I am the survivor of horrific child abuse at the hands of my own mother. The worse thing about the abuse, besides the obvious pain and suffering, was that even when I tried to tell others, nobody cared enough to help. Nobody believed my mother was capable of doing the things she did to me. I grew up thinking there would be a knight on a white horse to rescue me. That’s just not reality…

I’ve been burned, beaten, locked in cages, starved, gone through a plate glass door, and nearly lost my right arm – had my front teeth knocked out of my head – not to mention the emotion and mental abuse. I was always ugly, fat and stupid, in her eyes. She locked the food cupboards; locked the phone; and locked me in my bedroom for days without food or water. She even boarded up the windows in my room so that even sunlight wasn’t allowed to enter. In extreme heat I can remember feeling so utterly sick; vomitting, dying of thirst and hunger. She would tie me to the bed at night so even if I had to use the bathroom, I couldn’t until she felt like letting me out.

I don’t know and never knew what a “normal” childhood was like. I suffered from severe panic attacks; and even hysterical blindness. Took years of therapy to even get all of this out of me. She’s forced me to eat so much soap, to this day, I have problems with my stomach. She used to give me a bath using cleanser and steel wool pads – can you imagine the pain of that? She was a horrible, horrible person.

Do we repeat the cycle of abuse, being that’s the only thing we have ever learned? NO – NO – NO!!!
We, who are abused, have the same CHOICE our abusers had – It took me until the age of 30 to have my first child – I was horrified I would turn out like my mother – but I worked hard to ensure I would succeed at breaking the cycle of abuse – and I have. Our three children have never known any such horrors.
Yes, they know what I have endured – it’s important to be honest with your kids. They had to understand why their mom would wake up screaming hysterically and weeping uncontrollably – still haunted, at times, by her abuse.