The Beginning (My life)

My first memory was when I was three, I was in a store and running from my father, I had this little pony tail, and my dad grabbed it and pulled me back, slamming the back of my head onto the ground. I don’t remember anything after that… and then the next memory I remember is when I was at this “Mental Hospital” I was about 5 years old, and had just woken up inside this room, there was no padding, there was a vinyl floor, everything was white or close to it, there was no toilet, no sink, no bed, no cot, no pillow, nothing, except for a door with a metal covering over where a knob or handle would be, a mirror that was obviously a window so the doctors could watch you, and a skylight above. I remember asking at the door “I have to pee” And then I heard a crudely angered voice reply back with “Go in the Corner!” so I did, and then laid back down and went back to sleep. I don’t remember what happened next though.

So, growing up was very difficult for me, with all that I’d been through already being nothing more than a fraction. From what I remember growing up, nothing I ever did was good enough. I was a straight A student and did whatever it took to get straight A+’s. I remember one time, I cried to my teacher about getting a B+ and begged and pleaded for some way to get the grade to go up. I remember my teacher laughing a bit and saying, “I wish I had more students like you”.
The thing was that I was obsessed with pleasing my parents, but nothing was enough. During Recess I would be chased down by bullies. I could always outrun them, and I always thought of it as a fun little game of tag— only I knew what would happen if they would’ve caught me…
After School, I’d go home. My parents were always fighting. I never knew why they did that or why afterwards my father would beat me for listening in on them out of curiosity… My memory is a bit damaged from being beaten by my father so many times.
My mother however used a wooden paddle, similar to a tennis racket. I’d then go to my room crying and would think to myself as I’d slowly cry myself to sleep, “Why do I deserve this? Is this punishment for what I will do and have done? Do I not deserve to exist? Does god hate me? Do I deserve to exist?”

These thoughts ran through my mind very frequently growing up, and it only progressed and got worse. But on top of dealing with those thoughts and the bullies, my parents would often send me to “Mental Hospitals”. There, I was as I would put it, “tortured and experimented on”, I remember the food always tasting odd, same as the drinks provided. I distinctively remember one of the places—who knows how many of those dreadful places I’d been sent to—where my mom actually came to visit me for once. I’ll never forget the look on her face, nor her first few words to me. She said, “You look like a **** zombie.” I was never allowed to look into a mirror, so I had no idea what I looked like. She then said, “You’re drooling,” and handed me a napkin to wipe my face. She then stormed off and demanded I be released. She took me away from that place, and when I got into her vehicle, I remember looking into the mirror for the first time in what felt like months—and she was right. I had bags under my eyes, purplish-blue cracked lips, pale skin, and my hair was a mess. I don’t remember much after that. I don’t even remember how old I was when that happened.
My parents were always hard on me but, my sister, however, I remember them loving her greatly, putting her in beauty pageants, singing competitions. I was ignored, shut out, practically sealed away, and unwanted. My parents spent so much time with her that they never noticed me when I needed it most. I remember going up to my parents many times humbly wanting to just talk about some bad things that’d been happening to me, about these monsters I’d been seeing in the darkness, about my nightmares, about the bullies, but they’d yell at me to go away, scream at me, and fairly often beat me for wanting to talk to them.

And on one terrible night, I was sitting in the living room, my sister was in her room practicing her singing I believe, and I started to hear my parents arguing again. Then my mom storms into the living room and says, “Get your shoes on, we’re leaving.” As soon as I got my shoes on and stood up, my father slams me to the ground and screams, “Don’t you **** move!”, and then runs after my mom, who then grabs my sister and runs. My dad chased them out of the house with a chair. I looked outside the living room window and witnessed my dad slam the chair into the windshield, and my mom quickly drove away. I was about nine years old when this happened. I was very religious, and believed that honoring meant you obeyed, and one of the Ten Commandments is “Honor thy mother and father.” I didn’t know what to do when my father yelled at me to not move after my mom told me to go with her. I was very conflicted and fearful, and all I could do was witness the brutality of what had happened out of fear and confusion.

I remember being beaten a LOT that night, and being yelled at by my father that it was my fault mom left, and that she left us because of me. He constantly reminded me and installed it into my head that mom abandoned us because of me, because I wasn’t good enough, because I wasn’t normal, because I didn’t do good enough in school, because I didn’t do my chores all the time… The list goes on.
That night, when I was in my room, I remember crying in the floor. I begged for god to kill me, and I waited still crying, hoping for some kind of sign, anything, something, but there was nothing. Then I asked for Satan to kill me, and I cried waiting. Still nothing happened. I then went into my bed and cried even more and wondered why both ignored me. Did they both enjoy seeing me suffer? Did no one want me? Was I truly so undesirable that neither god nor the devil wanted me? I wondered about that and cried about that until I eventually passed out.

I remember one time when I went to school with bruises all over my legs. I remember being asked by a teacher, “What happened to your legs?” I said, “I fell down the stairs,” lied out of fear of what my father would do to me and the teacher if I spoke about what really happened. I was afraid he’d kill her and then torture me. About a year or two passed and the abuse kind of slowed down, but it was still constant. I don’t quite remember when or how, but eventually he got my sister too. I didn’t question it because I was and still am absolutely terrified of my father.