I Escaped

It was quite a while ago (almost 7 years), but I escaped from my parents house. Maybe not your typical running away – I left when I got married. But it definitely felt like an escape to me. Sometimes it feels like I barely made it out and I remember the panic and secrecy of packing up my clothes and stuff – one backpack load at a time and finally a small carload or two to try not to draw attention to the fact that I was leaving. I left a lot behind. I still think about the things I left sometimes. I’m never sure if I should try to get the stuff on a visit or not. Would it start a fight? Probably. Or just tears.

You see, around the time I got a job (about 14) my parents started making it clear to me that NOTHING in the house was mine. I was an interloper. The house wasn’t OURS, it was theirs and I was just living off what the deigned to provide for my use while I was there. Even my savings account which I was putting most of my paychecks into had their names on it “so if I ever got out of line or tried to run away, they pull the money out so I couldn’t make it on my own”. Same thing once I bought a car. At that point, it didn’t even matter to them that it was my money and my possessions – not only was my stuff theirs, I was also theirs somehow. As I got older, it got worse. Working and school was a good reason to yell at me, because it took me away from “spending time with the family”. You see, I was neglecting my family by spending any time away from them. Don’t even start with trying to have friends. My parents made sure I had no one I could turn to and yet often yelled that they were kicking me out of the house because I was such a bad daughter. Any friends I did make (with their blessing to start with) soon learned that my mom monopolized their time as well as mine and they got them same flaming treatment if they didn’t allow it. No one stayed around for long.

The first person to stick around became my fiance. Soon after we got engaged, my mom called my cell phone one evening I was at school to tell me that my sister really liked my room orientation better, so they were trading our rooms while I was gone (after I had already told them I’m getting married soon so she can wait to take my room until after the wedding). They called to let me know of course so that I wouldn’t walk in to the wrong room when I got home late that night.

A few months before the wedding, I just started sneaking out a backpack worth of clothes and stuff at a time. I already did as much as I could at my fiance’s house instead of mine (although we still spent our requisite time at my parents house to try and keep the peace). I’d sleep at his house until about 2am, then get up and drive to my parents house to sleep the rest of the night – trying to avoid having to see or talk to anyone at the house. My mom at one point threatened to not show up at the wedding, but of course was there in tears that her “baby” was getting married. Pretty much anything large or anything in a main room of the house got left behind. Treasures from family friends over the years – well, how could I break up the “set” that was sitting in my mom’s shelf (one for me and one for my sister). I left it all behind. Even my baby books and anything else I thought would be noticeable to my mom.

Months before the wedding I started thinking about moving out, just to get away from the stress of it all, but some “good, Christian friends” told me it would be wrong. Too much temptation to have sex with my fiance if I moved out. Like sex is so terrible that you should put up with anything else to stay away from it.

I’ve learned since then. Seven years later I still dream about trying to escape. I never truly called it what it was when I was living there – abuse. I still have trouble with it sometimes. I’ve forgiven them for what they did, but I can’t let myself forget. I can’t let myself get drawn into their web of my own worthlessness again. I can’t let my children be drawn into that mentality. I still see them and talk to them and it’s really difficult for me. Everyone thinks they’re “normal” and “great” – and they think so too. And yet I know the truth: that their abuse has left huge holes in me, that they are still only interested in themselves and what I can do for them, that if I am finally healed it’ll probably be because I don’t interact with them at all, that even your parents can hurt you – and worse than anyone else. Do they have issues that have made them this way? Probably, but I can no longer treat myself as so worthless that I will allow all of their problems to come out and treat me like a non-entity and a person only alive for their whims. I’m worth more than that and perhaps someday those holes in me will understand my own worth too.