My Doctor said to write this letter to give to people, says it will help me to open up and let others help me with my feelings. Well I will start with the worst memories I have, when I was 12. My moms boy friend left her, she stated drinking very heavily, she had always been mean to me but when she was drunk there were times she was nice, well in a way, she started walking around the house 1/2 undressed, it made me feel very awkward, she would have no top on at all and want me to sit on her lap, or give her a hug. I didn’t like touching her like that, but if I didn’t, I would get a beating, and she gave very bad beatings to me, so I always did it.

After the first time I said no to mom, I got the beating of my life. She was always asking me if I thought she was attractive, and had a nice rear. One day she had me sit on her lap, she started running her fingers through my hair, telling me how handsome I was and that I looked like my dad. That night she came to my room, I was small in the male area, after all I was 12. She laughed at it; I have never felt so low in my life.

She said she couldn’t do anything with that, so she sat on top of me and told me what to do. I tried to fight, but she locked my arms under her knees, a few times I thought she was going to smother me. I didn’t know at the time just how bad what I was doing was. She did this a few times, but after I realized it made her not hate me so much, I would go to her when she was in a bad mood. I would go to her room 4 or 5 times a week for the next 7 months.

I have more guilt and shame built up in me over this than anything else. It only stopped after I had turned 13, and we had a cafe in Oakland, mom would take me to work with her in the morning to wash the dishes, then I would catch the bus to school from there. We opened at 2.00am; most of the customers at this time were cops, from Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville, as it was shift change.

Well that afternoon after school I went back to help clean up every day, mop the floors, take out the trash, ect. I was cleaning in the front, mom was in back when 2 black men knocked on the door and asked if they could get a few donuts after we had closed for the day. I thought I could sell them some donuts and keep the money and mom would never no, so I opened the door. I had been told many times never to open the door after we had closed, one of them pulled out a gun and dragged me into the kitchen, the other one started to beat my mother up asking for money, but there was no money, so he knocked her to the floor, and started to rip her clothes off.

I tried to look away, but the one holding me hit me with the gun and told me to watch. I had to watch as he raped my mother, the one with the gun ran his hand down my chest and grabbed my groin, he bit me on the neck and squeezed hard, he then took me down the hall to the bathroom. When I looked back to the kitchen I could see the other guy still raping my mother, as he was on the floor on top of her, and my mother was looking at me. She was nodding her head and had that look I have seen so many times before, she hated me!

When we got to the bathroom he hit me on top of the head real hard with the gun and told me to suck him. He kept shoving it but it was to big and wouldn’t fit in my mouth, so he kept hitting me with the gun and said open you mouth wider. He said f**kit have it your way, pulled me up by my hair and said to take off my pants. He put liquid soap on his penis and pushed me over the sink. When I felt his penis on my butt I started to fight and kick. He grabbed the hair on the back of my head and started ramming my face into the sink. I only remember hitting 3 times, the first hit was on the faucet, I could taste blood and one of my teeth and blood fell into the sink; the second hit I felt numb, I barely felt the 3rd, and then I was dreaming I was on my bike riding down the street that I live on, and a black car was chasing me, though when I woke up I could feel him inside me.

I started crying, he hit me with the gun again and says shut up, it’s your fault I told you to suck it and you didn’t want to. He pulled my head back so I could see him in the mirror behind the sink, and told me to look at him, when I would look away he would hit me with the gun and tell me to keep looking at him. I don’t know why but I started counting every time he went in at 63 he pushed in as hard as he could and somehow went deeper. It felt like something was splitting inside me when I screamed he started pounding my head into the sink again. I hit 4 times but I didn’t pass out. I wish I would have but I didn’t.

He started in and out again for 13 more times he never pushed so hard again atleast. When he was done he grabbed me by the hair and put his penis in my mouth, then slapped me in the face with it, and told me to lick it clean. There was blood and crap all over it, he kept saying oh ya that feels good lick it all over get it all. Then he squeezed out a little semen and said swallow that. I was gagging and he said if you throw up my semen, we’ll do it all over again, now swallow “ya that tastes good don’t it?� I nodded “ya�. So now finish cleaning up your mess I want you to lick it all up every last bit and swallow all of it.

He said if I told anyone what I did they would call me a fag, and then he pointed the gun at my head and pulled the trigger, ‘click’ that’s all there was a click. Then he said “oh ya that’s right, no bullets.� You don’t know how many times I wished there were bullets in that gun, I get mad thinking about it, there were no damn bullets in the fu**ing gun.

Its been 30 years, I’m 43 now, I did meth for 8 years, I’ve been clean for 31 months now, I have had nightmares ever since. I started to have night mares about a d#%k coming out of my mouth, then I started to get the feeling like my mouth wasn’t clean, so one day I had all my teeth pulled out. I am sorry I did it now; I look so ugly and feel so ugly. I have had serious relationships with 3 women, but they don’t work for me.

When I have sex I feel like I’m hurting them, so they all left me. I’ve been alone for 9 years now. I am so lonely; I have a very hard time looking in the mirror these days. I cant shave, things are getting worse, a lot worse since I stopped using drugs, I sleep maybe 2 to3 hours a night, some nights not at all. I’m on medication, 200mg Zoloft in the morning. It seems to help a lot as I don’t cry as much since I started Zoloft. 30mg Remeron, 200mg Seraquill, 4mg Prazosin. These 3 are supposed to help me sleep and stop my nightmares but they don’t.

Doctors keep trying different drugs and combos but nothing works, my nightmares are getting worse. 2 nights ago I dreamt I was being raped again and when he pushed real hard I could see in the mirror his penis coming out of my mouth. I woke up throwing up on myself; I’ve never had a dream that bad. I have attempted suicide by hanging myself, I spent 13 months in the state hospital for that, I used to cut and burn myself a lot, for some reason physical pain helps ease emotional pain, but I found that letting women hurt me helps even more.

The first time I was hurt by a women other than my mother, was when I was 17. The girls name was Carol, and we called her cocaine Carol because she always had coke with her. She used to tie me up and whip me, and for some reason it seemed to make me feel better when she did. I would have a cluster, as I call them, of flashbacks and then for the next few months I wouldn’t have them anymore. As time went on she would put Vaseline on my back, and take a soldering iron, and write her name, or draw pictures. The Vaseline she said kept the skin from coming off, but I didn’t get the same feeling of relief as I did from getting beat.

I cant begin to remember all the women who have hurt me, if I would have had sex with all of them then that would really have been something to brag about, but I didn’t, most of the time when I had sex, it was to have someone hold me. I very seldom ever climaxed, I think that was why I managed to get so many girls, because I lasted forever, but I always told them, afterwards you have to hold me for a while.

As I grew up I would tell them I would but they had to stay the night with me. I learned a lot about women, I never went looking for them, they seemed to bring there friends to me, several times 2 or 3 would come over at once. Many men would think this a fantasy, I didn’t, I knew all that this meant was they were going to leave when they were done. The neighbour across the street from me, Mollie Shannon, everyone used to call her hot tamollie. When her husband was at work, she would come over to my house wake me up, as I gave her a key, she would just jump into the bed, do her thing and leave. She knew how I felt about that but she wasn’t the kind of girl to get to close to someone, so she would always bring friends over to spend the night with me, but I never once really felt like the men I see in the world, or on TV.

The few friends I did have always told me how lucky I was, but I never felt that way. I always felt used, like I was some kind of thing. I guess I never really enjoyed sex much; I mean there were a few times I relaxed enough to enjoy it, but not many, except for the time I was with Francine, for 7 years I was happy, and normal as far as normal is for me. Sex was good with her, always, but in the end of our relationship, something happened, I don’t know what, but I started to have dreams, about having sex with men, not kissing or anything that I would call making love, just sex.

I wanted to be hurt again, I wanted to relive the rape, I wanted it to happen again, and for some reason one day I did it. To this day, that was the last time I had sex. I tried to have sex with Francine but it wasn’t the same I couldn’t do it, it seemed to make me feel sick. Ever since then, I am very defensive toward men, I cannot stand to be in a vulnerable situation with men, not even my own father can touch me without me feeling the need to get away from him. I feel disgust toward myself, I hate myself, and I know other people do too.

I feel that most people think I am a pervert, and see me as weak. It’s like people know what happened and think I wanted it to happen. I have decided to spend the rest of my life alone; I can’t take the pain of loosing someone I love. I don’t know how other people can take it, so I save myself from that pain, the emotion I feel the most is shame. I can’t tell people how I feel so I stay away from them. I can’t even talk to a person without feeling that I have somehow said or done the wrong thing. I always think wouldn’t I be better off dead, and yes I would. But if I kill myself, and as my father told me, “what if there is a god, and you go to hell for killing yourself, what if your hell is to feel as you do now forever, or worse.�

Now my fear of dying outweighs my fear of living. My therapist had me write down what I would like people to know about me, but the page is always blank. But then there are the things certain people need to know, and that’s what this is, you need to know. Telling in this way is easier that’s for sure, and she says that as more people know about me, I will start to feel better about myself. So far not true, seems to me every time I give this letter to someone I feel worse, but she said give it time, so I just want to say that I am sorry, if I say or do anything wrong, I didn’t mean to.

It also seems the older I get the more I remember from when I was younger, my earliest memory is of my stepfather Ed Hall, my mother got him to legally adopt me so my real father wouldn’t be able to find us. You see my mother never wanted me she just didn’t want him to have me, so my name was changed to Hall. One weekend my mother was at work and Ed was watching me and my sister. He asked me if I wanted to do something cool. Well I thought Ed was cool, so I said yes! He took a can of starter fluid, the kind for cars, he sprayed some on a rag and grabbed me and held it over my mouth. Well I passed out from it. It turns out it has ether in it. Every now and then he would do this, when my mother was gone, it made me feel sick afterwards, and I would always throw up after.

One day I was sitting in the living room after mom got home and ED had fed us cream corn for lunch. I threw up all over the chair, and when mom asked me why I was throwing up all the time these days, I told her what ED had been doing. She balled up her fist and hit me so hard, I must have flown 3 feet across the room. She knocked one of my front teeth out, pointed her finger at me, and said “don’t you ever mention that to anyone do you here me, we need him, who do you think owns this house, not me, I cant afford a place like this, so just keep your little mouth shut, do you here me.� I just nodded yes, and never told a soul.

I didn’t even remember it till about 10 years ago, from then on I don’t remember anything till I was about 8 years old, when my mother took me and my sister to a hotel. We met one of the customers from our restaurant there, Jack. He worked for grings pest control; his face was all scared from the chemicals I guess. Well my mother put me and my sister in front of the TV and told us to stay there. Well my sister wanted to change the channel but I was watching a kung fu show, so she started to cry. My mother came out of the room nude, asked what was going on, my sister told her, so my mother asked me “do you know what I am doing in there?� I nodded yes. Well do you think I like doing that with him? He is ugly, she said, really ugly, but I am doing this so you kids will have presents for Christmas.

Never really liked Christmas before that, I would get broken toys or clothes, and my mother would say I broke the toys and get mad at me for it. My sister always got cool stuff, but after that year I hated Christmas. Its just like with my birthday, I have kept with the family tradition, every year for my birthday I find a woman to just straight beat me, till I am black and blue. Those are the days I like to get beat the worst. I don’t know why, I just do.

I killed a man when I was 15, I didn’t mean to, it just happened. My mother was going to send me away to a place called SYNANON, she took me up there to look at the place, but I didn’t want to go, as the people, even the girls, had shaved heads. It was like some cult, or something like it. So the day before I was supposed to go I ran away from home. We lived on 98th Ave just off East 14th St in Oakland.

It was about 10/30 at night, and there were a lot of people out and I got scared, so I went down a little alleyway next to a liquor store. I was hiding behind the dumpster, when a hand grabbed my shoulder, and a voice said “hey boy what you doing down here this time a night.� I looked at the hand and it was black. I was really afraid of black people then. I could see that just past his hand there was a piece of wood there, so I grabbed the wood and started to hit him as hard as I could. He just kept screaming, fell to his butt, and tried to cover his head, but I just kept hitting him. His hands went down and he just leaned forward, I kept hitting him.

When I did stop there was blood squirting out of his head, in about 7 or 8 different places, squirting like from a squirt gun, little steams of blood. I looked down at the piece of wood and noticed there were about 3 nails, big nails sticking out of the end I had been hitting him with. I heard someone scream behind me, there were 6 people standing there, a women was screaming her head off, 2 of the guys there were saying you little ****ing punk, and started to come towards me. I held up the piece of wood and backed into the corner.

When the police showed up, I knew them; at least most of them. Officer Brady was there; all the police came into our restaurant for breakfast, so I knew a lot of them. He asked me to put the stick down, I did. Next thing I know I am in Napa for 13 months. While I was there I got a letter from the man I attacked, he said to not worry, and that he forgave me, and understood why I did what I did. He died 3 months later I heard; he was just a little old homeless man. I hope he made it to heaven.

I still have night mares about him, except in my nightmares he keeps saying “is that all you got, hit me harder, common YOU LITTLE WHITE BITCH.� I don’t know why but those last words hurt me so bad, just thinking them or writing them and I start to shake all over for some reason. I don’t know where I heard them before but I have, and to me they are the most painful thing anyone can say to me. They trigger flashbacks, not of just one thing but of many, some I don’t remember, some I don’t even know if they happened, but I do know there are things I still block out to this day, and I just hope they stay there.

I have enough bad memories, I don’t need more. Well this is the big stuff in my life, my big problems, unless you count the time my mother slit her wrists and called me into the bathroom and said that I caused her to want to do this; or the time she shot at me with a gun; or tried to cut my head off with an axe; or said it was my fault my grandmother died; or didn’t even pick me up for the funeral. She told me to meet her on Pinole valley road and didn’t come to get me, or how she would beat me all the time and have my sister watch, but never hit my sister once in her life.

One day I realized I liked it and got a sick feeling from it, which was the last time my mother ever hit me. Then I started to look for other women to do it, no I think ill stop there, I think this is enough for you to get the picture of what it is to be me. I would never wish my life on anyone, and I know there are people out there who have it worse than me, and I pray they survive. People say I am a survivor, well I am not, I have just learned to accept suffering really well.

I hope that some day something good will come from my life, save a child from a burning building and die saving them, or take a bullet to save another person. Something that would have people say; “he was a good man�; instead of saying he’s a freak. Well that’s it for me, I could go on for days like this but I really don’t want to, it’s to depressing to think of my life. I don’t even want to think about what is in my future, because to me it just seems like it will be like more of my past.

I am so alone these days, I am afraid to have relationships, I always get hurt so bad, I fall in love so fast and deep, and I have very bad sexual issues now. I am trying to stay alone, but I need to have contact with a woman, not so much for sex but to hold me. I don’t think what I want can be called sex by most people. I am so ashamed at times to even say what it is I want; it hurts so badly when they look at you like your sick, or some type of abomination. I am submissive toward women, very submissive, and I guess because my mother never loved me I need so bad to have a women love me, but I have a feeling it will never happen for me.

Hi hurtssomuch,

Welcome to the forum. Its not often that words escape me, although this will be the second time this week. You have had one hell of a rough journey and it sounds like it continues to be rough and painful for you. I hope that by writing on this forum, you have been able to release even the smallest bit of your pain, as distressing as it was for you to write. I have no experience with the kind of pain that you have endured but surely the fact that you are still here is a testimony to your strength. I hope that you can gain some additional strength and support from those on this forum. Please write as you need to vent, take care.

Hey mate, welcome aboard. Well firstly, I think you just might compete for the worst case of abuse on the planet, so I don't think you need to talk yourself into belieing your not the worst affected, because I think everything you have described happen too you, sucks in the worst possible way. I finished reading your post, and thought to myself, "what ****en hope does humanity have when a child is treated like this?"

Do you hate your mother? Do you still see your natural father? Do you hate your sister for not being abused? Do you still see your sister? If so, do you have a good relationship with her?

Honestly, you would have to be the damn toughest person on the planet, regardless what you think about yourself in this light... mate, your one tough bastard to still be breathing after suffering all that trauma. You have enough to share with others across a couple of lifetimes, let alone having all this sitting on your chest.

Whether you know it or not, your counsellor is a smart lady, and completely correct in that the more you get out of you, and come to terms with each trauma, the better you will get the long term. Normally a person would start at their smallest trauma and work their way up when facing and dealing with them, but I would possibly suggest the opposite for yourself, in that maybe you need to find what your biggest trauma is, and work through it until resolved. Resolved is generally when your not having nightmares about it anymore, you can face the trauma head on, talk about it, and look back on it as the abuse and suffering it was, and no longer be afraid of it.

Maybe even identify each trauma (incident) one by one, write a list of them, read them each day, add to them as you remember, then pull the one that is the biggest nail in your arse, and resolve it with help from your counsellor. She will give you specific guidance on how to achieve that for your individual case.

You really have been through a lot, and you need to accept that you are actually quite unique within the abuse ring. You sound as though your saying to yourself, your not the worst, but if your not, your pretty close too it, and that does make you entitled to a little you time. Things should actually be about you, and not believe that others are worst off.

Did the police get the men who raped yourself and your mother?

Yes, I hate my mother, and no i haven't seen my sister for 24 years. They never got the men that raped my mom and me. The last time i talked to my sister she has become a religous nut; she started talking about the way mom treated me and bringing up the past. That was over a year ago, and I havent talked to her since.

I'm not strong at all. I have died 2 times by my own hand, they brought me back, and i have had 4 other attempts. My arms all scared up from razor marks put there by me. About once a month I go out and find a women to take a whip, or soldering iron to me. I have ended up in the hospital 5 times for this type of relief, and thats what it is for, my relief from the emotions.

The more my body hurts the less my heart and soul does. As for relationships, women run from me once they get to kbnow me, and thats where I hurt the most. I have never felt loved in my entire life, and more than anything its what i need, but i have become a sick perverted freak. Sex to me is nothing any woman would want. I'm not a pedophile thats the good part I guess, but when I was preforming oral sex on my mother, she climaxed, and I used to think she was urinating.

Well now I like that; I need that in my mouth. Do you have any idea what kind of looks I get when I even mention that to a woman? That's not the bad stuff I need. I was raped, so why do I have urges to be raped again? I'm not gay or bi sexual, and I want the women I am with to bring home the man and help him to rape me, and beat me while it's happening. Tie me up and force me, the whole time saying if you love me you'll do it. That's sick, even me with my urges know no woman is going to want a freak like me. I try so hard to stay alone, but I get so weak, and need someone at times to just hold me.

So yes, I hate my mom very very much, and I hate my sister; not for not being abused, but for not being there for me now, and most if all I hate myself. I hate who and what I am.

I think there is a lot you need to get out of yourself and accept. Your past has been nothing short of absolute crap, to say the least, but it has happened, now you need to hit each trauma and become one with it, as a figure of speaking.

Medication does so much, but at the end of the day, only you can help you. It doesn't matter what I say, anyone else here says, counsellors, doctors and so forth, if you want to really help yourself, you need to take control of your life, you need to assimilate what is right and wrong, what is normal and not normal.

Is it normal to cut yourself? No. You need to be telling yourself this, and find a more productive way to achieve what cutting yourself does. Take up a hobby, an interest, something that you really enjoy to relax and calm you. Get a dog and take it for a walk each day, or several walks each day. Everytime you feel you need to hurt yourself, take the dog for a walk instead, and walk until the point when you don't want to hurt yourself anymore. If you feel that way 4 hours later, walk the dog again, and again... you get the point.

Your not actually a bad person, you've just had a really shit life thus far. When you were a child, the very people who's job it is to protect you, where too busy abusing you.

You can break the chain... You need to break the cycle, and become what you see as a better person. Your self esteem is shot to shit. Read this on self esteem with PTSD, and study it; implement what is needed so that your self esteem builds. There is a simple self esteem test you can take, to indentify to yourself your strengths and weaknesses, then build those weaknesses from that point one at a time.

Your not putting yourself as a priority, and your unwell enough at present to really put yourself as number one for some time. You need to begin treating yourself well. What we think people around us actually know about us, and what they do know, are two different things. These thoughts are in our heads most of the time, but in the real world, people around us have no idea of what we have done. We don't know what they think about us unless we ask, thus negating the information we make up in our heads thinking others are looking down upon us, or think we are worthless or nothing... You need to tell yourself, they actually don't know, and its all in my head. It is actually in our head... others don't know. Strangers don't know about your past or how you treat yourself, your activities, and so forth. We tell ourselves they do, but they don't.

hurtsomuch, wow you have been through ALOT!
you are so strong for surviving all those tragedies.

To borrow a phrase: Shock & Awe, pretty much sums this up. Shock at what you have lived through and Awe that you have lived through it. Good luck with your healing journey and welcome to the forum.

i dont think im strong, i yused to be allot stronger, but now i am so afraid to even die, i no how my life is going to end, it will be on the day i fibnally find happiness,

THE NIGHTMARE THAT IS MY LIFE



Days long remembered,
Days that I regret,
Days of sheer torture,
Days that I beset,

In a long told rhapsody,
In a story that is my life,
In a body scared by me,
By rope, and whip, and knife,

Once again I step away,
In institution I’ve been locked,
For trying again to take me life,
With a plan that I concoct,

For days, and weeks become months,
And soon all add up to years,
But time to me passes to slow,
Through centuries of tears,

Beaten down a bloody mess,
Body rent, and broken flesh,
With knife in hand I’m slashing,
With head to wall I’m bashing

Till in a tree I find I’m hanging,
Sounds of sirens distance clanging,
Two men came and cut my rope,
Blue and breathless they saw no hope,

But this curse bestowed on me,
A gift from god that struck a tree,
Lightning, from his hands it ran,
They took me up, into his van,

Then far far away,
I find a magic land,
Where every one seems happy,
Where am I, I demand,

Looking like angels,
All dressed in white,
With her hand to my face,
She said your all right,

I cursed her, and I kicked,
I screamed out in vein,
When I opened my eyes,
The tears ran like rain,

A prick from a needle,
And the world went away,
The last thing I heard,
Your going to be okay,
Then the nightmare started,
And I found I could not wake,
The things that I was seeing,
Made my body quake,

The doctors and the nurses,
All rushed unto my side,
Thinking it was physical,
Tried to ease my hide,

But in my dreams I was there,
Under mom with little air,
Moaning as she pulled my hair,
Why was this to be my affair,

Then I move to another time,
Bent over sink, a man behind,
Watch my eyes in the mirror he said,
Hide my sheets from a bloody bed,

Then once again I move ahead,
Age 15 and a man is dead,
I look into my hand and see,
A bloody stick, with nails count 3,

Finally my body relaxes,
But one nurse stays by my side,
And when my eyes do open,
In her I did confide,

I don’t deserve to live,
And I don’t deserve to die,
All of my tears are in vein,
And forever I will cry.

BY EDWARD R JONES