LilacRose's Story

My earliest memories go back to when I was living in Mentor-on-the-lake. I only remember that we were friends with the children across the street and that the boy next door threw rocks. I guess I must have been around 4 at the time, because my brother was in first grade. There were four of us children and our life was normal from what I can recall.

In the summertime when I was around 7 or 8 years old we used to go and spend weeks or weekends with my grandparents and aunts and uncles. These times were always looked forward to. Cleaning Grandma’s feet or picking out her grey hairs was not fun. Walking along the streets collecting pop bottles to turn in for money, so I could go to the corner store and buy candy and ice cream was one of the things I loved. Having Grandpa let us mow the grass with his old manual powered grass cutter was too. Back then I didn't have a greater care then finding one more bottle to bring my earnings to enough money for just one more candy bar or a novelty popsicle. It was on one such visit that my seemingly normal life took a turn to abnormal, although I wouldn’t come to this realization until much later in life. I remember being in the spare bedroom sleeping, when I was awoken by my uncle as he was climbing in the bed with me. He was naked. He said to be quiet and not to tell anyone what we were about to do. He made me do things that I didn't want to do and they hurt. He told me not to tell anyone, this was our secret. I didn't tell anyone. I wasn't even sure what he had done, just that it hurt and I didn't like it.

There were other weekends visiting family and having much fun. I don’t recall any other such events occurring. In time my childs’ mind forgot all about the event.

I’m around 10 now. We live in Madison and we have a house with lots of room to play outside and a whole woods with a creek behind our house to play in. I remember climbing trees, wading in the creek, wandering around in the woods and finding a swamp where we caught seamonkeys and pickec jack-in-the pulpits in the summertime. Making snowmen, igloos and snow angels, having snowball fights and sled-riding down the hill by the creek in the wintertime. We had family dinners and said a prayer before dinner. We went to church on holidays and bible school

in the summer. We had family picnics, cooked out and played baseball. Evenings us children would camp out in tents in the yard and catch lightening bugs. On occasion my parents and sometimes their friend Chance would play hide and seek in the house with us at night. Life again was normal.

Out of the blue one day, I came home from school and found out my parents were getting a divorce. My mother explained that they didn't love each other anymore. I had never heard them so much as fight. My mother went on to explain that she was going to be marrying my parents friend Lex. Tammy Wynette was singing "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" on the stereo. I think I went to my room and cried. Time passed and Mom and Dad never divorced, Mom never married Lex and as usual, they never fought. It seemed like we were going to remain a family. It was only the calm before the approaching storm.

Again, one day my mother explained that she and my father were getting a divorce and that she was getting married again. This time it would be to my parents friend Buster. Again the tears came, this time my mother left. When the court date came for their custody hearing us children were old enough that the judge decided to let us pick where we wanted to live with. Our brother chose to stay with our father, us girls did not want to be separated from our brother, so we chose to live with our father as well.

Being separated from Mom was a bit scary at first. When Mom was home she did everything for the house. She had done all the cooking, cleaning, laundry and shopping, as well as caring for us children while Dad worked. Life wasn’t too bad, I helped Dad shop for groceries and being the oldest girl it was my responsibility to cook the meals. This was new to me, I had never cooked before. Talk about "On the Job" training, and what a rare treat for our grandparents, when I invited them over for dinner. It was my first time making fried chicken. I was so proud of my efforts. The chicken looked great, unfortunately, "rare" treat was an accurate description. When my grandparents bit into their food I think the chicken all but squawked.

In time my skills improved, I even managed to bake the biscuits you buy in the round cans without having them be so hard that they cracked the plaster when my brother tossed them and hit the ceiling. Dad, however; didn’t want to continue to burden his little girl with such an awesome responsibility. He decided we needed a woman to take care of us and the house. He met

and started dating a woman with 6 boys. Shortly after he asked us children’s permission to marry her. We thought he loved her and we wanted him to be happy, so we left the decision up to him.

Friend or foe

The only way to describe life with our new step-mother, is to compare it with the childrens’ fairytale story about Cinderella. My step-brothers got everything and had to do nothing, while my sisters, brother and I had to do everything and got nothing. Any slight imperfection got us grounded to our room for a week or more. A grade lower then a C on our report card, got us 6 weeks in our room. We lived in a one hundred year old house and our bedroom was where the attic had once been. We had no air conditioning or heating vents going to it, so it was the hottest room in the summer and the coldest in the winter. Definitely not a place you want to be grounded to. The only breaks from our punishment were for eating, going to the bathroom or for doing work.

As each of us reached the age of 14 we moved in with our mother and step-father. For our brother this turned out to be a living condition. For us girls it turned out to be a case of giving up one abusive situation for another. In the beginning, it seemed as though life with my Mom would be the better alternative. Our step-father was nice and he had our mother teach us how to cook and do housework, which we were expected to help with from time to time. It wasn’t long before he started to be very friendly to me. It was nice to have a step-parent that cared about me and was not forever pointing out my shortcomings. As time passed he became more physical. It seemed he would accidentally brushed up against me in ways that made me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes his hand would touch my breast when he would give me a hug goodnight. Other times it would be an actual squeeze. At first I thought I was reading more into it then there actually was. However, when the squeezing started I knew something was not right.

There came a time that my mother injured her back and was hospitalized for a few weeks. One evening while she was in the hospital, my step-father came home late and he had been drinking. First he started pawing on me and the next thing I knew, he was trying to take my clothes off. He

tried to force himself on me. At that moment in time the incident with my uncle from years before, came rushing back at me with a vengeance. I got scared and panicked. I didn't know how to stop him and he was too strong for me to fight him off. Somehow the idea came to me to pretend that I couldn't breath. When I did that he stopped what he was doing and asked me what was wrong. I didn't say anything. I just kept pretending I couldn't breath. He got scared and ran toward the kitchen, saying that he was going to get me a glass of water. As soon as he was gone out of the room I ran to my bedroom and locked the door. I stayed there the rest of the night. I never told my mother about the incident. I was afraid he would not remember it, or that he would lie about it and that she would take his word over mine. I also convinced myself that as long as he was doing these things to me, he would leave my sisters alone and they would be safe. The touching continued, but he never tried to remove my clothes and force himself on me again.

When I was 20 I got pregnant... at the time I was not aware the baby's father had a drinking problem. He was a very possessive and jealous person as well. For these reasons I felt it best not to raise a baby in this type of environment. Taking care of a child alone was not easy. I had to work 2 jobs to keep up with everything. A guy I met at one of my jobs asked me out. He had always been nice to me so I agreed to a date. We had a nice time and he was well-behaved. After a few weeks of dating I found out he was married. It also became apparent that he had a temper that I had not been aware of. He had beat his wife so bad she had to be hospitalized. I was expecting him to come over that evening and I was scared. I was afraid to tell him I couldn't see him anymore. Yet I knew I had to stop seeing him, because he was married. I also could not chance putting myself and my daughter in danger. I wasn't far from wrong. That evening when he came over I told him I couldn't see him anymore and he raped me. He threatened to hurt me if I didn't do what he wanted. I was afraid to scream out, for fear I would wake up my sleeping child or that he would hurt one of us. I never reported the incident either. I convinced myself that nobody would believe me. Also was the fear that he would come back and hurt or kill me. He never came around or bothered me again. My car broke down and I had to quit one of my jobs. Again things got very rough financially. A dear friend asked me to marry him and let him help me. I knew he loved me and my daughter. The feeling wasn't mutual, but I cared for him very much and wanted a good life for my daughter. I thought I would grow to love him and he knew how I felt and said it didn't matter to him. Eventually the marriage collapsed and we went our own seperate ways.

I spent the next year or so working a lot and dating occasionally. Never anything serious, for fear I would be hurt again. Then I met someone I enjoyed being with and we ended up moving in together. After a year together we moved to Florida. I was lonely much of the time. I became pregnant soon after we moved. Four months into the pregnancy I started spotting. A trip to the emergency room revealed that I had a high risk pregnancy and I was told to stay off my feet for the rest of pregnancy (with a 3 year old?). The rest of the pregnancy was stressful, but I gave birth to a healthy daughter. I had the usual post-partum depression, but then it escalated and before long I was in a full blown depression. Then one day while driving I was suddenly overcome by terror. It came at me from out of the blue and all I could think about was getting home. I ran a red light and nearly wrecked into another car on the way. As soon as I arrived home I was fine. I had no idea what had caused the incident. A week or so later I was grocery shopping and as I walked through the store the feeling of terror came back. I tried to ignore it and I kept shopping. By the time I got to the checkout line I was once again overcome by that feeling of terror. I had to get out of the store right away. I left my cart full of groceries at the checkout line, went to my car and drove home as quick and as safely as possible. Again, as soon as I arrived home I was fine. Incidents similar to these continued to happen, with more frequency. Eventually I didn't leave the house. I was alright as long as I stayed at home. Then one day I started to get pains in my chest. They would strike all of a sudden and I was sure that I was having a heart attack. Everytime I had the pains I was taken to the emergency room. The doctors could never find anything wrong with me. My boyfriend started getting aggravated at the doctors for not finding out what was wrong with me. They assured him that whatever was causing my problem was nothing serious and that they had done all they could. After talking with the doctor my boyfriend decided that I was either imagining it all, or that I was doing it for attention. I was convinced I was going crazy. The next visit to the emergency room I started crying as I told the doctor that there had to be something wrong. I was either going crazy or something was terribly wrong, because I was sure that I was not imagining all that had happened. He listened to me, asked me many questions, and then he gave me the address and phone number to a clinic that he thought may be able to help me. Up until this time I had spent many hours sitting in a corner crying and not knowing why. I was having stomach trouble, getting frequent headaches. I even lost interest in spending time with my children. I was to the point that I considered buying sleeping pills and taking enough that I wouldn't feel any more pain. The only thing that saved me each time from carrying through with it, was God and my children.

The clinic I was sent to was able to help me. I had to stay there voluntarily as a patient for four - six weeks. After three weeks had passed my mother came and asked if they thought it would help me to go home and stay with her for awhile. The doctors thought it might, so I moved back to Ohio. Being in Ohio helped some and eventually I was back out on my own again. My panic/anxiety disorder being somewhat controlled with medicine and monthly visits to a counselor. The counseling eventually helped me to help myself. It was a long slow process and continues to be something to work on.

When my third child was born I found out that my significant other was cheating on me. I actually caught him in the act in a manner of speaking. The woman he was with was supposedly my friend. It was painful being betrayed by the man I loved, but even more so that it was with someone I considered a friend. I gave him 30 days to move out. When his 30 days had passed I threw all his belongings out the door. It was raining that day. Looking back I think it was not nearly what he deserved but it helped make me feel a little vindicated.

I found someone new almost immediately. He seemed to be a dream come true. He treated me like a princess and seemed to be great with the girls. I stayed with him even when it became apparent that he was having problems with drug addiction. By this time I was also pregnant with our son. In time he also became physically, mentally and sexually abusive to me as well. In an attempt to liberate myself I applied and was accepted to attend college. In the event that things continued to get worse I wanted to have some type of formal training so that I could get a job to support myself and the children. One day the abuse reached the point, where he went into a fit of rage in front of the children. This was the breaking straw. I called my sister, and she sent her husband over to pick up me and my children. My brother-in-law then went back and convinced my husband to commit himself into a hospital for help. While he was in the hospital I overheard my youngest 2 children playing. Their conversation led me to believe that their sexual knowledge was more advanced then was normal for children their ages. Upon talking to my children one at a time, I discovered that my husband had sexually abused all 3 of my daughters. The wheels of justice moved slow. Over a year later, he finally went to court over it. He received a 5 year prison sentence for his wrong doings. My daughters received life. A life full of problems that would arise as a result of their abuse. I divorced my husband during this long drawn out process. College was great and I was doing well. Then my car broke down. No longer having transportation to get the children to and from the sitter's and myself to and from school, I had to drop out.