Dearest Mother,
I'm really sorry, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I've actually always felt like I couldn't take it anymore, and therefore, I've been planning this escape for a long time. I honestly didn't even realize I had so much courage deep down inside of me that was enough to allow me to follow through with my plan at the first opportunity. Until now, I was just secretly packing and readjusting some of my bags every time something bad happened because of the inner rage I felt at having to live such an abnormal and stuffy adolescent life under that roof. But now, I'm free. I can live the life I've always wanted to live. I can go places, make friends, and even have my own place to live. I will never have to hear anything like, "You're living in my house, eating my food!" or "You wouldn't have all this if it wasn't for me!" or "Everything in this house is mine!" ever again. I'll have to start from the bottom of course, but it will all be worth it in the end. Now that I'm finally a fully grown, legal adult, for me, the sky's the limit. I know that you said that you were looking forward to having an adult daughter in the household, but you have your other daughters to look forward to now. Besides, I think it's better that I leave on my own accord than to stay and have that man constantly threaten to kick me out anyway. I hope you understand.
Kathryn
I quietly slipped out through the back door of the house, carrying the only two lightweight bags I was able to take. As I quietly walked down the stairs, I noticed my yellow neck squash plant, still in great health, bearing its large and delicious fruit. I walked over to the plant, remembering that raising it was one of the few things that brought joy to me in this otherwise boring and depressing home life I was living. Now that I was leaving, I would never be seeing this plant again; it would be taken over by the rest of the family. After touching one of the ripening squashes for one last time, I sadly said goodbye to the squash plant and walked off the premises to begin my journey away from this life and never see anything like it again.
My name is Kathryn, and I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I am the eldest of seven children, six girls and one boy, the youngest child being the boy. I turned eighteen the previous month on June 17th.
At first, I intended to run away very soon after that date, but I instead ended up running away the following month. Why? Because of the stupid belief I had that things were going to get better at home now that I was an adult. I thought that my father was going to help me get my first job. I thought that I was going to learn how to drive. I thought that I was going to have more freedom and privilege to be able to do things, and to not have to be around my sisters as much anymore. But no. Instead, things only got worse.
I continued to be treated the way I was being treated ever since I turned twelve. Other people's mistakes were my fault and responsibility, and I would constantly be faced with being humiliated, stripped of my clothing, even after my body started developing, and beaten senseless by my father in front of everyone as an example over almost every little thing. But the even worse aspects of being eighteen under my father's roof was that when something happened, after being humiliated and beaten in front of everyone, as usual, I then had to worry about being forced to sleep outside, in the bathroom, or even in one of my father's vehicles. One time, he even beat me and threw me outside in the rain, half naked and shivering.
My father is one of the most narcissistic, hypocritical men you'll ever meet, especially for someone who's supposed to be God-fearing. My family and I were a part of a religious organization known as Jehovah's Witnesses. As a whole, I thought, and still think that the witnesses themselves are decent people. But the older I got, the more I understood things, and the more I started to rethink willingly being a part of this organization due to what I experienced from someone who's supposed to be the head of the family and the prime enforcer of the Bible's teachings. Day after day, I would notice that my father would cherry pick and bend the Bible's teachings in a way that would keep the family under a kind of control that would benefit him, while meanwhile making him look like he was always in the right. When he would make mistakes or accuse someone of doing something, for example, and punish them excessively until there was later proof that that person was innocent, he would never apologize. He drank quite a bit, from first thing in the morning, putting it in his coffee or hot chocolate even, till nighttime. And there are scriptures in the Bible, for example, that tell a man how to treat his wife. Needless to say, my father treated his own wife the same way he treated me, but just way worse. If she even burnt his food accidentally, she was beaten, denied food, and forced to sleep anywhere but a decent bed for the rest of the night, often assigning me her duties for the night as her replacement. Understandably, I was terrified of being in her position each time this happened. One time, my mother and siblings were watching an educational video from the witnesses about keeping faith that featured a husband physically abusing his wife. My father walked in the room, saw it, and ordered that the video immediately be turned off. He soon thereafter called my mother out of the room and yelled at her about playing the video in front of her children. Clearly, this man did not want to be held accountable for his own actions but is quick to criticize someone else about what they should be doing. What utter bullshit. Moreover, every time we went to the Kingdom Hall, which is where the witnesses would meet for their Christian services, my father would meet and greet nearly everyone there, and acted like our family was happy, God-fearing, and normal. Meanwhile, the rest of us were barely even allowed to talk to anyone and were warned ahead of time by him to stay together and start heading towards the car as soon as possible. I almost always had to wear certain clothing that hid all my scars.
Considering all these things, I started to question whether or not I wanted to continue in this religion whenever I finally ventured out on my own. Why would God continue to allow someone like my father to do whatever he wants with His book? Did He not see the way my father acted, how he treated me and my mother, and how he would twist things around to fit his own will? It's like he was acting as if he himself were a god at this point, for no one was allowed to criticize him about a single thing, or even speak about what he made very obvious. I was a very unsure kid.
It goes without saying that I didn't have any friends, not that I would be allowed to have any in the first place. At the Kingdom Hall, there were a few girls who were interested in talking to me and getting to know me, but thanks to my father's rules about being curt with everyone who greeted us, staying together, and leaving for the car immediately as soon as the service was finished, a lot of those girls eventually lost interest in me and stopped trying to talk to me, probably thinking I myself had no interest in them.
At some point, there was at least one girl who was a little younger than I was who seemed to have a genuine interest in talking to me and seemed to stick around even when my sisters, mother, and I were making our way out of the Kingdom Hall per my father's usual orders. She was even present with her family at the Kingdom Hall on some of the days my family and I would go there to prepare for field service, which is when the witnesses would go to a neighborhood and go from door to door, preaching God's word. The girl always wanted to work with me, and seemed to look up to me. She always had questions for me. Thankfully, my father allowed us to work together out in field service. And even though field service was pretty much the only time we would get to really interact with each other, we became a lot closer each and every time. We became almost inseparable each time we met.
One day, my father went to service alone with my mother and some of my sisters and came back home to tell me that the girl came to find him to tell him that she and her family were moving away, and to let me know. He also told me that she was crying, and that she told him she would miss me. But right after telling me all this, instead of feeling any type of understanding or feelings about the situation, my father laughed about it and brushed it off like it was nothing. As young as I was at that time, I understood that any decent person wouldn't have done that, more so a loving, caring, understanding father. I wanted so much to hurt him for that. How dare he mock the one connection I had with someone outside the family, short-lived though it was.
Sometime later, my father started to criticize me for even wanting friends at this point, saying that I had a bunch of sisters I could be spending time with and teaching. My mother eventually started saying the same thing, though after saying she understood my desire to have friendships with girls my own age. It's like my parents kept having kids in order to continue to use that same old excuse for not allowing me to have outside friends.
I know this may sound bad, but I eventually started feeling like I could care less about my little sisters. I was around them all the time in a small, cramped house, and they were just very uninteresting to me. I eventually started to dislike them more when they started getting me in trouble with my father about stuff, sometimes even on purpose. I even started getting upset each time my mother became pregnant with another girl because that would just eventually be another person to get me in trouble for stupid crap, and I was tired of being forced to love a bunch of brats I didn't ask to be siblings with. My father almost never beat them for anything either, so that pretty much solidified my dislike for them. I was also tired of always getting sisters. I wanted a little brother for the longest, but that didn't happen until way later, his birth being one of the very few joys I had in my life back then.
In time, I started always getting paired with the absolute stupidest sister anyone could ever be cursed to have, and it didn't help that she was my first sister. I don't know what her issue was, but she was just super annoying to everyone, very gross, and would talk bad about and pick on other people for no reason, especially if the unfortunate person had to share a bed with her. That night would be an unpleasant disaster because for some weird reason, she would keep moving out of her spot on the bed to harass the other person. And if that person reacted, she would also react but oftentimes loud enough for the parents to hear, kicking the nearest wall or screaming so that when one of the parents came into the room, she could falsely accuse the other person of being mean and doing stuff to her. No one liked being around her or having to do things with her for all those obvious reasons, so she started getting pushed onto me, my father eventually enforcing this by making me share a room or bed with her at times, and constantly forcing me to be alone with her and do things with her. I absolutely hated her at this point, especially for how she treated my baby brother. One time, my father even tried to plan my own future for me by saying that when I came of age, I would move out and get a house with that idiot of a sister I had while everyone else would still get to live with each other under one roof. Basically, he was planning to get rid of that idiot along with me so the rest of the family could live together in peace. That was definitely not happening, neither that, nor my adult life still being controlled by that bully of a father.
As for my second sister, she seemed to be my father's favorite. For starters, I didn't find this out until later, but she seemed to be the only girl to be given a normal name. Everyone else got ghetto, made up black names that were sure to get butchered and misspelled the second an attempt is made at pronouncing them by other people. My second sister's name is Jayna. Secondly, a lot of my interests were the same as hers, assuming she wasn't copying me, which she was. For example, I really liked to draw, but so did she, apparently. But who did my father choose for him to acknowledge this information? Jayna. Even though I already had most of the supplies an artist who was just starting out needed to explore his or her hobby or talent, my father still rooted for Jayna to become the family artist. One example that hurt me the most was when the family was coming home from the Kingdom Hall one night. I expressed interest in one day producing some of the artwork and illustrations that go into a lot of the Christian publications the witnesses produce. My father basically shot my interest down right in front of everyone and immediately thereafter told Jayna that she could one day do the artwork. I never expressed any of my interests to my father ever again, and I absolutely refused to share any of my art supplies with Jayna.
All this being said, the only sibling I still care about and miss is my little brother, Krisman, who, being the only boy, also has a normal name. I suspect that my father's been wanting a son for a long time, and that was the reason he kept having kids with my mother until he got one. Krisman's name was even the password to one of my father's laptops, and this was before Krisman was even born.
Many months after Krisman was born, my father made very noticeable changes on how he treated his daughters compared to how he treated his only son. If he were to put him in one of the rooms where everyone else was to play, for example, and he started screaming or crying for any reason, my father would come into the room, accuse everyone of bothering or doing something to him, make everyone put away whatever they were doing to stay in bed for the rest of the day with no dinner, and move Krisman to another room. Sometimes, he would allow my youngest sister to be in the other room with him, which meant that she would be the only girl to have a normal remainder of her day. Ever since things like this started happening, everyone dreaded each time Krisman was brought in the same room as everyone. And unfortunately, sometimes Krisman would do things everyone knew he shouldn't have been doing, and when someone tried to stop him from doing whatever it was, he would start screaming and crying, bringing one or both parents into the room. At that point, if it was my father who entered the room, you were at his mercy, as there was no guarantee he would always believe that his son was doing something bad.
Despite all this, I really loved my baby brother. On good days, he was a real breath of fresh air from being surrounded by annoying little brats all the time. I still remember the night he was born. As soon as my father came back to tell me and my sisters the news, I was the only one who jumped for joy at hearing that the new baby was a boy. I've never been so happy in all my young, adolescent life. We even have a few things in common. We were both born on the 17th of a month, we were both born in some kind of sack of fluid, and both our names begin with a "K".
Krisman could also be sweet and affectionate. One time, my father allowed me to sleep alone with him in the same room, leaving all the brats in another room. At the time, Krisman slept in a playpen that was pushed firmly against the bed I was sleeping on to ensure he wouldn't fall onto the floor, since he was by that time big enough to climb out of the playpen on his own. That early morning, Krisman awoke silently, stood up, and climbed into the bed next to me, immediately awaking me. He was lying in a sort of crouching position, and his face was turned away from me. I sat up to look at him directly, and I noticed his eyes were open. I kissed his chubby cheek and pulled him close to me, making sure he was warm and cozy. After I tucked him in with me under my blanket and settled back into my side of the bed, I placed an arm around him. And he, in turn, placed an arm over me. We silently went back to sleep together. I will never forget that moment, and I will forever hate my first sister for being very mean to him all the time for no fucking reason. Any chance she got, she would shove him away just because he wanted to play with her, or even pinch him, sometimes making him cry, which broke my heart each and every time. Yet she wanted everyone else to be nice to her and crap. What a loser. If I was living under any other circumstances, I would have slapped the crap out of her and made her suffer as much as she deserved.
Krisman was also very smart and was a very fast learner. At a year old, he knew everyone's name and face and could even put things together. I really hope that he will grow up to be an amazing young man. I hope he grows up to be his own man as well, and not keep the ways of the father we unfortunately share.
With all of this being said, I just had to leave that family behind once and for all. There was so much toxicity, contradictions, and foul play. I'm not saying I never made mistakes myself, but there's only so much a person my age could handle in that type of living environment. I wasn't allowed to be different, pursue my interests, or even express my feelings. I was even shamed for liking anime and Asian culture as a whole. I could list every single thing that went on in that household. The list is incredibly long. But then, I'd never finish my story. Moreover, it pains me to know that I may never see my only baby brother ever again. But if I wanted to make something out of my life and no longer be confined to and stuck with the same nonsense and way of life, as well as my father's control, forever and ever, I had to leave. I'm sorry, Krisman. If you ever hear about me, I want you to know that I love you, despite what anyone else says.