Growing up silently with fear that crawls in every week – the fear of not having enough sleep.
The fear of finding a place to lay our heads and sleep peacefully – the fear of crawling up to mother’s loving arms sheltering us from the nightmares that is coming for us.
I often sit and wonder – when will this end?
Am I not good enough and that is why these unreasonable feelings of despair and deep pain keep running through my soul, trying to get a grip on such a little girls heart?
The screaming, shouting and fighting that follows – as I wrapped my hands around my head covering my ears – heartbeat running wild, tears wildly flowing down my face. All I could hear was mother’s shaking voice deliberately trying to stand up to this ugly characteristic of father – an alcoholic and an abuser towards mother.
When my heart could not take it anymore – I stood up and approached father, shaking like an earthquake about to break the house down. “Father, why mother? Why me?”
Father – the only man I loved as a daughter. The only man – I vow to be my King and the first man to shower me with so much love, had drastically changed right in front of my eyes, the man that without consumption of alcohol had a loving tender heart? What could possibly be the reason? I asked myself as 10year old.
When daylight dawn breaks in – Father is now asleep my beloved Mother is already up – preparing me for school. I cannot tell, did she sleep at all? Did she cry the whole night? I could only give her my hug before she dropped me at school and waved her goodbye without knowing how she must have really felt.
This had been going on for my entire childhood life – until it came time to begin Junior High. Mother dropped me off at a boarding school, as tiny as I was. My childhood growing up will have a huge effect on me mentally and emotionally – I was going to struggle in school. I hold on to Mother’s words “Be strong. The good Lord’s got you”. I wanted to tell her too, she was going to be ok. But I could only wonder if I ever spoke would I be heard?
Let’s speak up today to protect these mentally and emotionally disturbed children who endure living in broken homes and who are affected by abusive domestic figures. As a child who grew up in such a home, the effect is instilled throughout our lives – we are traumatized and it lives within us forever. It is hard to find love, commit to love, have a reflection of self-love when we are made to question our worthiness in this world at such a young age. We are forever embodied with this feeling of uncertainty – no trust and no affection for ourselves. What can we do to protect our suffering children from such self-destruction as a result of growing up seeing domestic violence, or growing in broken homes?
CAN WE TALK TO BE HEARD?