Unannounced

The anger can be so disrupting. I can be sitting quietly when it bursts into the room. I give into her, dance with her, allow her to be seen. I get outraged, so mad I want to scream until I am empty.

Tonight was one of those nights.

I am so angry at these people that held us all back. When I say “us all” I mean my family. Many times I will tell myself comforting things such as “there is no alternative reality” and other bullshit like that. But sometimes I just want to give in to the rage. My entire time spent in that school, I was made to feel stupid. I watched as the leaders bullied my parents. I watched my parents slouch with the weight of feeling stupid and inadequate. For 17 years I watched this. When I was 15 I was finishing up high school curriculum. I should have gone to college then! But no! I was stuck in a basement with seven babies and a rotating door of abusers.

After having already spoken out about the abuse at 14, I said something again at 18 years old. I was working in the “school” that the church ran. I was immediately ‘fired’ from my position because I was the “other woman”. I was a poor example for those kids. I felt like my heart was ripped from my chest. All I ever had wanted to do was to be a teacher. I decided that day that I would kill myself. There was nothing left to live for. That afternoon was silence, no abusers visited me that day. Mom rotated through the door. There was pleading in her eyes. I knew she knew it was not my fault. I could not look at her, I wanted her to leave me to die. She looked at me anyways as my gaze fixed on the floor. Mom told me she knew it wasn’t my fault, she knew who my abuser was, and that it was happening to her too.

I couldn’t leave her.

My Mom was made to feel stupid, and inadequate. She spoke in an intelligent way and they didn’t understand her. My Mom was smarter than any of those leaders, but they broke her spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

All my life, I have wanted to be a teacher, a mother, and raise animals.

It’s not too late.

~E