Waking The Wounds

by Angela Kayne

  My grandfather had built that house with little money and it had no septic system, that meant no flushing toilet in a house with eight people. We used a large pot inside my parents’ bedroom instead, and my brothers were given empty milk jugs to urinate in. It was very common to have many jugs sitting lined up in the kitchen with no lids, close to where we slept. The smell was awful, I still remember it. I felt so dirty, so small, so neglected.

  This was the main reason my little brother and I spent most of our time outside, as much as we possibly could. He was my escape, my one source of happiness, and the only good thing I recall from my childhood. He and I were best friends, partners in crime, bonded in a way that didn’t exist for me with the rest of my family. We were simply kids, doing kid things, in a world where neither of us were safe or big enough to protect the other from the monsters in our world who were disguised as members of our family. The outdoor world held so much fun for us, but also so much darkness and pain.

  It was outside one day when I was around the age of five, that my dad gave me the first of several beatings I recall. This particular beating came after I had left my bicycle on the lane next to our house, and a car ran over it and destroyed it. Dad had brought it home for me the day before, bought second hand from my cousin. It was my first bike, and I was so excited to have my own bike. It was white with pink and purple streamers, and training wheels. When dad found the bike he flew into a rage and broke a branch from one of the trees in our front yard. He beat me with it, I can’t remember the pain, but I remember feeling shock, and terror, and fear. After the beating I had welts on my back, bottom, and legs. I ran inside crying, seeking comfort and protection from mom, she simply said to me “you were so brave” I was so confused by her response. I needed her to be brave, to make sure what just happened to me would never happen again, but instead she placed being brave on me, at age five. And it would not be the last time I experienced violence at the hands of my father.

  At some point around this time I realized that I had no protector, no safe place, and that I had to look out for myself. I stopped telling mom when bad things happened because I simply could not trust her. I never once heard the words “I love you” from neither mom nor dad, and neither of them had ever shown me physical affection. Some people say they knew they were loved, even though they never heard the words. That simply was not so for me, I don’t recall ever feeling secure in the knowledge that I was loved, or wanted by them. I of course told myself I must be loved, since I wanted it so badly from them. But in reality it felt more like I was tolerated. I remember walking on nails around my dad, not wanting to be the target for his explosive temper. I knew very well what he was capable of, my brothers were not as adept at walking on nails as I had learned to be. Because of this, my brothers saw me as the “favored child”. A minor quarrel between them would quickly escalate into physical violence.

  It wasn’t just us kids who were the target of his anger. On several occasions our dogs would break their chains, and run free. When this happened, my dad would go into a rage, beating and kicking them, only stopping when they were done resisting him. I watched and listened, frozen in place. They were left bleeding, secured back to their houses. I wish they had learned not to escape, but they always tried again as any living thing would in an attempt to be free from a life of chains. Another time, dad threw a long handled shovel at the neighbor girl while she rode by on her bike. He hit her knocking her off, all because she had taken a flower from our garden. I became terrified of him, and what he was capable of, he was like a bomb just waiting to go off. When he was watching tv you could forget the other part of him existed, the contrast into his dark side was always so quick and unexpected. He often listened to his baseball games on his radio, if his team lost he would quickly go into a rage, throwing his radio yelling and screaming, and cursing.

  There were so many times throughout my childhood, both mom and dad gave me further reason to believe they were not capable of loving me. Many times I felt rejected and unwanted by them by the choices they made. I recall one time around age six on a Friday night, we had all gone to the auction as was our weekly routine. Somehow I ended up by myself in the auction building after it closed. The lights were all turned off, and I couldn’t find my way outside since some of the doors were locked. When I finally found an open door and went outside, I saw an empty parking lot and my parents car driving away. I frantically started running after them, yelling for them to stop. It was dark, and very late at night. They did stop and let me in, but I’ve always wondered whether or not they actually would have left me there by myself locked in that building, so far from home, and so small.

  Another time at around age eight I had been invited to a Christmas party at a church with other kids and there were presents. My parents dropped me off at the wrong church without checking to make sure it was the right one. I waited for several hours and missed the party, which was a big deal for me. The church they left me at had a ballet class in session, I remember feeling so out of place waiting there, watching this class of pretty girls in tutus and tights, knowing this was a world I would never be a part of. Mine was a world of church handouts, and government food, which at times still wasn’t enough. Ballet was the sort of thing the pretty, popular girls at school talked about with their friends, something I knew at that age would never be available to me. I felt small, and rejected, and so disappointed that I missed the party. When they came back for me later, they never apologized, or even acknowledged they had made a mistake.

  I was in third grade when my youngest brother was born. I remember being dropped off at my aunt Margaret's house with my brothers because mom had gone into early labor and was rushed to the hospital. I barely knew this aunt, though I remember she was nice and made us boxed mac and cheese. I had never had it before and thought it was the strangest thing ever, such a bright orange color. My little brother was born in January, three months premature, and severely handicapped. He was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and miraculously, after having his heart stop beating three different times, he was brought back to life and survived. He spent over a year in the hospital until he was stable enough to come home. When my little brother finally did come home, he was on oxygen and required a lot of care. I remember he slept in a playpen in the living room.

  Life from that point on I think just got worse for all of us, more work was placed on mom, the stress of a special needs baby on top of everything else that she already could not manage weighed heavily on her. So the abuse continued, mom and dad continued to ignore, or not notice, or deny, I’m not really sure which. I went to school dreading it every day, and came home each day with that same dread. As I got older, I began to hate my older brother, and what he was doing to me. I started trying to set boundaries for myself. I was no longer willing to play his games, so he started trying to sexually abuse me while I was sleeping. I remember waking up one time to him over top of me shining a flashlight down my shirt. I yelled and woke everyone up, but still nothing was done to protect me from him. I think I was around ten or eleven years old when this happened.

  When I was eleven years old, my parents bought a used mobile home, and set it up on our land next to our house. For me it was a dream come true, it had three bedrooms, one of which I shared with my grandmother. And for a while I imagined our family would somehow be different, this home would be clean, safe, and the fighting would cease. That somehow we’d find a way to be “normal”, but after settling into our new clean trailer, the cycle of chaos and dysfunction quickly resumed. Those thin trailer walls would later bare the evidence of fists being thrown, and objects hurled in anger missing their intended targets. I would quickly learn to escape through my headphones with the the help of Cindy Lauper, and Michael Jackson. I finally had a bedroom and a bed, but more importantly I had a door to keep my brother out. It didn’t have a lock, so I wedged my door shut every night. My brother never molested me again. I wish I could say life got better from this point on, but unfortuna
tely it didn’t.

  I believe It was around this time dad had an affair on mom. I remember seeing her in the kitchen crying as she waited for him to come home, many hours past his expected arrival. The woman worked with him at Penndot, and was much younger and more attractive than mom, at least mom thought so. When he finally arrived home, she tearfully and angrily confronted him only to be shut down, and put in her place. He told her it was none of her damn business, that he’d do what he wanted to. I don’t know for sure when it ended, but it destroyed my mom, and it was obvious he had no regrets. Up until this point, I had never seen mom and dad show love or affection to each other, they sort of co- existed, within the unspoken rules he created for their marriage. She just knew what not to do to upset him, and what was required from her to keep him content. There were many times she couldn’t please him, he spoke to her cruely, shaming and humiliating her after a meal not cooked to his liking. At times, he brought her to tears, she never tried to defend herself. She was in many ways still a child, she had a childlike personality, almost as if she never grew into the woman she should have been. While she was rarely unkind to me, it was her failure to protect me in any way that led me to believe she could not love me.

  I was around the age of thirteen when mom and I went shopping and it turned into shoplifting. She and I shoplifted from a local department store, I remember it felt strangely exciting to be doing something so obviously rebellious and wrong with my mother. It never happened again, and neither of us brought it up afterward. I’m imagining she had so little excitement in her life, and so little control over anything, that in her mind shoplifting with her kid became an acceptable solution. I can’t even say I regret it, because it was one of the very few memories I have of doing anything with her, just her and I, even if it was committing a crime.

  Chapter 3

  Education

  The other part to my childhood, which was almost as traumatic and painful as my home life, were the years I spent in public school. For me, it was a scary place from the very beginning. I started school in the first grade, and never went to Kindergarten. My first grade teacher was very nice, I remember her well. She seemed to have a caring nature, and always made sure I was warm enough during recess. I was rejected right away by the other kids, it amazes me how kids even at so young of an age judge one another based on clothing, skin color, or how much money the parents have. Anything that makes you different from the rest makes you fair game for being bullied or excluded. I was considered poor white trash, I heard the name “scum ball” quite often. I wore the same clothes too many days in a row, my long curly hair was always tangled, I simply could not blend into this world of kids who were apparently so normal. I tried so hard to not be noticed, I just wanted to disappear. Unfortunately, disappearing or blending in just wasn’t possible in that setting.

  My second grade year was even worse, my teacher made it obvious from the beginning that she viewed me as poor white trash, just as the kids did. She was angry with me about something all the time, and seemed to look for reasons to paddle me. If a test wasn’t completed in time, or the grade wasn’t high enough, work wasn’t neatly written… all were justifiable offenses to receive the paddle. It was always in front of the whole class, so the shame and humiliation was thoroughly felt and witnessed by all. I’ll never forget the time she paddled the entire class. She had given us a test, spelling perhaps? Not one of us had gotten all the answers right. She had us all line up the whole way around the room, one by one we were paddled. I waited, terrified in line for my turn. I wonder still today if the parents even knew this was happening? Were they even aware of why this discipline was used and how scared we all were of her? I was terrified of her, and that fear affected how I viewed all of my teachers after her. She reinforced the views I already held about myself. I was never good enough, I was a bad girl, and unworthy of love and acceptance or anything good. The kids of course pick up on favoritism for another student, or in my case dislike, so they do things to reinforce the teachers’ views in hopes of gaining approval. She effectively made sure I had no voice at school, and that I knew my place. I was never able to truly trust future teachers after my experience with her.

  I have no memories at all of school my third grade year other than my brother and I being picked up at school a few times by a caseworker from Children And Youth. He was kind to us and took us to McDonalds for lunch. He asked me a lot of questions, whether or not anyone had been sexually abusing me. I told him no, I was terrified to tell on my older brother, (I assumed it HAD to be about him) I thought if I did I’d get in trouble from my parents, or receive the wrath that would surely come from my brother. I didn’t understand that this worker might have been able to help me. I don’t think I really trusted him either. So neither my younger brother or I spoke up and told him what was going on at home. I found out many years later that it was in fact my dad who was being investigated by the county, for sexually abusing me. A relative had made an anonymous phone call on my behalf. While I have no memories of my dad ever sexually abusing me, I truly believe that he did. I believe it happened during my third grade school year and I blocked it out, which would account for my huge loss of memory. Could I be wrong? YES! I truly hope I am. But, as an adult I have found out the horrible truth about who my dad really was. He had sexually abused a lot of children in our family, one was just four years old the first time he abused her. Fear and shame kept all of those children silent, it was after they became adults that they were able to find the strength to tell their stories. This information while devastating to receive, I knew in my heart to be the truth. I became even more convinced that I too was sexually abused by him, my own father.

  My fourth grade year was the year I finally made a friend. I was a socially awkward kid, very shy, with zero confidence. She was pretty and outgoing, and she wanted to be my friend. She invited me to her house for sleepovers, it was a whole different world from my reality. Her parents were nice people, her home was beautiful, and she had nice things. I loved spending time with her there, escaping my life. I went with her to piano lessons, gymnastics, and to the movies. She invited me to her birthday party, that was the first time I had gone to another kid’s birthday party, I had so much fun. I remember riding with her in her parents cadillac, It made me feel so special. I wondered if she knew just how lucky she was, she had everything I didn’t have. Most importantly she had parents who loved and protected her.

  We remained friends until the end of sixth grade. One day during our sixth grade year, she stopped by my house unexpectedly. She saw how we lived, I had managed until then to keep my home life a secret. I was horrified about what she would think. What would she say? And my biggest fear, would I lose my only friend? The next day at school during lunch, she loudly announced to all the kids at the lunch table how dirty our house was, how she couldn’t even see the walls. I couldn’t escape the shame and humiliation I felt as the kids laughed. She had no idea how much she had hurt me, and the rejection I was feeling. Not long after that she ended our friendship, she told me we were going to be starting a new school and would be seperated anyways. I lost my only friend, and would be attending a new bigger school in the fall, completely alone. I spent that whole summer terrified of what was ahead. Would it be worse? Surely it would.

  Junior high school proved to be much of the same unpleasant experience as elementary school had been. Except now there were a lot more kids, more teachers, and more rules and guidelines to follow. We now had lockers, and many classrooms, and I was at the bottom of the ladder with all the other kids being older. The bullying started once again, this time with different kids, and on the school bus the same bullying continued. It felt like I couldn’t escape it, hatred and rejection followed me no matter where I went. I had no safe place, no one to rescue me or defend me, and I had no idea why I was so disliked or what I had done to earn any of it. I just wanted to be left alone, do my thing, and put my time in.

  The worst part about jr high for
me was gym class. It meant showering in front of some of the girls who were making fun of me. I found this to be the most degrading, and humiliating experience. Who’s idea was this, and why did I not have a choice to opt out? I’ll never understand why forcing kids to shower together is a thing, considered acceptable in public schools.

  There were of course other reasons why school never really felt safe during my time in Jr High. We had one student stab another during a fight, a student who hung himself after suffering extreme bullying, a student drowned in the river, another student stabbed another to death outside of school, he too was a victim of extreme bullying. Then there were the fairly common fights between girls, and the students that were killed in car crashes. Our town also had a serial rapist at that time, who turned out to be a student at our school as well. An element of fear seemed to permeate our school, long after these incidents occurred.

  It just seemed like no matter what I did, there was always something or someone trying to break me. I simply could not avoid it, weird things happened to me, nobody else, just me. You know because life didn’t suck enough already, so let’s just throw this kid another curve ball whether she is ready for it or not. A little story, just to give an example of the curve balls this kid named Angie had thrown at her. As I mentioned already we lived in the country, white trash rednecks remember? So needless to say, we had critters, all kinds of them. (lions, and tigers, and BEARS! OH MY!) Well one night, we had a skunk out back behind our trailer, dad decided he needed to shoot the poor thing. He did his deed right next to our trailer, with the windows open, did he even think it through? Clearly he did not. I really didn’t think much of it, until I got to school the next day. This weird phenomenon occurs where you can smell something without knowing it is even there, or you just get used to it and dont notice it. Either way, I arrived to school and immediately everyone is asking where that skunk smell is coming from… I’m not even kidding. It took the kids about five seconds to realize it was of course coming from me. And this might be funny, if it had happened to anyone but me. I wanted to die, right there. But guess what? I couldn’t do anything about it! There was no going home, nobody was available to pick me up. So I spent that entire day at school, smelling like a darn skunk. Really life? WHY ME?! Needless to say I didn’t go back to school until I was certain the smell was completely gone.