- Jun 3, 2006
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First, a note of thanks to the Mods of CF...after I reread the first one I had posted I sat with my mouth opened stunned. I wrote it and never looked at it again. I just needed to get it out back when I wrote it.
I have got to talk to my Pastor Wednesday night and tell him that was written 3 years ago and in anger and to heal..and give him the revised version ...this one...I gave him the other a year ago, not thinking of what words were in it.
You have no idea how much thanks I owe each of you!
Here is the revised not as graphic and cuss words removed revison.
This still may trigger some people, so please read with caution
******************************************
My name is Tammy, I am a survivor of
mental, emotional, physical and sexual abuse by an alcoholic father,
who mercifully passed away a few years ago.
It started when I was 9 months old with the physical abuse, My earliest memory of the sexual abuse was when I was between 2 & 3 and continued steady until I was
about 8 as far as I can remember. The mental, physical and emotional abuse
continued far after my parents got divorced when I was 14.
However he also raped me when I was 16.
I didn't remember anything until I was 22.
Here's how I had no choice but to remember:
I was 22, and my first husband had asked if I wanted to know what my constant nightmares were about... I'd been having them since I was a child, I'd wake up sweating and scared and sometimes crying... I'd go back to sleep with my thumb in my mouth.
Anyway, he told me that I would sometimes talk in my sleep during these nightmares... I guess he thought himself a psychotherapist because he had a limited psych. background.
What he did as far as I'm concerned destroyed my inner being. He taped me during weeks of nightmares, asking questions during them. He said he thought it was cool to hear me talking like a child.
Then he went to work one day, leaving me with a pile of tapes to listen to.
I was sick, I was in shock, I had my dad on a pedestal so high that I thought know one could take him off it.
Then it got real..... the little voice brought me back to a past I wish to this day I could forget. The memories were like a tidal wave. I had a nervous breakdown and ended up in therapy for the first time.
I talked to my dad a few months later... after I joined a non denominational church that helped me tremendously. He categorically denied everything. We never spoke again.
It's normal to block out years... my father use to tell me I had a Swiss cheese memory... he should know, he caused it.
I had very very little memories from the age of 14 on back. I had only good memories of the time I spent with my 2 grandmothers.
I was raped at 15 by 3 guys I went to school with, they were drunk ( no excuse ) and as I didn't want to go to court, a very good friend of mine " took care of things " I didn't know about it for months, But even that rape didn't bring the incest to mind.
I am still trying to get up the nerve to scan and post the newspaper clipping about what happened to me back in 1996...It's took me 7 years for me to first get this story out
The 1996 Incident
For this site I will simply say that I was kidnapped from my front steps, beaten raped and left for dead .all for keeping a guy away from my little sister, and a stupid pool game.
After my teen daughters were threatened if I were to say anything, I decided to put try to put them behind bars instead of leave them on the streets to possibly hurt my girls at another time, or anyone else.
It made the local news the next day, tv, radio and the newspaper did all but print my name, along with the details. Within a few days it was headlines all over. I left the state and only went back for the court hearings one is now in prison for 23 years the other for 27.
I left my girls behind as well, my life as I knew it then was shattered I couldnt even remember to feed myself, never mind take care of them. My youngest, was pregnant and I was told I could not force either of them to leave with me at their ages or in the condition I was in.
My oldest went to live with her dad in CA, and my youngest stayed with my grandsons other family.
I thank God that in time, they understood, and we are now very close, and more than just mother and daughters, but friends.
I spent the next 2 years being someone I did not know, or like. I didnt care anymore about myself.
The only constant in my life was my computer and the friends in it. I spent 2 years moving around the USA visiting different friends and helping those where I could.
I didnt know it in 1994, but someone I met online, as a friend, would 4 years later play one of the biggest parts in my life ever. In the end of 1997 I moved to help a friend in St Augustine FL. And that friend and I started chatting more and more online. In 98 we talked on the phone for the first time and more than a friendship was developing. We met face to face for the first time Memorial Day weekend of 98 and have been together ever since. In 2000, I rededicated my life to God, Shawn gave his, and in Dec. we were married.
He knew of my past, more than I included here, and like Jesus loved me anyway.
There were other things, worse things before I was saved in 82, there was 2 months of being in an illegal marriage to a monster, a person so evil he could give satan a run for his money, there was 2 years of being hooked on cocaine, after being forced into doing something so horrendous in my mind that it took me until 3 months ago to forgive myself though I knew First and foremost God forgave me, and second..it was not my fault.
There were the years I still waited for a card on my birthday from my father for Christmas cards, for phone calls that never came for a reason why..and the year or so I hated my own mother for not doing anything, or not knowing
Then Id start to wonder.... why do I still care ?
It's the moving on part that takes so long. What I did was just to realize that my mom is only human, and we all make mistakes that we can't take back. I had to learn to accept that as fact, and to continue to love my mom regardless...as I had hoped my girls would do one day. As for dad's... that's a different story. It's a shame that they don't seek and get help before it's to late. I do have some real good memories of my dad, and those I choose to hang on to, I cling to those times as " the father I should have had 24/7 "
It's those memories that help me to see that my father had an illness... it's name was alcohol. The alcohol did that stuff to me, not the true person I have good memories of. I know that deep inside he loved me. And I have to believe that when he became a minister, he had to have atoned for what he did.
And..through it all I know that God, made me strong enough to deal with it all, and to be able to be a survivor to help others. That going through it gave me the empathy and compassion to know when someone has been hurt I can say I know how you feel, and mean it.
Then, there was Shawn, My Friends, and Jesus
Tammy J.
I have got to talk to my Pastor Wednesday night and tell him that was written 3 years ago and in anger and to heal..and give him the revised version ...this one...I gave him the other a year ago, not thinking of what words were in it.
You have no idea how much thanks I owe each of you!
Here is the revised not as graphic and cuss words removed revison.
This still may trigger some people, so please read with caution
******************************************
My name is Tammy, I am a survivor of
mental, emotional, physical and sexual abuse by an alcoholic father,
who mercifully passed away a few years ago.
It started when I was 9 months old with the physical abuse, My earliest memory of the sexual abuse was when I was between 2 & 3 and continued steady until I was
about 8 as far as I can remember. The mental, physical and emotional abuse
continued far after my parents got divorced when I was 14.
However he also raped me when I was 16.
I didn't remember anything until I was 22.
Here's how I had no choice but to remember:
I was 22, and my first husband had asked if I wanted to know what my constant nightmares were about... I'd been having them since I was a child, I'd wake up sweating and scared and sometimes crying... I'd go back to sleep with my thumb in my mouth.
Anyway, he told me that I would sometimes talk in my sleep during these nightmares... I guess he thought himself a psychotherapist because he had a limited psych. background.
What he did as far as I'm concerned destroyed my inner being. He taped me during weeks of nightmares, asking questions during them. He said he thought it was cool to hear me talking like a child.
Then he went to work one day, leaving me with a pile of tapes to listen to.
I was sick, I was in shock, I had my dad on a pedestal so high that I thought know one could take him off it.
Then it got real..... the little voice brought me back to a past I wish to this day I could forget. The memories were like a tidal wave. I had a nervous breakdown and ended up in therapy for the first time.
I talked to my dad a few months later... after I joined a non denominational church that helped me tremendously. He categorically denied everything. We never spoke again.
It's normal to block out years... my father use to tell me I had a Swiss cheese memory... he should know, he caused it.
I had very very little memories from the age of 14 on back. I had only good memories of the time I spent with my 2 grandmothers.
I was raped at 15 by 3 guys I went to school with, they were drunk ( no excuse ) and as I didn't want to go to court, a very good friend of mine " took care of things " I didn't know about it for months, But even that rape didn't bring the incest to mind.
I am still trying to get up the nerve to scan and post the newspaper clipping about what happened to me back in 1996...It's took me 7 years for me to first get this story out
The 1996 Incident
For this site I will simply say that I was kidnapped from my front steps, beaten raped and left for dead .all for keeping a guy away from my little sister, and a stupid pool game.
After my teen daughters were threatened if I were to say anything, I decided to put try to put them behind bars instead of leave them on the streets to possibly hurt my girls at another time, or anyone else.
It made the local news the next day, tv, radio and the newspaper did all but print my name, along with the details. Within a few days it was headlines all over. I left the state and only went back for the court hearings one is now in prison for 23 years the other for 27.
I left my girls behind as well, my life as I knew it then was shattered I couldnt even remember to feed myself, never mind take care of them. My youngest, was pregnant and I was told I could not force either of them to leave with me at their ages or in the condition I was in.
My oldest went to live with her dad in CA, and my youngest stayed with my grandsons other family.
I thank God that in time, they understood, and we are now very close, and more than just mother and daughters, but friends.
I spent the next 2 years being someone I did not know, or like. I didnt care anymore about myself.
The only constant in my life was my computer and the friends in it. I spent 2 years moving around the USA visiting different friends and helping those where I could.
I didnt know it in 1994, but someone I met online, as a friend, would 4 years later play one of the biggest parts in my life ever. In the end of 1997 I moved to help a friend in St Augustine FL. And that friend and I started chatting more and more online. In 98 we talked on the phone for the first time and more than a friendship was developing. We met face to face for the first time Memorial Day weekend of 98 and have been together ever since. In 2000, I rededicated my life to God, Shawn gave his, and in Dec. we were married.
He knew of my past, more than I included here, and like Jesus loved me anyway.
There were other things, worse things before I was saved in 82, there was 2 months of being in an illegal marriage to a monster, a person so evil he could give satan a run for his money, there was 2 years of being hooked on cocaine, after being forced into doing something so horrendous in my mind that it took me until 3 months ago to forgive myself though I knew First and foremost God forgave me, and second..it was not my fault.
There were the years I still waited for a card on my birthday from my father for Christmas cards, for phone calls that never came for a reason why..and the year or so I hated my own mother for not doing anything, or not knowing
Then Id start to wonder.... why do I still care ?
It's the moving on part that takes so long. What I did was just to realize that my mom is only human, and we all make mistakes that we can't take back. I had to learn to accept that as fact, and to continue to love my mom regardless...as I had hoped my girls would do one day. As for dad's... that's a different story. It's a shame that they don't seek and get help before it's to late. I do have some real good memories of my dad, and those I choose to hang on to, I cling to those times as " the father I should have had 24/7 "
It's those memories that help me to see that my father had an illness... it's name was alcohol. The alcohol did that stuff to me, not the true person I have good memories of. I know that deep inside he loved me. And I have to believe that when he became a minister, he had to have atoned for what he did.
And..through it all I know that God, made me strong enough to deal with it all, and to be able to be a survivor to help others. That going through it gave me the empathy and compassion to know when someone has been hurt I can say I know how you feel, and mean it.
Then, there was Shawn, My Friends, and Jesus
Tammy J.
