Kim's Childhood

My Childhood is gone,...it was stolen.

A little baby girl was brought unto this earth. She was innocent and was in the purest form. This baby grew to become a small child. Ready to bloom, waiting for the nourishment of love and safety. She was denied that, which was her birth right. This sweet little girl was stripped of all her hidden treasures. So many potential abilities stolen. She was left with just a shell. Only emptiness inside. Nothing else except self hate, blame, and inner turmoil. This child learned early that the world she was brought into was not safe.This child was me...

I only have limited memories of my childhood. I will try to piece together what I can...

I was born and raised in a New England town in the United States. My parents had five children. I was the oldest girl.

My mother's occupation was an R.N. at the time. Which she worked alot of odd hours, including the night shift. My father worked for a major company in the New England area, then eventually left that job to start his own business. His first company was a printing shop. I can remember him having me and my other siblings working in his shop. My older brother almost lost his hand as he manualy placed paper in an old fashion type printing press machine. He lives his life with a deformed hand, because of my father's greed. We were his little slaves. I guess we were free child labor. I still to this day hate the smell of ink.

My father opened a real estate business next. Looking back, this might have been when he decided he was "the ruler of all." His business was very successful at first. My parents remodeled our seventeen room home, and built an olympic size swimming pool. They bought furnishings, a BMW motor cycle, a Corvette, and a Greyhound bus converted into a motor home. We had a stable and horses. We went on vacations. We attended church. My parents had plenty of friends. We were the perfect picture of a normal upper-class family. But what was going on inside this facade was something quite horrible. We were not the perfect family,...not by a long shot.

I feared my father. He was a strict disciplinarian. He would spank me on my bare behind, for punishment. He would make me wait for the punishment, which was worse then the painful spankings. I was a quiet, obedient, child. I can't imagine myself doing anything that warranted that severe of a punishment. It embarrassed, and humiliated me to take down my pants for the spanking. I remember waiting for a punishment, crying and saying over and over to my mother, "I hate him, I hate him." My mother just looked sad, and said "shhh...Daddy is on the phone. "

I can only guess how old I was when my father started abusing me sexually. It was probably between the ages of nine and fourteen. He abused me in several different places. He would come up to my bedroom most of the time. I would pretend to be asleep. I believed that if he thought I was asleep, then he nor I would have to face it. I call it playing possum." Leave me alone, I'm dead." He didn't. He abused me anytime my Mom was not around, camping trips, in the livingroom, on a business trip, in the bus. Anywhere he could. I was always in possum form. "I'm dead, not here, this is not happening." But, it did happen. I was sexually abused by my own father. I did not know what he was doing to me, but I knew it was bad.

The person that was suppose to protect me, turned out to be the person I needed protection from. The monster under my bed was real.

I look at my childhood pictures and try to remember. What was in that little girls mind? Why is she smiling? What kept her going? I look at the photos that I hold in my adult hands and I grieve. I feel such sorrow, for this child is gone. She is gone somewhere in my memory, too frightened to come out of hiding. Such protection my mind has...

I carried the pain all through my years as a child. The self hate festered inside of me like a disease. Unable to reach out for the help I so desperately needed. I told no one. It was too embarrassing, too ugly to speak about. Never placing the guilt where it belonged. Always looking inward for punishment of the crime. So much for this little girl to handle at such a tender age.

My father was having one out of many affairs and soon left our family. He left my mother with five children, on a nurse's salary and zero child support. Our home soon went into foreclosure. My mother received food stamps in order to feed her children. She would shop for the groceries in the next town over, to insure no one would recognize her as she made payment with food stamps. I being the oldest girl, took on the huge task of taking care of my younger siblings. The two youngest had no idea what was going on at that time, due to their age. My sister, Laurie who is 11 months younger than I, was living in her own private hell. My older brother began his drinking. Our family started to crumble. It was the most difficult for my mother. I can only imagine being in the same situation. Five children, bills, keeping her job, with no help.

I recall hearing her cry behind closed doors. I wondered why she was sad.

The time came when my mother was forced to move herself and her children out of our home. My father had not only left, he left her in debt. We moved to a goverment subsidized apartment in the city where she worked, and into an environrment that was so different from what we were used to.

Isolation became a way of life. It was difficult for for me to make any kind of friendships. My sister Laurie and I were all that each other had. Our new school was tough. There were fights daily in the hallways. I was threatened, spit on and harrassed. Drugs were everywhere.The school at that time was out of control. No teachers ever reached out. Nobody notice how alone and scared I was. I'm sure Laurie felt the same way, but we never discussed how bad it really was.

It was just a way of life.

My mother decided to go back to school to further her education. The university was located in Colorado, so she made arrangements to have my siblings and I go to live with my father. He had recently resurfaced in another state. He was living with his girlfriend, a much younger woman than himself. I can't remember how I felt about going to live with my father. It was just something I had to do. My mother had no clue about the sexual abuse, if she did, I know she would not have sent us away.

We went to live with him at the end of the summer of '78. We entered into school in September. Laurie and I were tossed into more isolation. We were afraid to even ride the school bus for fear of being beat up. Looking back, we must have appeared to have been easy prey for bullies. Fear and loneliness seemed to be just a fact of life. We had no allies, just each other.

I believe it was in my homeroom class, when I met the school guidance counselor, Mr. X. (I can not give his real name now.) He had come to my classroom to introduce himself. Mr. X explained his position as guidance counselor and invited anyone who needed to talk to his office. He seemed to be very caring, and someone who connected with us. I can remember him cracking jokes, and making the students laugh. It was then that I decided to go see him and report the sexual abuse that my father had committed.

I requested a guidance pass from one of my teachers and before I knew it, I was in his office spilling my guts. I finally had a trusted adult that I could tell my secret to. I cried tears that had been hidden for so long. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my fifteen years of life. I reached for help, I told. I was going to be safe.

I continued to go see Mr. X during school hours, to purge my soul. At first he listened, and became what I considered my friend. I was as naive as they come. What I did not know at the time, was that he had a duty to report the abuse to the proper authorities. He never did. Instead, he took my trust and twisted it for his own use.

My counseling sessions turned into what I thought at the time was a relationship. Mr. X said that he cared about me thought I was beautiful. I was recieving the attention I so desperately craved. Soon, physical contact began, with kissing and some touching. All of this occurring on school property in his office, with the door closed. I began to wish that he would take me away, far from the daily hell that I lived. I tried to be anything he wanted me to be. No matter how hard I tried, I could not be his girlfriend, because I was a child.

It was this child that Mr. X preyed upon. He did not give or get help for me. He was not my counselor, my friend, or my lover. Mr. X was a predator, seeking out his "kill." There was no love in his heart, except for self love. He found this little rag-doll that was already so worn, and he finished her off. Not caring about the emotional damage he was inflicting. Not even a trickle of pity. Only self gratification filled his evil mind, at any and all cost.

This activity continued until one day Mr. X invited me to a High School football game. I asked my father if I could go with him. No lectures on safety, no questions asked, my father simply said yes. Thanks Daddy.

Mr. X picked me up from home and did in fact, bring me to the game. I sat alone through the entire game. He said that he had to help with running the game, and checked in on me a few times. After the game we left together, alone, in his car. He stopped at a drive-through package store and bought some alcoholic beverages, then drove me to a two story house. I can recall it being a home for disadvantaged children, it was called The House Next Door. It was only used in the daytime. He had the key and slipped me in the back door. He directed me upstairs, in the dark. Mr. X put on some music and offered me a drink. It tasted horrible, but I drank it, trying to be a grown-up. We drank and danced and then before I knew it, I was in way over my head. I was not a grown-up, I was a child. I was trying my best to let him do whatever he wanted, but I couldn't. I cried, and after awhile he brought me home. My father accepted my lame attempt of an excuse, about why and where I was until 3:00 am with an adult man. He never questioned me, I never even got punished. Nothing. What could he say? He and Mr. X had alot in common.

I quit school soon after. I never saw Mr. X again.

Just a few threads holding the ragdoll together now, fit only for the garbage. All innocence lost. There would be no proms, no graduation, nothing a normal girl gets to experience. I was different. I had something wrong with me. No one cared. No one heard. No one saw. I was alone, and it didn't matter.

The future looked bleak . . .