My mom sorta verbally abused my dad and he thinks it’s ok, I can’t say anything to her or defend him bc then she plays the bad guy and makes you feel guilty. She always tells him he’s fat or he needs to lose weight, sometimes she doesn’t let him eat anything. There’s a lot more I don’t wanna share but, I’m so worried he’s going to unalive himself and it seems there’s nothing I can do. He tries to smile his way through the mental abuse but it’s obvious he’s very depressed. I wish I could tell him that it’s not okay what my mom does, but he wouldn’t believe me and say that she’s right.

When I was 4 years old I was molested and sexually abused by my father. My mom knew but was afraid to be alone so she stayed with him. Growing up, My friends werent allowed to stay the night and I never knew it was because my dad was already a convicted sex offender (for the molestation of his 2 nieces). So my brother would have friends over a lot, but my girl friends were never allowed over. My parents also would not touch me for any single reason. No hugs, no spankings, not a finger on my head after what happened when I was 5 years old, but they would hug my brother and I just thought that was because they loved him more, which I had a grin acceptance for even at such a young age. I grew up not knowing about the rape and sexual assault until I was 12, when I started having horrible nightmares about it. My parents divorced at that point, and I always felt responsible. We moved states and my mom started doing drugs, and by the time I was 15 we were living in a house without power, gas, or water. I sometimes went days without eating, and weeks without bathing. I was staying on and off with some friends, who allowed me to keep my cat at their house. That cat was literally all I had left. One day she went missing, and I found her dead on the road. I was so upset, I grabbed the only thing I could find—a snow shovel—and scraped her off the road and buried her while I sobbed, and my friends laughed at me and made fun of me because they didn’t realize she was the only family I felt like I had. At 16 I left to live on my own, working at a fast food restaurant and sleeping at friends houses or staying at a homeless shelter. I would go months without talking to my mom or any family, and when I did it was because they wanted to borrow money from me. My mom used to say she needed the money for hotel rooms, and I would always give it to her because I was young and stupid and naive. She even went behind my back and asked my boyfriend for money, claiming it was for me, and he had given it to her. (I didn’t find out about it until more than 6 years later).I had bought myself this cheap little flip phone, and at night I would go to the highest spot I could find, and sit and look at the city while I called my moms number over and over and listened to the voicemail just so I could hear her voice. The number wasn’t in service for long but I remember I would call it and listen to her talking, ‘leave a message’ and I would just look out at the city and imagine that she was somewhere missing me, worrying about me. I used to daydream that she would come running for me someday and grab me in her arms and hug me like she never had my whole life, that she would tell me how much she loves me and that she was so sorry. Looking back I don’t think she was. I used to wash my clothes in the bathroom sink at work before my shift started, and everything i owned I kept in a very small backpack. Eventually, I was able to fully support myself and live on my own comfortably with my boyfriend, but those years were the hardest of my life. I have pretty bad anxiety now, and I am terrified of leaving my house. A few years after this, My dad and his wife divorced because she found out about how he abused me when I was a kid. The worst part is she didn’t hear it from me. (She had asked me about it and I lied to her face because I didn’t want to ruin another relationship, and I’ve always had trouble discussing it with people) . She had asked a close family friend who told her the whole story, and when confronted with it, my dad called me a liar and a bunch of other horrible things. I was so shocked that he would say that, and also that he acted like nothing had happened around me. I had been willing to move past what happened up until that point. And so I started thinking that I would be happier if he was dead. And my mom—I don’t wish she was dead, but it hurts so much that the one person who should have been there to take care of me would have rather been doing heroin and meth while I was eating out of dumpsters, sleeping in football fields, and lying to all my teachers and coworkers so that I wouldn’t be taken away by cps. So that’s some context. My boyfriends dad is dead—and when I told him I wish my father was dead, he was so hurt by it that it made me feel sick and guilty inside. But it’s how I feel. I think he’s a monster and a horrible person, and although I do have complicated feelings, ultimately if he died I don’t think I would shed a tear. And I’ll never ever forgive my mom for how she treated me in my teens, how I had to take care of her and myself before I was old enough to drive on my own, or even have my own job. So I do resent her. The whole story is so much worse than what I could ever type here, but it feels so good to vent SOMEWHERE about it, even anonymously. Deepest secrets, life story, same thing, right?

• June 6, 2023