The Anticipaction

When I was in the six grade a friend of mine and I were walking to school after lunch along the high snowbanks. Now we had been warned numerous times by police, teachers, parents and other adults that this was a risky behavior for we could fall off and end up under a car but I was eleven or twelve so the fun factor over ruled the potential dangers. Anyway we were about half way to school when this car pulled over and instantaneously we knew we were in trouble for it was our babysitters son who was sitting behind the drivers seat. The clean version of what he said was once we returned to the house after school there would be some serious punishment inflicted.

My friend and I made cards that basically announced our deaths that were sure to take place once arriving back at the babysitters home. All of the other fellow students thought it was hilarious and even the teachers found it slightly amusing. So there we sat and waited for the last bell of the day to hit and every possible beating that had taken before was racing through our minds. Pretty soon I just wished school would end so I can take the beating so I would no longer have to think about is as the possibilities were just too much too handle.

Finally that bell rang and we walked very slowly back to the house to meet our doom. Once inside the home I was sent to the kitchen and my buddy was put in another room. I received a long lecture on why walking on the snow banks was so dangerous and I guess my attention span shorted out as I took a wooden spoon across the back of the head and told to pay attention. Anyway after the words stopped the action took over and it was quite some time before I could sit down properly but even after the pain I went through it was nothing compared to the misery that I spent for those two and a half hours waiting for the beating to take place as my imagination took me to places that no eleven/twelve year old should go as I basically thought this would be the time they killed me.

My father was notorious for the beating put on hold method and a common message would be "just wait till after dinner then your going to get it" and my personal favorite "One of these days I am going to do you a favor and kill you in your sleep" needless to say the reason I take sleeping pills has something to do with this last statement.

Back to the babysitter. Now most people would think if I just told my parents about the abuse at the sitters then this violent action would stop but that was not the case for two main reasons: (1) If I told my parents the babysitter beat me then my parents would beat me for not doing what ever I was suppose to be doing (2) My parents not only told the babysitter she was allowed to use physical force but it was encouraged for this is how you fixed negative behavior or at least thats how their parents did it. I told a teacher once that I was getting my ass kicked on a regular basis and even showed her the marks and this lady said "Well maybe if you learned how to listen and behave then this would not happen" needless to say I never approached another "responsible" adult for help after that. What this did do is encourage my Borderline Personality to keep presenting the proper image and keep the real me in the dark but even this was only effective to a point.

The babysitter died a couple of years ago and I know this because on a routine basis I would check the obituaries thinking once she was off this planet my flashbacks and nightmares from PTSD would diminish. Great theory too bad it did not work as the beatings were one thing but the emotional scars that came with it are in a whole new ballpark that are going to take some work to get through.

A common self harm saying is "If you think the scars on the surface are bad then you really do not want to see the ones inside". Take care