My mother’s two brothers hung out with my father before my mother, Lisa, and father procreated me. My one uncle, David, hung out with my father more than my other uncle, named Sean. I was the result of a garage quickie and a broken condom.

My father learned that my mother was pregnant while he was in bootcamp training for the United States Navy through a letter. My father’s name is Peter. My mother wrote him that he could be the father. My paternal grandmother Dorothy told me this. All throughout my life I had to hear that my father was a perfect little angel and how my mother seduced him; as is how many other children had to hear.

I was born and the DNA test was 100% that I was his child. He didn’t pay child support until the Navy threw him into the brig and made him pay child support, or he would lose his military career. My father never had anything to do with me. My father’s wife made him choose her over me. My father retired from the military at the age of 38 years old.

My mother wanted to go into the Air Force and become a doctor in Psychology. My mother was only one out of a couple of other people in the state of Pennsylvania, U.S. to have the highest score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and A.S.V.A.B.’s (Armed Services Aptitude Battery), until I came along and ruined everything (she should’ve kept her legs shut).

At around 2 ½ years old my sister Amber was conceived or born, and I was raped by her father. We lived on Larch Street in Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. I underwent a rape test, and the test came up positive for Chlamydia. My mother’s boyfriend, Frank, ran from the police. My mother went to the store leaving me with Frank, came home and walked in as it happened. My paternal grandmother Dorothy did say something to my mother that she thought something was going on. My mother didn’t listen and by then it was too late. They caught Frank on charges eventually on other cases involved with little girls. My two Uncles, David and Sean, chased him down in an alley way, beat him and left him for dead. Unfortunately, Frank survived.

 My mother met another man named Rob, fell in love, fell pregnant with my sister, Stephanie. My mother Lisa, and Rob got married while my mother was still pregnant. We moved into the end of row houses on 1526 West Gibson Street in Scranton, Pennsylvania. My father’s mother, Grandma Dorothy, lived across the street from us and would help care for me a lot.

Grandma Dorothy was diagnosed Paranoid Schizophrenic at around the age of 25. Grandma Dorothy was a very good mother and grandmother even though she was sick. Grandma Dorothy wasn’t the violent type of mentally ill. I was very close to my mother’s mother Grandma Sandy and father Grandpa Dave. I was mostly cared for and raised by my grandparents. I was especially close to my Grandpa Dave.

 My mother’s new husband, Rob, wanted me to call him “Daddy”, but when I didn’t, he grew very jealous to the point where he was physically and mentally abusive. Eventually, my mother joined him and didn’t prevent any abuse from happening. When we first moved into the row house, he threw me down on to a black bag of clothes, pulled my pants and panties down and beat me. In the process of him beating me, I tried to run away from him but that only result in Rob catching me and I sprained my ankle.

Three days later, while my Grandma Dorothy was visiting with me, he purposefully shut the sliding glass door shut on my wrapped-up ankle. Grandma Dorothy threatened him with death, but Robbie never listened. My mother at this point, also became physically and mentally abusive. I remember one time I cursed at my mother; she slapped me so hard that I swallowed my one front tooth and the other front tooth flew to the other side of the kitchen. I never found it.  My sister Stephanie was born sometime throughout this time.

 We eventually moved to Wysox, Pennsylvania into a mobile home park called Jackson Trailer Court. In this time, I developed a problem with acting out from the cause of abuse they did to me. Robbie and my mother put Master lock padlocks on the door that connected a bathroom to my bedroom and the main door to my bedroom. I was locked into my room for hours, every day. They also installed a Masterlock padlock on the refrigerator door because I would steal food. Robbie would always put my food on the floor at dinnertime.

Robbie said that it was because I like to play with the dog in the doghouse, so I can eat like a dog. Too bad I wasn’t a rabidly aggressive child that foamed at the mouth and bit back at them. At this age, 7 or 8, I drew anatomically correct penises, made my barbies have sex and would successfully masturbate. I didn’t know at the time what any of it was.

The only thing that my mother did right is that she had put me through intense therapy after being raped. Some people never got therapy or mental help after being raped and they chose to take their trauma out on other children as grown adults, becoming pedophiles themselves. Thank you, mother, for putting me through therapy for that trauma. I eventually punched my hand through the storm glass window in my bedroom as an attempt to escape from my situation and I ended up going to the hospital and getting seven stitches.

That is when Bradford County Children and Youth Services became involved. My caseworker’s name was Joanne Alice; I do not believe I spelled that correctly. I don’t know whether Joanne was a savior or just made my life a worse living hell for the next ten years. I was molested by some of my foster siblings. I was physically abused with random objects like hair dryers. I was abandoned repeatedly because I was older as a foster child. Of course, I was subjected to mental abuse.

Nobody wanted to adopt an older child. This is the cause for many older children in the foster care system, even in present day United States. The social workers assigned to me didn’t do anything about it. They always brushed it off and said, “Sarah, you shouldn’t go around lying about stuff”.

There is one social worker, Jennifer Gardener, that works at Lackawanna County Children and Youth Services, Scranton, Pennsylvania and she was my caseworker when I told her about being molested. This social worker is the one who said exactly that phrase. At the time, I was so sheltered that I didn’t even know what a blowjob was. I was 16 and I asked my mother what it was and that is how I found out what it was. I didn’t lie about that kind of stuff.

 My beloved Grandpa Dave died when I was 15 while in foster care. I wasn’t the same person after that. I signed out of the foster care system at the age of 19 and went to live with my Grandma Sandy. People often ask why my mother didn’t take me in with her. At that time, she was involved with her boyfriend, Craig, and she lived in a one-bedroom apartment. I eventually found out that Craig was a crack junkie.

The day I came home, she came over to my grandma’s house, sat down at Grandma’s table and played spades with her friends. What the hell? Wasn’t this a special day to celebrate me coming home. Of course, I’m chopped liver. If my mother saw me writing this about her; she would deny it all happened, tear this up and throw this story in the garbage like it didn’t happen.

My mother loved me when it made here look good or when she benefited from it, somehow. I always made her look good, but she was always good at making me look bad to other people. A ruthless, narcissistic mother.

 Fun fact: I read “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield at the age of eleven. Is that an adult book?

I am a Warrior. I am not a victim. My past does not define me. I am not the only one. I chose not to become a monster.

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