As a young child: Setting, Salt Lake City, close to I have NO happy memories of my mother. My first memory of her is being probably two, and calling out, “Mommy, I can’t sleep. The baby (the fourth daughter, 18 months younger than me) is crying.” I was told it was my job to take care of her. My other was first memory was falling down the stairs and being caught in a laundry basket. Found out as an adult that I did fall down the hard wooden stairs, but our little home had a laundry shoot, and my alcoholic Mom let my two older sisters toss me down it, cause I was small enough for them to do so. She also had parties to get her liquor, and my little sis was bigger and faster, and apparently it was a big party hit to let her bang me on the head with a pot. My oldest half sister said she complained to Mom that she found a man sitting on the foot of her bed in the basement, where she and two older sisters slept. And that Mom replied, ” You be nice to those men. They give me what I need”. I’m pretty sure I encountered some of those drunks. I never sleep well, and in times of stress, find myself ‘hiding’ in the bathtub. Fast forward to: Dad is on ship, Mom’s pregnant and it can’t be his, the family shatters….and the only way Dad can keep all his girls together is with LDS social services.
My four sisters got there first. I stayed with my alcoholic grandmother for kindergarten, so when I got there, “Jeannie” and “Kay” and lil Sis “Bobbin” had all been beaten by the foster parents, and unbeknown to me, were being sexually abused by the _______’s other foster boy of 16 and their son Dennis. Sherrie, my oldest sister, says she wasn’t beaten or molested, or wouldn’t talk about it. Valerie was beaten with a belt in front of me the day I arrived for not letting me sit away from the 21 year old ‘special needs’ kid that seemed scary to me at five. I quickly found my shaky world shattered when my sisters hated me for being last to arrive….a made up a song of “Cry baby, titty mouse, lay an egg at Grandma’s house, the egg was rotten and so was she, ha ha ha ha, hee, hee hee. ” So when I found myself facing the 16 year old male, in the garage, switch blade, threat of death if I told–I gagged down his penis. I don’t know how many times. I was so tiny, I remember I almost couldn’t make the step on the bus. Then Dennis, would ask Mrs. ______, if I could come hold the music while he practiced the accordion. One boy would play the accordion, while the other would rub himself on me and try to penetrate my tiny vagina. If I refused to hold their music, then my bigger, but younger sister would have to. ( I hated the accordion for years). The _______s kept the five of us, and three other fosters. I had a “lucid dream’ and was told in it that if I turned David? and Dennis in, it would be okay. So I told. But Mrs. _______ stopped me when I tried to tell her that her son was part of it. And then I remember her dragging me to a doctors office. I had my little legs splayed on the table, and she said “Doctor, is she still a virgin?!” He talked to her, not to me. I had a bad sore and infection from their abuse. He gave her some cream to put on me, and I remember that her applying that cream was almost worse than being molested. David was removed from the home, and for years I waited for him to come slit my throat. My sisters were not asked questions, nor checked. We were back at church on Sunday. As an adult, my sister Jeannie said, “You know, I was molested at the foster home.” She had raped me with a tampax on the toilet bowel when I had my first period. And tortured and threatened me my whole childhood. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her “And I’m the one who STOPPED it. And waited to have him jump out and kill me for years”. Little Bobbin said she was ‘healed by light” and had no traumas. Kay and oldest half sister never wanted to discuss it. But Kay slapped me several times growing up. And I was the ‘scape goat” of the family. I asked my dad, as a young LDS mom of too many, if he was ever told. He said yes, didn’t want to discuss it, but said he PAID LDS social services so he could keep us together and ‘safe’.
I married an abusive man, who I should have walked out on the first month I was married. I threatened if he ever hit me, I’d leave. And Spencer Kimball said “any two people trying to be like Jesus could have a good marriage’. My Dad, who had raised 5 of my Mom’s six children, told me as he was dying that he never liked my (abusive) spouse, and did he need to come out and kick his ass. I survived hell as a child, and I survive hell as I realize I have been raped by my husband at least once that it caused a mental breakdown, and ….I left. the. church. finally. Still in the abusive relationship. stopped the sex 12 years ago–but spouse won’t divorce me….enjoys playing the martyr and pushing my buttons.
When I lived in South Jordan, as a young mother, first home….I found out that the RS pres. son Spenser, had molested my kids with another neighborhood boy. I called the police. RS president said it didn’t happen, my spouse backed her, the police interviewed my children, and Spencer admitted it in a letter after his mission–he admitted it to me, but….anyway….I didn’t know the extent of it till my 12 year old said he was thinking of killing himself. And I realized he had molested HIS little sister, and I could have stopped it–my son came to the door and said, “I’m having TERRIBLE thoughts, please come help me” but my spouse wanted sex, and wouldn’t let me go to him. I hate it. As far as I know, only one of my five children was NOT sexually abused as children. And there was a suicide in Glenmoore Village, and I think it had to do with the rotten , unspoken, hidden abuse that was going on. I eventually tried to commit suicide, as the emotional abuse and lies piled up.
This isn’t well written, I am just getting it in ‘under the wire’. There is a whole lot more pain and horrible things that happened. And are still happening. I shattered my shoulder and my ‘spouse’ who I went blind the first time I tried to divorce him, and who threatens me physically from time to time, etc….anyway, he had to help me dress and undress. I was told if I stopped having sex he would divorce me. Didn’t work. So flash back to broken shoulder, and helpless–he made a sexual advance when I had soiled myself and had to have help undressing. The nightmare continues. He has poisoned my now adult children, and my grandchildren with lies. And yet–I find joy , and laughter, and goodness in my life…..as best I can. Just to toss in a few funnies–turns out the females in my mothers side have been practicing pagans and Mormons since the pioneer days. Hilarious. I am shunned by my sister for “breaking my temple covenants”….and told I deserve my pain and trials. The story is bigger and more awful but ENOUGH is ENOUGH. NO more children being hurt, no more men getting away with raping wives, or lying.
I was blessed with the gift of poetry and song–the first poems started coming when I was in fourth grade. Here’s what I wrote at 9.
Oh I’m so young,
the world’s so fun
All I want to do is run and run.
Oh I can jump,
and I can skip
And I have a cat whose name is Pip.
Some day I may worry about war;
Or about being poor.
But I’m still young,
the world is still fun,
All I want to do is run, run, run.
========
Mother and fathers,
What worries they have,
About war,
being poor,
oh many many more.
They must pay the bills,
and take the pills,
and worries they have still more.
Will the wars ever stop
Will there ever be peace,
More worries,
More worries,
They will always increase.
There were two more that evening. The first month we were married, my new, now angry husband, shamed me for dancing naked, and took my music, poems, and notebooks to the dump. I got some of it back. My journals are full of poems and pain, and heartache and abuse.
I went blind once. I’ve been incarcerated because of him–in a mental hospital after the last child and his rape of me that I had blocked.
My oldest son was interviewed almost 20 years ago for seminary graduation, and told he wouldn’t be allowed to walk in the graduation because he admitted to masturbating. It goes on and on and on.
Break the chains. Save the children. the women. STOP THE abuse and hold them responsible. I probably have ptsd and stockholm syndrome. I am no longer suicidal, but I never know how long that is going to last. Last time I ‘lost it’….he told me “Quit threatening it, and just do it (drive off a bridge”. )
My apologies. My eyes have quit and I can barely see. There is a lump in my throat and in my breast. If this helps someone else, or brings the church to accountability (LDS Social Services!) or uncovers abuse (there was a suicide in South Jordan back when my kids where little, 1986-1989)….let’s shine a light and the truth shall hopefully ‘ SET US FREE.
Namaste! My eyes don’t take stress. and spouse will be home soon. thanks for including my rough story.