Personal Narrative: Child Abuse And Neglect

“You are as dumb as a doorknob”, “You will never be smart.” These are just a couple of the harsh phrases I was told during my childhood. Along with the mental abuse, there was also physical abuse. My dad was never around when I was younger because he was always traveling for work, or he didn't come home until late at night. My mom was verbally and physically abusive during the day, then when my dad came home, my mom would tell him made up stuff that happened during the day. This would result in a beating from my dad. I routinely bent over his office desk and was hit with a two by four on my backside. Depending on what my mom told him, it would sometimes result in my brother or I being sent up to our room while the other one was thrown against
Sometimes we weren't able to go to school because of the bruises on our bodies. All of this took place up until my mom passed away in July of 1993. I was fourteen years old and will never forget the day. In my mind, it's like it happened yesterday. When I woke up, I walked down stairs to find my brother and asked him if she was up yet. He said he hadn't seen her, so I walked back upstairs and into the master bedroom. She wasn't in bed, so I headed for the master bathroom. When I entered the bathroom, I could see her body in the reflection of the mirror, sitting on the toilet, pale and blue. I screamed for my brother, who came running upstairs to find me. We laid her on the floor and my brother gave her mouth to mouth while I called 911. She lay in a coma for ten days, until my dad decided to take her off of the ventilator. Her passing was a weight lifted off of our shoulders because she was mentally and physically in a lot of pain due to her diabetes, severe depression and bipolar disorder. My brother and I were relieved because she was the main source of our
I was free from someone who abused me for almost fourteen years of my life, and mentally destroyed me. In the Fall of 1993, my brother went off to college in California. Losing my safety net, I went off of the deep end and ran away from home too many times to count on my hands and toes. I tried various drugs and found out first hand what it's like to be homeless. Three months after my mom passed away, my dad's girlfriend and her son moved into our house, without my dad talking to us about it. Needless to say, her and I didn't get along and she convinced my dad to put me into two different foster homes. I was not willing to be told what to do, or controlled, so I ran away from both foster homes. At the age of fifteen, my dad had the police pick me up and they took me to a lockdown boarding school in Provo, Utah. I didn't hear from him for three years. He washed his hands of me and was on to his new life with his wife and stepson. I graduated from the boarding school in December of 1996 and with a few phone calls, my therapist convinced my dad and stepmom to allow me to come home. My homecoming was not welcomed, and within months, I was told I needed to leave the house and figure out life on my own. At the age of eighteen, my dad dropped me off at the local QFC, gave me a bottle of Vitamin C, $300.00, and told me to take care of myself. I didn't talk to my dad for four