Her Inner Strength

Home Life

Childhood was constantly survival mode. Crying my ass off and then having to fake it as soon as dad walked in the door when he was on day shift or dreading him leaving for work when he was on night shift. He worked swing shift and as much over time as he could. When he wasn't home, he was usually outside in his garage from sun up to sun down.
We had dogs and rabbits to take care of and somehow I always got the shit end of the stick.(literally) The hardest parts of taking care of them, carrying 2 5 gallon buckets as full as I could get them across our massive yard, sometimes having to take more than one trip. Dogs weren't allowed in the house, so they were tied up outside. I hated it. And then, I'd have to check the bottom of my shoes before I came back in the house, spend hours outside with my leg propped up cleaning all the mud off the bottoms of my shoes until they were perfect. I'd have to find a stick or whatever I could to clean them. Get bitched at for them still not being clean enough. And go outside and start all over. Sometimes I'd have to stand there like that for at least an hour rain or shine, freezing or snowing.
I was basically only allowed to drink water which was no problem, but if I didn't rinse my cup out and sit it right by the sink, I wasn't allowed to drink anything the next day. No matter how hot it was out. I remember one super hot summer day we were at Wal-Mart grocery shopping and I felt so weak I could barely walk. I snuck drinks of shower water when I took showers at night.
I was always told I had a weight problem and wasn't allowed to eat just anything. If we'd go to Hellen's parents house, her mom was one of those grandmas that just wants to feed, feed, feed you. And she wouldn't take no for an answer. I'd get yelled at on the way home for eating too much.
One sour look from Hellen at any given time would have me in mental turmoil. Knowing I was going to get it whenever she had the chance.
I wasn't allowed to tell either one of her kids no to anything they told me to do.
I tried to keep a journal of my feelings in my room. I loved to write and draw and read and play with Barbies. Hellen would periodically come up, go through my stuff, read my journal and tear pages out and throw them away and tell me that I wasn't feeling whatever I had written in my journal.
I bit my nails out of anxiety. She would smack my hands with a hair brush every time she checked my hands to see if I was biting my nails or not. I had bruises on the tops of my hands from that.
I remember being so excited to get on the bus for school. And having panic attacks every day on the way home from school, it was especially bad on fridays because I'd have the whole weekend of hell and right before holiday breaks because it would be weeks of dread. I hated snow days.
I was constantly being told I wouldn't amount to nothing, I was going to be a whore like my aunt, nothing I did was ever good enough and I could never make my own decisions.
When I would take a bath/shower, I'd be timed. I couldn't take a warm shower/bath it had to be like damn near cold. When I did take baths she would make it the most shallow bath possible and the water wouldn't even be warm.
One time I got pinworms and even after being treated for them, I wasn't allowed to sit on any furniture and she wouldn't let me take a shit without first, telling her I had to poop and two, she HAD to watch me wipe. I didn't go a lot and was almost always constipated from being so restricted on what I was allowed to eat and drink.
A lot of the time I was "grounded" forced to sit in the middle of the floor right in front of my bedroom doorway and either just sit there, read, and a lot time it was the Bible which Hellen thought was punishment. Little did she know, that Bible gave me the strength, the hope and the faith that God was going to get me out of that situation. I'd cry, I'd pray and quietly, internally scream at God to save me.
Something inside little me always told me I'd get through it.