The summer of 1990

It was July 4th 1990 I was 12 years old that summer, my family did what a lot of families in the area do and we went to the local reservoir to spend the day at the beach swimming and picnicking. We had been there for hours and my parents were ready to go but I wasn't. So I begged them to let me stay and go home with my best friend and her family. My dad always had a rule about holidays and that they were for family but this time he gave into me and allowed me to stay with my best friend.

me at 12

My older brother showed up at the beach later that day

When he saw me without our parents and me with friends he lectured me about how holidays was for families and when we got back into the neighborhood I should go home. I was angry at him at the time, he had gotten married some months before and all the sudden I felt like he never wanted to spend time with me. I looked up to him very much at that time and had I not been so mad at him, I might have listened but I had gotten my dad to say yes of letting me stay with my best friend that I wasn't going to let my brother ruin my fun.

My best friends family

My best friend from 1st grade up to this point in my life didn't have a great family life. Her parents were alcoholics and when they drank too much violence would break out. That night was no exception her mother and her sister's boyfriend got into a physical fight. When her sister went to call the cops someone I don't remember who ripped the phone out of the living room wall. Things settled down shortly after that and my best friend and I went to bed.

Being woke up at 3 in the morning

My mom has seizures, she has had them since she was a little girl. So when my best friend's sisters boyfriend woke me up and said I had a phone call it was about my mom, I thought something with her seizures happened to her and that she was really hurt. I went to the kitchen phone as earlier that night the living room phone was pulled out of the wall. The phone was sitting off the hook on the counter.

My life changed as I knew it

There was the dial tone on the other end of the phone when I picked it up. I thought maybe they hung up and was starting to dial my house when all the sudden I was grabbed and a knife was pressed against my throat. I was picked up before I knew what was happening and taken out the back door and thrown into a camper that was sitting in the back yard. I won't get into the graphics of what happened next but I was raped, then my life was threatened along with my entire family's, he nicked me a couple of times with the knife he had to make sure I was paying attention to his treat.

I was scared

Afterwards I was scared, when he told me to go back to bed, I crawled back into bed with my best friend and laid there till daylight arrived. Once it was late enough for me to head home that is what I did. I felt so dirty the first thing I did was take a hot bath. No matter how much I scrubbed I could smell the alcohol from his sweat on me. No matter what I did I couldn't get clean. I didn't leave my house for 3 days, I was so scared, every time my best friend called I had an excuse.

I stopped staying the night with her

After that I stopped staying the night with her. I would only hang out if we were not going to her house. I was trying to avoid her sister's boyfriend at all costs. I am not sure if that made him nervous but with in a few weeks he hunted me down as I was coming home from the library and made sure I knew if I told anyone he would kill me. I was too frightened to tell, he had scared me shitless nearly to death already and I was sure if he could do what he did to me already he could as easily kill me.

Only one person seemed to noticed I wasn't myself

Some people can really make an impact on your life. A woman I use to babysit for was one of those women for me. She paid attention, she knew I was not myself. And some how she knew what had happen to me. She told me a story of when she was a teenager and was sexual assaulted by her manager. How he had scared her, and she didn't say anything till after he had done it to another girl that came forward, together they were able to put him behind bars. And that if I ever had anything like that happen to me I could always come to her. I couldn't bring myself to tell her even after she shared for a while.

For many months I lived in fear

Finally I told my best friend what happened. She seemed supportive at first but then went and told her sister who told her boyfriend. Then I started to get jumped by my best friend and her sister because of telling what he did. Then he decided to hunt me down thankfully I was in a public place when he found me so he couldn't do anything to me, but he told me he was going to kill me and my family. That we would burn to death before he goes to jail. I decided that night the only way to protect my family was to run away from home.

Off to another friends house

I ran away a whole block down the street to another friends house. Her mom though when she found out I ran away from home let my mom know where I was at, and she sent the cops down after me. When I told the cop I would run away again if he sent me home, he took me up to juvenile detention. The next day I appeared in front of a judge and told him I would run away again if he sent me home. No one could get me to say what was wrong, but Judge Cannon did the right thing, he could see I was a child in crisis and tried to put me some place I would feel safe. It was then I entered state Protection I was placed in the Delaware County Children's home in January of 1991. Slowly over a few years the story would come out and I got the therapy I needed to cope with the situation.

My first experience in state care

The Delaware County Children's home was a big building that had 5 dorms. 3 for the boys and two for the girls. The girls were housed in the East Wing of the home as was the little boys and the bigger boys were housed in the West wing. We had house parents that worked in each dorm and a big kitchen were we all ate at and took turns doing chores. For the first time in months I felt safe. At least for a couple of months. When I went back to court because I still wasn't talking the judge sent me back home.

Being harassed

I couldn't go any where without worrying about being harassed by my former best friend and her family. After all the years of friendship it was gone in one night of an act of violence towards a little kid. That harassment continued from them for 3 years. Till he was caught red handed raping his own 3 and 1/2 year old daughter. Then they apologized to me, but the damage was already done and the friendship fractured beyond repair. For a few years I felt guilty that if I would have went to the police straight away then maybe his daughter wouldn't have had to suffer. But I have forgiven myself after all I was just a child myself.

Not all my experiences were good in State Care

Not all my experiences were good in state care, but my first experience in state care was a good experience. I was protected and I was safe. I didn't feel like I had to look over my shoulder all the time and could finally relax and not be in a constant state of fear. I will keep telling my story in future postings. The good and the bad of what it was like for me as a child in state custody. But for this post I am focusing on the why and how and how it wasn't an awful experience after all the months of fear that I lived in.

This part of the story was hard to write as it takes me back there hopefully the other parts won't be so hard