by Jeanne Marie

Created on: November 13, 2008

When I look back at where I came from, I see a miracle emerging from the dark mist. I see me.

I started my life in an alcoholic, dysfunctional family. Without parental encouragement or emotional support, I developed a first-class case of low self-esteem and a bad habit of underachieving. I also learned how to blend into the woodwork.

Books were my salvation. I was at the library at least three times a week, walking home from school in all kinds of weather, loaded down with as many books as I was allowed to check out. When it was snowing or raining, the librarian would give me a plastic bag to protect the books.

After I had read the entire children's section, my mom talked with the librarian and with some limits, I was allowed to check out books from the adult section.

My environment did not provide answers, my situation was without remedy and I was powerless at that age to change my life. My extreme shyness and a book in my hand became my trademarks.

The two emotions that stand out from my childhood are anger and fear. My father's anger and my fear. My father was a violent man, ranting and raving and most often drunk.

My mother, a product of her generation, was a "good" wife and mother. She supported us and she took care of him. Divorcing my dad was not an option for her and somehow, I always knew that.

She did her best to protect her children, but she could not shut out the sounds that came from behind her closed bedroom door each night and my dad's abusive words shattered my sleep from bedtime to dawn.

Sometimes, I'd lie on the floor outside my parent's door so that I could hear my mother breathing because she never made a sound beyond a soft sigh and she never acknowledged his words.

One night I awoke to find my father standing over my younger sister and me-with a rifle in his hands. I dared not even breathe as fear held me frozen in its' grip.

He had threatened to kill us so often and I was sure that the time had come. Instead, he turned and left the bedroom. He hadn't pulled the trigger, but my childhood innocence seemed to die that night.

After that incident, there were countless nights that I couldn't sleep at all because my two-year-old sister slept beside me and I felt responsible for her safety. As a result, I seldom found the energy to get up and go to school the next day.

School. That was another dilemma. Today they would call my condition "school phobia." All I knew was that if I left the house to go to school, then I wouldn't be home to protect my mother

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next Page >>