After being in a cast for what seemed to be forever, I was finally out of a cast, but doc said to be very careful. So my healing process began with that injury. It still gives me problems today, but nothing I can’t handle.

Of course being back in foster care helped with healing, as I thought it was over and it would be the last time he was able to hurt me, but I was wrong. We spent about six months in care and then right back to him.

I am here to tell you, every time we went back it got worse and worse. I really thought I was living with the devil. He began to tell me I was fat and never let my sister or I eat. He would even eat in front of us. It got to the point we would wait until he was asleep and sneak food out of the house. Raw ramen noodles was our go to, we could sneak it out and eat them without cooking them and leave no evidence, as he was always too drunk to notice. That soon became our routine.

He always locked us out of the house while he slept, due to him working nights and we were too loud. So we got use to being outside and being alone. We only had each other.

We went to church one Sunday and it is a Sunday I’ll never forget. We finished church and there was a little place up on a hill called Evelyn’s Restaurant. We would go after church and eat, or more often than not, sit and watch him eat. The ladies loved us and would take us to the back and sneak goodies to us. He ordered us out because he was leaving. When we came out and had icing on our mouths, he became very irritated and back handed me in the face, leaving a huge red welp which turned into a huge bruise.

Later that night, he got bbq ribs for dinner from this little place in Puxico. When we got home he and my sister sat down to eat, while I was informed I wouldn’t be eating. I was forced to sit at the table and watch them eat instead. I began to cry quietly until in became a sob with me trying to hold the sound in so he couldn’t hear. When he looked at me, saw my tears, he told me how much I disgusted him. He grabbed my hair and threw me in the floor. He picked up the bones from his plate, threw them in the floor and told me, “eat that, you’re nothing but a bitch anyway.” I sat hurt and in disbelief, as he began to kick me over and over again shoving my head to the floor and holding it there telling me to eat. When I refused, I was slung from one end of the house to the other by my hair. Kicked repeatedly until I could have sworn my ribs were broken.

My “punishment” the next day for not eating the bones was to mow our yard. I was so little and hurting so badly , I couldn’t even start the lawn mower. He came behind me and kicked me in the back, started the mower and told me to get busy. He sat and watched, only leaving long enough to go to the bathroom. While he was away my sister would bring me water. When I got the mower stuck in a big hole in the yard, he got furious. Blows came to my face so quickly I didn’t have time to recover from the first. Kicks to my back and ribs came in strifes and he cussed me and told me how worthless I was. I was pulled by my hair into the house where the beating continued. The last blow to my head as I was being thrown across the room was the last. He had knocked the wind out of me, made me pee on myself again, and I suffered from a concussion.

After noticing my arm, my dad looked at it and said, ” Wow, Tressa, did I do that?” I couldn’t speak, just shook my head and tears rolled down my face.

He said he needed to get me to the hospital, so I went to my room to change clothes due to what had happened earlier. My sister helped me get some shirts on, and we left.

We get to the hospital, and they take me to the back, do x-rays, and the doctor comes in the room. What I didn’t mention, is that on the way to the hospital, dad had already come up with this story about how I fell off the porch and broke my arm. So with him being in the room when the doctor asked what happened, I stuck with the story he had told me. The doctor looked at him, then looked at me, and again asked what took place when I hurt my arm. I just kept staring at my dad. The doctor made him leave the room and asked me again what had taken place. I told the same story again.

This time, was a little different. The doctor sat beside me, looked me in the eyes, and simply said, ” sweetheart, I know you are hurting and scared, but I have been a doctor for a very long time, and this injury doesn’t come from falling.” I said nothing. He said, ” did your father do this to you?” And the tears went rolling as I answered in fear, shaking my head yes.

The doctor called the police who came to the hospital and took my dad out in handcuffs. I just sat emotionless and watched.

The began working on my arm, showing me the x-rays and telling me what they needed to do. They had this thing hanging from the ceiling that I called a cheese grater, but was just a metal thing with several tiny boxes in it. They put my fingers in these to make sure my arm was elevated and that I couldn’t move.

The next part was even worse. They had to reset my arm. I have never felt such pain, and anger at my dad for putting me through this. Turns out, in my wrist, the bones were twisted and snapped completely in half, and was also broken up towards my forearm. After the rest, I was put in a cast and told I would be in it for a while.

Being as I was right handed, going to school trying to do work was impossible. I ended up having the teacher or other students to help me with my work. And at times I just did it left handed.

It was this way for a while. I went back to the doctor and they took the cast off, did another X-ray to determine how it was healing, and put me right back in a cast.

So, this foster care experience was short lived. They made my Dad take some anger management classes and parenting classes, and we were sent back to live with our Dad.

Things were okay for a short period of time, and the abuse began again. Back to the black eyes, busted lips, bumps and bruises. The alcoholic dad was back. He would get mad at my sister and I for playing and would get unusually angry. He would yell and scream, grab us by our hair and throw us around the house. I remember having bald spots from the amount of hair he would pull from my head.

Other days he would get angry and hit us with anything he could get his hands on. Make me hold huge wooden boards above my head and if I started to lower it at all, he would beat me with a wire hanger. I always tried to shield my sister from the danger. Tried to take up for her or say something stupid so he turned his attention back to me.

Still in elementary school, we were eating pizza for dinner one night. We always had extra cheese on our pizza, and just like typical kids, we use to watch the cheese string as we took a bite. We giggled and laughed about it like kids do, especially both of us being girls. My dad got so angry, he jerked me away from the table by grabbing my arm, pulling me out of the chair, and body slamming me into the floor. He grabbed my arm again and threw me across the room hard enough that I slid on the floor. Already crying, he wasn’t done.. he grabbed me again and threw me into the wall, hitting my head so hard it bounced back. At this point, I was so scared, I peed on myself.

He threw me in a corner and made me stand there. He and my sister finished dinner and she went on to play in the room. She said she was getting a drink of water and would come to check on me. I stood in that corner for hours holding my head and arm because they both hurt so bad.

After a few hours, he called me in the living room. He told me to put my hands down to my sides, so I did. But my arm was throbbing and I was in pain, so I brought my arm up and was holding it. At this point he grabbed my arm again and I began to scream in antagonizing pain. He immediately stopped what he was doing and looked at me. Since I was in the corner in the dark, I wasn’t able to see. Being in the living room, I looked at my arm that was black and blue and five times the size it should have been….

I went into a foster home that day, along with my little sister. I cannot remember the name of the people we lived with, but we were there for about 6 months and returned back to our Dad.

Unfortunately, nothing had changed. He was still a drunk, and we were still beaten. Not a day went by that something didn’t happen.

I remember always being the protector of my little sister, trying to keep her from harms way, although it didn’t always work out that way. He got very angry when he was drinking , and one day the threw my sister across the room. She hit her head on the corner of the television, and was taken to the hospital for stitches.. she story was that she was running and fell.

See, I said before our Dad was in the Army, what I haven’t said, is that he was forced to retire early because of us girls. Since our mother wasn’t around, we had to have a parent, and he was it. I often wondered if he didn’t resent us because of that.

The abuse continued for a very long time. We didn’t have a vehicle, so I remember walking from Puxico to Dexter one day in the rain to get shoes for my sister and I. When we couldn’t keep up with our Dad, he would hit us and tell us to hurry up and get with the program, or that “he was wasting his time trying to take care of us, so we should be more respectful.” Mind you we were maybe 3 and 6 at this point.

Although there was physical abuse, we suffered lots of mental abuse as well. The one thing I can say is that every Sunday, we sat in church as a family. A “single dad” and his two daughters, and let me tell you, it was definitely a show, and he won the crowd over. They all thought he was a great man that took care of his children and made sure they were in church. They even gave him a trophy for “father of the year”, talk about a disappointment.

Once my mother left that last time, things got really bad in our house. The abuse that was put on Mom, turned my way. I was going to school with huge bruises on my arms, down my legs, on my face..

People at school knew, but they were always afraid to say anything or ask what happened. I went to school one morning, still in elementary school, and I had a black eye and busted lip. I was so embarrassed to even show my face, and sat alone in the back of the classroom.

I was pulled aside by the teacher and was informed that I was needed in the counselors office. I walked slowly to the office and my stomach was in knots. I literally felt like I was going to throw up everywhere. I got to the office, and was sitting with a few adults that were asking me what happened to my face.

Of course, once my dad realized he left marks, he always came up with a story for me to tell, so that nobody “knew” what was really going on behind closed doors. So with the questioning from school authority figures, I was so afraid of my dad, I lied. This particular time, the excuse was that, I walked behind him while he was painting the house and got hit in the face with the long wooden handle.

In reality, I guess I were young enough, I thought that story would work. They sent me back to class, and a short time later I was called to the office again. This time, there was a new face sitting in the seat in front of me. I was introduced to her and was informed that she was from Division of Child Services, and that she was there to help. I never got brave enough to tell them that my Father has been drunk and beat on me, however, I think they already knew.

When it was time for school to be out, I was told that I would not be riding the bus home as usual, but instead, I would be going to a foster home. That is when the back and forth began..

With Dad being an alcoholic, he didn’t skip a day without drinking. This caused a lot of problems between my Mother and him. Mom started seeing another man, and my Dad found out about it. At this point, I was maybe 5. Mom came home one night after being out with that man, and her and my Dad got into a huge fight. I remember him beating my mother while I sit and tried to shield my sister from seeing it. Mom left that night with blood pouring from her head and lots of bruises. She didn’t come back. My sister and I stayed with our dad and he started drinking even more.

A few years later, mom came back to the house to see us. I remember looking at her out of my bedroom window and crying, wanting to go with her. My Dad answered the door and they began fighting. He told her “the girls aren’t here.” And she replied “Bob, I can see them looking at me from the window. ” Again, he beat my Mother so bad, she was bloody and crawling to her car.. I never saw her again.. well for many years..

I really thought I was something big being able to watch my Dad direct all of the soldiers. When we moved to a Germany, as I said before, I don’t remember much. What I do remember is moving to West Virginia with my mother while he finished there. Not really sure how long we stayed there, but next thing I remember, my Grandmother on my Dad’s side became very sick. We moved to a small little town called Duck Creek. My Grandmother passed away soon after, and the house was left to my Dad. Hence, where my childhood nightmare really began

You see, my Dad was an alcoholic. He would drink so much in one day, I’m not even sure how he could function, and to be honest, most of he time , he didn’t.

 

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton