Pressure Relief Valve

There were a few years that any sexual advances where absent. My focus was on the beatings and trying to stay out of the path of the hurricane. Then something shifted. I'm unsure what it was, it might have been that I started to develop into a woman's body. I was in Junior High and that is the only thing I can see that changed. There started to be requests for kisses and physical contact that didn't previously exist "come sit on my lap" "give me a hug" and the hugs would linger. I was so very confused and it horrified me. I didn't know how to manage it, so I started to act like it was a game or joking around. I would laugh and try to get away and go do some forgotten task that I suddenly remembered.

One day I had an activity that I needed permission to go to and a ride to get there. He was home and that meant I had to get permission from him. He was sitting at the kitchen table so I went into the kitchen and asked him if I could go. He told me to come give him a kiss and he would consider it, so I went up to him and kissed him on the cheek. He said "that's not a real kiss, give me a real kiss". I was stuck and needed to figure out my way through this so I could go. I went back and kissed him on the lips, a quick smack. That wasn't enough and he grabbed me and pulled me in and proceeded to kiss me in a different way. I pulled away and went upstairs. It didn't matter if my getting out of the house was at stake, I couldn't do what he wanted.

There was another time when I was attempting to walk by him to go upstairs and as I moved passed him, he grabbed me and pushed me down onto the couch as he was attempting to kiss me on the lips. He was laughing and saying "come on, give me a little kiss" and things like that. I was trying to figure out how to get him off of me without making him mad and looked up to see my brother standing there with a stunned look on his face. I was so very embarrassed and horrified that he had seen me like that. I wondered if he thought I was enjoying the game? I prayed that he knew this isn't my game, it was HIS!  As he left the room, I wanted to run after him screaming "I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to!" but I never said a word. Neither did he.

He loved the game, it was flirting to him. He would smile, make jokes and respond like I was a girlfriend he was trying to seduce. I didn't understand any of the dynamics at play, but I saw the change in how he interacted with me. He wanted to tell me the hardships he had with mom and how life was for him. His tone and conversation topics changed. It was a nightmare and I didn't know how to get out of it. I just felt relief when he left town driving the semi truck he had started driving. He would be gone several days in a row and this offered me time to relax and be "normal" for a little while.

It was springtime and my mom was going to take us all to Moab for a visit. I typically went with excitement, but this time, I wanted to stay home. Dad was gone on the truck, mom was only going to be gone a few days and I wanted to stay so I could have more time with my friend. Mom had agreed to let me stay. She packed everyone up and was getting ready to go pick up my sister and they were ready to head out. As she loaded the car, I heard the sound of a semi truck parking at the top of our lane in front of our house. I ran to the door to see that my dad had returned unexpectedly early. I was NOT going to stay home alone with him, there was absolutely no way. So I ran to my mom and told her I changed my mind and to wait for me as I packed my bag to go with her. She must of sensed the terror in my voice and told me I needed to go with her to pick up my sister. So we both got into the car and as soon as we were on the road she asked me what was wrong. I thought about it for a couple of minutes and decided I had to tell her. This was too close of a call and I couldn't risk it anymore. So I told her what he had done when I was younger and what he was doing now. She pulled over the car and we parked in a field for a moment. She started to cry and hugged me and told me she loved me. Then we went and picked up my sister and went to Moab.

I don't remember any more talks about what had happened, why it had happened, any motherly advice or insights to apply to assist me in managing it all. Later, I would hear stories of girls that would finally get the nerve to tell only to be called a liar and to be made the "issue". I never felt like she was blaming me or didn't completely believe me. But I knew she was helpless to manage the situation. After all, she was also getting abused. She too feared him. It's not like I expected her to rise up and fix it all in that instance, but somewhere down deep I was hoping that resolution would come. That I wouldn't have to put up with his craziness any longer and neither would she or the rest of my family. But that isn't what happened.

I'm sure she made changes in how she managed the day to day. Without any conversations, we made sure I wasn't put in any compromising situations with him. Now instead of me avoiding him alone, I had help. She became more permissive to my requests to go to my friends house. I could be gone a lot more, in fact, there was always an excuse to not be home. As I grew further into my teen years, I was gone more and more, which seemed to be a natural evolution and I welcomed every minute I wasn't at that house.

Junior high turned to high school and the madness at home increased. I am sure the way my mother treated him changed and he knew something was up. He started to create arguments with me about who I was spending my time with, instead of just what housework I hadn't gotten done correctly. Now he wanted to know who I was dating and if I was being promiscuous or as he yelled "are you being a whore?" Then it would turn in another direction. Why was I spending so much time with my friend who was a girl? "Was I a lesbian or something?" I would answer in the way that I thought would get me out of the conversation quickly, I didn't argue to prove my point or to even gain any ground. I just wanted him to leave me alone and tried everything I knew how to keep it calm and leave as quickly as I could.

This isn't the most flattering picture of my mother and me but it is still close to my heart because there were so many moments like this that I remember. Mom in her work clothes, us together in the kitchen, not talking about all the things going through my mind, just being together. I knew she was trying to survive as much as I was. Staying in the kitchen with her was the safest choice I had.

In these same years, my mother was working the graveyard shift at the county nursing home. She had received her Certified Nursing Assistant certification and was doing her best to provide for us and take care of my younger sisters during the day. She seemed to be a super human. She worked all night, took brief naps and functioned all day in her motherly and wifely duties. She tried to keep the phone connected, enough food in the house and a car to keep us moving. We lived in the country of the country where there was no other way to get around than walk, ride bikes or drive a car. Mass transit was something we saw on TV, not that was available. While dad worked sporadically, mom tried to manage all of us as well as she could, but it wasn't easy and the older I became, the more I could see it was taking a toll on her. I started to notice pill bottles in her purse, some had her name on them, some did not. She had reasons for having them when I'd ask and I found it odd that there were so many, but didn't understand what it was a sign off, yet.

During my sophomore year, I started dating a man that was 21 years old. I was 16. He had his own apartment and for a minute, it felt like a safe place for me to be. One night I went out with my high school friends and we drank alcohol and I didn't make it home as I had planned. I called my boyfriend to come get me and he did. I stayed at his apartment for a few days and then called my mom and told her where I was. She came to get me and I told her I wouldn't go home. I asked her to let me live with my best friend whose family was so good to me and I thought it was a great option, but my mother wouldn't have it. So I begged her to leave him and she said "I have 3 other girls I have to take care of and I can't do it alone". I was devastated but in some way, I knew it was true. I'm not sure how we got to the idea, but the option of me going to live with my Aunt in Moab came up and I decided that was better than being a runaway, so I went home and packed. We went to Moab the following day.

The night before we left, my step dad asked me "what's your problem with me?" I said under my breathe as I walked out the door "you know what you did to me and so do I". There was no reply.

My grandmother had died a few years before and my grandfather had remarried. Moab had changed in that my safe place in my grandparents home was gone. But my mother's youngest sister had purchased my grandparents house and was always doing her best to help me and my siblings. She was getting married within a few days of my arrival and so there were several changes for me. A new uncle, a new school and no way of really understanding how to navigate the internal hell that I was living.

It was during the school year when I moved and I never made any friends my age. I only went to school a few days during the months I was there. I was miserable. I could see clearly enough to know that if I didn't find a way through this, that I would end up being one of "those girls" who either got pregnant early or was on drugs or committed suicide. I knew I was close to the edge of the cliff and didn't want to go over it. Some how I was able to connect to something deep inside of me and I got determined to not let HIM take away my dreams. I wanted to be on the High School Drill Team. I wanted to be a responsible, healthy adult. I wanted a great marriage and happy kids. I didn't want to be "one of those girls". So I made a decision and called my mom.

I told my mom I wanted to come home and that I wasn't going to let him take away my life, my dreams, my goals. She said ok and came and got me and I worked to repair my school life, my life with my friends and tried to be a "good girl". I went to church more often and looked for the ways I could become better, do better and get the unclean feeling that existed inside of me gone.

I improved my grades and got involved in church and school. I dated some great young men and felt a little better about myself. I ignored my step father and found myself more able to zone out as he yelled at me about one thing or another. My brother graduated and moved out and it was just me, my mom and my sisters going into my senior year of high school. The pill bottles in my mother's purse became a constant and it was starting to get more of my attention. Something was wrong, but I didn't understand addiction like that yet. A few weeks before school was to start my mother came to me and told me that she had gotten in trouble and had to go to jail. She had forged to get a refill on a prescription and we didn't have the money to pay the fine so she would be gone for 2 weeks. My sisters would go stay with an aunt, but I needed to help take care of a few things while she was gone. I needed to finish sewing my day outfit for the drill team I had made it on to, I needed to get my sister registered for Junior High and take care of a few things around the house. My aunts would help me on a few tasks and she told me which friend could help me with the sewing if I had questions. She never cried or seemed scared or worried. She was matter of fact and so I decided I needed to be matter of fact too. I was just stunned that my amazingly perfect mother was going to jail! I wasn't mad at her as much as I was mad at my step dad for creating the hell we all lived in. My anger with her would come, but not for a while.

I sewed the outfit, registered my sister, did all the things I had on the check list. I was angry and worried. My step dad stayed away most of the time. I don't remember him much during this time period. He made some rude comments about my mom and I just wanted to punch him for being such an ass and making all of our lives a living hell at every turn. My mother completed her time and came home. My sisters came home and as you might predict based on the other stories I've told, we went on like nothing had happened. When I asked my mom if it was scary she said "no, I got the best sleep of my life there". The resentment inside me grew as I thought to myself "glad you did, it's been awful for me!" but I fell in line with the "we are fine" motto and carried on like nothing had happened.

We went back to our normal life, mom working. the girls going to school and me avoiding dad as much as possible. But he started waking me up after my mom went to work to question me about one thing or another. "Who was I dating? Why wasn't this chore done or that thing clean?" I can't remember the specifics because I would block his voice out and nod as he talked. I had to be at the high school at 6:00 am in the morning for drill team practice. One morning, he drove me there and the entire way he yelled at me for something. I was crying and overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of his wrath. It was coming at me constantly and I was struggling to tune it all out. Our drill team advisor was a young woman who seemed to have a compassionate nature and as I entered the gym at 6:00 am in the morning sobbing, she gently guided me to her office and asked me what was wrong. I couldn't come up with a lie that made sense and so I just told the truth, the entire truth of my situation. I told of the abuse of my mom, the sexual abuse of me, the verbal abuse, all of it. I sobbed and sobbed. She listened and helped me calm down and then I went on with my day not knowing the can of worms I had just opened.

I initially told my mother when I was thirteen or fourteen. I lived with my aunt when I was sixteen. I told my drill team advisor when I was eighteen. My mother started using prescription drugs somewhere in that time frame to deal with her life. I had tried a few different coping mechanisms and found brut strength to be my most effective one. The pressure was building each and every step of the way, the pressure within me. There were small releases of pressure in those different milestones. A small amount of pressure was released when I told my mother, but the change in relationships created more pressure and so it built up faster now. I moved away for a while and it relieved some of the pressure for a moment, but letting my life slip away brought it's own pressure. Returning home with a new attitude gave me the ability to manage the pressure a bit but the constant attack from my step father added pressure I couldn't control and my mother's emotional unavailability added it's own pressure to the mix. The pressure built up until I was unable to keep myself together and I fell apart one morning to a kind woman who I had just started to get to know. What I didn't know was that she was a "mandated reporter" if there was such a thing back in 1980. She was a school counselor and she understood I was in need of assistance and brought the Department of Family Services to the school later that day to interview me. I didn't understand what that all meant but it was the first step to finally getting my step father out of our house. She was my pressure relief valve which can be described as: The function of a pressure relief valve is to protect a system or component from excess pressure. Finally, someone took action to protect my system from all it was experiencing and I am forever grateful for her.