A little girl within now speaks from her heart,thirty years later
72Family, I am not in
Cinderella
Growing up I always looked and felt like the actress who played in the movie Cinderella. I felt like I was always behind the scenes but in this case the black sheep of the family. I am sure that there are many children who were born back between the years 1950-1957. I don't remember the first five years of my life so I write what I was told from my parents and grandparents. I was born in the state of Pennsylvania, the city of Lancaster. Lancaster, Pennsylvania is just one of the state, were Amish and Mennonites have farms and raise their many children. I was born on a winter cold snowy day on November 5, 1957 and just happen to be raised in the Mennonite faith. Together my parents had sixteen siblings If all in the line I fall being the fifteenth one, the youngest is a girl. The story my grandma would tell me when I asked on many occasions, "Where are my other siblings? Nine children have expired before I was born. According to what my grandma have mentioned on several occasions in the story she was telling me there were four boys and five girls who have been called home to go to be with Jesus. I remember on one occasions that my father have taken my younger sister and I to a cemetery where it was located in Halifax, Pennsylvania to visit the nine little grave-sites. On this occasions my father mentioned few of my siblings names. Ada,David,Elmer,Rebbecca, than he just stopped. Being so young and not knowing my nine siblings or the whole story why they die , I could not comprehend or understand what the purpose was daddy taking us to their grave-site. We never visited their grave-site again and my nine siblings were not talked about, the topic of the nine little children were being hushed, hushed. Today I wonder and have so many questions and have asked family members what us the real story; how my nine little siblings died.
As I mentioned above I have no recollection of the first five years of my life. I do remember however not ever feeling the touch of my mother's love or being raised by her. I don't know the exact reason or answers how my younger sister and I came by being raised my our grandmother,( my dad's mother). I was a very ill little girl. I had pneumonia, romantic fever, many other illness. The hospital started becoming my second home for I had many accidents.. Daddy whose to tell me I was always a clumsy little girl, constantly being told this I started believing maybe I was. he reason I always felt like little Cinderella is because my parents treated me that way. I asked myself it is kinda strange way the hospital didn't start wondering or ask questions and why it never dong on the doctors that they didn't ask my parents if there was anything going home or an abuse happening in our home. As much I was taken to the hospital with many injuries and illness it would got me wondering but I assuming that back then doctors did not have the knowledge like they have today about child abuse. If they did, I believe many children would be alive today, many children would of been given second chances and protected.
I grew up hard childhood life, a lot of childhood abuse and trauma. All that has happen to me through the years I still yet today not consider part of my family. They do not except me and have been called the black sheep of the family. The younger sister communicates with me but she has more contact with our family than I do.It is not by my choice to not be part of my family but by theirs. I love my brothers and sisters but they show their love to me with a hateful heart. I am where I am today by the grace of God. I had to work harder than many others to get where I am. I struggle every day finding reasons to be alive. The very first reason I am alive because my love for my precious Saviour and my heart desires to serve him. I do however still have many mountains to climb and nobody ever gave me a helpful hand. I try to never ask for a handout or charity or for help. I guess the reason I am afraid to ask for help is because it still haunts me today the memory when I asked for help growing up I payed a dear price, that price was being always hurting. I have accomplished one of my goal with hard work and study, that goal was to earn a college degree. Today I have a Associate degree in Criminal Justice. My second goal I never had a brand new car I know I'll never own one so I be satisfied I said to myself with an use one so I save and scratch every penny, every dime I can get and put it towards that goal. I answer surveys and get a few dollars here and a few dollars there, it is not much but I save it and put it towards my dream to own my own car. When that day comes I have enough money saved up, the day I can go out and buy that car I can pat myself on the shoulder and say I did it with no help from nobody.
I raised myself since was six years old. not only I have taken care of my little sister but I took care of myself. I learned how to cook and be dependant on nobody but myself. I do pray and ask God for a little help but know his hands are pretty busy right now with the Hatti situation. My heart burdens for many who lost their lives with the Hatti disaster. When I heard on the news about Hatti, as much and little I Had to save up for my car Hatti needed the money so I donated it. I'll start over again and save it again. It will just take a it more longer than I planned. I know how it feels to loose everything and I know how it feels when you feel like the whole wold is against you. I know how it feels the people and family says that they love you but you ca never happen to find them or they say they are always busy when you are at your lowest time of your lives. Right now that is how many families are feeling in Hatti. I don't have much but I try to give what I can. I do say many prayers for all who lives in Hatti.
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I am sorry what all you went through also. Us, incles all survivors I say thank God we can stand up now and fight back by sharing our stories. By sharing our stories we can reach others, Break The Silence! I no longer have no contact with my family for years, have not spoken to my mother for over five years or more. That is all I heard growing up from family are lies. Family says there is something wrong with us, my opionion they should point the fingers right back at them. Thanks for your support and comment.
Stanley_19802 2 years ago
Hi,
I can relate to alot in your story. I am the black sheep of my family as well. I also have a memory block, but mine is from birth to a few months before I turned 10. I have a few flashes of images, but that's it. I have no idea what was done to me during that time that would cause such a large memory block. And personally, I have enough to deal with right now without anything else that happened. My dad drank and my mom would abuse me emotionally. Never hugging and was never there when I needed help. Her own favorite form of punishment to me was to call the local psychiatric hospital and say I tried to kill myself. They would come and tie me to the bed in the ambulance and take me to the hospital. She did it for all kinds of reasons. Getting suspended from school for protecting myself from a bully. I was still fighting, bully or not so I got suspended along with him. I guess I was supposed to just let him beat me. I was sent to the hospital for fighting with my brother, no doing what I was told the first time...anything that made her mad, she would call and have me picked up. And I would be in the psych ward from no less than 3 days and the longest stay was for 2 weeks. The hospital did it's own abuse. I have a spinal injury that caused me to lose control of my bladder. I will be in diapers for the rest of my life. And I take 3 different pain meds to handle the pain in my back. All because they wanted me to go in the solitary room after a heated phone call and I just wanted to be in my room and be alone. They locked me in the solitary room in the dark for almost 12 hours. I am deathly afraid of the dark now. There is a light on in every room of the house 24/7. At school, staff abused me. I have been hit 3 times with a leather belt by one staff member. Locked in the solitary room at school for hours on end. They even threatened to send me to the hospital when I closed my book in class because the teacher wouldn't help me with the problem. I closed the book and put my head down. She called the time out room staff who threatened to call the hospital. I ran out scared out of my mind. They found me 3 hours later shaking behind a bush crying. I have never been so scared. Because of the abuse in the hospital, I was diagnosed PTSD in 2002 due to the abuse in there. My family, most I have not talked to in over 10 years. My mom I stopped talking to 2 1/2 years ago when she told me I deserved what I got, refering to the abuse, and that she didn't feel sorry for it. And the last person I was in contact with, my brother. He and I stopped talking about a month ago after I wouldn't rent a storage unit for him free of charge. He is a leach, uses people until he can't anymore and moves on. So it's just me and my best friend/room mate now. So yea, I can relate to alot of what you said. I am sorry you were put through so much. And I hope your able to find out what happened to your siblings. Perhaps you can contact the city and get a death certificate. Or get a detective to look into it perhaps. The answers are out there. It's taken me a very long time to track down my history. As I have found out, sometimes family lies about what really happened. Make sure to check into their stories to make sure it happened how they said. That's what I have learned. Take care.
-Stanley