Chapter 6 – Life with My Step Family

Started elementary school

My elementary school was only a block away from

where I first went. I had the most amazing teacher there that I

would never forget. She knew how to make her students feel

special. The sad part is that it was 1st grade, and I was there only

for a year.

I made different types of friends there and tried my best

to stay away from boys. I was so shy, but eventually, I came

around and made many male friends. At that school, I no longer

felt afraid of men because I learned that not all of them were bad.

It was a great year as I had a lot of fun, along with

studying at that school. I starred in many plays like Jack and the

Beanstalk and Christ’s Birth, in which I performed as the main

angel. I loved doing acting in plays because it made me so

happy.

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 I was such a crybaby that every time I made a mistake at

school, I would cry. I cried on petty things like dropping the food

at lunchtime. I would even cry if someone tried to talk to me or

be my friend. I soon found out that the kids at my school didn’t

like crybabies, so I made up stories like I poked my eye why I

was crying. I was an emotional child; I don’t know why, but I

was always crying. However, I now realize that it was because of

all of the hurt I was carrying inside.

It was a good experience studying in that school because

people made me feel loved there. When the principal Mr. Diaz

came on a round, I would get scared because I thought he would

hurt me. I felt scared because all my childhood, I had been

getting hurt by men, and somehow, I became of the idea that all

men hurt children. So, I had the same thoughts about Mr. Diaz

too. However, to my surprise, he turned out to be a completely

different person. I mean, he had no dirty thoughts like most men

do. He also noticed me that I had a distant behavior with almost

everyone in school. He showed through his subtle behavior that

he was respectful toward little girls and boys. I had a really great

65
experience there because, for once in my life, I felt validated and

loved.

My elementary school was my safe haven. If only I was

allowed to stay there forever, I would surely have. But

unfortunately, I always had to return to the broken and off-white

house.

After elementary school, I went to a private school

owned by my own family - my mom’s older sister. She was a

pastor’s wife, and they both opened up a school in the

neighborhood as a Christian academy. Again, it was the entire

family around there whom I could never trust for opening up to.

As compared to the previous school, it was an entirely different

atmosphere there. The atmosphere at school was a strict one. We

would get paddled if we didn’t learn a verse. Things could get

pretty tough there but it was still my safe haven as anything

away from home would please me.

After a while, I ended up going to a high school, which

was a public school. It was a completely new scenario for me

because I had never been to a public system before. I was, in

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fact, supposed to go to middle school, but then I took a test and

skipped the 8th and 9th grades and went to the 10th grade because

of my sharp mind. I was smaller than the students in sophomore

and senior classes, yet I got along well in studies as I was

advancing educationally.

Here I was again looking for love and attention, and

soon I found friends who gave me what I wanted - attention and

care. So, I went along with them in everything. For instance,

when they didn’t want to go to school, I was in with them.

Instead, we would go hang out at the park or mall and spend time

together having fun.

Since I was getting much care and attention, I was

enjoying even being the brat in school with my friends. You’ll

see further in the book reading about my life story that at many

places, I had done things just to get attention and love. For

example, I married my first husband because his mother gave me

much love and care. She promised me that she would love me if

I married her son. Since I was pining for love and attention, I

somehow married him without thinking it through. So, this was

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my life, looking for love as I had been an unloved child all my

childhood.

The Stepdad

My stepdad was a cruel person with no feelings and

emotions of mercy and love at all. He was way too harsh to the

foster children. There was a time when he physically abused me

because I was starting to stand up to him. He was perverted, a

bully, and he always talked about sexual things. Though he never

sexually molested me, yet he made me feel uncomfortable in my

own house. The way he looked at me made me feel uneasy and

insecure all the time. He used to tell me that I was prettier than

my mom, which made my mother jealous. I was her own

daughter, but she would see me as her rival, and I never really

understood her.

My mom was also a raped child. Her stepdad raped her

at the age of four. She had an indifferent behavior with us, for

which I started to despise her. She was never there for us when

we needed her. However, I now believe that because of the kind

of mother I had and all of the experiences, life has taught me, I

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am a great mother today. Remember that mistakes are a way life

teaches us how to be better. You can always start over and be a

great mother or a better person at any time. Just like I did.

The Stepsister:

My stepsister was a sneak out person. She wanted out

and longed for enjoyments outside the house. When I first met

her, she was a teenager, probably eighteen, when we moved to

live with them. She was a promiscuous girl, always looking for

something to cheer her up. She went after boys to be in a

relationship. Her flirtatious nature led her too far in unethical

activities. After some time, she used to take me out with her as

well. I didn’t know why she would take me with her as I was

only 7.

I saw her do so many things with boys, but surprisingly,

yet when she gave me attention, I loved it because I was willing

to hold on to her. Soon, she started having problems with my

stepdad as he would physically hurt her like punching her in the

face. He did so because he was mad at her for being promiscuous

and sneaking out of the house.

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 She got pregnant when she was just a teenager so she

started living with him. She is a big part of my story because she

was equally cruel like her dad and grandmother when she was

living with us. She was cruel to my brothers and me, and I

couldn’t do anything to save us. She became close to my sister

because my sister had always been a pleaser. When I turned 17,

she turned 25 and became jealous of me because I was still a

virgin. My stepdad always used to compare her to me, which I

never liked.

My stepsister was still promiscuous even after getting

married. One time I went to her house, and she told me to go

with this guy to his house to pick up some things. I was still a

child in my head, so I never understood what she was setting me

up for. When I went to that guy’s house, he tried to rape me. I

tried to scream, but he had a pillow over my face. He was very

rough on me, and it was really awful.

When all of this happened, I went back to her house to

talk to her, but it seemed she already knew what was going to

happen. Yet I wondered how could she not respond to what had

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happened to me and never asked what was wrong with me? I

could see it on her face that she already knew and sent me there

with that guy on purpose. I still wonder what good it would have

brought to her having a guy rape me. Did she not want me to

stay a virgin? I am pretty sure it was the main reason because she

was jealous of me having something she lost years ago. I was

confirmed of the fact later.

I didn’t understand any of this back then, but later in life,

I actually confronted this rapist. I faced him not for what he did

to me but as a stronger person than I was back then. I talked to

him, and he told me that it was my stepsister who told him to do

that to me. Him telling me what actually happened confirmed the

real culprit of the event.

Sneaking out with my stepsister(should we add that I was 7 or 8?

So readers understand)
One weekend when my stepsister was preparing to sneak

out of the house at night, she invited me to go with her. Because

I looked up to her and thought I could trust her, I snuck out with

her that night. The first time I went out with her, I saw her

cruising with a guy she loathed, but she would still hang out with

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him. I think my stepsister just needed someone to love her as she

too was lacking the love from her father, my stepdad. I sat in the

back seat of the car she was in, and they had their windows down

while cruising through the avenue. I was so cold that I wrapped

my little ( I want my readers to understand I was still a little

child) arms around myself. My stepsister’s friend noticed me and

told her that I looked cold, but she did not care about me and was

caught up in her own zone. I felt sleepy apart from freezing. I

looked out the back window and noticed how dark the sky was.

But the light in the streets made things feel a little less scary.

The second time we snuck out to the front of the old

white house. This man was cooler, good looking, and had a big

truck. My stepsister was fascinated by him, which is why they

seemed very sexually attached. I was brave enough to always put

up a smile, even in situations where I didn’t feel comfortable.

But in reality, these things made me feel so scared.

One day I found a letter my stepsister had written. I was

so amazed at her beautiful handwriting, so I decided to keep her

letter. Later, my mother found the letter and asked me, “Did you

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write this?” It was a very sexual letter, but I never read it. (since

I didn’t know cursive at that young age) I just loved the way the

writing looked. Soon, they figured out that it wasn’t me. My

stepsister got punished for that, and the worst punishment I ever

saw her go through was when my stepdad punched her, and she

flew across the table. I heard my mother tell my stepdad to stop.

There was so much yelling in the kitchen that day, which truly

made me feel unsafe.

Step kids with their mother

When the step kids were living with their mother, we

had a little peace in the house as we didn’t have to go through

the molestation or the fighting that was constantly happening

between my stepfather and his daughter. My mother was still

locked in her room with the baby that I later came to know was

my baby brother. I never felt connected with him because my

little brother was always protected in my mother’s room while

we were outside being molested and abused.

This life became normal for me, and so besides all the

hurt and abandonment I felt by my mother, I was still happy for

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the good in my life. I had great friends at my church, which we

attended since I was a little girl. I believe my mother teaching

me about God was the best thing she ever did for me. Because I

now know there was someone else in my life that could possibly

save me and, most importantly, love me unconditionally. I

believe every single thing I learned about God. I would talk to

him whenever I had some time alone. As a child, I never really

understood God’s being, which got stuck in my head. Yet I

believed in Him wholeheartedly.

There were days that I spent alone in my room. It would

start with me talking to God, to beating up my stuffed animals.

Each stuffed animal represented someone that hurt me. I was

barely getting to my teen years, and I already had a whole army

of teddy bears I would beat. I now realize how this worked like

therapy for me. My bear never got beat up for the petty things as

it was mostly always people that sexually or physically abused

me. I would look straight in the bear’s eyes and tell that person

exactly what they did and how they hurt me. I cried so much

with each one until I was done.

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 When my mother or stepdad would enter my room and

find me crying, they always asked me the same question, “Are

you feeling sorry for yourself again?” Didn’t my mother know

the damage she was creating in me? Didn’t she care that her

daughter was crying and hurting inside? Those words scarred me

so badly.

Neighborhood Pool

I also had another safe haven where we were allowed to

go swimming. It was in the neighborhood parks. One time a little

boy of my age came up to me in the pool and asked me if I

wanted to be his girlfriend. I was underage, and his words really

scared me. So, I refused right away. He screamed at me as he

walked away and said, “You just don’t want to be with me

because of my color.” I was so shocked, and I stayed thinking for

a while if this was even true. Was I not wanting to be his

girlfriend because of his dark skin? I asked this question to

myself, which really stayed with me for years to come. I was

known to be gullible, and so this was a way my gullible brain

could make me believe what he said was true.

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Moved while the new house was being built
One day I heard my mother talking to my stepdad about

building a new house. She was so excited, and she told us kids

that we would be moving temporarily while our house would be

built. They named the builder, and we were very excited. Our

new house wasn’t any different because we still had the

pedophile stepbrother, the wild stepsister, and the strict

stepfather with us along with the mother that was mostly absent,

locked in her room with her husband and the baby.

Bike Accident
There was a park down the street that was very familiar

to me. I would swim there in the summers and enjoyed myself.

One day my stepsister invited us to go with her to the park. She

wanted to give two of my siblings a ride on her mountain bike.

On the way, they had a bike accident, which got them hurt badly.

I was so angry because I didn’t know how to react. But I had

already felt like something could happen the way the bike looked

all packed up, but back in those days, it was very normal to give

other people bike rides on handlebars and another standing on

the back tire.

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The Neighborhood

I wasn’t allowed to have friends in the neighborhood

because anybody outside the church would be unacceptable. But

I did make a friend with one girl in the neighborhood because

she used to go to the church with us. That is why we were able to

have her as a friend. This girl was the girl of the world. One day

she called me and told me that she was pregnant. She wanted me

to help her and go talk to her parents. So, I left the house because

she lived across the street. I went to her, and we sat in her room

and talked about how we would tell it to her parents. Then she

told me that she had to take a test first. Actually, I knew nothing

what she was talking about; I was only there to support her.

When I went back home, I went to my room and locked

the door. My stepdad came up to me and started talking to me

explicitly in front of my mom. His words disgusted me. I looked

at my mom and said, “Mom, you’re gonna let him hurt me that

way?” She replied, “what do you expect us to think?” I couldn’t

believe that she let him talk to me that way as dirty as he was.

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 I hated my mom even more after that day because she

somehow brought hurt after hurt to me. I hated her for letting me

hurt like that.

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 Chapter 7 – The New House

When the evil lady died, my stepdad built a new house

for us. In fact, he tore down the old white house and made a new

one in its place. In other words, the old house was demolished

and was renovated. In the meantime, we went somewhere else to

live because of the construction going on in that house.

I was 9 when we shifted into the new house, which had

even bigger rooms that allowed everyone to have their own

personal space. There were six bedrooms and three bathrooms in

that house, having enough space for everyone to fit in and adjust.

However, besides being spacious and cozy, this new

house was still never a safe place for me. I somehow still regret

going there because every bad thing that happened to me or my

siblings occurred later, happened in that very house. Most of

everything besides the molestation events happened in that new

house. This was where the foster children of my mom and

stepdad came to live with us. It was also where the pedophile

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stepbrother became stronger and tried to take advantage of every

situation for his lust. This house was where the stepdad and the

stepbrother played weird games with us and experimented with

bizarre activities.

I was never happy living in that house nor did I ever

feel safe. After everything that we had experienced in life, this

house should have represented a new beginning for us, but for

me, everything was the same. I was still being molested, was

ignored by my mother and my family’s religious lifestyle left me

with no hope for a better future.

My Little Sister

I remember how my sister and I shared a room in that

house. My sister was the most beautiful little girl at the age 7 She

was extremely loving and was always there for me whenever I

felt down and hurt. While we were living in that new house, she

never said anything in return, even if I misbehaved with her.

Being in that house and living with that bunch of people that I

disliked made me sick. This is why sometimes I used to take out

all my anger on her because I knew she wouldn’t say a word.

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Today, I am greatly thankful to my sister for bearing my random

extreme behaviors and recognizing the pain that I was going

through at that very time.

While we were in that house, I remember one time she

got me so mad that I grabbed her by her head and banged it on

the wall. No matter, I regretted it afterward since I was punished

for that violent act of mine. I now think that maybe I deserved it

for hurting my little sister. She was so sweet and loving that she

never complained about my behavior and used to forgive me.

However, after all this time, there is one thing that I

found out later in life. I was shattered to know that during this

whole time that we lived in this new house, my little sister was

being raped by two men in the house. I never knew that she was

experiencing worse than me at the age of 8 because I always

thought I was the only one who was being molested. I was so

caught up in my own hurt, that I failed to realize that my sister

was deeply hurting inside.

Now when I think about her pain, I realize that probably

she was going through more hurt and pain than I was, yet she

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never complained about anything. She never told me what was

going on with her in that house nor the cruel behavior of those

two men in the house. I now regret that I was never there for my

sister as she was for me because I thought that it was my

responsibility to take care of her and protect her from all the

molestation that I was going through. It never occurred to me

that my sister, too could become a victim of their lust and evil

thoughts. For that, I apologize to her if she reads this.

Besides my sister’s extremely calm and loving behavior,

I was actually very mean to her on the other hand. I never came

to realize that my harsh behavior could ruin her feelings and

could destroy her self-esteem. I never thought that my hurting

words could have been killing her inside and would break her

spirit with the passage of time.

I wonder if it is right to think and hold myself

responsible for all the pain she went through the days of her life

living in that particular house? With all the discomfort that she

experienced, I think I was responsible to some extent as I had

made myself her sole protector in the midst of all those

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atrocities. For this, I don’t think that I would ever forgive myself.

My sweet sister, I’m sorry that there was no one to save you

before we lost you forever.

The Stepdad

My stepdad was the type of man that liked to go on

outing trips. Every weekend he would make plans for a drive to

an excursion spot with the entire family. Whatever he was and

however his nature was, there was a part of him that wanted to

enjoy and have a good time with his family. While living in that

house, I remember one very hot and sunny day, he decided to

take us to a canyon.

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 (This is the exact trail)

We packed our stuff, the edibles, the sports gears, and

the camping tools. My stepdad waited for us outside in the car

for us. My sister and I weren’t happy to accompany him on this

trip since there was always a certain sense of unease that we felt

around him. I never trusted the two men in our family, my

stepdad and the stepbrother, as they could do anything,

anywhere. Going on a trip with them felt even scarier, mainly

due to the endless possibilities of hideouts nearby where they

could do anything with us. Despite all the insecurities that my

sister and I felt deep down inside, we still had to go out on that

trip with everyone since we had no option left. So, we got ready

and rode the car, hoping that nothing would happen to us there.

We parked the car at a safe spot and walked many miles

before we arrived at the little lake where we would be camping.

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 (This is the exact area, but it was full of water, up to the top)

After we reached there, everyone took a rest for a while

after a long walk. While everyone else stretched out their legs to

rest, my stepdad's evil mind started cooking some wicked

schemes and tricks that he would try with us kids. What he did

was that he set a blanket on the side of the lake for my mother

and new baby brother while we would stay on the other side of

the sanded lake to rest our feet in the water.

My brother was only 3 years old and was too young to

swim or even dive in the water. My stepdad suddenly came

around my brother, grabbed him, and threw him into the lake.

My little brother was young and didn’t know how to swim. He

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struggled to stay on top of the water and rowed his hands and

legs here and there.

I screamed at my mother, “Mom! please help him; he’s

drowning!” I felt so helpless as I couldn’t do anything to help

him out of the water while I saw it with my own eyes that my

stepdad threw him in the water. I wonder why fate always

seemed to put me in such helpless situations where I had nothing

in my hands. No wonder I always felt powerless, weak,

emptyhanded, resourceless, and unworthy.

Nonetheless, I continued to scream for help since my

brother was no longer coming up for air. I couldn’t see him on

the surface and thought that he had drowned. While I was

thinking that I had lost him, my stepdad went down in the water

from the bridge and pulled him out and up with one hand.

Witnessing the most terrifying event of my life ever and

startled by the horror of the sight I was seeing, I screamed at my

mother and questioned her, “Why did you let him do this to our

brother?” She replied, “It’s not a big deal; he’s just teaching

him how to swim.” I hated my mother more at that moment,

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thinking about how she could be so cold and heartless. How

could she think it was okay for her son to be struggling and

probably terrified from drowning? How could she not feel her

son's fear?

I cried the whole time as I was so hurt that my mother

didn’t do anything to save us once again. And once again, I was

so mad at myself because I couldn't keep him. Such were the acts

that my stepdad used to play on us that almost took our lives. If

my brother had died it that moment, I would have died too with

fear. This was why I never was willing to come along with them

on this trip as I had an intuition that something bad would

happen. So, if it wasn’t me this time, it was my little 5-year-old

brother whom I loved so much.

Life in the So-Called ‘New House’

After moving into the newly renovated house, life

became tougher day after day. It was like we were living in a pet

cage where we had to follow strict rules. We were to follow firm

religious regulations; otherwise, we were held guilty of charges.

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 We had never even gone to a grocery store because my

mom used to say that these places played worldly music that

could distract us. We were only allowed to hear Christian

religious music and were strictly prohibited from watching TV.

Our world became limited and restricted as it only shrank from

the church to our private school. We never went anywhere else.

I didn’t know the world until I was 18 as we spent very

closed-in lives. Whereas, on top of everything that happened to

me while living in that house, I also went through utter distrust

and unbelief of people in me. Thanks to my mom, who

developed such an aura around my innocent but ruined character.

I also experienced extreme helplessness as I never had

anyone to give me any help or positivity. This was because my

mother didn’t let anyone know what was happening in our

house. She made everyone believe that I was a liar. So, everyone

that I turned to for help just put their back on me. Even the

police officers who are supposed to be our protectors didn’t

believe me and left us and didn’t help us.

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 I remember one time I called the police for help; they

came to our house and took everyone out to the living room

while I was taken to my room alone. I talked to them and told

them everything that was going on in our house – rape and child

abuse and molestation. I asked them to help us out as we were in

danger because of all such unethical acts going on in the house.

But at the same moment, right when I was trying to speak out for

help, my mom stepped in and told the policemen that I was a

little crazy and had a habit of making up things to scare people.

She said to them that I enjoyed seeing people thrilled up with

fear and that there was nothing real about whatever I had told

them. It was all a made-up story she told them.

I was crushed and upset at my mother’s unconcerned

and deceitful behavior. I turned to look back at my brothers and

sisters, hoping if there was any one of them who would stand up

and speak for me, but there was no one on my side. Everybody

was scared to speak up for me and tell them that I was not lying.

I felt so alone at that moment as I was the only one standing in

that deep mud. The policemen didn’t believe me and left with no

89
case in hand. I asked for help, not just once but several times,

and the police came to our house many times.

All I can say about that new house was that there was

nothing good about it. Everything that happened to us in that

house, including the molestation, the hurt, and pain, was all

unwanted, and we suffered in vain. It was just a depraved house

that we were stuck in, and there was no one to help us out, not

even my own family.

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 Chapter 8 – Stepdad’s Odds

Living in a family means, along with good habits,

catering to each other’s faults and mistakes. Sometimes, it

becomes difficult when some of the family members’ habits

(especially if they are stepparents or stepsiblings) are a little

weird. We never know how strange they are until we spend time

with them. Some of us grew up doing things that they thought

were normal until the real world knocked them down with the

truth.

Here I want to talk about my stepdad, whom I found

extremely odd of a person to enter our family. My mother met

this person through a dating website. Soon, they decided to get

married, and my mom was happy after a long time, despite the

odd that he was 20 years older than her. Stepfathers are the ones

who enter into a family with a sense of bringing change to the

entire domestic scenario, so was my stepdad. He acted and

expected to be treated more than what he deserved. But he had

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two different types of his personality. Sometimes, he seemed to

be a good and responsible father in many ways; other times, he

acted so stubbornly that he would find ways to get what he

wanted. His weird habits soon started to annoy us, especially me,

as I found it difficult to live with him under one roof. Living

with this weird man and his family was the hardest thing I ever

had to do in my life.

Ever since we started living with them, my siblings and I

were repeatedly molested and sexually abused by our own so-

called family members. It was literally the toughest patch of our

lives that we somehow survived.

My stepdad had always been odd to me since the day I

met him. The first weird thing was that he lied to my mother

about his appearance and age, which was a bizarre thing to

know. I mean, why would someone lie about these two major

components of their personality, especially to a person they are

about to get married?

Over time, I realized that all my stepdad’s family

members seemed to be mentally dysfunctional. One day, our

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stepdad’s sister and her husband were babysitting us and talking

to my brother in the kitchen. As kids, we weren’t allowed to be a

part of conversations among adults, so they told us to leave the

room so we wouldn’t hear the conversation. However, being the

nosiest kid of all, I couldn’t stand there, doing anything. I was

curious to know what they were talking about as it was my

brother on the line. I was peeking through the window as I stood

aside from the wall and saw it all. When my stepdad’s sister’s

husband asked my little five-year-old brother what the pedophile

stepbrother did to him, my brother kept quiet at first, but then the

man extended his leg and asked my brother (to show him what

the pedofile step brother did and my brother got ontop of his leg

and started moving his body up and down) to get on top of it. I

knew from that point that my brother was being molested by the

pedophile stepbrother.

I was so sick and tired of everything happening in the

house. I even tried to call the police many times throughout the

years to help us out of this. I tried to go to people to get help for

us, but nobody believed me. Instead, everybody thought I was a

liar because that was a reputation my mother laid down for me.

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 There was something strange and annoying about my

stepdad’s personality that I never liked. When he threw my

brother into the river, I was standing on a rock, and I couldn’t do

anything for him as I couldn’t swim through. I was helpless and

angry since nothing was in my hands.

The point that my mother was not at all understanding

and helping made me extremely upset. She would never listen to

me or understand what I wanted. I felt like I was all alone in this

world, and there was no one around me that I could talk to or

share my burden with.

Being helpless like this was the most maddening feeling

for me at that time. I used to become furious out of this rage that

I had inside me, that I wanted to just break something or kick

someone down. It was all because I couldn’t express my feelings

of both sadness and anger as I was bound to contain it to myself.

The feelings of hurt and anguish stayed inside my heart because

of which I began to stay sick most of the time.

Since I never had any moral support from anyone neither

at home nor outside, I felt so alone and helpless most of the time.

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For this reason, the only one being I realized might be listening

to me was God. I believed in Him and had faith since I belonged

to a religious family. Therefore, I used to turn to Him at times

when I felt hopeless and despair. I used to ask Him what was

going on with me and why. I tried to find reasons as to why I

was going through such abnormal days in my life. All my

childhood, I had been looking up for answers for the things that

were hard for me to figure out.

I was just a big emotional wreck throughout my whole

childhood. I used to break things and make a mess around only

out of anger. I was hurt and crying all the time.

My stepdad would always make it up to us after being

mean by telling us that we belonged to him and that he could do

anything to us he wanted. He made us feel like we were under

his strict control because we could endure things. He behaved

with us as we were truly his kids, but I knew more than anything

in this world that we all just wanted to be loved.

Some odd activities of my stepdad included grabbing

boys’ private parts like it was a game for him and pulling down

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their shorts, exposing their genital area either in public or at

home. He thought it was so funny and that the boys would start

to get used to it and think that it was just a game. He even

convinced me if it was a fun game after all the boys started to do

that to each other. Things that were shameful and unethical for

normal people were funny and playful for him.

Maybe he was just trying to be playful in a very strange

manner. The one that hated this habit the most was my

grandmother. She hated when my stepdad would pull down her

grown son’s pants in front of everyone. She openly said to him

that he was disgusting and perverted, but he never mended his

ways. This filthy game died down after some years. I never got

traumatized by it because I saw it as a game that men played for

fun.

I never saw my real dad. I had to live with my stepdad,

who, with his weirdest odds, ruined the concept of a father in my

mind. I never received fatherly love for which I always yearned

for. Neither did I receive much care and attention from my own

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mother. This is the reason why I was unable to comprehend what

really a parents’ love was.

I would always look at the normal kids in school and

dream of having a normal family life living with parents and

siblings in a beautiful house. I spent all the days of my childhood

in despair and depravity, which I regret to this day. Now, I

realize I have become a better and stronger person who depends

on no one else for her happiness because of those hardships I

faced in my past.

Despite the odds of my stepdad that disrupted my life in

that house, I still struggled and managed to live in the midst of

all the hurt and torment I went through. Even though I was

unable to save my siblings from the hurt they went through, I am

proud of all those situations as they taught me so much in life

and helped me to become the person I am today.

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 Chapter 9 – The Foster Kids

Having foster kids over at our house was another

shocking event of my tormented childhood. It wasn’t astonishing

in a bad way; instead, the fact that I was already over every bad

thing that was going on with me in that house, I just wasn’t in a

state of mind to accept another striking, intriguing entry in my

life.

I remember that I came home from school one day and

saw a bald little cute baby with a white diaper playing on our

living room floor. I asked my mother who the baby was, and she

explained that they became foster parents of a bunch of kids that

they brought home. I didn’t understand exactly what that meant

but soon realized what she was talking about when more children

arrived at our home to live with us.

I tried to keep my cool seeing them roaming around in

our house so comfortably as it was theirs’s, but I was full of rage

inside. These foster kids had tons of issues that seemed

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insolvable sometimes. One of them was greedy enough to hide

food in his closet. When my mother discovered this, she assured

the kids didn’t have to hide food or feel unsafe in our home.

Unsafe? Really? Oh, Lord! Someone, please tell her that she was

so wrong, I wished. Our house wasn’t a safe place for those kids

as well. They didn’t realize that they had just entered a dungeon

full of monsters. My mother didn’t realize either that it wasn’t

just about the food that she had to be sure about regarding these

foster kids. She never realized that these new kids, too, would be

raped and hurt.

I witnessed the evilest thing around the house when the

pedophile stepbrother told my little step foster sister to run as

fast as she could down our lightly dark hall in our new house. I

was so scared about what was going to happen next. I tried to

suggest another game to the stepbrother because I knew all his

games always hurt someone.

She started running off nicely in the hard-tiled hallway

with a big smile on her face. She even giggled as she ran faster

down our real long hall. As she ran down the hallway, the

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pedophile stepbrother waited halfway down the hall. He

extended his arm to knock her backward so hard that her head hit

the hard-tiled floor. Her eyes started to roll back, and she started

to make grunting noises.

She couldn’t seem to grab her breath as she screamed

and called out for help many times, hoping someone could help

her come back to life. I felt that she was dying since only the

white part of her eyes was visible. Suddenly in a few minutes,

her eyes unrolled again, and she started to shake and cry for help.

I helped her come back to her senses as I lifted her and took her

to the living room. I tapped at her face several times to shake her

come back to her senses. When she was normalized, I told her

how sorry I was for her.

Later, when I was thinking about the incident in my

room that night, I realized that I was scared to face or even fight

back the pedophile stepbrother since I knew now that he could

do anything. When I was consoling the foster sister in the living

room after the incident, he stood there and just laughed, saying

she was faking it. I mean, how rude and cruel of him to even say

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that. It is out of the question of how a little five-year-old girl

could fake almost dying.

I moved her to the living room carpet until she felt the

strength to get up on her feet. I called out to God, saying, “Please

God! Save us!” And that became my famous word to God.

My little foster sister got raped

The pedophile stepbrother was the real and main culprit

of all the evils being done to us inside the house. I remember one

day; he was acting very funny with me. He would chase me

around the new house and get behind me to rub his hard-private

part on me. I was so afraid. Every time I got out of his clutches,

he caught me again and groped me. I tried to get away, but he

kept trying harder to rub it off against me. I was hurt with the

pain I felt at that moment, but no one could help me out of this. I

now realize that if I was there to help my brother and sister in

any possible way, I could; why wasn’t there anyone for me when

I needed help. It is such a sad reality that I still pity upon.

I remember that day when I ran off from the stepbrother;

I reached the courtyard and saw my mother leaving the house.

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She was going to work, and my stepfather was on his way to a

graduation party. I knew if I called out my mother for help, she

would never understand me and would rather diss me to the core.

So, I started begging my stepdad to please take me with him.

Sadly, he didn’t realize either, and they both left me on my own

to be the victim to the pedophile stepbrother.

None of my ‘so-called’ parents apprehended the fear I

felt inside but rather chose to turn a blind eye on me. As I was

thinking all of this about my ill fate, my stepdad returned from

the door and told me that I could go with him. I was more than

happy as I felt that my life was spared and I was saved.

Later that day, I felt a weird vibe right from the entrance

when I got back home. As I walked inside, I could feel

something wasn’t right. I walked to my room and saw my little

5-year-old foster sister lying in a fetal position. I calmly asked

her what was wrong with her. I asked her if she had done

something when I was gone. She told me that our stepbrother

had squished her and then wiped her off with a sock. I

understood everything at once except the part where he wiped

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her off with a sock. I didn’t understand what that meant until

later in life.

At that particular moment, I only knew that he had hurt

her. I got enraged and felt my adrenaline rushing through my

veins. I didn’t care what would happen next as I went up straight

to my stepbrother’s room. I knocked on his door so hard like I

was about to break it. I had so much hate in my heart for him and

wanted all of this to just stop.

I was crushed to my bones, thinking how could he hurt a

little girl that bad who had already been raped by her father. She

was supposed to be safe in our home, but thanks to our mom,

who unknowingly brought her here in another pit hole of

molestations and abuses.

I felt so helpless and so worthless for not being able to

help her. Why didn’t I think that there was a possibility that he

would hurt her when I left with the stepdad in the morning? Why

didn’t my mind remind me how he started to abuse us at a tender

age? I was enraged, thinking about all the possibilities that could

have saved her. My stepfather came rushing out of his bedroom

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after listening to the banging on my stepbrother’s room door. He

yanked me into his room, where he pushed me with his two

hands to the floor. I got up every time until he kept saying, “You

think you’re brave now?”

But I was also so hurt and angry at the same time that I

wanted to kill the pedophile stepbrother. I was so full of rage at

him that I didn’t even feel the pain of the spanking my stepdad

was giving me. I was punished and sent back to my room. When

I went back to my room, my foster sister laid there in the same

position; I left her in and was sobbing quietly. I couldn’t look at

her as I felt so helpless. How could I help her? I wondered.

I hate myself for that to this day as I feel the burden on

my chest for not saving her. She copied me as she wanted to be

just like me. She copied my hairstyle, eating style, way of

talking, and almost everything that she found fascinating. She

tried to be like me as she was trying to find a savior in me or

someone who could protect her. At the same time, my only goal

was not to let her be like me.

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 I felt that if she became like me, she would have to go

through the things I went through. I had to make her tough by

making her hate me so much that she wouldn’t grow up to be

like me. For that, I started being rude to her as I was always

scolding her telling her how to sit and eat properly. I became her

tormentor instead of her mentor, but I never broke her spirit

apart. She loved me no matter what I did to her, for which to this

day, I am thankful to her.

I was so helpless that I couldn’t make her stand up

against me. Why did the state choose us to care for these

children, and how could they make such a huge mistake? The

state was trying to save them from their sexually abusive home.

But they never knew that they sent them right into another

sexually abusive home.

We were good actors as we always played the perfect

family. We were apparently the “good Christian people of faith”.

We never watched TV or were even allowed to hear worldly

music. Our social life revolved only around our church and our

private Christian school. Everyone knew my mother, who

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wanted to be a good, Christian woman. However, my stepdad

was the opposite of faith. He was not very religious and had a

weird sense of humor. My mother was blind when it came to him

and would always defend him towards us; it was her blind belief

that he would become a changed man. For once in my life later, I

realized that she was right as he later died a born-again Christian.

My soul had so much hate in it that it became unbearable

sometimes to hold it in. Therefore, I wanted to take out my anger

on certain nonliving things such as my stuffed toys, by hitting

them hard. I hated my mother because she was supposed to

defend us, but she never. However, during my teenage years, I

understood that she had me at a young age, and she regretted it.

She did wrong to me when I was little, so I could understand that

maybe she was inexperienced and immature when she gave birth

to me.

But now, I wonder what her excuse was. Why weren’t

we important to her like her new husband. Mother, we only had

you. How could you let us down this way and later play the

victim?

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 Sometimes I think that whatever happened to my

siblings or me in that house had a purpose. I feel it because now

I can see how my story, in fact, our story, will help many of you

out there. I hope that the things I have been through in my life

will be a lesson for my readers as it will help them be aware of

similar situations.

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 Chapter 10 – The Christian School and

the Summer

Going to a Christian school somehow started a new

chapter in my life. Believe it or not, I found this school a bit

safer and a peaceful place than the last schools I went to. I knew

that the kids here wouldn’t bully me or behave like those in my

previous schools. Since it was a Christian school, I believed that

bad things were less likely to happen to me. So, I was a bit

relaxed.

The Christian School

So, at age 10, I attended a Christian school that was

attached to the church we went to. I loved being there as it

brought me peace. In fact, my school became a safer and more

peaceful place for me than my own home. At least, I didn’t have

to remain on my toes when I was at school to save myself from

men who were always looking for chances to take advantage of

me.

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 I looked up to my two aunts there - my aunt and my

sweet teacher. My aunt, also the pastor’s wife, managed

everything in the church and school. She was a solid woman,

committed, and determined to whatever she did. I admired her

long black curly hair and beautiful green eyes. Actually, I always

imagined myself to be like her. She was emotionally strong, too,

that nobody could ever hurt her with their attitudes. She dealt

with every situation with composure and boldness.

Again, I found myself building a castle in the air. Soon,

my admiration for her washed away. She accused me of liking

my own cousin, of course, who was her son. I never felt that way

for him. I always considered him my best friend. But he was

indeed a promiscuous boy, always finding chances to kiss all the

girls in school while I used to be the lookout. He wasn’t even my

type, so I was in shock at her allegation.

Some situations seemed to be sexually uncomfortable

for both of us, but we never did any “girlfriend-boyfriend” thing.

Maybe, my closeness made him feel that way, but I never meant

it. I never gave him any signals to come near me or any false

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hopes to be his girl. It was never more than a usual platonic hug

between us. However, my aunt got the wrong impression.

One day, he said, “You like me more than just a cousin,

don’t you?” He forced me to admit that I liked him as well and

got angry at my denial. He never realized he hurt my feelings

badly. Actually, he made me feel so dirty, like a pedophile,

because he never understood that my intentions and feelings

were clean. To this day, I can’t understand what it is with men

that nudges them to aggravate women to be with them. Is it only

by force they think they can get everything?

Life went on, and we were no longer close. But I still felt

the urge to be with him when I felt so lost. That event tarnished

my sanctuary. Once again, I was left alone in the middle of

nowhere to face things on my own. I never understood why, at

one time, there were people around me, who wanted to be there

for me, and then suddenly, they were nowhere to be seen.

Amid this loneliness, I found my solace in school games.

I started to take an interest in volleyball. Soon, I became one of

the star players on the team since I gave it my absolute attention

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to divert my mind from those scattered thoughts. We won almost

every other match, all thanks to our coach, who was tough and

determined. It was really her effort that brought out our A-game.

She trained us with different exercises to help us stay fit. When I

wasn’t playing the game, I played my cheerleader role for our

basketball team. Those were the good times of my life, but no

matter how hard I tried to keep myself busy at games and

studies, I couldn’t get over the days I spent with my best cousin.

And yet here I was, no longer happy after the whole ordeal with

him.

During the Summer

For many summers, when school was out, my mother

would rope us off with my great grandmother in Mexico. We

were excited whenever we visited her since we had so many

things to do and explore. There was food, parks, restaurants, and

more that we always loved to go to. We had the best time there.

My grandmother was like the Santa Claus of her town.

She helped and clothed the needy. There was a huge room in her

house where she stored alms. She was a God-fearing lady who

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lived by faith. However, my uncles would always be upset with

her because she even let many strangers stay at her house. She

was more into philanthropic deeds, always being content with

whatever she did for others.

Being annoyed at grandma’s philanthropic deeds, my

uncles built a separate house for her. This house was big enough

that we all had separate rooms to sleep in whenever we would go

over in the summers. Since she truly lived for others, she

donated it and settled in a small house. When I asked her about

it, she said that the real riches are kept in heaven. I couldn’t

understand it back then. Now, when I recall what she said to me

that day, I realize that she was right. She was always giving, and

I follow in her footsteps in this regard. I never miss a chance to

be there for people who need my help.

Sometimes, my second cousins also dropped off since

most of that side of the family lived there. My mother’s uncles

lived next door to my great-grandmother. They occasionally

asked me to read instructions on bottles because they were in

English. My Spanish was horrible, but I pretended to understand

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when the adults spoke to me in Spanish. At least, my second

cousins knew English, so it was a relief to be interacting with

them without difficulty.

We had many great summers there. My great-

grandmother always ensured our safety. She took us to her

church, which was different from ours back home. Sometimes,

the worships were kind of annoying(can we change this) because

of unsynced hymn singing and clapping. I still enjoyed it as I

loved to sing to God and worship Him.

Even though I had experienced so much at my young

age, I never stopped loving God. I had a firm faith in Him

because I knew that it was only Him who was always there for

me, listening to me and watching my tears. No matter what

happened to me as a child, I never whined against God. I never

complained about what I was going through at such a tender age

when all other kids were enjoying a carefree life. I trusted Him

as He made me believe that all of this would pass.

I kept my faith in Him; here I am today - a better person.

It wasn’t like I never knew God or was unaware of His miracles

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because I already belonged to an ardently religious family. It was

just that I needed to deviate from my belief because of the

extreme hurt that people gave me. I might have trust issues with

people around me, including my mother and my stepdad, but I

have never stopped believing in God. My faith in Him is firm.

This reminds me of a girl that I met in a church in

Mexico. She invited me to come to her house to play with her. I

was so happy to be visiting her because I thought I finally made

a new friend in a new place. It was always pretty exciting for me

to meet new people. So, I went to her house, and we started

playing in her room.

We started playing UNO first because she liked card

games. She took out all the cards, shuffled, and divided them.

Amid the game, a harsh door knock interrupted us. We looked at

the door, wondering who it could be. Suddenly, a man rushed

into the room and threw himself on the couch. I was shocked at

his audacity of entering a girls’ room without any hesitation.

He leered at me with an evil grin as if he was about to

eat me. That evil look scared me, causing feelings of insecurity

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and discomfort. (my little friend and I tried to run out of the run

but only she made it out)The moment I wanted to run out of the

room, he grabbed my hand and held me back. Before I could

scream, he held me tightly and harshly and put his hand on my

mouth to suppress my voice. I could hardly breathe. I was

scared, knowing that something bad was going to happen to me

once again.

He held me and started removing my clothes with his

full physical force. “I’m not going to let this man hurt me.” The

thought echoed in my mind; despite being vulnerable, I decided

to fight back. Thus, I mustered all my strength to use my full

energy against him. I don’t know how I forced him and how I

became that powerful enough, but I kept holding my clothes and

didn’t let him pull down my pants. As a kid, I never understood

where that energy had come from at that moment when I was

struggling for myself. I held on to my sanity and was successful

in running out of his clutches.

I didn’t understand what he was trying to do with me

except that he was hurting me. That little girl (was nowhere in

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sight) stood frozen and scared in the corner. I know she wasn’t

able to do anything to help me. Luckily, this time, I saved myself

and ran to my great-grandma. But I never told about that incident

to anyone.

The behavioral changes of my mother

When I returned home from my great-grandmother, my

mother was very happy to see me. Seeing my mother that happy

surprised me greatly as I had never seen her that happy before in

my life. I was also glad to see my mom happy because she had

never shown me such a loving attitude before. As soon as I

entered the house, she took my bag from me, put it down on the

floor, and sat me down beside her on the dining table. She asked

me how my stay was, and boy was I shocked to hear her ask me

that question! I was so happy that I couldn’t believe myself if it

was really my self-centric, egoistic, and selfish mother talking to

me showing concern.

I told her about all the fun and exciting things we did.

For once in my life, I fell in love with my mother, seeing that

beautiful sight of her resting her face in her palm, listening to

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every word I was saying. I didn’t want to stop talking about

grandma’s house as I was so pleased to be spending that time

with my mother. For the first time in my life, I felt at peace as I

had all her attention. This was the most special moment for me,

and I was not going to let that go.

When I felt that I had no more stories to tell, I started to

tell her how hungry I was at that time. I wanted to know if she

still cared about me. Instead, she told me to be quiet because she

had already heard me the first time. It was surprising how she

became annoyed at once, and our time together ended up getting

cut short. This sudden shift in her mood once again shocked me;

I was heartbroken and shattered from inside.

My mother had severe mood swings sometimes as if she

had no control over her emotions. She could be happy in a

minute, and the next moment she was annoyed and angry. Her

behavior became extensively rude to me when I got irritated and

went to my room upstairs. I sobbed that night like I always did

when she rejected me. It is out of question how I could produce

so many tears as I cried my entire life. I was heartbroken,

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shattered, deeply, and brutally hurt because of my mother’s rude

behavior. However, unfortunately, she never knew how I felt,

which was okay with me. Because even if she would, she would

never realize her mistake or would do anything to console me.

The Pedophile Returned

The day came when the pedophile was sent back to his

mother’s house because of molesting the children. It was the best

day of my life. I thought that God had finally answered my

prayers and that my parents did something good for us.

However, the happiness didn’t last long; within that same year,

the pedophile stepbrother was back in the house. I was so

shocked when I reached home from school and found him

standing in our hallway. Fear set inside me once again because I

had thought it was over, but it wasn’t.

I rushed to my mother for answers, and she began to

calm us down. She told us that he prayed and asked for

forgiveness. She said that he would never do that again and that

we should not be worried about that.

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 Mom had said the same thing about her husband, our

stepdad. But he never changed; instead, he got worse. He made

up this game for us, where he made us all stand in a circle in our

backyard and swung an empty paint bucket as he turned in the

middle of the circle. He would let go out the bucket and whoever

got hit was out. It was a very cruel and dangerous game he

played with us. But that’s how crazy and evil he was. He was the

cruelest to my little stepsister; once he stuck a broomstick in her

private area while she was jumping up and down. He hurt her so

badly that she felt pain in her private part for days. But I was too

afraid to say anything to my mom and my stepdad. Often, they

made me confront the people who harmed me and then take their

side, saying that I was a liar. I also feared the pedophile

stepbrother because I knew it would be worse for me if I told

them the truth.

So, I came up with a plan. I asked my little foster sister

to tell our parents that I had hurt her private area. I thought they

would send her away, and she would be safe. I thought they

would be scared to be judged by what kind of daughter they had

that they would rather send her away, so she wouldn’t tell the

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caseworker about it. But my plan failed. When she told our

parents, they told her to stop lying and go to her room. I still

don’t think that my little foster sister knew exactly what she was

telling them. She was giggling as she told them what I had asked

her to repeat, which is why they didn’t take her seriously.

My Aunt’s Visit in the Summers

My aunt came to live with us during that summer. She

has always been my favorite aunt until this day. I am not sure if

she knew what all of us children had gone through in that house

before her arrival. But while she was there, nothing happened -

no sexual and abusive behaviors, no screaming or spanking with

the thick black belt, simply nothing.

But one day, when she left for the weekend, the

pedophile was at it again. I don’t know exactly what he did to

my 3-year-old foster brother when he locked him in his room. I

could only suspect by the way they would come out of the room

with their red faces and tears running? down their eyes.

After the long weekend, when my aunt showed up very

happy, I was so rude to her. I blamed her for not being there for

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me because I knew that the foster children wouldn’t have been

hurt if she were there. She noticed my rude attitude toward her,

but I didn’t care. I firmly believed that she was the one to blame.

I have now realized that it was not her fault back then,

but as a teenager, that’s how my mind worked. I only needed to

blame someone. She didn’t last that long, and I thank God for

that; my little cousin could have been hurt too with time. She

made a smart decision to move out.

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 Chapter 11 – A 12-Year-Old Questioned

God

It is natural to ask questions when we face unpredicted

situations. Coming to God, the author of our lives, asking

questions and showing concerns is, of course, not wrong. But I

never understood this truth as a kid. I always thought that it was

nearly a sin to question God about anything. I believed we are

His creation and are not allowed to question His ways and grieve

over our miseries.

Now, as an adult, I realize that I was not right, and there

is no harm in asking questions to God. I also think that the kind

of question I wanted to ask God might be offensive to Him,

bringing me His wrath. Well, I was already under the wrath of

people in my surroundings, no matter if they were relatives or

strangers. So, I thought I could not afford to be under the wrath

of God. The thought always scared me to ask Him. Yet the pain I

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was going through back then as a kid pushed me to take my hurts

to the altar.

I was just fed up with everything going on in my life. I

heard that God loves children, but when I looked at my own

situation, I wondered if God really loves children.

If He really loves children, why was all that happening

to my siblings and me? I was so confused. I had nowhere to go,

and no one to ask. There was no one to clear up my ill thoughts.

I wanted to believe in God, but my endless miseries

were pushing me away from my faith. Strange voices echoed in

my mind that caused aggravated my confusion.

One of the voices told me, “There is no God; if there

were, He would have never let you get hurt.”

The other voice affirmed me, “God is always there for

you. He is watching over you and the pains you are going

through.”

I was confused about what voice to listen to; sometimes,

I just wanted to let everything and everyone go and be alone, but

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I never was. Since we belonged to a Christian family with good

faith, I never stopped believing in God. I knew that the other

distracting voice was the voice of our adversary, Satan, and I

better not entertain it. So, the only option was to turn to my one

and only Lord God whom I always had faith in. Thus, I decided

to ask God everything to let all the confusion go.

I was 12 when I questioned God’s existence, but I kept it

to myself. That day I went to church, and when the pastor called

us all to the altar to pray, I kneeled on one side of the very large

altar. I closed my eyes and brought my fingers together in a

praying position, and asked God if He was real. I right away

said:

“Please, forgive me if I should be asking this question;

Lord, right now, it's so important. If you could send me

a sign that you are real.”

I didn’t want to get up until I knew for sure the answer.

My eyes were so tightly closed. I squeezed my fingers between

each other tightly and pleaded with God to send me a sign and

also forgive me for asking.

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 I was fighting within myself because I was scared of

being punished as I had been told that we were not to question

God. We were also taught that we always needed to fear Him,

but I took the chance anyway. I got this sharp pain in the middle

of my forehead, but I didn’t stop praying and asking God to hear

my cry. All of a sudden, I felt like someone poured warm water

over my head and throughout my body. It didn’t feel like I was

wet, but just the flow of it was what I felt. I knew at that moment

that it was God’s sign to me that He was real and that He was

with me.

When that feeling was gone, I tried to get up, but my

legs were asleep, so I sat on my side until the feeling of my legs

subsided. I was so happy that God answered me. Even if I

wanted to deny God’s existence, I would not be able to because

He showed me, He is real. I felt so special that out of millions of

people, He answered my question and prayer. Soon after I got

baptized, I wanted to be ready just in case God came for His

people as I was taught this was the way to really be saved.

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 I became more involved in my church activities and

started to trust the people at my church. I really was convinced

that the church was my sanctuary and my safe place. One day, it

was a service only for children, and I felt I had the opportunity to

get help. So, I confided in one of the women in the church. I told

her a little about the abuse we were going through. Instead of

consoling me, she alerted my parents by phone of what I said.

So, I lost trust in her and changed the story.

I got scared because that lady told my parents that I

complained about my family. I was sure that I would get a

spanking at home from either the pedophile stepbrother or my

stepdad’s thick black cop belt. I felt scared and hoped that they

would see through my lie. When I got home, I heard my mother

assured them there was nothing wrong with me being a liar as I

liked to make up stories. So, they gave up on me. I then stood

there in the corner of the room, thinking, “Was anyone ever

going to save us?”

That summer, I went to Mexico again to my great-

grandma. I loved it over there. I was so excited to see all the

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cousins and family members from my mother’s side. This time

when I went there, my great grandma took me to this old, faded

color house. It had a large cooler hanging out the window. I

thought maybe this could be one of the brother’s or sister’s

homes from her church.

My great grandmother was in a tiny kitchen, serving

coffee to another old lady. They talked and talked until the sun

went down. I was waiting in the dusty living room for my

grandma to finish talking so we could go to her house. It got very

late, and suddenly I heard the lady tell my grandma that she

should go home. I was confused because I thought we were in

her home.

So, the lady said goodbye to me and left. Being

surprised, I asked my grandma if we were leaving yet to her

house. She laughed and said, “You are in my house.” I thought

she was kidding because her house was huge, with many

bedrooms, much cleaner and newer. I said, “Let’s go. I’m getting

sleepy.”

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 With a sterner voice, she said, “This is my house.” I

asked her surprisingly, “What happened to your other house?” At

which she said, “I sold it to buy the church.”

I was shocked, but I knew this old lady would give the

clothing off her back if she needed to. So, I believed her.

That night I slept in her bed. The big cooler sticking out

the house I saw as I came first blew nice and cool air on us all

night. I slept like a baby. I always felt safe and happy when I was

with my grandma.

The next morning, she got up and made herself coffee. I

noticed she was drinking coffee from a cup that had a broken

handle. While on top of her counter, she had a box full of a

brand-new set of dishes and cups. I asked her who had given her

that. She said, “Your uncle bought that for me the other day.”

But she was saving it for someone at her church that she felt

needed it more than her.

She was an incredible woman with a heart of gold. My

great-grandma asked me to get dressed since she would be

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having company over. I dressed up, and a few minutes later, a

lady came.

My great grandmother grabbed her keys and took her to

a locked room where she kept canned goods, clothing, and house

items. She had like a mini-store in that room, and people that

went inside that room always came out with bags of stuff. I saw

how happy and blessed people felt after they left my

grandmother’s house. I really admired her for that. I really

wanted to be just like her and help the needy. I was convinced

that my mission would be to make people happy.

That summer was not like other summers. We were on a

different side of the town; we were on the poor side of town. So,

I didn’t get to see my cousin stop much that summer. But I did

meet a new friend. She was my age. We had a lot in common.

We both liked to sing and make jokes.

One day, she came to my great-grandmother’s house

and asked for permission if I could go play at her house. My

great-grandmother said that it would be okay, but she needed me

back by dinner time.

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 It was just around the corner, so I knew it wouldn’t take

me that long to get back. Her place was a two-story house. As I

walked inside, it was different for me because there was hardly

any furniture. It also seemed that they didn’t have electricity. It

was understandable since it was the poor side of town. And as a

kid, those things really didn’t bother me as I was just happy to be

playing with my new friend.

She asked me if I wanted to play hide-and-seek. I said,

“Yes. Why don’t you count and I hide?” So, in the same room,

where we started the game, I hid behind the bed. Right away, she

found me, and we were laughing. She was laughing more at me

because she couldn’t believe I picked such an easy spot.

Our laughter disrupted when her brother walked in and

asked what the noise was all about. I could see she was afraid,

and that scared me too. She said, “We were playing hide-and-

seek. We will be quieter.” He asked, “Who counted and who

hid?” She said, “I counted, and she hid,” pointing at me.

He looked at me and asked, “Where did you hide?” I

said, “Behind the bed.”

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 He asked me to show him the spot. So, I walked over to

the spot where I hid.

He walked up to me and pushed my head down to show

him how I was hiding behind the bed. I struggled to free myself.

He grabbed me by my skirt and tried to rip it off to pull

down my underwear. It was obvious that he wanted to rape me.

My friend screamed and told him to leave me alone. He hit her

because she was yelling. In the meantime, I was able to set

myself free and run away. I ran as fast as I could to my great-

grandma’s house. I was safe back at my grandma’s home; I

didn’t tell her what had happened to me. I neither saw my friend

again nor went back to her house.

I think of it now with so many children missing in

Mexico. Could that have been her abductor and not her brother?

It seems so weird to me now that the whole day I was there and

neither of her parents showed up. The home was so empty with

no signs that a family lived there. At this moment, I pray to God

that it’s not too late and send her an Angel wherever she might

be, even if he is not her abductor.

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 She was still living with the rapist brother. I just pray

that he never did anything to her. I’ve never told anyone about

this incident until now. What you can learn from this incident is

that never let your child go to any house that you don’t know.

Also, ensure that you stay in communication with the parents

your children are hanging around.

I was sad for a few following days, and my great-

grandmother noticed it.

She asked, “Has anyone hurt you?”

The first thing that came to my mind was everything that

was happening to us back home in the United States. She told me

that I could trust her and tell her if anyone was hurting me. I felt

I could trust her, and I told her what the pedophile stepbrother

was doing to all of us.

When the summer was almost up, and my mom wanted

to come to pick us up, my grandmother told my mother that there

was no way she was going to return us to her. She told her she

knew about what the pedophile stepbrother was doing. She

scolded her that she couldn’t believe that my mother was a

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person who was abused and would let the same thing happen to

her kids.

Like always between my mother and my grandmother,

they convinced my great-grandmother that I was a liar and

everything that came out of my mouth was a blatant lie. So, my

grandmother had no choice but to let us go. It became such a big

deal when I got home.

My mom said, “Whatever happens in our house stays in

our house. It’s nobody’s business what happens under our roof.”

At my age right now, I do agree that what happens under

your roof should only be the business of those under that same

roof. But then, if something is happening and there is no help

from anyone, I believe it’s OK to get help from outside.

My stepdad had this list that he called “Shit List.” Every

time we didn’t do what he said, if we crossed him or disobeyed

him, he would put us on that list. When we were on the list, any

child of the house could cuss at us or hit us. He pretty much did

anything he wanted to do. I was mostly on the shit list because I

would purposely disobey my stepfather to be added to the list. I

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felt I was stronger and could handle more than my siblings and

foster brothers and sisters. I couldn’t bear to see them be on the

shit list.

Thinking of it now makes me realize how sadistic my

stepfather really was. How could he find joy in hurting people?

Where was his heart? Didn’t he feel their pain?

One time I heard him changing one of my baby foster

brother’s diaper. My little brother just kept crying and crying.

So, I had to go and see what was happening there. I saw my

stepfather take off my little foster brothers’ diaper and smeared

right on his face. It made the baby cry even more.

I can’t describe what I felt at his cruel act. The biggest

sadness came over me because I was a witness to how these

children in this house were suffering at the hands of the adults.

Once my stepsister forcefully put a dress on my brother when he

was five and threw him outside for everyone to see. She wanted

to humiliate him, and she did it in the worst way. He cried so

much, trying to find a way to get back into the house.

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 Like father, like son and daughter! They were all the

same evil people. To top it off, she would call him blacky. Those

words hurt my brother so much. He carried those words through

his life. To this day, I truly don’t believe that my brother was

healed from everything he went through. How could he be? That

was so much for such a little boy.

Whatever I had been through in my childhood was way

too much for me to bear. Our stepfamily was constantly abusing

my brother, sister, and me. But when the hurt reached the

extreme, I turned to God whom I had always believed in.

Whatever I had been through in my childhood never affected my

faith in Him.

Although I knew He was always there by my side

watching me but still when I was pushed under with hurt, I used

to lose firmness in my belief. But then, something used to pull

me back inside that would help me gather myself up and think

that “Yes, there is God.” As I said earlier, the excruciating pain

pushed me to my limits and ask God if He ever existed. Luckily,

I got my answer from Him and felt His presence.

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 I am a saved soul now, and I want every suffering soul

to be saved and delivered. I hope my works and words can help

all other souls, victimized by sexual and family abuse. I want to

bring awareness to people out there to be very careful about

people and situations where they can get caught. However, you

should never lose hope and faith in God because we are nothing

without Him.

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 Chapter 12 – Becoming Mean

Becoming mean to people around you is an act of taking

out your frustration. The reason for such behavior could be a

lack of emotional control or the ability to control the anger. This

is what happened to me as a kid. At such a tender age, I went

through so much pain in my life that I became a baffled and

bedeviled child. I had gathered so much anger inside of me that

it turned me into the meanest girl in town. I was agitated and

annoyed from inside that sometimes it came out first on my face

and then in my attitude.

I became a mean person to my friends and even my

family because I thought this was the best remedy to fight back

all the odds in my life. As my anger grew, I started to take it out

on backstabbing friends who would betray me with minimal

things. I had reached a state where not even the slightest mistake

or lies against me aggravated me to the extent that I would

become furious, wanting to avenge people who offended me.

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Sometimes, I would go behind their backs and set them up just to

teach them a lesson not to upset me again.

I had become verbally abusive and even learned bad

words from my stepdad. I grew up listening to those cuss words

that came out of my stepdad’s mouth, but I never dared to say

them out loud with my own tongue. But now it was that time for

me where I didn’t feel ashamed of using that abusive language

with anyone.

I had a friend who once lied to me. The story goes like

this:

I met a girl, Stacie, in church, and we got so close that

she shared all her secrets with me. She was a very nice-looking

girl, so boys always followed. Not that I was a little bit jealous of

her, I really just didn’t like how she seduced other boys while

she had a boyfriend.

Stacie was a blue-eyed blonde with curled locks. She

always wore short clothing like miniskirts and crop tops. We

were nothing like each other. When I recall those days, I wonder

how in the world we became friends. She was a hot chic, an

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attractive uptown girl, while I was a dorkerella with no good

looks. Somehow, we became friends.

Our friendship started when we came across in the

church restroom. I heard her crying in the toilet hat made me

curious to see who that was. I can’t say if I had a kind heart back

then or mean at the same time, but I could feel others’ pain. I

heard someone sobbing inside, so I knocked on the toilet door,

following the voice.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

The girl kept crying and didn’t answer me. I asked again,

“Can I help you, miss?”

She came out, almost smashing the door open on my

face. I moved back, saving myself from hitting the door. She

came out crying while all her mascara was smudged and covered

half of her face. She started washing her facing in the sink.

“Is everything okay with you?” I asked her again.

She kept splashing water on her face. After a few more

splashes, she closed the tap, grabbed a tissue and started wiping

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off the mascara. I stood there, looking at her. I thought she might

need my help. While she wiped off her eyes, she suddenly

stopped and turned around to look at me, face-to-face. Her gaze

scare me a little, while I was already thinking how she would

react to me.

“Are all boys like that? Why do they always have to hurt

the girl? Why? I mean, why?” Looking at me, she said in a shaky

voice and she started crying again.

Her questions made me even more uncomfortable. I had

no idea how to answer her. I had no love life or heartbreaking

experience. How could I answer her about it all?

She started to cry again, hiding her face with her hands. I

got closer to her, this time without any hesitation, because I felt

she really needed my help. I held her by the hand and took her

out to the church garden. The service was going on, but I found

it better to let her sit outside for a while. I don’t know why, but I

started to empathize with her. I could feel the hurt that she was

going through at that moment, and probably I could relate to her.

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 I gave her a tissue to wipe off her tears and said, “It’s

okay. You can tell me whatever it is. I’m here to listen to you.”

Hearing me say these words, she at once stopped crying and

turned to me as if she heard me loud and clear. I was amazed at

her reaction as if she had been longing for someone to hear her

out. She started to pour her heart out to me. We talked for almost

an hour discussing that her boyfriend had left her for another

girl.

She told me how it all started between them and

everything else. She was so open about everything that even I, at

some point, felt a little uncomfortable hearing about some

private things between them. Listening to her story, I wondered

how these men or even boys actually function by hurting others.

I could tell this because I had been a victim of their evil doings

as well, both physically and emotionally.

When she finished talking, it was almost time for the

church to get over too. Before we departed, I told her that her

secrets were safe with me. I saw that peace in her eyes when she

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hugged me as if she was screaming for me to be her friend. I

gave her a smile, and we left.

The next Sunday, when we met again at church, she

seemed to be already waiting for me. I was pretty happy to have

found such attention where someone longed to see me. The

moment she saw me, she ran toward me excitedly and hugged

me. I hugged her back, and since then we became such good

friends.

We used to meet every day after school and shared

everything. After meeting Stacie, I thought that I had finally

found my bestest friend in her with whom I could share

everything. But I guess, once again, I was wrong. One day, she

was over my house and told me that her new boyfriend from

church had been kind of worse toward her. She told me that he

mistreated her and forced her to have sex most of the time.

The type of friend I was, what else I could do than to

console her. I really felt worried for her because I didn’t want

her to get hurt once again. I wasn’t even afraid to stand up and

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fight for her. So, I told her not to worry while I thought how I

could make sure to keep him away from Stacie.

One day, when we both met that guy at church, I took

him to the corner and warned him to stay away from Stacie or

else I would break his bones in front of people on the street. I

never realized he was actually a nice guy; he couldn’t stand my

attitude and he didn’t come around Stacie when I was there.

After some time, Stacie started to date my cousin, who

was in another state. At first, I was a little uncomfortable with

her talking about my cousin that she wanted to date him. I was

actually the one who introduced him to her, which later I realized

that I had made a mistake.

Anyway, for now, I was happy for her because I thought

this was how she could recover the hurt she had been through

from her last boyfriend. I supported her new relationship because

I knew he would not hurt her as he was a good person. I even

made arrangements for their secret meetups. All in all, I tried my

best to be always there for her as a loyal friend.

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 One day at church, when I went to the ladies’ room, I

saw Stacie chatting with the same guy from church she had

broken up with a few days back. I wondered to myself, “Is this

the same guy she broke up with?” My eyes went contracting and

expanding to make sure that they were looking at the same

person. I wasn’t sure at first when I saw them both from afar. So,

I moved closer, and to my dismay, it was him.

“Shoot! Is she back with him again?” This was the first

thing that came to my mind seeing the two of them together.

“What about my cousin in West Alabama?” I thought about that

poor guy. But she seemed to be not caring about anything else in

the world other than her own present.

While I gathered my thoughts and turned around to go

back, she called me from behind, “Hey, you! Not that fast, girl.”

I turned around. Yes, it was her, Stacie, whom I once called my

best friend. When I came eye-to-eye with her, she started

bashing me with her harsh words. She said, “Why the hell did

you think my boyfriend tried to rape me?”

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 I was speechless and had no clue what to say to her. I ran

back into the restroom so confused that I hit my foot with the

door so bad that it doubled the pain I felt at that time. She told

me that she had repeated it so many times that it wasn’t like that.

But I remember it was she who told me that he did so. I mean,

why would I believe such a thing if she hadn’t told me herself?

Anyway, whatever the truth was, I still felt guilty inside whether

it was my mistake or not. I felt extremely angry because I knew

she was lying to me. I never knew such people ever existed who

lied and cheated on people who were loyal to them and cared

about them.

I was enraged at that cheating, insensitive human for

blaming me for everything and then also lying to my face. Of

course, it was she who told me that her boyfriend tried to rape

her, which is why I tried to protect her. What else could I have

done for her, being her good friend? But in the middle of all this,

I never realized that she was actually using me. She had basically

used me to keep her boyfriend away for a while so that she could

date someone else (my cousin).

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 When I figured out the whole story, I became infuriated

so much that it felt like I had become possessed. I went back into

the church and sat down to hear the preaching. I tried so hard to

concentrate on what the preacher was preaching, but I couldn’t.

All I could think was what a fool I was to be played at the hands

of my “so-called best friend.” At the same time, I was also

thinking about how I could bash her head on the concrete floor. I

was so baffling up with rage that it seemed like I was going to go

out of my own control. I even heard myself breathing heavily out

of anger while sitting in the church during the sermon. It literally

felt like something had captured my soul that kept on distracting

me and inclining me toward the anger that was building up

inside me. I couldn’t believe myself for being such an idiot to be

fooled around like that by a girl.

The moment I was about to go crazy, God spoke to my

heart. I heard the preacher say, “If God can forgive sinners like

us, why can’t we forgive others to be like Him?” This literally

touched my heart, and I started to calm down at once. It was

God’s peace that started to settle down inside my heart with the

words the preacher delivered. I started to feel at peace as I

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listened to him. Amazingly, within no time, my anger calmed

down, and I started to feel relaxed. As bad as my blood was

boiling out of fury, I was now feeling peace inside me. God’s

words had changed my behavior in that very moment and had

calmed me down. It was not less than a miracle for me, where I

experienced such a shift in mood and behavior by only listening

to the Word of God. I no longer wanted to bash her head since I

felt God’s peace inside me.

However, I realized and decided to stay away from her

as much as I could, not letting her sabotage my loyalty and self-

esteem anymore. After that day, I saw her boyfriend at church

smiling and being so nice to everyone in the church. I wanted to

and tried to apologize to him, but I couldn’t. I was unable to find

words to tell him how sorry I was for all the hell I put him

through. But it was also not purely my mistake because Stacie

was the real culprit. If she hadn’t lied to me about her boyfriend,

things would neither have been that bad, nor I would have

reacted that way.

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 I think he eventually got over it because he never treated

me the way I treated him. He rather smiled at me every time he

passed by me, whereas I took that smile as a sign of forgiveness.

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 Chapter 13 – The High School Days

My mother unenrolled us from the school we were

studying in, and she made our stay at home for a long while

before putting us back into high school. I was supposed to go to

8th grade, but because of a test I took at the high school—as a

very brand new public high school student—I was moved

straight up to 10th grade to a senior class level. I was a fresh meat

to the public school system because I didn’t know how things

worked there. At the same time, I was surrounded by many non-

believers, which I had never been around as a kid.

On the contrary, I was habitual of always being around

people just like me who wore long skirts to the floor and never

cut their hair. In my mother’s world, they were known as modest

apparel because, according to her, that’s how the Bible tells us to

dress. However, when I questioned her about this, she would

always tell me, “We can’t question the Bible.”

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 When she used to answer me that, I used to counter-

question her. I used to ask her to show me where the Bible said

that we were supposed to wear long skirts and all. The

interrogation used to make her uncomfortable every time, and so

she was never able to provide that information. Therefore, I

doubted the whole ‘long skirt theory’ of hers.

Taking it back to high school, let me tell you that I was

miserable around kids who were a few years older than me. I

really wanted to fit in to enjoy the best of the moments at that

age. I wanted to become like all the other kids at school who

were considered normal, so I taught myself how to look like one

of them. With the passage of time, I learned how to put other

clothing under my dresses to change later in school. I didn’t

know about shaving my legs, which is why they were very hairy.

I never realized how wrong it was to have hairy legs

until a guy pointed it out to me. The first thing I did was an

experiment with a shaver that I had stolen out of my mother’s

bathroom. I made many cuts until I started getting the hang of it.

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At one moment, I thought that, in a way, it was good to be

hidden behind long skirts as it would give my cuts time to heal.

Being a mother of two beautiful daughters, I now ask

myself how a mother cannot take the time to teach her daughter

the simple things every girl should know. Could it have been

maybe because I didn’t let her talk to me about periods? Or was

she programed to behave so negligent toward me or any of us

siblings? As a matter of fact, I was not too fond of any

conversation we would have pertaining to any private body part

because of whatever I had been going through at that specific

time.

One time my mother took me for a physical checkup for

my school; however, the doctor she took me to was a man. When

we went there, he explained how he would be looking at my

private parts to examine me thoroughly. I immediately climbed

up the table and started to cry. I said, “No, I will not let him

touch me.” My mother became so angry at me and told me how

ridiculous I looked behaving that way.

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 I was a teenager who used to act like a baby sometimes,

which happened completely out of reflex and not intentionally. I

used to fear things that I didn’t want to do, just like a male

touching me. I couldn’t believe my mother told me to let that

man with a white coat and grey hair look at my private parts

even if it was for a medical examination. I didn’t realize this was

a common practice that doctors were there to help not hurt

children. I never received a physical examination before in my

life until I had my first baby. At that time, I was a young adult,

but that’s another story to be told.

As I grew up, I became angrier and scared inside. I had a

habit of clinging on to people. So, when I met my best friend in

our new church, I found my solace in her. She was so lovely as

she had pretty blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was so cool,

and so was her mother. We had become such good friends that

she invited me over to her house a couple of times.

Her mother was so different than mine. She was a non-

believer and was so much better than my mother, who was a

believer of God. This new best friend didn’t understand or know

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the abuse I had gone through as a child. She didn’t understand

why I was so clingy with her. She started to get annoyed by this

habit of mine, and soon she wanted a break from me as she

couldn’t bear me any longer. She told me that I made her feel

claustrophobic. She didn’t understand that having friends, who

were even allowed to come to my house, would keep the

pedophile away and make my parents act a little friendlier

around people. It was like bringing your sanctuary home.

Everything was at peace, but whatever friends I made never

understood this, so I made them feel uncomfortable because of

how hard I tried to keep them.

I tried so hard throughout my childhood and teenage life

to tell anyone who would hear about my abuse. I had trust issues

with people as previously there had been some people I had

entrusted my faith in, but they turned out to be betrayers. I just

wanted to stop the abuse, the hatred, the ignorance, and the

negligence—everything as I wanted to feel safe and loved.

There were also times when I caught the pedophile

stepbrother hurting one of the children at our house. Whenever I

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saw him doing wrong to the children, I used to call 911 like a

brave girl but then suddenly something used to take control of

me, and I used to hang up. Back then, if someone hung up after

calling 911, the police used to come to the house to confirm if

things were really fine. That night, when I made the call and

hung up, the police came to our house. My parents called all the

kids into the living room to talk with the policemen standing on

the top of the stairs to the living room entrance.

I sat the closest to the policemen crying and afraid. I

wanted to tell them the truth about what was happening in that

house so badly, but I couldn’t find the words and also the

courage to be vocal. I didn’t trust them because (they had come

previously and didn’t believe me) (this story is also in a

previous chapter so if we can add that or something like it

would be great) I was afraid. My mother and step-father told the

policemen that I was crazy because they knew it was me who

called them accidentally or on purpose. They explained to them

how I was a problem child who made up all stories in my head

and lied around all the time.

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 Later that day, the policeman came up to me and said,

“If you call us again like that, you can go to jail.” This reminded

of what we are taught at school about the police that they were

always ready to protect us. I wondered how they could not have

protected us that night or why couldn’t they just see the hurt I

carried inside me. I just wondered why they couldn’t see how so

badly the kids at our house needed to be rescued.

I now know why, because my parents knew how to put

on a great show. They knew what to say to make me look bad.

They manipulated many people against me to make them believe

that everything I said was a lie. However, the worst of all was

that they got my brothers and sisters to go along with their story.

I knew the truth, but I didn’t care anymore about who believed

me or not.

I have moved on now after everything has come to light.

I am done with wanting so bad for my family to see who the real

liars and manipulators really were. All I want now is my story to

be told to help people who are experiencing what I have

experienced.

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 At this point, I am ready to let go and share with you my

story to help you grow and live a happier and healthier life.

Everything that I have told so far and what is to come will only

be for the purpose of helping those who feel that they don’t have

a voice. For those who feel as if maybe no one will understand

them and think it is their fault for everything that has happened

to them. Please, believe me when I tell you that nothing that has

been done to you is your fault. Your fault will only be following

the steps of the people who hurt you. But I truly believe that we

have the full responsibility to protect and love our children as

parents. But sadly, I didn’t understand how important it was until

I got married for the second time.

If you think you made some mistakes while being an

adult, you can change them at any time and become a better

person. Don’t ever think that your past defines your future; you

can start over at any time. Nowhere do you need to follow a

book and label yourself by your mistakes. This was the mindset I

tried to adopt with my mother throughout my life. I gave her

several chances to realize that she owed me an apology and

changed how she treated me.

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 I just wanted to hear her say that she made a mistake, but

that never came to occur, not even up to this day. So, I adopted

another mindset: I chose to forgive those who never asked me to

forgive them. And that was the most freeing feeling for me in the

world.

Going back to my teenage days, let me tell you that

when I was 16, a social worker came over to talk to my foster

brothers and sisters. Every once in a while, she did this, coming

over to our house and taking an informal session with my foster

siblings. Every time she came over, I wanted so badly to tell her

to please take the children away. I wanted to save them, but I

didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know who I could trust to hand

those kids over. I would look at her and think to myself if I could

possibly trust that lady. But then I also thought that if I told her

about what was happening in our house, would she believe me

and make it stop?

I was just sick of going through the same hurt and fear

every day, which made me feel like I was living in a trap, and

there was no way out. I was tired of changing clothes in the

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closet, being scared of the pedophile that he might walk in. I

took the courage in myself and learned to use the bathroom

quickly because I wanted to never be in a position where he

could see my private parts and then hurt me.

I was fighting with myself inside, whether to trust that

social worker lady with our secret. I wanted the abuse to stop; I

wanted the kids to stop from getting hurt. I really didn’t know

the extent of the abuse they went through until I was an adult and

had a conversation with my sister, which I will share with you

later in this book.

So, I was in my room when my social worker came to

speak to me. I think maybe she saw the pain I carried within me.

She came over several times at our house, but she never spoke to

the foster parents’ biological children. She asked me how I was

doing while I had my head down with tears running down my

face. I was fighting so hard inside, thinking: what do I do? I

thought should I tell her or would she believe me. After the

cloud of struggling thoughts withered away in my head, I

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decided to do what I usually did. I decided to make up a story of

my own.

I told her, “Please, take these kids away because I am

going to hurt them if you don’t.” I repeated myself, trying to get

her to the response I wanted to hear.

I wanted her to tell me that she will take the kids with

her to protect them. But instead, she put her hand on top of mine

and said, “I know you will never hurt the kids, but I do believe

that something is happening here, and it’s going to stop today.”

She asked me to stay in the room and then she left.

I was frozen at that moment. I didn’t know how much

time had passed when all of a sudden, my step-sister came into

my room crying uncontrollably. She asked me if my step-father

had ever done anything sexual to me. The only thing that came

to my mind was what happened a few months ago.

One evening, I left the house at night to go across the

street to my friend’s place. She called me because she had a

problem with her boyfriend and she needed my help to talk to

her parents. She was a friend of the world and a non-believer, so

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I knew my parents wouldn’t permit me to go over, which is why

I sneaked out. When I returned 15 minutes later, my step-father

and mother were waiting for me at my bedroom door. My

mother started to yell at me for sneaking out.

I began to cry because I knew that I had done something

wrong. My step-father began to speak to me about sexual and

explicit things that he thought I would have wanted to be

indulged in. He accused me of wanting a penis and how I wanted

it in my vagina and all the other obscene details that came with

it.

I tried to explain how my friend who lived across the

street wanted me to help her talk to her parents about the

problem she had with her boyfriend, but he didn’t want to hear it.

He continued describing the sexual stuff, which he thought I

wanted to do. My mother stood quietly beside him, which was

very disappointing for me. I turned around and looked at her and

said, “Are you going to let him hurt me like that?”

I felt like I was being raped in front of her while she did

nothing to help me. My heart couldn’t have broken anymore. For

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once, my mother was present there and saw the pain herself that

I was feeling. But shockingly, she let him hurt me with sexual

and explicit words.

As I’m writing this down in this book, the same huge

tears run down my face. I still can’t get over how a mother could

turn a blind eye on her daughter for so long. How could she not

see how my heart was being destroyed by all the words that

came out of my step-father’s mouth? I felt so dirty inside out. I

felt as if maybe everything was my fault. I felt at that moment

that this might never end.

I know that being a young teen was normal to be

sexually curious. It was normal to like boys and have boyfriends,

but not for me. I hated anything that had to do with love or

dating. One time my mother asked me if I was interested in the

same sex. She asked me this because she thought I was acting

weird. But I was so stunned and disappointed by her question. I

mean, how could she blame me for not being a straight person.

Whereas all I ever knew was that males are bad human beings

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because they hurt children. All I knew was that they liked to hurt

girls.

I was terrified of having anyone call me theirs. I could

not give anyone that power at that time to make me theirs by

force. I always thought that there were bad people out there who

were always on the lookout to hurt others. I came to terms in my

mind that my step-father was cruel and unusual. But at this point,

I also couldn’t believe that the person who gave me birth, the

person who swore to love me unconditionally, would choose her

man over me.

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 Chapter 14 – My Relationships

We were growing up, and it was becoming normal for

my age group to have a boyfriend. Everyone around me,

especially the girls, spoke about boys and dating. Since I didn’t

have a boyfriend, so everyone in my school thought I was weird.

Sometimes my friends thought that possibly I was interested in

girls. I was so gullible and unsure about myself that I started to

think if I could be homosexual.

I saw most of my friends kissing boys, which made me

anxious to have one as well, so I started kissing my brother’s

friends. It wasn’t a French kiss but was just a peck, which felt

like a real kiss. I liked it for the first time, so I started kissing

every boy who wanted to kiss me, even if they were younger. I

tolerated doing this with boys younger than me because I already

feared guys of my age. I knew that they would like to go further

than just kissing. Once again, I was afraid of being sexually

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abused, but the rest of the things I did were just for fun and also

to look as if I was one of them.

I soon stopped kissing younger boys after my brother

found out about it. He was so upset to know that I was kissing

his friends around the town. However, for me, I already have had

enough of all that crap. I had proven to myself that I liked boys

and that there was no way I could see myself doing the same

things to girls.

My First Boyfriend

(I

don’t have rights to this picture. Can I still use it? Could I

get sued?)

After that, my church friends pressured me to date the

most popular guy in church. He had told them that he liked me.

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He would often buy me bears and flowers, which showed that he

was quite a romantic person. I can’t lie about the fact that

receiving gifts did make me feel special. I liked being with him,

but at the same time, I was also scared when he used to come

close to me. I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything that

made him want to hurt me.

Within a few weeks, he convinced me that he was a

good and respectful guy. He told me that he was trying to better

his life by going to church and staying away from gangs. He had

previously dated another friend of mine from the church, which I

found out later. But for now, I was his current girlfriend.

He used to invite us to his house to swim along with

many of his other friends and mine from the church. We used to

have so much fun as it was clean and free from any type of abuse

activity. I was so naïve and innocent to understand things at first

until one day he came over to my house. Everyone from my

friends knew that he was my boyfriend and that I was innocent.

That day, my cousin had also come over to my place to spend

some time. We all played chicken in the dark, which my cousin

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had introduced to us. He told us that the person who was to play

the chicken in the game had to find everyone else in the dark.

We turned off the lights and hid, letting the chicken find us in the

dark.

I laughed and tried to stay away from my boyfriend to

find me since he got to play the chicken in the game. While I hid

somewhere in the dark, I felt his hands on my shoulder with him

asking me if it was me. I was so stupid to say yes, it was me

because he was already looking out to catch me alone in the

dark. Suddenly in that same moment, I felt his lips on my lips as

he gave me a quick peck. I turned on the light because I didn’t

want to play the game anymore. However, I also didn’t act

scared or mad; instead, I continued to talk and laugh the same

way I was doing it.

I did not want to show him that I was scared of him

since I had had really bad experiences in my past with this

stance. Subconsciously, I found a way to break up with him.

Since he missed a day from going to church, I used it against

him. I told him I didn’t want to be with someone who didn’t love

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God and that it was over. I don’t know why I did that, maybe

because I feared getting close to him or him coming close to me.

I somehow regretted breaking up with him as well this way

because after that, whenever I saw him around, he looked sad. I

think about it now, and I realize that he wasn’t the person meant

to be in my life as a boyfriend. I understand that my trauma

wasn’t his fault, but I guess it was not good timing for the kiss he

planted. I was not ready.

The Cool Boyfriend

When the next guy I dated came along, I was different,

maybe because I grew a year older. Or maybe because I felt

protected by him. Whatever the reason may be, this new guy in

my life was a cool one from the church. He liked to race cars and

do other crazy stuff around. I was surprised at my stepdad

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because he let him come to our house and hang out with me.

This cool guy never disrespected me or even talked dirty to me.

He never tried to kiss me, which was probably why I gained

feelings for him so quickly. We used to hang out at church, and

many times after church, we used to go racing. I was never alone

with him because I always had a brother or a sister with me.

One day he told me that he was going to take us to this

awesome spot. It was a street that curved all the way through. He

also showed us how he would never get caught. We were all so

sheltered and ignorant to the things of the world that we didn’t

even know what the police detector machine was. He explained

to us how he could go really fast and if the machine beeped, it

meant that there were police nearby, and so he needed to slow

down.

Maybe as a young teen, I thought it was so cool for him

to do such crazy things. But now, when I recall all of those

things he did, I wonder how silly he was to take such dangerous

steps. I remember talking on the phone with him for hours,

which made us get closer to each other in a way that he used to

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share many of his personal things with me. Even though I like

him sharing his stuff with me, but still I wasn’t ready to share my

secrets with him. I thought if I told him about the things I had

been through, there is a possibility that I could lose him as he

would be able to see what I really felt inside; I felt like a dirty

animal.

One night we had a sleepover with my friends at my

house, where he also came over to spend the night. We all slept

in the living room because there were many of us, and there was

not enough space in the rooms. All my friends were from the

church; maybe that’s why my parents were okay with the boys

and girls sleeping in the same room. Everyone kept their distance

from each other, just like they had taught us at church that the

opposite sex needed always to be 12 inches away from each

other.

I laid sideways on the floor of our huge living room

while my cool boyfriend laid across me 12 inches away. We

talked forever about so many things that night. After a while, he

asked me if I could please play somewhere else. I asked him

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what did I do to annoy him. I thought maybe my talking

might’ve annoyed him or bored him. I didn’t want to move until

he told me why he wanted me to move from there. With his

cracking voice, he told me I was giving him blue balls. I asked,

“Blue Balls? What is that?” He explained that my presence made

him want to have sex with me.

At that moment, because of what I felt about him and

because of the trust he was able to earn, instead of me feeling

fearful like I usually did, for the first time, I wanted him to have

sex with me. I knew that whatever he would do to me would be

coming from a good person. I thought that it would take away all

the nasty and dirty ideas I was carrying from my previous sexual

abuse.

He stayed quiet after I said, “Then do that to me.”

At that moment, everything was silent, and then he said,

“I already told you I respect you, and I would never hurt you.”

That day I learned that any man could control himself when they

needed to. I had always thought maybe there was something I

did that triggered that animal in them to hurt me, and they

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couldn’t control themselves. But this time, this wonderful person

opened my eyes and gave me another view of a male personality.

Hopefully, one day he reads this book and realizes what a

wonderful impact he made on my life. I hope he realizes that he

showed me what a man really is and supposed to be that night.

Later, when I moved to my grandmother’s house, I lost

touch with him. My grandmother’s house was no longer how I

remembered it when I was a little girl. Maybe because now I was

a teenager, I got to see things from my smart perspective. My

grandmother had become angrier and moodier; maybe it was

because her marriage wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

Many times, while being with her, I felt I was dealing with my

stepfather all over again. She was just as angry as he was and

always made me clean something in her house. When I think of

it now, I realize that she would only invite me to her house to

help her clean.

I wonder if this whole time her invitation was really for

her convenience. I started feeling uncomfortable at her house

because her husband always argued. I didn’t understand why

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they remained together if they were so unhappy. But you see, in

the Mexican culture, women are supposed to put up with their

men. They have to make their choice work because they protect

what people might think about them if they leave their men. In

the same culture, women were supposed to do what they had to

do so that they don’t look bad. For instance, all the abuse my

grandmother suffered at her husband’s hands would never go out

of her house and never let anyone else know about it.

Therefore, instead of being honest, people had to put up

a fake happy face so that everyone knows that they were happy

and satisfied with their lives. However, this didn’t work for me

as I was an outspoken girl sometimes. I wanted others to know

about the pain that I had been through all my childhood. Be it for

help or awareness. But sadly, in Mexico, whenever I told people

about my story, my grandma told them that I was lying. She

created my reputation as a liar. It was her way of not being

judged and maintaining her reputation as a wonderful mother

and grandmother.

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 Even though I would hear my grandmother tell people

that I was the biggest liar in the world, I still loved her

unconditionally. But when you learn to love yourself, something

inside you grows, and that is confidence. You realize that it’s

okay to let go of everything that is not good for your heart. It

took me a long time to let myself let go and understand that not

everyone is meant to be in your life.

Moving in With a Sister

One time, while I was staying with grandma, a sister

from the church invited me to go live with her. I felt it was the

best thing for me back then as I wanted to get away from all the

bad memories. I wanted a new start so bad that I could do

anything to have one. A sister from the church then asked my

mother’s permission for me to go live with her. So, when the

Sister called me at my grandmother’s house, she let me know

that I have permission to go live with her. I went out to my

grandmother and told her what my plans were. She became

angry at once and started yelling at me at the top of her lungs.

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She was so loud and fast that I couldn’t really understand what

she was saying.

I understood that she felt betrayed because I preferred to

live with a stranger woman and not with her. She was not an

easy person to talk to, and just like my mom, when you try to be

honest with her, she always felt attacked. I told her how much I

appreciated her and loved her, but I wanted to be with someone

that went to my church because I felt closer to God there.

She was so angry; pointing at me, she walked back-and-

forth in a fury. Then all of a sudden, she stood firmly in my face

and said: “When I die, I do not want to see you by my bed-side.”

It was the worst thing she had ever told me because, despite it

all, she had and always been the love of my life.

Now, as an adult, if people ask me who I love the most, I

always say my grandmother. She never apologized, not even to

this day, but it’s okay because of what I got to learn when I was

with her; I learned what I didn’t want to be.

I was worried that day, going to the sisters from the

church house. I still had it in the back of my mind that this

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person had once been a witch. She was a witch-like, the one they

portray to be flying on a broomstick. She had practiced

witchcraft in her life. The first night I moved in with the Sister in

her church house, we sat at her kitchen table and talked about

how her life was about doing witchcraft. She shared how she had

to sacrifice animals and how she would spread her blood all over

rocks while she chanted. She shared with me so many incredible

and evil things that I had never heard of before. Her daughter,

who was a little older than me, used to practice the same

witchcraft.

After a while of all the horrendous and unnatural things,

she would tell me she did; she no longer had my attention. I

learned to block the really ugly things out. I changed my mind to

wander to another place. And I think, at that moment, I was

getting so overwhelmed. I decided to travel to a happy place in

my mind. I thought to myself if there were any good people in

this world that I could be with. I promised God that night that I

would never do anything I learned that existed that night.

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 I also told myself not to judge the Sister. After all, she

was a child of God whose life was changed because she wanted

to be a better person. I didn’t last long there in her house, but I

know now that everywhere I went, it was for a purpose that God

had for my life; if it wasn’t for the Sister sharing her stories with

me, who knows how my life could’ve easily been conned into

some kind of a cult.

When I left that Sister’s house, I had nowhere to go. I

could not go back home, so I stayed with my stepsister and her

family. She was still the same person, still sleeping around, but

the only bad thing this time was that she was married. I guess I

had gotten used to it, but I didn’t use it against her. I still looked

up to her in some way; I felt that she was also a victim of our

house but maybe not in the same way I was victimized. I felt that

her father did the same thing my mother did to us. He put his

wife first before his children ignoring everything else in the

house.

At my stepsister’s house, I got to hear what my mother

called ‘worldly music.’ All the music she listened to was very

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sexual; it didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, maybe because I

thought I was in a safe place. One day she asked me to go with

her guy friend to pick something up from his house; I went with

her trusting that everything would be okay. Before we arrived at

his apartment, we stopped at a White House. He had me wait

outside as it was a quick stop. When he returned, we headed to

our destination. The apartment complex we arrived at was the

same where one of my uncles lived. So, I was familiar with the

place.

Abused by My Stepsister’s Boyfriend

When we got there, I found it so strange that we had to

crawl through a window to get in. Once my whole body was

inside, he grabbed me and forcefully threw me on the bed. He

pulled up my long skirt and stuck his fingers inside my vagina. I

felt him struggling to get his fingers in. I was so innocent that I

didn’t understand what was happening. I had never felt this type

of pain before. I was crying and screaming for him to stop, but

he kept telling me to shut up. I couldn’t stop yelling as I was

scared and was in pain. I didn’t understand what he was doing to

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me. I could hear him grunting and struggling, trying to get his

fingers and his penis inside of me.

Since I couldn’t stop screaming for him to stop, he got a

pillow and put it over my face holding it tightly so that I couldn’t

breathe. He couldn’t hold it for too long there, so he put the

weight of his upper body over the pillow that was smashing my

face. With his other hand, he was trying to rape me with his

fingers and with his penis.

Once again, I was in a situation where I couldn’t breathe

while someone was hurting me. I struggled so much to turn my

head because his weight made it difficult for me to breathe. I

finally turned my head and caught my breath again. It felt as if I

would have died in a few more seconds if I didn’t let my head

out. When he got off of me, he was so angry that he could never

get his penis all the way inside me.

I ran out of the room and ended up in a place where he

stood in front of the door, telling me that nobody would believe

me if I ever told anyone what he did to me. I knew he was right

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because my family always thought that I was a liar, and so they

never believed in anything I said.

The Pedophile Got Arrested

After a while passed, I heard the news of the pedophile

stepbrother getting arrested. On the other hand, my mother sent

me away to stay with the other family members in another city.

She claims to this day that she didn’t want to put her children to

test; however, it was clear that she sent me away as I would be

the only one that could really keep the stepbrother away for a

very long time.

She knew I was very different than her other children.

Her other children did anything to please her, but I was a child

who looked for justice. She was ignorant of what was happening

in our house. It was her fault what we went through because it

was her choice to choose her husband over her children.

Because of my absence, the stepbrother was only given a

five-year sentence for molestation of one child. But if I were

there to speak about his evil deeds, he would have gotten a more

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severe punishment because, to my knowledge, he had also

molested and raped more children outside our house.

The betrayal of my mother couldn’t have gotten any

stronger. I already knew she was capable of doing anything for

her husband. It puzzles me to this day that she picked her

husband‘s son before her biological children.

After my stepbrother’s arrest, I started living in another

city with my mother’s side of the family. I was so excited that I

was going to be living with my favorite second cousin. I admired

her so much since we were kids, but our relationship wasn’t the

same when we grew up. She didn’t trust people anymore, not

even me. I was always trying to get her attention, but she would

always shut me out.

She told me one day how her other cousin had stolen

from her, and now she suspected me as well that I might steal

from her. Even though I had lived a dysfunctional life, but I had

never stolen anything from anyone.

Since I never got any close to her, I made friends with

her mother. Her mother taught me to dress more beautiful and

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feel more beautiful. She put me on a weight loss diet, making me

work out at the gym. She introduced me to pants and shorts,

while until this point in my life, I had always worn long skirts.

That’s all I ever wore because that’s all the style I knew.

This change in me made me feel good and beautiful

about myself from the inside. My self-esteem started to heal

when I got a job at a nearby fast-food establishment. I made

money to buy my own clothes and things I ever needed. I was so

proud of myself because, despite everything that was happening

back home, I was able to move forward. I really thought this was

going to be my life now.

On the other hand, my uncle was so good to me. He

taught me that if I wanted to date someone, I should never let the

guy disrespect me or brainwash me into anything. I liked his

advice and took them as a dating tip for myself. My cousin, at

the same time, was already dating. We were not that far in age

from each other.

Rich Boyfriend

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 So, to fit in, I accepted an invitation for a date from a

guy. He was the son of a jewelry owner and had his own car. He

seemed pretty cool to me, and I never felt any uncomfortableness

with him. On one of our dates, I repeated to him what my uncle

had told me about not letting any man brainwash me. He thought

it was pretty funny that I was so honest. He said that he really

liked that about me.

He introduced me to an adult beverage on the night we

met while cruising around a big circle where everybody cruised.

I even bumped into my cousin cruising with her boyfriend that

night. Running into her accidentally did not make me feel

uncomfortable; instead, I felt so normal because this was what I

had ever wanted to be. I just wanted to be a normal person like

everyone else around me.

My mother always told me how weird I was. Those

words were stuck to me throughout my life. I thought that being

weird was bad because if it wasn’t, why would your own mother

tell you that every time you made her upset. To this day now,

I’m always careful with what I tell my children. One time, it

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slipped out of my mouth, and I told my daughter that she was

weird. I didn’t say it in an angry way or in an upsetting tone, but

I still said it. I realized at that moment that I couldn’t take it

back. So, I explained to my daughter what I actually meant when

I said she was weird. I also explained that being weird and

unique was not bad because it is okay to be different.

At this point in my life, I haven’t lived like a saint. I got

married in my teens because I clung to a woman who showed me

the love I was yearning for. There was nothing I wouldn't do for

her. Even when she asked me to marry her son, I did. It was just

a nominal marriage because we never were a real couple. I was

more of a couple with his mother, who I loved and adored

because she paid attention to me. She taught me how to look

more presentable and showed me how to be tough. Because she

was tough, she never let a man tell her what to do. This was the

reason why I wanted to be just like her.

There were many things I copied from her, like the way

she cleaned and cooked. I even slightly copied her clothing style.

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But what I didn’t know was that later in life, this woman would

made me cry blood.

Getting into an Abusive Marriage

So, what happened was that I married her son in a black

dress at the local courthouse. I wasn’t really present at that

moment because my mind was somewhere else. I was marrying

this man for the woman I loved as a mother. My mission was to

please my new soon to be mother-in-law. I had already lost many

people in my life because my parents would tell them I was a

liar, which was why people stayed away from me. Whereas, this

lady believed me when I told her about my abuse. She asked me

to live with her and that she would take care of me because I had

become family to her.

I soon realized that I had left a sexually abusive home

and reached a physically abusive house. The man I married right

away started to beat me every time he felt like it. Many times, he

didn’t need a reason to beat me up; rather, he would just choke

me for no reason. Still, I was willing to put up with that and not

lose my new mother-in-law. She gave me the love and attention I

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would die for, and I trusted her. I knew she could protect me

from anything, but I never knew that I would need protection

from her later.

One day as we were sitting at the kitchen table, she

looked at me and said she would be very happy if she had a

grandchild. This made me very uncomfortable thinking about all

of the awkward things I would have to do. Yet, I started letting

my new husband sleep in my bed and have sex with me. He

knew that I wasn’t a virgin, which I didn’t understand, but our

lives continued. I got pregnant right away, and my mother-in-law

was so excited for the baby. She immediately started planning

for the new baby, whereas I was still unaware of the

responsibility and everything that came along.

My husband continued to beat me, even bruising my

stomach where my baby should have been safe inside. I cried out

to my mother because I noticed that my mother-in-law defended

me from everyone except her own son. The abuse continued and

got even worse. One night I woke up to him choking me to

death. It was pitch dark, and I was alone, so I didn’t know at first

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who was choking me. All I knew I was losing my breath fast.

My head started to throb with a pain I never felt before.

When he released me, the pain started to subside. He

never said a word and left. I became scared of him after that

night because he had almost killed me. Many times, when I was

washing the dishes, I felt his presence behind me.

When my baby was born, my mother-in-law took over

ownership of him right away. She lived for that baby and bought

him so many great things. When she took his responsibility, I

started working. I knew I had to support myself and my new

baby now. I had become a single mother because my child’s

father was nowhere around, making it a normal way of living. I

felt like it was better when he wasn’t around so as to avoid the

abuse.

I soon began to see the real person my mother and sister-

in-law were. They actually hurt people to get what they wanted.

My mother-in-law turned against me one time by trying to trick

me to bed with a man. She asked me if I could help her clean a

friend’s house up in the mountains. It was huge, with many

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rooms and bathrooms. She told me to go clean the back room. As

I was bending over to make up the bed in that room, a man came

in and closed the door behind him. I ran out of there so fast

because I felt something bad was going to happen. My mother-

in-law took me back home as if nothing had happened.

When I got to the house, my husband was already there.

He asked me to stay outside as he was going to tell me

something. His mother went inside, and we stayed outside in the

night with only the front porch light on. He asked me a question

about the girl that came to visit as he was interested in her. He

loved a lot of women and had many relationships while he was

married to me. But because of my ignorance, I really didn’t

know what marriage was; I had just married him to make his

mom happy.

He spoke to me nicely and was not abusive, which was

surprising for me. We had a good talk for the first time ever

where I felt comfortable telling him what had happened earlier

that day. But to my dismay, he became furious at once after

hearing me out. I thought I would be beaten up, but he instead

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walked inside and screamed at his mother. He told me that she

set me up because she was trying to sell me to that man. This

was something new for me because I never knew it existed.

He also told me how his mother liked to sell girls to men

and how she had been doing that for years. I was devastated to

know the truth about my mother-in-law and felt pity for him. I

thought could his anger be from him being his mother’s victim?

This made me feel more compassion for him. I tried to

understand him more every time he hurt me. I think I forgave

him more times than he deserved because I pitied him.

Since I had a job, I was able to get my own apartment.

My mother-in-law knew she was losing my love and respect, so

she started to show her true colors. I learned that this person

would hurt anyone or anything just to get what she wanted. She

went as far as calling CPS on a family because she wanted to

raise the kids. It happened, but it didn’t last long until the mother

won full custody back.

In a way, her evil instincts made me tougher and

stronger. I had become more outspoken and more independent.

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One night I had a dream that four teenage boys were standing in

a church choir. I didn’t understand my dream until later, when I

had four boys from this same abusive man. I realized the dream

was trying to tell me that I would have four boys, and I would

not see them until they were teenagers.

As I became stronger from all the betrayal and abuse, I

was able to upgrade and move into a bigger house. I even bought

myself a car. The father of the children would only come around

just to rape me. He told me that it’d not be? called rape because

we were married, and I believed him.

I remember one time he tried to break into my

apartment. I heard the sliding door creaking as it was being

opened slowly. I grabbed the broomstick and waited for him to

come inside. As soon as he came in, I started to beat him with

the broomstick. I knew that if I stopped, he would beat me too.

So, I didn’t stop until he ran off the same way he came from.

His mother came around just to see how the kids and I

were doing, but more importantly, she came to borrow money. I

still loved her very much, but I just didn’t trust her. Especially

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when she shared the story of how one day, she grabbed her son’s

penis in bed, thinking it was her husband beside her. Now, when

I think about it, I realize how a woman could not know she was

grabbing a child’s penis? This made me a little more cautious

with my boys.

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 Chapter 15 – The Break-In

As narrated before in the previous chapter, my job went

well with time. It made me stand up on my feet and support

myself. I moved into a bigger apartment and even bought a car. I

was happy after a long time that at least now things were going

my way. But there was still a void in my heart which felt like

something was missing. It was the father of my children whom I

didn’t want to be in my life. I soon realized that the missing

thing was my inner peace of mind and feeling of contentment

with my life. I was happy with everything that was going on, my

kids, the new apartment, the car, my job, everything. But it was

only him who made me unhappy.

I didn’t like him and didn’t want him to be in my life.

However, the things I owned only made me feel stronger from

the inside. I felt like my soul became heavier than all the betrayal

and abuse I went through, which readied me to bear all the

weight myself.

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 The first time someone broke into my house was this

same man, who happened to be the father of my kids. He tried to

intrude into the apartment without my consent. I heard the door

sliding creaking as he opened it slowly. I didn’t know who it was

at that time, so I grabbed the broomstick and waited for him at

the door to attack him as he tried to come inside. As soon as he

came in, I started smashing him up with the broomstick. I

thought some thief had broken into my house, so I wanted to

catch him. But to my surprise, it was him, my so-called husband.

Up till today, I have never got the answer as to why he tried to

sneak into my house that way with God knows what intentions.

He knew I wouldn’t have stopped him; even I couldn’t

have prevented him from coming to my apartment because, of

course, he was the father of my kids and I could never keep him

away from them. Anyways, it was both terrifying and a terrible

experience for me to face an intruder for the first time.

But it didn’t stop there. The feeling of being safe soon

left me within months when I experienced a similar mishap. One

day while I was at work, I got the news of someone barging into

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my apartment. I called the police instantly as I had gotten scared

as hell.

When I got home, I was so thankful to see my kids safe

and fine. The police came over my house for investigation in no

time and started looking closely at things that could provide

them with the evidence for their lookout. In a few days, they

caught the thief, which was surprising news for me. I had never

expected the police to be that efficient in finding the real culprit.

Since the thief they caught violated his probation, he was sent to

the bigger prison.

One day I was at work and learned that someone had

come to see me. I was told that it was a woman who was in a bad

state, which made me a little more curious to know who she

actually was. I got up from my seat and started walking toward

the lobby area, which was set for visitors. I was told that her

name was Joanne and that she had a kid with her as well.

As I entered the lobby area, I took a good look at the

entire space in a go, to recognize who she could be. Soon I found

a sobbing woman with a kid sitting on her lap. I went closer to

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her, thinking she might be the one who came to see me. I had no

idea who she was until she told me.

“Hello! You must be her, the one I’m looking for,” she

said.

“Uhh, yes, maybe.” I rolled my eyes as if I knew who

she was.

“I came to see you. I am Marvin’s wife,” she said.

I was shocked at how she introduced herself to me and

also how dare she come to see me in the middle of such a crisis. I

took her to a separate room so that we could talk in private. As

soon as I told her to sit down and feel at calm, she started crying

in front of me. Suddenly she held my hand and began to plead to

me to spare the life of her husband. I was so shocked at her

gesture as I thought how could she come to me and expect me to

forgive the person who broke into my house. I thought to myself

that I would never do that.

That woman asked me to drop the charges against him

because it could end up in a more extended punishment. She

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promised to return me the things I had lost even the amount of

money that her husband stole. I don’t know, but I felt a spark of

sympathy within me for that woman because of the way she

pleaded. I never wanted to forgive that person who caused me

harm, but I didn’t know why I was convinced. I told her that I

will take back the case and will not testify against her husband.

As soon as I said this to her, her facial expressions changed from

grieving to being happy, and in no time, she left with her kid.

The day came when I had to go to the court for the

hearing to testify against Marvin. I was so reluctant to go

because I had changed my mind not to appear in court. The

police came over to my house to ask why I wasn’t there at the

court for the hearing.

The officer told me that I needed to be at the court as it

was mandatory, but he soon caught my reluctant expressions that

made him blurt out a question. He asked me if that same woman

tried to convince me to take back the case against her husband.

For a moment, I was silent and shocked at how did he know it

was her. He saw that I was hesitant, and it was almost like he

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read my mind. So I couldn’t help and told him the truth. I told

him everything about how she came to me and pleaded me with

tears to spare the life of her husband.

The officer told me that I wasn’t doing the right thing by

holding myself back from testifying against the criminal. He told

me that this person was a trained criminal and that he should be

punished for his crimes. He told me how many families he had

destroyed and how many people he had caused harm.

At hearing the truth, I was hung between the truth and

lies. I was so confused about making the right decision: whether

or not to testify against Marvin. I was torn between doing the

right thing and destroying this lady’s family that she told she had

with him. So finally, after contemplating and thinking about it

for long, I made a decision. I decided to go to the court and

testify against Marvin. So the next day, I headed to the court

after gathering all my courage.

When I reached the court, I found out that the need for

me to testify against him was no more. The police had gathered

enough evidence against him that could easily bring him to his

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punishment. He was finally found guilty, and so I never heard

about him after that day.

The Babysitter

Since I despised my mother-in-law, I didn’t want her to

look after my kids. First, she was not as responsible as she ought

to be. And second, she was one hell of an unreliable source for

almost everything in the world. These were the reasons why I

hired a babysitter for my kids, who would look after them in my

absence. This time I was proud of myself for making the right

decision for the people I loved, my kids. I found a certified

babysitter for my kids, and so I believed that I could trust her

regarding any mistakes. She took care of my son during his

initial months after he was born, and I was satisfied with her

work. Until one day, when I left my workplace to pick up my

son, the babysitter told me that she would no longer be able to

look after my son. I was shocked at her telling me this as I had

depended entirely on her for my son. When I asked her the

reason, she told me that the state had cancelled her license (add:

to watch children) to rent out a house because they found out that

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the person she was renting the house to was a pedophile. She

assured me that she would rejoin as soon as she would get her

license back.

When I heard her say something about a pedophile, it

was like my world came tumbling down. The walls of safety that

I had built around my family and I crashed because I thought

they were made in vain. I went in shock after hearing the word

pedophile also because it was something related to my own son.

Several kinds of thoughts cluttered my mind at once because it

was a matter of safety for my son. I never allowed a chance in

hell for my kids to go through the same things I had been

through as a kid.

When the babysitter told me that she would possibly

return after she would get her license back, I didn’t trust her

anymore. I would never let my child go back to a place where his

safety was a matter of concern. I thought there was no way my

child was going back to the place where a pedophile lived. I

instead found a better option to take my son with me to work

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every day. I decided that I would tell my boss that I was

struggling with the babysitter issues.

When I discussed the problem I was facing with my

boss, thankfully, he understood my concern and allowed me to

bring my baby to the office with me. However, concerning the

office decorum and etiquettes, he allowed me to be at home with

my kids until I found a babysitter for them. One of my friends

from work told me about a daycare center for kids which was

located in our hometown. This place provided child care services

for single mothers like me. What’s more interesting was that I

was still a teenager, so I figured there was no way I could be

turned down. I decided to apply for the placement of a babysitter

for my kids, so I did that.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be given right away a

babysitter close to my workplace. Soon after that, I went to meet

a couple of them until I felt I found the perfect one for my baby

who was months old.

The reason I chose this babysitter was that she was a

single mother as I was. Therefore, I loved the thought that she

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didn’t have a man in her house instead only had two daughters of

her own.

She watched my baby and also the other three boys I

would have soon after. The babysitter got along really well and

so became close. What was even stranger was that I never could

really see her as a mother even though she was older than my

own mother because she acted so young. We went to clubs

together, and I would leave my boys with babysitter’s oldest

daughter safe in her home on the weekends.

We used to go out at 8 pm, leaving the boys asleep. I

really loved the club’s environment that she took me to with her.

I had never been to the type of place before, and so I became

addicted really quick. Every weekend the club was where my

friends would find me.

What I really liked about this club was that guys knew

how to take a no for an answer. I never had problems with any

abusive man in the club. It was a happy place maybe because

people were drinking. I got clean attention from the guys there

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and never felt that any of them wanted to harm me; this went on

for six years, and I loved it.

My routine was to work all week and go out on the

weekends. At the same time, I also used to wonder about one

thing; I used to think why was I so selfish when it came to

making time for my boys. They insisted me not to go out or take

them with me. But I was so addicted to the club that I ignored

their pleas.

I felt that by giving a safe and a non-abusive home to my

kids, with nice clothing and food on the table, I had become a

good mother, but I was so wrong. I was instead a neglectful

mother to my kids. I got addicted to the club more and started to

stay up until the morning and then be sleepy all day when I was

with my children.

My body was there as I watched them play, but my mind

was sleeping in bed. Had I become like my own mother,

rejecting my children? How could I not stay when my son

pleaded me not to leave? I fight with this thought until now to

choose what I really am. I was just going through life, not really

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thinking about changing more things for the better. Of course, I

regret that now I wish I could go back and erase everyone out of

my life and only live for my children. Please hear my words out

and don’t make the same mistakes I did.

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 Chapter 16 – Fontana Home

As soon as my lease was up, I moved into a really old

house with an enormous yard. At that time, I felt I had upgraded

my life because I lived in a house and not an apartment. Back

then, I was a young girl with four children. People always

thought that they were my siblings.

It was so hard for me to get out of bed most of the time

because I felt drained. I needed help, for which I even asked my

sister, but she was only there for a couple of hours.

My mother, of course, was living on the road with her

husband and son. To this day, I could count the times I had seen

her in my life. She had never been there for me. She left me

when I was barely 18 years old. My brother, on the other hand,

was very smart and a hard worker. I always felt like he looked

after me. I used to get him delicious food—like tacos,

chimichangas, and tostadas—to his job during lunchtime. I knew

he only had me, and I loved doing those things for him.

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 We were very close to each other, and he always showed

me love and respect. I was certain that he was not like that with

everyone. He always lashed out at our step-sister, calling them a

whore and a slut. I never knew why he felt that way toward

them. Maybe it was because of what he went through, so he used

to take it out on them with his harsh words.

My sister never showed emotion to his reaction; she

would brush him off, but I noticed the difference. When he

showed up at a gathering we all had at my sister’s house, he said

to me, “Thank you for being the love of the family,” in front of

his new girlfriend. He thanked me for always loving him. That

was the moment in my life when I felt acknowledged and loved.

I didn’t realize how important that was for him. I did love my

brother; there was nothing I would not have done for him. And

that moment just made our relationship get stronger.

Hanging on to Dear Life

I had my third son while living at this old looking house.

The first day when I got home from the hospital, I sat on the

rocking chair, rocking the newborn back and forth. I couldn't

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stop staring at him as he looked so precious with his tanned skin.

He was trying his best to open his eyes to look at me. I was so

immersed in the moment that I didn’t realize that the abusive

man, whom I was married to, was standing right in front of me.

When I looked up and saw him standing there, I felt fear

and danger simultaneously running through my body. He quickly

grabbed me by my neck and started to choke me. Then he let go

of my neck and yanked me off the chair by my hair. I had never

felt so much pain in my scalp before.

My first instinct was to put the baby down, where he

would be safe. Even though he was pulling my hair and yanking

out chunks, I found the strength to put my baby in the crib and

lock the door behind me.

He then started to slap me with all his might, and my

face was on fire until I felt it go numb. He was a psychotic man

as he screamed at me for sleeping with a man having a hairy

chest; this was his mom’s doings as she was angry because I was

determined to keep my children away from her and her family. I

just wanted everything to be better.

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 While the two boys were in the room, they opened the

door to see what was going on. The psychopath pulled out a

screwdriver from his pocket, pointed it to my three-year-old’s

face, and told him, “You better tell me the truth. Was your mom

with a man having a hairy chest?” Noticing the fear in my little

boy’s face at that moment, I didn’t care what was going to

happen next. I pulled him out of the room, locked the door

behind me once again, and told the boys not to open the door,

not even for me.

This was the moment when I felt enraged and thought

one of us was going to die because he had crossed the line by

threatening my child. He beat me so bad; he did not have any

mercy. I felt weak as I couldn’t get him to stop. He punched me

everywhere in my body but the face since he didn’t want to leave

proof. He pinned me down on the couch again as he put his

entire weight on me, trying to chock me. I couldn’t let him kill

me because I was concerned about my children. I had to survive

and had to make sure that I didn’t stop breathing. I pushed him

off with all my might when the boys opened the bedroom door

again, screaming for me.

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 As soon as he got off me, I ran to the boys to save them

from him. But he ran after me and grabbed us, locking us up in

the darkroom in the back of the house. He blocked the doorway

and started to break all the trinkets that I had on a shelf. He

found a sharp piece of ceramic from the broken mess, and then

he closed the door.

We were now in a pitch-dark room, and my eyes

couldn’t adjust to the darkness. Holding the sharp piece of

ceramic, he said, “I am not going to turn until I hit someone.” I

gently then pushed my two boys down to the floor, where I knew

they would be safe?(Im the one who put them on the floor in

the dark so they wouldn’t get stabbed). When my boys were

on the floor, I started to walk toward where I thought he was

spinning. I felt that at any moment, I would get close enough

where he would strike me, and it would be over.

The coward, I knew, always ran when he inflicted a

wound that caused me to bleed. So, I knew this was the only way

it would end. All of a sudden, he opened the door and said he

heard the cops coming. He said that if he saw them there, he

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would kill us all. So, I ran to the front of the house to check if the

cops were there. I locked the boys once again in the room where

my days old baby was sleeping. After they were locked in, I saw

the man I married standing by the front window, trying to look

around to see if there were any cops. To my astonishment, he

was now holding a knife.

After a few minutes, I noticed it was my friend from

work coming toward our front door. She wanted to know why I

didn’t make it to work that evening. So, he had me walk outside

with him behind me, threatening me not to tell anything. When I

went up to my friend’s car, she looked at me and noticed how I

was all beaten up and looked like a wreck. She asked me if I was

okay and then looked at my husband. I noticed that he put his

hand slowly into his pocket to grab the knife. I screamed for her

to leave that house as he had a knife.

She reversed the car so fast as I had never seen before.

She needed to protect herself and her baby, but she thought of

me and called the police. My psychotic husband knew the police

were coming, so he ran to hide from getting arrested. I sat there

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in my living room, and the house became so quiet. I was in

shock, thinking if this really just happened.

Meanwhile, the police showed up and knocked on my

door. One of the detectives came in and took my statement. He

assured me that they would find my husband and arrest him. I

believed the officer and thought it was all over. The officer left

his card for me to call him if my psycho husband showed up

before he was arrested. I was afraid, so I stuck the card under the

stereo to hide it from my psychotic husband.

I cleaned the house, fixed my hair and put bandages

where I was hurt. I was surprised that I didn’t have two black

eyes. I told myself as I looked in the bathroom mirror, “Wow!

You are so strong that he didn't even leave a mark on your face.”

I always tried to comfort myself and be strong. After all, I had

my little ones who needed me to be strong.

As I was thinking about all this, I heard someone in my

house. It was him; the psycho husband was back in my house.

He acted like nothing had happened as he mocked how the

police walked right over the tunnel he was hiding in. He said he

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was going to take a shower, and then he would take us

somewhere.

While he was in the shower, I took out the detective’s

card from under the stereo where I had put it and called him on

the spot. I whispered to him and told him that he was here and

was taking a shower. The detective said, “Keep him there. We

are on our way.” I remembered how he said we would be leaving

after his shower, so I grabbed the keys to my car and threw them

in the backyard. Then all of a sudden, something came over me.

It was the guilt for knowing that he would go to prison

when they get him. Even after all the torment he had put me

through, I had compassion for him. Before he came out of the

shower, I prayed to God and said, “Lord! If it’s in your will for

him to go to prison, then let the police find him.” By throwing

the keys in the backyard, I felt I was doing wrong because I

believed that no matter what, he would get caught with or

without keys if it were in God's plan.

He got out of the bathroom and said, “Let’s go.” As he

walked out of the house, I told him that I couldn’t find the car's

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keys. To my surprise, he pulled out a spare key to my car, and I

kept wondering: when did he get a spare? How did he get a

spare? I put the kids in their car seats while I was holding the

new baby in my arms. He drove us not too far from the house

and at last parked the car in front of a brick house. He said he

would be back in a bit, and we waited for him in the car. It was

quiet inside the car as my little boys didn’t make a sound, and

the baby in my arms was asleep.

I felt numb and stuck. I felt that maybe he had the spare

key because God planned that he wasn’t meant to go to prison. I

wasn’t happy about it, yet my faith in God was so strong. I

accepted whatever God wanted to happen.

The sun started to go down, and it was getting dark. I

knew for sure the police were long gone. He finally came out of

the brick house and took us back home. The weird part about it

was that he parked the car outside our yard. Suddenly, I saw

something shiny coming down the street. It was a whole roll of

officers coming toward our house. My eyes opened up wide as

help was here. One officer came to my car and said, “Don’t

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come out of the car until I tell you so.” Next, I saw them taking

him out of the house and shoving him in a police car.

One of the policemen came to my window and told me

that he was arrested. He gave me the case number and told me

that I could follow up with his arrest. After the police left, I

stayed in the car and gathered my thoughts. What had just

happened? Was it really over? I was not convinced that he was

really arrested because I had been in this situation before; he

would always show up and beat me worse. I wasn’t convinced

until he called me from a collect call from the prison and said he

would be spending eleven years in jail for what he had done to

me; this was the time when I knew that he would never hurt me

again.

Moving from the Old House to a Mobile Home

I ended up moving from the old house into a mobile

home because I needed a new start. I took some time off from

work to get myself together as he really traumatized me. I

became sensitive to the slightest noises around me as they would

scare the hell out of me. At every knock at the door or even noise

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from any other thing, I thought it was him coming back to hurt

me.

After I felt safe in my new mobile home, the kids

seemed happier as well. But there was one thing that made me

worried about my oldest son. As he was growing up, he started

showing signs of anger, just like his father. I was very concerned

about that, but I also thought his anger would go beyond limits if

I gave him more attention. So, I always made it a point to serve

him first. I held him in my arms while we watched TV. I wanted

to treat him differently than the other kids. I wanted him to feel

unconditional love because I knew that love would make his

anger go away. I never wanted him to feel unloved the way I did

when I was his age.

One day, my cousin asked me if her friend could live

with me, and I said yes. I let her stay in the second bedroom on

the boys’ bunk beds. The boys always slept with me at night (in

the livingroom), so I didn’t feel I was taking their beds away. My

new roommate had a five-month-old baby boy; he was such a

good baby as I could hardly hear him cry.

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 The mobile home also had a back door, which my

roommate used to sneak her boyfriend in. One night, I woke up

by the bulb's flashing light in the room where my friend and her

baby slept. I got up to see what was going on, but the room was

empty. I noticed the door to my room was closed, so I figured

she and her baby must have fallen asleep in my room. So, I went

back to sleep.

Later that night, I saw a shadow walking slowly down

the hallway. It was my roommate holding her baby’s lifeless

body. She calmly said, “Dude! My baby is not breathing.” I felt

my hand smack my cordless phone so hard and fast, and I dialled

911. I asked her to put the baby on the floor, and I started CPR

on him. I noticed his lips and eyes were closed so tightly that it

was hard to get air through to his mouth.

Soon the police and ambulance arrived within minutes

and took over, giving him CPR. They rushed him to the

ambulance, and I told her to go with them and not leave her baby

alone. I sat there, shocked and half asleep. The detective took the

statement of what happened that night, and I told him exactly

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what I witnessed. As he was putting away his pen and notebook,

he got a phone call. He told me that that the baby didn’t make it.

I was so torn inside and felt guilty. I felt that maybe I could have

done more, but the detective told me the baby had been dead for

a long time. He had fallen between the wall and the bunk bed

and died from being upside down.

This was the saddest news for me that I couldn’t think

straight for a couple of days. I couldn’t take what I felt as I even

made the mistake of leaving my baby in the car one time. I still

thank God that I noticed it before something bad happened to

him. But after that, I felt like being such a bad mother, thinking

about how I left my baby in the car. I kept questioning myself,

where was my mind, and why wasn’t it functioning at that time?

New Friends

I made a friend in the mobile home park who offered to

watch my kids. She felt that I needed a break from all the stress

that I was going through. But instead, I decided to just hang out

at her house. She cooked for me and gave me a lot of advice as

we ate dinner at her place. She had a son as old as mine, and I

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was shocked because she looked so young. She explained to me

that she had had her son at a very young age. We became close

friends as she was funny and spunky. Soon our friendship turned

into a great relationship; it felt like I had become a part of a

beautiful family. I was not going out on the weekends and spent

most of the time at her house, eating and playing games. The

boys were allowed to run around her house, and she was okay

with the noise they made. I didn’t want to go back home until the

sun went down.

I met another friend who went to college. One day she

asked me to give her a ride to a guy’s house that she wanted to

meet. I asked my other good friend if she could watch the boys

while I went with my friend, and she was so happy to do so as

she loved the boys. I picked up my college friend, and we started

looking for the address until we found it. It was a green and

brown apartment, and it was only a 20-apartment complex. The

apartment we were looking for was upstairs, so we walked up to

the door and knocked. She turned to me and said, “Don’t leave

me here alone.”

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 This guy with dark brown hair answered the door and

told us to come in. I walked in after my friend and followed her

into the living room, where we sat on a small brown couch. My

friend talked to him like they knew each other for a long time.

Meanwhile, I looked around at how the windows were covered

with blankets that made the apartment dark.

After a while, another guy came out of the bedroom and

introduced himself as the roommate. He looked a little meaner

and had a lot of gold chains around his neck and wrist. He told

me to go with him to give my friend some alone time with his

friend. I looked at my friend, and she nodded yes. So, I walked

out, following the roommate to his room. He said, “You can sit

on my bed. I won’t bite”. He tried to make me feel as

comfortable as possible by assuring me he wouldn’t hurt me.

I started to talk and ask questions because I didn’t want

to look scared. After a while, he peeked through the door and

said, “My friend is getting along with his friend, so we need to

stay longer in this room.” I asked him why all the windows had

blankets on them. He said, laughing, “Because we are vampires.”

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 I was trying to act as comfortable as I could because I

didn’t want to give him a reason to get near me. But my actions

didn’t work as he got up, came near me, and sat by me on the

bed. He asked me if that made me uncomfortable. I answered

him that it did bother me a little. So, I told him that it would be

better if he sat in front of me to look at him while we talked. He

touched my shoulder and swiped my hair out of the way, and

said, “But I want to sit here with you.”

Fear set in me once again and I became stiffed as I

closed my wrists out of fear and anger. I became cautious if he

started doing anything to me. Unfortunately, he began to push

me back to a laying position. I didn’t say no and didn’t fight

back at that moment. I became that sexually abused little girl

again that had to obey.

He raped me that day even though I didn’t say no or put

up a fight. Later I found out that his friend raped my friend too.

They wouldn’t let us leave as they wanted to get beer and party

with us, but they couldn’t decide who should go. The roommate

set his gun on the coffee table as if he was trying to intimidate us

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or cause fear, and it worked. After a while, both of them started

arguing about who should go. We said we would go because we

wanted to party that night. We pretended by putting on a smile,

and they finally let us go.

On the way to drop my friend at her door, she confessed

to me that he had raped her and that she tried to fight him off. On

the other hand, I never told her what I went through that night;

instead, I kept that to myself. We never hung out again or even

talked any more after what happened. I was happy that I was

now on my way to see my boys.

It was late, so my friend from the trailer park had to

leave my boys with her boyfriend, who I didn’t even know she

had. Later, my mother picked them up that day. She was so upset

at the state of the boys she picked them in. She said that when

she picked up the boys, their diapers were full and hadn’t been

changed. I was so mad at myself for putting myself in a situation

like that. I was still in shock at what happened to me, but I didn't

want to tell anyone. I knew they would probably blame me

because, at that time, even I blamed myself.

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 The more mistakes I made, the more I felt I didn’t

deserve to be a mother. But I knew no one would love them and

treat them like I do. I needed to be a better person but didn’t

know what was better.

It was becoming too much for me as I couldn’t bear the

weight of these responsibilities alone. And yet, not one family

member ever tried to help me. Everyone was living their lives

and taking care of their own kids. At times, I would tell myself

not to be angry at them since it was not their responsibility to

help me.

Unfortunately, I always had to come back to my mother-

in-law, who was a drug addict and wasn’t such a great role

model. But she loved her grandchildren, and I knew that she

would never hurt them or let someone hurt them. Even though

she tried to get my oldest son against me many times, I still

loved her and appreciated her help with my boys. She never

made me feel like the boys bothered her, unlike how other

people in my family made me feel. To this day, I appreciate her

for being a better grandmother to my children than my birth

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mother was. I knew that my mother-in-law loved my children

but wasn’t so nice to me since I was the reason her son was now

in prison. However, despite her bitter behavior against me, I

learned to ignore her negative comments.

I then started feeling a little myself again as I was

coming to terms with my friend’s baby’s death. I had also totally

forgotten about the incident where my friend and I got raped. I

was the breadwinner of the family, and being a single mother, it

was a very hard job for me. I had no choice but to keep moving

forward.

Meanwhile, I got another job at another hotel, which was

why I hired a babysitter again. I was happy to start up with my

usual routine again. Going to work during the week and to the

club on the weekend. Thankfully, nothing bad ever happened at

the club to me, and no man ever tried to do anything. They knew

how to take no for an answer, so it kind of became my sanctuary.

When it was over, we walked out to drop my friend at

her house one day at the night club. Suddenly, she got pushed

into a fight. My friend was short-heightened, and a very tall lady

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grabbed her hair and pulled her down. I just stood there in

disbelief, but I didn’t stay frozen this time like I usually did in

situations that made me scared. I felt brave enough and grabbed

the second lady hitting my friend.

I was so proud of myself and wondered where did this

bravery come from. Was I getting stronger and learning to

defend? Meanwhile, someone shouted that the cops were

coming. The tall lady let go of my short friend’s hair and ran

away. It was such a crazy night for me.

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 Chapter 17 - A Strange Lifestyle

As I share this part of my story (as narrated in the

previous chapter), I realized why I lived this lifestyle. Actually,

it all starts with your childhood and your role models. If you

make the wrong choices, you create a lifestyle by choosing your

environment and the kind of people you allow to be part of your

life. From my experiences, I learned that I had my choices. I

learned that not everyone was good for me. I learned that I could

become better at any time. The most amazing thing I learned was

that we all could change our environment at any time. I wish I

had someone to teach me this when I was younger. So, I want

you to understand the importance of who you hang around with

or let into your life since you will naturally imitate who you are

around.

Even after the ordeal, we went back the following

weekend. I felt so safe in spaces where I could explore other

places just like this one. They were all the same - drinks, dance,

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and socialization. I never heard anything bad happening to

someone in the club. I didn’t know I would hear something

happening in the club since bad people aren’t that dumb to hurt

someone in the presence of witnesses.

Crimes are usually committed where there aren’t

witnesses. However, in my case, I felt that everything happening

to me was out in the open. I never felt any one of my molesters

went through great lengths to cover up what they did. I always

thought that if someone were going to hurt me, they would do it

anywhere in any place.

The Influence of My Mother-in-Law

I went through these phases, where I kept my children

from my mother-in-law. I would fight myself if it was good for

them to have a relationship with her. One day, what my four-

year-old son told me made it easy for me to keep her away from

my children. He told me he saw his grandmother putting

something in her own nose. I knew she was on drugs, and it was

cocaine to be exact, but I never thought she would do that in

front of my child.

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 My son started to act like he was smoking by putting a

blue writing pen in his mouth and acted like he’s blowing out

smoke. I told my mother-in-law that it was the last time she saw

my children. She said that if I took them away from her, they

would be dead to her and that she would never want to see them

again. Well, I was OK with that because it was better for my

children to grow up with no such people around.

But it was not over yet. She had a plan like she always

did when she wanted to get her way. One day, she called me and

said, “I understand why you don’t want the boys around me.”

She knew I needed someone to help me take care of my kids

while I was at work. She suggested me to hire her niece as she

was really good with kids and would be a great help.

I did need help, so I invited her to live with me to take

care of my kids. One day, my babysitter picked me up because

we would go clean a house for extra money. I took all the

cleaning items at my home and packed them in her trunk and

left. I felt I had left my children in good hands. But, of course, as

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you can see, my story has been all about having bad judgment

about people, so this was a bad decision too.

The Careless Babysitter

I was at work when a police officer called on my phone.

He said he had got a report that there were some children alone

in a house and believed that it was my house. So, he asked me to

come right away because he needed to get inside the house. I

stopped what I was doing and told my friend to take me home

immediately. She didn’t want to lose her job, so she refused. Out

of desperation, I started to walk madly, trying to get home as fast

as I could. The sun was burning me alive. I was sweating buckets

and got sick.

When I got home, I was restless, sweating and crying.

To make it worse, the police didn’t let me inside. I asked if my

kids and the babysitter were OK. He said that kids seemed fine,

but babysitter was nowhere to be found. I looked across the way

and saw my mother-in-law’s car parked at a distance. Behind it

standing were my mother-in-law and my mother. My mother-in-

law told me that my son called and told her that he was left

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alone. I just couldn’t believe what I had just heard. How could

this be?

The officer told me that Child Protective Services (CPS)

would be arriving to make sure the children were OK. I didn’t

know much about CPS, but I did encounter them once when they

came to one of the houses where I was living. They claimed that

they had to check my home because they had gotten a report that

I had a big plate of cocaine in the middle of my table. Later, I

found out that it was my mother-in-law trying to get custody of

my children. However, the CPS worker didn’t find any probable

cause for my children to be taken away from me. So, she closed

the case, and I never heard from them again until now.

The CPS worker asked me who was watching my

children. I told her that my mother-in-law’s niece was watching

my children while I was working. My mother-in-law did not

want to confirm it and said she knew anything about it. There

was no way of proving that my mother-in-law was behind all of

this. Therefore, they had to do further investigations.

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 One of the officers came out of my house and told the

CPS worker that my house had been trashed. She went inside to

take pictures of my trashed house. I was astonished to know

what they proved in court later. They claimed that I lived in a

trashed house with dirty diapers on the floor and milk and cereal

thrown all over the living room carpet. I found out that the food I

had made and left for the babysitter to feed my children was

there on the stove. The CPS worker claimed that that food had

been there for days, but I assured her that I had just cooked it

that morning.

At last, when they allowed me to walk into my

apartment, the first thing I did was hug my children. They were

so happy to see me and jumped around with joy. They couldn’t

see that their mama was falling apart. I looked around the house,

and I felt that someone had purposely trashed my apartment. I

could tell that a whole gallon of milk and cereal was poured over

the rug in the living room. The clean clothes were thrown all

over the apartment. In the kitchen, all the dishes were in the sink,

and it looked like someone poured the milk all over them to

make them look dirty. Every inch of the floor was dirty. The

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only clean, organized thing was my refrigerator. The person

trying to trash my house forgot to dirty that too. I admit that my

house was a real mess at that time, but I never kept it that way. It

was somebody else who did it on purpose, and I found that

person later.

The CPS lady told me that she would need to take my

children overnight to investigate and make sure that the

environment where they were living was safe for them. I didn’t

want them to leave, not even for a day, but this was the authority

I was dealing with. They assured me they would be safe

wherever they put them, and I believed them. I thought it would

only be for one night, and I would be seeing them in the

morning. So, they packed the kids up in a big white van and took

them away. My kids were happy thinking they would be going

on a safari because I always called it when we would go to a

park or do something fun.

I was hurt inside, but I knew that the CPS people just

wanted to protect my children, and I was grateful for that at that

time. She asked me if she could take a piece of my hair from the

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roots to make sure that I did could not use any drugs. She told

me that my mother had told her that I had been using marijuana

for some time. And I wasn’t surprised that my mother, once

again, was trying to hurt me. So I agreed, and she took a sample

of my hair from my head. She said she would take it to a

laboratory and get the results later that day.

After she left, I started cleaning my house, wondering

what happened here. I even thought that my babysitter could

have been in danger, and it made more worried about her. After I

was done cleaning, I called some of her friends to see if anyone

had heard from her. That’s when they told me what had

happened; They told me that she needed to go somewhere, so she

left her brother in charge of my kids. After a while, he got bored

and left them alone because his sister didn’t show up when she

was supposed to. However, no one knew how my house was

trashed. I felt relaxed that she was OK, but I was not happy that

she left my children with her brother. I still wanted to talk to her

to find out the whole story.

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 In the evening, the caseworker came back to my house

with the results. She told me that they came out to be diluted.

She said either I drank too much water or I did something not to

get negative results. She told me that I would have to go down to

a laboratory and get a retest the next day. I went exactly when

the laboratory opened, took my ID, and sat there as they opened

the doors. I told people at the lab my name and the reason I came

for. They didn’t exactly understand what laboratory test I was

there for. Actually, I forgot to ask the CPS worker about what

kind of test I would be needing. I explained that they had taken a

strand of my hair the day before to check if I had used drugs, but

the results came out to be diluted. So, I was sent there for the

retest.

Finally, the woman at the front desk understood what I

was looking for. She told me to have a seat and that someone

would be calling my name soon. When they called my name,

they gave me a cup and told me to urinate in it. I felt so

uncomfortable, but I just wanted it all to end. I wanted to prove

to the CPS people that I didn’t do any drugs as my mom had told

them.

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 After I was done, I went back home and waited for my

children, to be brought back. The CPS lady called and told me

that my results were negative. She told me that they would drop

the kids off at 6 o’clock. I was happy to hear the news about the

test results and waited anxiously for my kids to get home. While

I waited outside the front door of my apartment, the same white

van arrived. I was so excited that my children were back with me

again. As soon as I saw them, I grabbed them out of the van as

quickly as I could, carried the baby and took them inside. I asked

my oldest son, “How was their Safari?” They said it was fun but

a little scary too.

The Parent Aid

I wanted to put all this behind us, so I decided to find a

new house right away. The caseworker told me that they would

be checking on me from time to time, but the case wasn’t closed

yet. I was fine with that as I really didn’t have anything to fear; I

always had a roof over my kids’ heads, food on the table for

them, and many other things they needed. But I had no clue that

first I needed to get permission from the CPS to move my house.

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A week after I moved and called them to let them know my new

address if they needed to get a hold of me. But to my surprise,

they were very upset with me because I was not supposed to

move without their permission. Still, I thought it wasn’t a big

deal.

Because of my move, the CPS felt that I needed a parent

aide. My first parent aid always told me what to do. I felt like I

had a bossy mother when she was around. One time she came

over and saw I had a big pot of Mexican stew on the stove. She

told me to put it in the refrigerator if we were done eating. I tried

to explain to her that Mexican stew couldn’t be put in the fridge

while hot or it would rot right away. However, it didn’t really

matter to her and insisted me to put it in the fridge away. So, I

had to, and I, as expected, found it rotten the next morning.

I felt this parent aid wasn’t culturally sensitive enough,

so I contacted the CPS and let them know my concern. They said

they would be sending another parent aid the next week and they

did so. My new parent aid was amazing; she was more cultural

and sensitive and knew how we kept vegetables out and liked to

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keep beans on the stove. Every time she left the house, she

would give me a big hug saying goodbye. I got close to her until

the CPS felt I no longer needed the service.

We stayed in contact for three years, but she wasn’t the

wonderful person she showed me to be at that time. In her

personal life, she was exactly how I used to be who did anything

to get what she wanted.

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