Keep Going

Marriage Problems

The picture above is me and my little sister, Maggie.

As does everyone on this earth, I began as a baby. I cried, peed, and needed my parents to tend to my every little need. By no means did I have the perfect childhood. It wasn't close to perfect.

My mother (I'll refer to her from now on as birth giver, egg donor, or Mary and you'll find out in time why) worsened her abuse. She would starve me even from such a young age. Even the family noticed because my maternal grandmother would shovel food into my mouth on camping trips. I remember this one time she was force feeding me on her lap and was asking me if I wanted bacon and pancakes. I was so young that when I attempted to say, "No thanks," it came out closer to "No eggs."

She began screaming at me, "I didn't ask you if you wanted eggs! I asked if you wanted pancakes!"

And even at my ripe age of three, Mary couldn't keep her domestic abuse hidden. I'd go camping and tell my aunt, "Mommy hit me."

My aunt's heart sank, knowing a child of that age didn't just make up such stories, "Did she slap you?"

I shook my head and balled up my tiny fist, "She hit me like this."

One time as I was tossing a stuffed panda bear in my bedroom, Mary marched across the room, yanked me up by the arm, and screamed, "Now, you play with your toys right!"

Now, this may come off a little dramatic, but I never did get Pammy the Panda back after that.

I remember after my fifth or sixth birthday, I had gone straight to my bedroom to put my new toys away. I'd locked my bedroom door. Mary always did have a thing about locked doors, which makes sense to me now (everything's about control to her). She busted through my bedroom door and began "assessing the damage". And by that I mean scouring through my room to see each new toy I'd been given. She snatched my Barney the Dinasaur series set from my movie case and began screaming about how I knew I wasn't supposed to watch Barney in her house. I never saw it again and she likely sold that set to some other child.

Being only a child at the time, I didn't understand what was going on, so I always thought that I was the reason for their arguing. I'd walk into the living room and give each of my parents a piece of paper telling them I loved them.

I would see my birth giver throwing things at my father at times when she was angriest or hear her screech scathing insults. My father began drinking because he said it was the only way he could deal with my mother.

"How else do you think I dealt with that bitch?" He once told me.

 He wasn't abusive or anything, although Mary sang the tale of an abused wife. He only hit her once in self defense. Shall I delve into that one? I believe I shall.

I was maybe five or six for this one. It all started when Dad had to pee. Oh, what a travesty it was for a man to relieve his bladder. But for Dad it was because Mary locked him inside the bathroom while he was urinating. Finally, she unlocked the door after a short screaming match and acted as though she was the stone on Jesus' tomb. Except that Mary was blocking Dad from exiting the bathroom. Oh, yeah. And it definitely wasn't Easter.

Dad said, "I'm getting out of this bathroom one way or another."

With that being said, he picked that boulder up and moved it to the side. The fight continued to the kitchen where Mary kept screaming at Dad. I watched her throw one of our wooden kitchen chairs at Dad, but it missed and instead hit the wall behind him. The chair kind of stuck for a bit, lodged inside the wall, before it went crashing to the floor.

Mary began wailing on Dad, repeatedly swinging and trying to find purchase. Dad took and took, even turning away from her, bent over and allowing her to hit his back and anything else she could find. But Dad finally lost it. He turned around and gave her one solid punch to the jaw. Nearly knocked her out too. She sat there for quite a while trying to recover. 

But when Mary recovered, she was meaner than ever. She called the police, sobbing that her husband had just punched her, but she never mentioned anything of her part in the altercation.

I was about seven years old and camping with Mary with my dad left at home when my birth giver began telling lies about my father. She claimed that he was abusing her at home and he needed to go. My grandfather, being the great dad he is to her, left our campsite to make the hour drive back to my home at the time. And after Dad had just mowed the lawn, done a bunch of yardwork, and gotten all cleaned up, he answered the knock at the door.

Hair still wet, Paw Paw told Dad he had to leave the house. My dad left without a fight and moved in with his parents, but not before breaking down crying because the very last thing he wanted to do was leave us baby girls with such a beast as Mary.

Imagine two extremely young girls coming home to find that their father was no longer there. Well, that is what happened. My mother told my sister and I that our father had left us. I believed for years that my dad didn't love me anymore when he'd only been trying to save us from further conflict.

Quickly after my parents' separation, they divorced. There were disputes on who could have what items. My mother got full custody over both my sister and I, along with the house. She even sold some of my dad's belongings. She kept the rest. Different CDs she wanted.

My mother was abusive and neglectful. When camping, I'd tell my aunt about how my mother would hit me. She knew something was wrong, but could do nothing to help. My mother sometimes didn't feed me and my little sister, forcing me to play the adult at the young age of seven years old. I'd feed myself and sibling while my mother would sleep.

There was one day that my mother wouldn't wake up because she'd overdosed on medication in attempt at suicide. I didn't know what to do (I'd never been taught to call emergency services), so I walked into the street. I eventually told the nice neighbor lady about my 'sleeping' mom. She called emergency services, and then the ambulance showed up. I watched as my mother was wheeled into the back of that same ambulance on a gurney.

~Izzy