As a child (7-8 y/o) I (m-19) was dropped off at my fathers house when my mother moved to a different state with her husband. At the time, all I wanted was to be with my dad. He loved me unconditionally. He treated me so nicely, like I was the only thing in this world that truly made him happy. But as I got older (9-10 y/o) things started changing. He started to get aggressive. He would verbally, mentally, and physically abuse me and my step-mother. Eventually (11 y/o at the time) they had a daughter. The abuse became more evil. A couple years later, (12-13 y/o) He wouldn’t just use harsh words. He would degrade me. He would always say something about my weight, or how I was ugly. It broke me. Around the same time, he started to use more physical means of torture. He would lock me in our basement during summer, only allowing me to eat once every 3 days or so. There was a few times I tried to take the easy way out. There were many means of doing so, but I never succeeded. Once or twice a week, he would come down there, and hit me. Not just “hit me” more like try to kill me. (One time he brought his gun down there, racked the slide on the pistol, and pulled the trigger. The gun never fired. It got jammed before anything could happen.) He would choke slam me, throw me against the wall, shove me down to the ground, just anything to make me feel weak and small against his large frame. Finally, when school started back up, (14 y/o) I told the school principle. I was terrified. I thought to myself, “there’s no way anything will get me out of this situation.” I was wrong. The same day, my mom called me at school and told me she was on her way to get me. She took a 10 hour drive and turned it into a 6 hour drive. I still think about the time I spent in that hell hole. How it changed me. How it’s changed me into the young man I’ve become. To be wholeheartedly honest, it helped me more than anything.