This is Real Life

INTRODUCTION

My story is one that isnt often told, even though the events happen every day around the world. It contains events of child abuse and molestation, drug abuse and death. Some parts may not be for the faint of heart, but more exposure to these kinds of things needs to happen. The childhood that my brothers and I experiences ultimately let to a path that resulted in my younger brothers death as a middle aged adult. Unfortunately, he was steered onto this path at a very early age, and was set up for failure in life, starting as a child.

My hope is to tell this story, from my point of view to shed more light on things that children endure every day. The story will be told in sections, and will contain real life events and experiences. The names of people involved have not been changed. Get comfortable and lets dive in.

Chapter 1:

JUST THE THREE OF US

It was always hard for me growing up. I was the middle child, and the only girl. I do have a younger half sister, but she didnt come along until I was almost 18. I struggled growing up as the only girl, trying so hard to just be "one of the boys," but always getting rejected.

No matter how dirty I got, or how many bruises and cuts I received from trying to be one of the boys, my brothers never wanted to play with me. I refused to wear dresses, and I hated those big velvet bows that my mom would make me wear for school pictures. I wanted to be a BOY so that I had someone to play with.

We grew up on an old farm, with no real farm animals, just the foul that my mom would always buy in 3s from the local farm and ranch store. Because we lived out in the country, they were always killed off by foxes, and so she would just buy more. Our nearest neighbor was about a mile away at the time, so there was no group of neighborhood kids to play with, it was just the three of us.

We did as much as we could to keep busy while at the house alone on the weekends, part of the summer, after school, but were limited on what we could do on 22 acres when my mom would lock us out of the house and tell us to go have fun. Doing what, there was nothing here? Often we would sit on the porch, pounding on the door crying, asking to be let back in. When that didn't produce results, we would wonder off around the property. One time, my brothers found an old fork in the fields that we were wondering around in. They decided to play a game with the fork. The spread out as far as the could throw the fork, and threw it back and forth, trying to catch it. The last time my other brother, (Brian) threw it to my younger brother (Brad), Brad did his final attempt to catch the fork, but failed, as it landed straight into his forearm like a dagger with 4 blades. It STUCK in there. He started crying and screaming, as we removed it from his arm. We were far too scared to tell our mom what happened, and weren't keen on what infection was, so we just never told her, and cleaned it with peroxide.

We were so alone out there, so we did what we could to keep busy. While my brothers were always doing their crazy games, I would sit inside of the sheds we had made for the few animals that weren't eaten by the foxes, and use a pellet gun to shoot the mice. I never liked killing the animals, but it was the only way I had to relieve some of the stress of my childhood, so I would sit for hours, picking them off, one at a time.

You see, it wasnt easy for me to make friends, and so I would aways keep to myself, and never play with the other kids on the playground. I was being violated. We all were, but I was the only one know didnt know HOW to make friends. Children are often known for telling everyone everything, and parents would get mad, because their child just told them how dirty the house was, or something their parent said. For us, all there was to talk about was how we were being abused and molested, but we were told very sternly that we cant talk about that to anyone, so we didnt.

My brothers were able to make friends more easily than I was. Brian was pretty popular, actually. He was very smart, and everyone loved him. He played sports, got straight A's, and was overall a likable kid.

Brad made friends pretty easily too, but the wrong friends. He was always in trouble in school, doing mischievous things. He had more "pink slips," from the school than any other kid. He was in and out of court at a young age for his antics, and at a very early age, my mom started smoking pot with him. They used to disappear in the bathroom or outside to smoke. Pot led to drinking and doing other drugs at an early age. The earliest I remember being able to recall was 13. 13 years old, and our mother was doing drugs with him. It started earlier than that, but that's the age that I remember taking note of it.

I on the other hand didn't know how to cope. I didn't want to do drugs, even though they were never offered to me. I wasn't able to make friends, and always felt so lonely. Being abuse and molested was all I had every known. It was "normal" for me, even though it felt so wrong, and so I just spent all my spare time alone. Ironically enough, my moms boyfriend at the time was not involved in any of it. Sure he punished us at times, and sometimes went a little over board with the punishments, but they never compared to what my own family was doing to us. Her boyfriend (Jay) was actually a pretty cool guy, and wanted the best for us. He took us camping and hunting, let us work out and go crazy on the punching bag in his weight room. While he didn't raise us per say, we did live with him, and had great Christmas's and birthdays, and really never had to want for nothing. I'm sure that he didn't have an idea of what was happening to us.

My brothers and I were never really close growing up, mainly because they didn't want to play with a girl, but there were moments that they would stand up for me. One time I was on the playground at school and was climbing up one of those dome things that had rails, like a jungle gym. There was a boy higher up than me and he kept telling me that I couldn't climb on his equipment, and so he kicked me in the face from above. I fell from the dome on to the ground, crying. Brian was on the other side of the playground playing flag football. I ran to him, holding my face, still crying and told him what happened. He located the other boy, and put him on the ground, wrapping his legs around the kids neck. (My brothers were in Tai Kwon Do at the time, so he had some moves.) He yelled and yelled at the boy to never touch his sister again. The boy was crying trying to fight back, but Brian wouldn't let go until the teacher came over and pulled him off. That was the first time someone stuck up for me, and I felt so important in that moment. After all was said and done, my brother went back to flag football, and I went to sit alone on the steps of the school.

There was so much hurt, so much abuse. Abuse of every kind: Mental, physical, sexual, verbal. All of it. And no one was there to protect us. My mom knew what was happening, and when it finally came to light with her, no action was taken. We'll cover that moment when she " found out," at least from me, later. I was not aware of the sexual abuse that my brothers were experiencing until much later in life, even though we engaged in activities that were not appropriate for children, we thought it was "normal."

Please visit back for Chapter 2.