Being yelled at for every little mistake, being starved to death, and even being beaten was normal in my life. Always being told to get away from my abuser was an everyday statement told to me by many people. If I were to dare leave for even a split second, my life would be on the line. For a mother to do this to their own child...it was hell. Locked inside my own home and even sometimes my own room for days without food or water. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere without her constantly being right by my side. I couldn't even breath.
At school, my friend would always notice how I acted differently around other people. I wouldn't look them in the eye or I stayed quiet when my name was called out. She had to tell me if someone was talking to me so I could talk to them. To me, I always had to ask permission or wait for someone to tell me when to talk, for if I didn't, I was afraid a hand would be raised at me. I had to be controlled. I didn't know how to do things on my own.
As time when on, my friend Angie had enough. The last straw for her was when I came to school with a black eye and a sprained wrist. She knew what was going on even though I never told her anything about my life or about my mother. She saw the signs when no one else did. She took me to the office and she talked to the principle. Immediately, cops were at my house and they took my mother away.
I ended up staying at Angie's house until it came time for my mother's trial. They had the evidence to put her away in jail for 10 years. In court, when they had found her guilty, something snapped inside me. I broke into tears in front of the judge and everyone in the courtroom. Angie came to me and held me in her arms. For the first time, I felt warmth and love. Angie became someone I loved dearly.
Not long after that, Angie's parents decided it would be best if I were to stay with them as they were afraid I wouldn't fit in anywhere else. I was soon adopted into their family. I became their 3rd child as there was Angie and her younger sister. For the first time, I didn't go hungry. For the first time, I started to get used to not asking for permission for every little thing. For the first time...I felt love. At school, Angie was always with me. Wherever I went, she would follow close behind. More people began to come hang with Angie and me and eventually, I had more friends. My first ever friend group.
The abuse with my mother lasted until I was 12. Today, I am now 17 years old, almost turning 18 in a couple of months. My new mom and dad are supportive of me in my dream to become a part in law enforcement. As any little kid would say, "I want to do this job because I want to help catch bad guys." That's the main goal for me too, but the bad guys I want to stop are people like my mother. I want to put abusers in handcuffs and see them get sentenced in court just like my mother did. Seeing that would bring piece of mind for me. Just the feeling of arresting people like my mother and seeing them suffer, brings a smile upon my face. Call me a psycho, but seeing monsters like my mother suffer in a jail cell by themselves...it's like getting revenge on those who made my life a living hell. Not only that, I would be saving kids who have been victims of abuse just like me.
My life now to most people would seem perfect as things were starting to get better, but of course, with my whole life being abused, some things still remained. With those years of abuse, it caused me to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. I would get triggered when someone touched me. Fear would consume my body and I wouldn't be able to breath. Memories would rush back to me and it would feel like my mother was standing there in front of me waiting to hit me. Angie was the only person that could touch me without making myself have a panic attack. She was, afterall, the first person to ever touch me without harming me, so my body accepted her. Luckily, most people from my school caught on about me not liking people touching me, so I was safe from people and was not afraid as much when I did go to school.
But, yet again, there were events happening at school that also brought me down into my depression. Even though people respected my wishes to not being touched, it didn't stop the verbal abuse. Being called an attention whore to people saying I'm weak to people starting to go after Angie, I couldn't handle it. Angie, of course, would stick up for me and people would start to back off, but when she wasn't with me, they would make their move. Mom and dad caught on about it and soon made a report to the school, but of course, the school didn't do anything. With the verbal abuse getting worse, my parents had to pull me out of school and transfer me to online school. That made things even worse.
I wouldn't come out of my room as often anymore and would use the excuse of "I have a lot of homework" or "I'm going to take a nap". Me doing this action caused my family to be worried for me, but me not being use to people worrying for me, I didn't notice they were. I also didn't notice that I wasn't eating as much anymore. It was like everything from my past was coming back and making me go back to my old lifestyle. I would be in my room for days and would not eat for days either. I didn't know that I was actually starving myself too and it got to the point where my parents had to watch me eat to make sure I swallowed everything and made sure I didn't throw it up afterwards. A lot of things I was doing was not normal to anyone but me.
The only thing I did know was that I was drained of energy and was so tired. I knew I was loved by my family, but life gave me way too much to handle. I had to end it. To end the pain of being in fear of everyone. To end the anxiety of one day being left by myself. And to end the trauma of seeing my mom out in public one day after her sentence has come to an end. Just the thought of seeing my mom again made me want to break down. I knew that one day I would have to face her. I didn't want to.