From Shame to Victory (Part 3): My Miserable Teens

Rhonda’s Story

In my mid-teens, my view of myself became more distorted. I wanted to be wanted and I wanted to be loved. I turned to relationships, alcohol and drugs, and this left me feeling even more empty than I did before. I became very boisterous, very opinionated and I projected a false sense of security to hide how I really felt.

When I was 16 years old, I was intimately involved with an 18-year-old. We dated for over a year. When I tried to break up with him, he threatened to kill himself. Out of guilt, I remained in the relationship for a little while longer until I could figure out a way to break it off. I told him again I didn’t want to see him anymore, and he pulled a shotgun out and put it to his mouth and said if I broke up with him, he would kill himself. I took off running down the stairs of his apartment and he proceeded to chase me down the main street of the small town where I lived. As I ran down the street, I saw people I knew and screamed for help! I thought he was going to shoot me in the back. In fear, they turned and fled. I ran into the restaurant where I worked. I was hysterical and my boss grabbed and took me to the back of the restaurant. I told him what happened and he called my house and my brother came and got me.

A few weeks later when I was biking home after work, the boyfriend that I tried to break up with, grabbed me off my bike and chocked me as he told me he loved me and couldn’t live without me. I somehow broke free, grabbed my bike and raced home as fast as I could. I told my parents, and at first they seemed upset, but then they just dismissed it. And the ex-boyfriend that had frightened me so badly would call my mom and she would tell me he was sorry and to give him another chance. But I didn’t want anything to do with him. A few weeks later, I came home from work one night and saw him sitting in the basement drinking a beer with my dad. I was shocked! My dad looked at me and said, “Tony’s going teach me to play guitar!”

 

Part 4 Click Here.

 

From Shame to Victory (Part 2): The Abuse Started in Adolescence

Rhonda’s Story

My dad had a workshop in the basement where he had pin up girls on the wall. He had playboy and Penthouse magazines in the cupboard that my brother and his friends would look at.

Around the time I was between 8-10, I walked down the stairs and found my dad watching a pornographic movie while having a meal. I was horrified. My father was so disrespectful to women and he constantly joked in a demeaning way in front of my mom and other women.

Dad would drink every day. And every Friday night he cashed his check and came home with his weekend alcohol supply. Dad would always be in a good mood. He would take a shower and his friends would start rolling in. He always smelled so good. In the beginning, it was exciting for me to see who would stop by; I liked having company. But as the weekend parties continued it became evident that my dad’s friends wanted to do inappropriate things to me.

My mom would usually stay upstairs and lose herself in her books, trying to ignore everything around her. I would hang downstairs trying to get my dad’s attention over his friends and his drinking. When I was between 8 and 9, I recall one of his friends pinning me down, laughing and holding my arms down while he tried to kiss me. I was kicking and screaming, telling him to stop as my parents watched. I couldn’t believe they weren’t helping me! Felling vulnerable, I spent many years pushing the bed across my bedroom door, afraid someone would come and hurt me. Because of my parents’ and my brother’s behavior towards me, I learned that I had no value. My mom never wanted me and I wasn’t worth being protected by my dad; I felt so unloved.

During middle school, my brother and I always came home to an empty house. The two neighbor boys would come over and try and kiss me, pin me down and they would force me to do inappropriate things with them. I was told not to tell or I would get beat up. I never told.

So, I would race home, grab all the hangers and pens in the house (my brother could open the door with a metal hanger or the ink stick of the pen), lock the bathroom door before by brother got home so he couldn’t beat me up. I would wait in fear as he banged on the door telling me to open it. Eventually he always found a way in. I would run through the house and try to get away as he threw knives at me. If I made it back to the bathroom the knives would be stuck in the door. He would beat me up! I didn’t tell because nobody stopped the other bad things that were happening to me. My mother always justified and made excuses for my brother’s behavior because he was her favorite; my dad was hard on my brother; I was dad’s favorite so I got the brunt of that from my mother.

 

PART 3 Click Here.