“Where is she?” This is something I used to always ask myself. My mom always promised she would protect me, so why didn’t she, especially, when I needed her most. Sometimes I get upset with her for not protecting me. Without her protecting me it felt as if nobody was there. But she was: Scared. Abused. Lonely. Depressed. She was unsafe, just as I felt. The one person she couldn’t protect me from was the one person I was most afraid of, and the one person that hurt me most: was my own dad.

When I was young, I lived with my grandparents. I was a happy innocent child, maybe even spoiled. When I was four, my grandparents left me; it kind of hurt. My mom bought their old house. The house had a small shed, a garage, which looked like a pull barn at the time, and a grey house, which looked even older. My grandparents now lived next door.  As soon as my grandparents left, my mom asked my dad to move in with us. That’s when it all began. If we did something wrong he would threaten to hit us with a belt. “Where is she?”

One day when I was five, I thought I was supposed to go to my friend Chloe’s house, and my mom would pick me up when she got out of work like she did every day. Well, that day I was supposed to wait for her, because she had made big dinner plans. I didn’t know about these dinner plans, so I went to Chloe’s house like any other day. When I got home, my dad was angry at me and my mom was gone for her other job. He beat me with his belt. I felt it smack across my bare skin, I let out a loud cry, a cry for help. Nobody ever heard my cry. This became a frequent punishment. “Where is she?”

When I was about six, my parents had a baby. He was a boy. They named him Nathaniel, but we called him Nate instead. Since my parents were never home and my older brother, Jon, always hid in his room, my brother became my responsibility. Nate and I became very close to each other. We had a connection. This connection, as I called it, was nobody cared about us. He was a baby and I was a little girl, and who was there to take care of us? Oh, that’s right, nobody. “Where is she?”

Then, when I was almost eight, my parents had their last kid. She was a girl. They named her Elizabeth. At this point Nate was a huge responsibility, but when Elizabeth was born, I had another big responsibility. My older brother, Jon, still hid in his room all the time, and my dad was either at work or doing drugs. My mom slept all the time. I had to feed them, bathe them, change their diapers, and go to school. I hated the fact that my dad and mom couldn't take care of their own kids. This put a lot of pressure on me. “Where is she?”

When I was nine, I wanted to take my kitten for a walk, so I did. I put the kitten on a leash and walked her up and down the hallway. My dad got so mad, he gave me a black eye. I had to lie and tell everybody my older brother accidentally hit me in the eye when we were playing baseball in the back yard. My whole family believed it. “Where is she?”

School became hard for me because I was taking care of all my siblings. It was hard taking care of kids and going to school at my age. No matter how hard I tried, I still failed. Everything became hard for me, and I struggled. Finally, I decided to give up. “Where is she?”

Over the summer was when the big thing happened, the one thing that hurt me most of all. He hurt my baby sister. He picked Elizabeth up by her hair and threw her into the couch. “Where is she?”

The abuse occurred until I was about 15. In August of 2013, on my Mom’s birthday, he went to jail. I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. I still struggled with school because I was so far behind. All that mattered to me, though, was the fact that he was finally out of my life. I pushed him completely out. He wrote me letters, and I ignored them. I switched to Dow because I needed a fresh start. My mom was there mentally, physically, and emotionally for the first time since I was five, and it felt good to me. I made a big decision by deciding to turn my dad in for everything he did, but CPS didn’t do a thing because he was already in jail. 

Well, in October my dad was released from jail and decided to go to rehab. After that, he lived with my grandparents until December. My mom said he had changed, so he moved back in. My little siblings were so happy. 

Since then I’ve had to get a job, so it still is hard for me to do homework. Plus, when it comes to school, I still struggle a lot. My dad has stopped drinking and doing drugs. He’s been clean for 2 years. Also, he hasn’t hurt any of us since.

These things have caused me to have lots of different feelings. I felt lonely because I thought I was unloved; I thought I had nobody. My parents didn’t care about me at all. My grandparents left me to live by themselves. Also, my older brother was never there for me either.  

I was going to counseling, to get extra help, but it just wasn’t for me.  I struggle talking about this with other people. I have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which causes me to be really depressed. Sometimes I'm really happy to hide the pain, and I struggle focusing. PTSD is a mental health condition that is triggered by a terrifying everts- either experiencing it or witnessing it. The symptoms I struggle with include flashbacks, vivid nightmares where I wake up screaming unable to breathe, and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. I was at one point, highly suicidal, and I still struggle with chronic depression, and I struggle letting people in and trusting them especially guys. I’ve started to feel loved and happy again, but I have a long way to come before I’ll be okay again. My mom is still very much by my side every step since. She has made such a huge impact on my life and helped me grow as a person.