Using Your Voice Could Save a Life

I never thought anything like this could happen to me. Especially by someone I love. I was taught as a young girl to respect my elders. I never talked back to my parents, grandparents, or anyone else that was older than me. I grew up in the era where we had no cell phones, playing outside til the street lights came on, (or for me and my siblings it was dads whistle.) We knew where our play boundaries were and we didn't dare go outside those boundaries. I grew up respecting my parents and the rules they set out before us. (Besides the usual kid stuff that is.) I never questioned the adults in my life. Although, as a young child nothing ever happened to me to question the adults in my life that I trusted. Mom and dad both taught me about the good touch, bad touch, and taught me about "bad people" but I never thought that one of those "bad people" could be anyone in my family. Someone I trusted.

I was raised by my mom and step-dad. My step-dad was my dad. The only dad I ever had, the only dad still to this day I have. He IS my dad. I love my dad more than anything and I have so much respect for him. He taught me everything I know. He was and still is a wonderful man. I strive to be like him. His love and compassion for people. His belief in always doing the right thing no matter what it cost. His generosity. The respect he receives from everyone. My dad is a great man. He raised five kids that wasn't his. The love this man has for us kids is an undeniable love. The love he has for my mother is undeniable. The respect he shows my mom has taught us kids what a relationship should be between two lovers.

I went from being raised in a christian home to a home full of sin and torture. I was fifteen when I moved away. I was finally able to meet my biological father. It should have been a time of happiness and fulfillment. It became a nightmare that I could not escape from. My mother would have never sent me down there to live with him had she had known what was going to happen. She thought that me meeting him could possibly put me on a better path then what I was heading down. I was starting to act up, hanging out with the wrong crowd. Underage drinking and partying, sneaking out of the house. She was scared something bad was going to happen to me if she didn't do something drastic. Little did she know, she sent me down to live with the devil.

My first night there, he went in the room I was sleeping in and raped me. I just kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep the whole time, just waiting for it to be over with. The next day he acted as if nothing happened and so did I. I met my little sister who he had custody of. She was only four. I'll never forget the deep sadness in her eyes the day I met her. I made a silent vow right then and there to protect her. She had such a rough life in her short four years alive. A life I couldn't imagine having to live. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to take her back home with me. But, how? I had no way of calling home and I was several hours away. With a man I knew to be my father but didn't even know, and what I did know about him scared me. I wasn't sure what was going to happen from here on out. I wanted to go home. I wanted to call home. Those are the feelings I felt for eight long years.

In 2002, I became my fathers sex slave. I wasn't allowed to go to school. He had everyone convinced that he was someone he wasn't. This was my first year there. This was the first time I had ever been beaten. He didn't like how I questioned him and disagreed with him. He thought he could convince me that the bible states that it's okay to be with your daughter. He blamed my mother for sending him to prison. Everything he said did not make sense to me. He would get angry when he seen that what he was trying to drill into my head wasn't working on me so instead he used his fist. I knew I was in a situation that I needed to get out of but I didn't know how to. I knew I definitely couldn't say anything to him unless I agreed with everything he said, so I left him a letter on his desk begging him to quit having sex with me. I told him how bad he was hurting me and that I just wanted him to be a dad to me. I sure did pay the price for that one! I took a hefty beating for leaving a paper trail.

I learned to just be his yes man. At some point I just accepted the fact that this was going to be my life for the rest of my life. As long as he was doing it to me and not my baby sister. I would do anything to make sure he did it to me and not her. There were times where I couldn't take it anymore and I remember grabbing her and making a run for it. We had no where to go, it was snowing and we had no coats or shoes on. I had no choice but to go back. I felt like there was no way out. I endured years and years of abuse. I was mentally exhausted and physically sick. I lost so much weight. I went from being an athletic, healthy 130 pounds down to 98 pounds. My goal in life at that point was to make my little sisters life as normal as possible. To teach her the things I was taught. I wanted to give her the life my parents back home gave me.

I became pregnant at 18 with my first child. The story I was told to tell about my pregnancy was that I went down to the casino several hours away and got stranded, my truck ran out of gas. A guy stopped to help me, raped me and I got pregnant. I was too scared to report it. I remember staying up til the sun came up going over and over what I was to say on how I got pregnant. It was so exhausting. I turned 19 that March of 2006 and had my daughter Madison Michelle, In April of 2006. I was only six months pregnant. She was still-born. She had all her fingers and toes and a head full of hair. She had this pure smell to her. A smell I had never smelled before. It was a smell of heaven. I had never felt so empty. Laying there alone in the hospital bed holding my dead child. My first born child. I was sad but at the same time, relieved that the lord took her home so she would never have to endure the heartache and pain I was enduring. It was almost bittersweet.

I became pregnant again not even a year later. My second child, another girl. Emilee Michelle. This time I convinced my father to let me go home for a little while. I was able to convince him that my family was getting suspicious of him. My brother came to visit, so I took that opportunity to pull my father aside and told him my brother told me that mom and everyone was getting suspicious on what was really going on. I told him that if he didn't want to go back to prison that he better let me go home for a little while. So he agreed. With the exception that I call him daily to give him updates. He said he would know if I was lying to him or if I said anything to anyone. He said he would kill my parents before he allowed them to send him back to prison. I believed him.

I went back home with my brother. I stayed for several months. I ended up going into labor in August of 2007 at my mothers home. She took me to the hospital. They stopped my labor and decided to send me to a bigger hospital that had a NICU so if I did have her early she would have a chance of surviving. I was only 7 months pregnant. I stayed in that hospital for a month. They decided to finally induce me. She was 4 pounds even. Although, I felt afraid and unsure of how things were going to go from there. I felt happy that I didn't go through that alone. My mom was by my side the whole time. My daughter was in the NICU for a little over a week and she was able to come home. After being home with her at my mothers for a few months my father decided it was time for me to come home. He was worried my mom and aunts would get suspicious and take a lock of her hair and get a DNA test. So, I packed up and left.

I spent the next few years in "training." I knew not to answer the door to anyone. There were times when he would tell me to go hide in my closet when one of his friends was coming over and he would play like he was watching his granddaughter and telling them how I needed to get my shit together and that I was just a mess. Shortly after I moved back he moved us out in the country away from everyone. He let my little sister stay with a family friend for the summer and on occasional weekends she would come and stay. When my little sister wasn't there and he would have to leave to go to work, he would put locks on the outside of the door. He would tell me that I was in training and that as long as I listened to him I would be a "bad ass bitch" one day and that everyone would have respect for me and bow down to me. People would know not to mess with me not only because he was my father but because of the power I would have due to the knowledge he was teaching me. As long as I listened to him. So, after years of brain worshiping already and now being in more "training" I knew what to do and not do.

After a little over a year, we moved back to the city. He thought he had me trained. For the most part, he did. I knew what my father was capable of and life seemed easier doing what I knew made him happy and doing what he expected of me. We moved into a trailer park. My daughter was one. My little sister was in fifth grade. She was hitting puberty and that scared me for her. I knew I had to get out but I just didn't know how to. One day, the neighbor across from us was mowing our lawn while my father was at work. I kept looking out of the window through the curtain. I remember thinking how cute he was and I wanted him to notice me. I wanted someone other than my father to notice me and know that I existed. My daughter was taking a nap and my little sister was at school. I remember thinking I could open the door and introduce myself so I went to open the door and stopped, a little voice inside my head said "don't do it, you know your not supposed to and you know what will happen if he finds out." I stepped away from the door and I remember thinking that I just wanted to feel normal just for one day. I said to myself "I've taken a beaten for eight years what's another one just to feel normal for one day." So, I opened the door.

I introduced myself and asked if he would like a glass of water. I was so nervous with butterflies in my stomach. I felt like a little kid again. Like you do when you have your first boyfriend or something. He came in and sat down. I could tell he was nervous too. After I gave him a glass of water I heard my daughter wake up, so I went and got her out of bed. No sooner than I went to set her down in the living room I heard a car door. I jumped and looked out of the window and it was him. He came home for lunch which is something he rarely did. I was so scared. He walked in and his eyes lit up as they did every time he got mad, right before he would beat me. I was so nervous and scared I didn't know what to do besides grab a rag and start wiping things down acting like I was staying busy or something. A nervous tick I guess. Adam the neighbor boy could tell something was wrong by the way he kept looking back and forth from me to my father. "Adam! What are you doing here?" my father asked him. "She offered me a glass of water." Adam replied. "I need to talk to my daughter, I'll get a hold of you after I get off work later." said my father.

While my father was letting Adam out, my daughter was crawling as fast as she could to the front door. She loved standing at the screen door whenever the front door was opened. Although, we very rarely went outside, my daughter loved being outside. So any time the front door was opened she would book it to the door. I bent over to pick her up as my father was shutting the door. I got about half way down to get her when I got blasted as hard as he could in the face with a closed fist. I spun around I don't know how many times before I hit the ground. After kicking me in the ribs and coming too after being in a daze. I asked him to let me put my daughter in her room. He said "put MY daughter in her room and you get your ass back here." As I'm putting my daughter in her room, my mind is spinning so fast. I was so scared. I thought he was going to kill me. I decided in that moment that I was going to kill him. My first thought was who was going to hear my daughter. So I cracked open the back door. I closed her bedroom door and then put the baby gate up so if she did get her door propped open as she usually did, she wouldn't fall out of the back door. Due to him doing construction on the trailer everything was stacked up back by my daughters room. The clothes, dish towels, phone books, books etc. everything was just piled up on the washer and dryer and bathroom area. I'm not sure what made me think so fast or how I even did what I did. But, I hurried up and put on my steel toed boots and started shoving the phone books partly down my pants to shield my stomach from any blows and I started wrapping my arms with dish towels and putting on my flannel jacket. I was trying to shield my body. Without any clue to what he was doing in the other room.

I remember hearing clanking from the other room as if he was rummaging through the kitchen drawers and he kept yelling a few times for me to hurry up and get in there. As I walked back into the living room praying as hard as I could pray for God to give me the strength. In that moment I literally felt like I was floating down the hall. I looked down at my feet thinking "am I walking?" The strength that came through me that day was a strength I had never felt before. I walked into the living room and all the kitchen knives were laying on the living room floor. He said "pick your weapon bitch!" So I picked two! After picking two knives up I said, "now pick your weapon bitch!" he just laughed the most evilest laugh I had ever heard and can still hear to this day. He sat down on the couch and said "Mandy what am I going to do with you? I thought I had you trained by now?" I walked over to him, leaned into his face and said "two things is gonna happen here DADDY, either you pick your weapon and we have at it or I'm getting my daughter and I'm getting the fuck out of here and never looking back! This ends today! DADDY! What is it? Huh?!" he just sat there and laughed. I think he was in shock that I stood up to him especially the way I did that day.

I dropped the knives and started walking down the hall to her room removing the phone books from my waist. I quickly grabbed my daughter and ran out the back door. I wasn't sure where to go. Once I got to the road I seen Adam across the street working on his car. As I ran across the street, looking behind me periodically I told Adam to "here take her." the adrenaline was running out of me and I couldn't hold her anymore, I was about to drop her. Adam kept asking "what happened, what happened?" I just screamed "take her!" as I kept looking over my shoulder. Adam took her and in that moment it started to sprinkle. I was leaning on Adams car trying to catch my breath looking behind me the whole time. I looked up and seen a tree in Adams yard and my only thought was I need to get to that tree. As I'm working my way towards the tree I notice it starts raining harder but the sun was still out. It was June 6th 2010. It was a beautiful sunny June day that day. I remember getting to the tree and looking behind me and the rain had completely stopped. It was so strange to me. I remember looking up as I'm falling against the tree and seeing a faint rainbow appear. All I could do at that point was cry and say "I knew you were with me God! I knew you were with me!"