Tag: child neglect

DAY 35

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I have been told that I can reach out. I did reach out. I reached out to my father, to my uncle, to my grandmother, to psychologists. But also I am told to reconstruct myself alone. How? Which one do I follow? I have been dealing with a criminal for as long as I can remember and yet no one is reporting her to the police. No one tried to save me from the abuse. The adults around me were to busy with their own affairs. The adults around me, today, are busy trying to defend themselves. They defend something indefensible.

Is it normal for me to expect that an abuser who has committed crimes be prosecuted? If it is normal then why no one is prosecuting her? Why people try to stop me? What did I do? I never ran over a homeless man in my car, I never abused my mother by forcing her to sleep outside. Why people stop me? Why don’t people stop HER? What is wrong with people I talk to?

She abused her ex husband, committing marriage fraud, kicked me out until I almost got raped and somehow I am the one being told to stop? Stop what? Stop speaking up for myself? Stop standing up to what is right? Stop standing up to justice? Justice is not done alone. It takes more than myself. I almost died, I was so near to death because of Warden and somehow I am told to:

  1. Move to another city
  2. Forgive and forget
  3. Look at the positives

And yet this criminal walk around the city as much as she likes. It is sickening me, truly. It’s despicable. I can’t believe my reality. I can’t believe how messed up this is. I am trying to put myself together, hence this blog entry.

People said they care but .. I have never been saved. I got bruises, again and again, I saw my mother being beaten up, again and again. No one did anything. Where was the adults around me? Where did common sense went? Where were the adults when I needed them the most? They were not there.

DAY 29

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I had moments in my childhood where I thought that parents are always right. Warden told me that she is always right. She has an endless need of being praised. It makes me think that she has no self-esteem at all. Thing is, she also does not seem to be able to show empathy. Warden told me that she is good at memorizing, she is good at school, she is so accomplished, etc. When I was little I thought that she is perfect. When I was younger and telling people that I am abused, no one talked to her. Relatives told me that I should be faithful to her and that she does not have empathy to me because she never had her own baby. Now, why would a child needs to be understanding to the abuser? A child needs to be safe, away from abuse. My anger towards those who told me to be understanding to my violent Warden would not solve anything. I should however articulate that I am disappointed with many of my relatives.

I learn a lesson that when a child confide in you, it is on their best interest that you listen and trust them.

DAY 25

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CW: Description of violence

As a kid, I heard some things from Warden that I would never forget. One of the things she said to me was that she forced an old man to buy her papers. Verbally insulted a poor homeless old man to buy papers from her. Did she show any remorse? No. Did she regret this? No. In fact she told me that this is how much she needed to sacrifice. Now, I was aware that she completed her masters at this point, with no student debts, no mortgages, no loans to pay so I am not quite sure why she was driving around carrying papers to be recycled.

Her father bought a car, a house and paid her education. She worked for a multinational company a decade prior to the incident. She is able to be violent towards a stranger, an innocent, homeless old man, stole his money while driving a car. What was on her head? If she did sacrifice than should not she at least attempted to find a decent job? She managed to hold a reasonably good position at a company, a desk job, a usual 9 to 5 job. Why not apply to other companies?

Sometimes I wonder if she is wanted by local police officials. Some people may believe that she is not capable of hurting strangers. I witnessed three by my own eyes before I even reached ten years old.

I envy those who believes that my warden is not capable of physically, mentally and financially hurting others. I wish that was true. I wish I never witnessed what she did. I wish I never knew. I wish I can see her as a person who is incapable of violence, like how some people view her.

She physically attacked a woman who lied to her husband about the business opportunity. Her husband was rather trusting and he admits this. One afternoon, she pulled her car to the side of the road. She got out of the car, she physically attacked this woman in front of my eyes. I sat in the car and I was scared. It was horrible.

DAY 24

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Warden spent her days laying on the bed, on her stomach, play video games on her ipad for about 8 hours a day or more. She had a lot of money from the inheritance. I asked her why she did not help me to do house chores, also expressed my concern that she plays games too often and too long.

She said, “I am an adult and I have so many things on my mind. I deserve a break”. This break lasted about six years. This is how she would spend her day from when I turned 11 to when I turned 17. Me and my twin sister were the ones who would prepare her meals. I would laundry all her clothes and clean the bathroom. We were her servants from the day her husband goes abroad.

I could have been in school but two years within that six years, I was ‘homeschooled’. This is because I had to teach myself every subjects I took in school. She did not help me, she yells, fights, shouts, being violent and play games all day. She lies. She lies to everyone that she teaches me. She never did. I taught myself sciences, mathematics, history, religious studies from grade 6 to grade 8. Lucky enough I managed to achieve well on my national exams.

I asked her to move me to formal school but she never allowed me to go to a formal school since her husband goes abroad. She had enough money to send me to a school with good teachers. Not only I was forced to stay inside the building, I was not allowed to make friends. She would take my phone and check all my conversations. I had two friends, both lived just across our apartment unit.

Unfortunately the friendship did not last. I never had fights with them. Warden took my phone and insulted my friends. Obviously, their parents thought it was me who did it and so they never allowed my friends to talk to me since. I never had a chance to explain them that it was Warden who sent the verbal insults.

DAY 22

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I asked my warden, “Why is it so hard to maintain peace with you?”.

Obviously she did not answer. Obviously she thinks everything is my fault even when my right arm has bruises from her. The log I created reveals that she have burst of anger every single day.

I keep a list of what made Warden angry, because I never recognized the pattern of her temperament. I tried to study her, see how frequent she would shout and be violent also what caused them.

I kept a log for about a year. The log tells me that she would be angry for almost everything. Any trivial things could turn into a drama. You could compliment her looks and she would be angry and turn violent towards you. You could grab some cutlery while she is in the kitchen and that would turn into a huge drama. There is no pattern, her violence cannot be prevented.

This left people who are closest to her to struggle just to love her. It is difficult, if not impossible to maintain a relationship with her. It is easy to like her when you are at a certain distance. Do not get closer.

This is perhaps the most useful insight I have gained from years of observation.

This made me go into a cycle.

  1. I am in desperate need for a mother figure, so I view her as a mother.
  2. There will be conflicts and drama, out of pretty much everything, I will try to de-escalate.
  3. She will give silent treatments after being abusive, I will be heartbroken, betrayed. Silent treatment can last for two weeks.
  4. My heart is broken and I would be reminded that she is not suitable for being a mother figure.
  5. I long for a mother
  6. Repeat to #1.

I still would consider myself to be mother deprived, I don’t always know how to deal with this. It is a loss, I haven’t recovered from it. This is my first and last heartbreak of my life. I long for a mother. Not a perfect mother, but at least not abusive and antisocial.

DAY 20

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CW: Suicidal Thought

As a kid, I was violently punished for food-pocketing, for buying a yo-yo, for wanting to read my textbooks, for bringing glitter pens to school, failed to finish lunch on the time she expected, writing diaries about how I feel towards her abuse.

Living with Warden makes me used to be tensed during my development years. I would write things that bothered me in my diary and she would open them and read them. One of my diary entries writes,

“She is a monster. She is not my mother. She pinched me, she take my hobbies away from me. She is evil, she is merciless. I want to die”.

This did not make her feel remorseful. This made her yell and becoming even more abusive. I felt very remorseful to her to have written this. I remain to live without seeing her as a mother, caretaker, but as an older woman who is a monster and who has control over me.

After that incident, if she becomes more violent, she would say, “What would you write, huh? I am a monster right?”. All the sudden everything is my fault.

I told her that I would tell the police about all the things she had done. This is a conversation I had before I turned 10. She said, ‘Then tell the police that you misbehave too. Be fair”. I was scared, I felt intimidated with her response because I thought I deserved to be violently punished for almost everything I do. This kept me silent until now. I never told police officials the things she did to me and my biological mother.

I always felt responsible for Warden’s feelings. Though abused, I would draw her and write, ‘I love you’ and slipped the paper under the door when she locks herself. This was the routine until I turned eight when I started to sense that my love is not returned.

My heart was broken long before I fall for a man.

DAY 19

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This is my average routine when I was 12.

  1. Wake up in the morning and practice piano. This is early at around 5 am.
  2. I would eat all sorts of fruits before taking showers.
  3. Get ready to go to the mall. Warden likes malls. She would drive us to the mall to go to starbucks at say.. 8 am. So early that there were only few stores that accept customers. A neighbor would ask why we go to the mall early morning. As ridiculous as it sounds, we had no wifi. We could have had wifi router if Warden gets one. She never did. Why? That’s a question I fail to answer. I would eat buttered croissants, 3-4 of them. It happened many times that starbucks would run out of croissants because I had to fill out my stomach while Warden browse through the internet. She’d spend hours on her laptop sitting in the corner of starbucks dine-in place.
  4. Mall day, everyday. I would spend a whole day in the mall.
  5. Lunch at mall. Usually Caesar salad.
  6. Dinner can be at the mall can be at home. If at home, I will be the one who cooks.
  7. Sleep.

She likes to shop. Oh how she loves perfumes. Designer brand perfumes and designer bags. This shapes my personality. I appreciate efficient shopping in the mall. Actually, I prefer to thrift.

As you can see, school was not listed above. Warden has enough means to pay my tuition but she did not. I did not enroll at a school when I was 11-12.

DAY 17

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Children usually stop to wet the bed at the age of seven. I wet the bed until I was ten. This is very unusual since I am a girl. My bladder control during the day was perfect. Warden ridiculed me for this. She said, “If you want to pee in your dream, then you should wake up and go to the toilet”. However, in my dreams, I was not able to know that I was dreaming. My sleep would be interrupted when the sheets feel uncomfortable.

Warden sleeps beside me. I was never allowed to have my own room or sleep on my own bed. I never understood why.

Warden would treat me like a five years old. She would do baby talk with me and expected me to talk like a baby even when I was ten years old.

Wetting the bed becomes a joke during family gatherings. Some relatives know I wet the bed. I lost my confidence and I blamed myself for why this happens. Apart from wetting the bed, I had loss of appetite and suffer from stomach aches, and occasional headaches.

Warden never brought me to a psychologist, doctor, or other experts for this. She would ridicule me without giving a proper treatment. At some point, I thought being ridiculed would solve everything.

Sometimes I just want my brain to have good memories about my childhood instead of neglect and years of abuse. I would really love to wake up one day and have a fake memory of my childhood; That I was taken care of properly, that Warden did not divorce, that my biological parents were not divorcing, that I was allowed to make friends and treated for my prolonged stress in childhood.

Children can feel stress too. I am twenty-one years old and if I had to face the exact same conditions as I did in my childhood, given the current cognitive and mental abilities I have now, I would not be able to keep my sanity. It was stressful. I was stressed. Warden and her husband at the time dismissed the idea that I was stressed, simply because I was a kid. I do not wish anyone to go through what I went through.