Friday morning I met a 62 year old party crasher. She was a Black Cornell graduate from the class of 1972. She was crashing the breakfast that I was catering. Since she wasn't in the class of 1982 she decided to chat it up with me. Turns out she's a clinical psychologist for an adoption agency and she also works with the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services, an agency I'm all too familiar with. We talked about me growing up in a foster home both legal and illegal and then we went our separate ways.
I came home from work to find out that Megachurch Pastor Creflo Dollar was arrested for beating on his daughter. Considering the dream I've had over the course of the past week, it was like a perfect storm for me to confront one of my issues, one that I've carried practically my whole life: I'm a victim of abuse.
It's something I never really talk about mostly because of shame but also because I hate to be pitied. I've been getting abused ever since I can remember. When i was a toddler I was beaten mercilessly by my foster parents and humiliated by my foster siblings, where they made me a slave and would lock me in dark closets for what felt like hours and beat me for fun. But probably most damaging of all was the sexual abuse I experienced at the hands of two older foster children. I won't get into the things that happened but when I tried to tell my foster parents what the other kids were forcing me to do, I was beaten for "being gay". Fortunately those boys were in the home for that long, like a year. But when i finally got out of foster care, i thought the abuse would come to an end. I was wrong.
Now I understand that the people who raised me when I was a kid were incredibly young. However, I don't think youth is an excuse to abuse children. One woman that I lived with for about 6 or so years was the most abusive person ever, not only physically but mentally. She would terrorize my nephew and me everyday, to the point where when we had to come home we'd cry. You never knew when you were going to get beaten. And the punishment was never proportionate the the crime. You got the same beating for not putting a new roll of tissue in the bathroom as you would if you got all Fs in school.
Looking back, two things stick out in my mind: How eager I was to try and please this lady and how I failed to protect my nephew. I always hoped that one day the beatings would stop if i got good grades in school or kept my room clean. But i soon found out that if it wasn't one thing it was going to be another. I was just going to get beaten. That's just what it was. I'm not talking spankings. I'm talking black eyes, busted lips. Missing school because you're too battered to attend.
When the abuse wasn't physical it was mental. We were constantly put down and humiliated. She'd come in our classrooms and cuss us out in front of our peers for the most minor of offenses. There was no way to ever be happy. You were always on edge. You couldn't even get a good night's rest because we were often beaten out of our sleep.
I've glossed over a lot of things, but one thing that I can never shake is how I didn't protect my oldest nephew. My nephew and I are a year apart and we've been together for almost every day of our life prior to me leaving for college. Now I got abused but my nephew definitely got it worse. He's light-skinned so his bruises were always more visible than mine. I could always pretend that I wasn't as wounded as my body suggested. He couldn't. He would regularly get his eyes beaten shut for doing something wrong. He had to miss more school than I did because of abuse.
There's one image that sticks out in my head that haunts me nightly. My nephew had accidentally spilled paint on the carpet while doing arts and crafts. He was wearing a gray white sox jersey and some black shorts. The abusive lady beat him like her life was in danger. I distinctly remember her picking him up by his shirt and slamming him so hard to the ground that I thought he was literally going to break in half. The worst part of it all was that his mother was there and didn't do shit. My nephew got beat so badly that he couldn't even see. I had to help him to his room. All the while feeling helpless and cowardly because I didn't want to be next in the octagon of abuse.
That's the image that's constantly in my dreams. Me being defenseless as a victim of abuse or a bystander. And then the worst part is the fear that awakens me. I'm 27 years old and a well-muscled man. I know there's no way that this person could hurt me without a weapon. But in my nightmares I'm still 10 years old and helpless. I've tried going to counseling about it but the dreams only go away temporarily. There's nothing worse than being afraid to go to sleep at night. But i know it won't last forever.
One day I'll confront my abuser. Until then I just pray for the strength to move on.
Sorry for the super long post,
J-Full
