war zone

i was born into a war zone, a family fighting itself til there was nothing left but pain. i didnt get to have that happy childhood, i got foster care and abuse. there where two homes that i wish i could have stayed at, but it wasnt in the cards for me. i learned from a young age that pain will always be there. that even if you do everything right, if someone else is having a bad day that you could be what they take their anger out on. i remember busted lips and pin pricks, black eyes and almost busted ribs. i have scars from what was done to me, some you can see, others you cant. i can still feel the hands around my throat from when i was 5 years old. i wake up crying from memories that i still cant forget. i am 29 years old and i know that i am lucky that i am alive cause after everything i really shouldnt be.

let me take you back to august 11, 1991. i was born at 8:56, coming in a 3 lbs 9 onches and 14 inches long. i was 9 weeks early, but by that point my family was ripped apart. it had been for a long time. my parents are shannon gray and david spring. they never should have been together, never should have had kids together let alone 4 of them. i am the youngest of the kids they had together. they got married after my big sister amber born and before i was. even a wedding ring didnt stop either of them from finding other people. by the time i came along my daddy was gone. my mom moved on and had two more kids with man she has been married to since 1997. a man she stayed with even though it cost her. it cost her all 6 of her kids. i was 18 months old by the time the state started to think about full time placement. i was bounced back a forth from homes to our moms so many times i cant remember. finally when i was about 4 years old they took us for good. or my mother gave us to them i should say.

my oldest brother phillip and i where placed in a home together. it had been a place we had been before and loved. one of the best memories i have is when the osiers came to get me from the temp home i was in. it was dark outside and i was being picked on by older kids. they where telling me that wasnt going to get out of this house. no one really ever did. i heard the knock on the door and the man of the house was pissed that someone was there. i can still hear their voices coming from the front hall. they all had come to get be except beth cause she was babysitting. the cps worker was with them to show paperwork stating that i was going with them. mama cami called out for me and i ran like hell to her. she asked if i wanted to go home and i started to cry. they grabbed my stuff and we where gone. i thought i had my family. it was us, steph, joe, beth, mark, cami, phillip and i. i still wish everyday that it had lasted, but the state had other ideas. by the time i was 5 i was placed in a different home, and it was one that has left me busted up and broken.

pam and randy boehning made my life more then a living hell. i'm still trying to work through everything that was done to me. what i do know is that it started from the moment i walked in the door and cps worker walked out. it started out small, just mostly yelling at me for something that they did. pretty soon it was being shoved into stuff because they said i was in their way, well he said anyway. she was to drunk to really care much what he did. it didnt matter how much i cried she did nothing, and crying made him worse. i learned real quick that it was better not to fight back or try and run away. it never worked out. the only time i got free of them was when they didnt want me around and sent me to the house my brother eddie was in. that was the taylors. i wish i could have stayed there. they told the state something wasnt right at the house but no one listened. the state said i was acting out.

a few months into living with the boehnings things got a whole lot worse. it went from being shoved into walls and down the back steps, and hot sauce in the mouth while standing the corner for an hour or even using a sewing needle to prick me with til i bled. i though it couldnt get worse then that. i still cant have spicey food because of it. then one day it did. randy came behind me as i went to go to the room i slept in. he pushed me into the bathroom and onto the floor. he told me that if i got up or tried to fight him that he would hurt my baby sister gen who also lived in the house. i didnt fight him she was to small for him to pick on and push around it would have killed her. that was the first day that he made me touch him. after he got drunk and passed out i cried myself to sleep.

the next day he did the same thing but this time he touched me to. it went on like that for weeks. finally one day he tried to penetrate me, i still wake up screaming from it. when he couldnt get it to go in he beat me up like it was my fault. i had bruises on my ribs, arms, legs, chest, my lip was split in two places. it went on like that for months, he got what he wanted. over and over. he beat me, and raped me. he treated me like i was nothing but a toy. after a while he started to look at my sister the same way he did me. then one day he spanked her so hard her nose bled. the look he got was of pure evil and hate. it wasnt long after that day that he tried to make a move on gen. i was 5 and 1/2 at the time but she was only 3 years old. i couldnt let him hurt the only family i had with me. i stood in his way. he told me to move or i'll get my worse then what i got before. i still didnt move i couldnt move.

i forgot he kept a base ball bat next to the couch. normally he uses it to make me do things. not that day. he was so mad and so full of hate he just swung. i remember seeing it coming at me and trying to moving. i can hear the way it sounded when it hit my head then darkness. i woke up to pam yelling at randy about how he could have killed me and if i was dead they would get the check for me anymore. she was more concerned with not having money for booze and pills then she was about my life. she never cared what he did to me. i still dont even know how long i was out for. i remember pain and not seeing straight for weeks. at least it kept him off of me for a while and he never tried anything on gen again.

finally i was taken out of that house and places in a home where i was adopted. because of the hit from the baseball bat and not being taken in for it and treated, i have lasting life altering problems. it want until a few years ago that the doctors realized that i had severe hemorrhaging and brain damage on three parts of my brain, and by the age of the damage it happened when i was between the ages 5-6. so when he hit me with the baseball bat he changed my life even more. he was already the reason i get scared of men but it turns out he is the reason i have memory problems, and migraines, and seizures. randy boehning took my childhood and ripped it to the point that one could fix it. i woke up almost every night for month after i left his house crying or screaming. i was afraid to sleep. he made my life hell. i cant even seem to have a normal relationship with a man. i always do something to make him run so he doesnt find out how broken i really am. i have been fighting to be strong and it feels like its smothering me. like its he hands wrapped around my throat again.

i dont know if i'll ever get over what he did, or the hell i went through. i am scared to death that i will run into him on the street and he will know who i am. he is out walking around and i'm scared to leave my home. scared to run into him while i have my daughters with me. i'm sick of being afraid all the time. its not fair. i want to be strong for my daughters but i dont know how. i am trying. i survived. now i just have to learn how to live.

i was born into a war zone and then put into a living hell. i wont let that be my daughters life. my name is victoria lauren martins read, i was born victoria lynn spring on august 11, 1991. i shouldnt still be alive but i am. i'm still here and still fighting. i will fight until my very last breath. that i can promise you.