The Basement

Chapter 1

Let's start with my birth. I was born on October the Fourth in the year 2002. In the Marietta hospital. My older brother was with my father's parents. Grandma and Grandpa Insel. My mom and dad had been fighting a lot. My older brother, Nathan, was four years old and he didn't want a sister. So he was throwing tantrums. It was causing arguments, because my father didn't want kids at all. He didn't want Nathan, and he didn't want me. But my mother didn't want to get an abortion. Then there was the argument that dad wanted a boy, not a girl. So they gave me a boy name. Noah. God, I hate that name. Then came the religion argument. Mom wanted me to be a Christian. Dad wanted me to be a Jew. Dad won, because he's extremely manipulative and controlling. He knows how to get what he wants. So for two years, I lived with those three. It was horrible. My dad abused all three of us. He starved us. We were allowed to go grocery shopping once a week. We were allowed to spend $35 each week. That includes food, diapers, and whatever else we needed. So we only had one meal a day. It was usually cold spaghetti or ramen. So we starved. For two years. We were raised to ration money and food. That's probably why I have anorexia. I'm just not used to eating. But by the third year, my mom was fed up. She had had enough. So she packed me and my brother into the Impala, with all of our stuff, and we drove to my great-grandmother’s house. We lived there for about two months while my mom and father battled for custody. He eventually won't my brother back. They continued to fight over me for another three months. I was four at the time. I wasn't aware of the fighting. All I knew was that I loved living with my mom. It was amazing. We had three meals a day and I had books in my room. I went to preschool and I had friends. When I was at my father's house, we weren't allowed to go outside. So I didn't know anybody outside of the house. But then one day my mom asked me who I wanted to live with. “Do you wanna be with Momma or Father, Noah-bellé?” Of course I said I wanted to be with mom. That was the obvious choice!!! She started crying and put me to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I was strapped to a seat in an unfamiliar car. My dad turned around and said, “we're going home". I cried for two months. I wouldn't speak. I barely ate. I wasn't allowed to talk to mom. I had zero contact. I was forced to do chores and the house was always spotless. When dad came home from work we were supposed to greet him politely at the door. I ran away several times but he always caught me. When he caught me I was grounded. He sent me to the basement where it was cold and there was no light and there were spiders. He made me copy the entire dictionary as punishment one time. I had to write lines every day. 100 lines, perfect handwriting or do it over again. My hands are still fucked up from that. I have bruises and dents in the shape of a pencil still. It hurts to write, because the muscles are so bruised from it. The punishments were horrible. He hit us. And pushed us around and once in kindergarten when I got in trouble at school, he picked me up by the throat and held me against the wall like that to scream in my face. I don't like to talk about his punishments. I don't even like to think about them. So no more details on that. But I lived like this for ten years. Then my mom finally won back custody of us and I moved in with her. We had issues because I barely ate, or talked. I ate a full meal once a week at dad's house. But mom expected me to eat three times a day! I was five foot four and I weighed 80 pounds. I've gained twenty pounds since then. But I refuse to go over 110. Because I need to be pretty and skinny and perfect like the girls in tv my father talked about. Because I thought maybe if I'm perfect, I won't have to go back there and be punished again. I still think that. I can't help it.