A teenager lives with the constant threat of abuse from his step-father.
Image (C) 2007, by Karla Dorman.
Skip Terwiliger is my name, and I am 14 years old. I live with my family in Twentynine Palms, California.
I'm afraid my life isn't the best, especially since Jim entered our lives three years ago. Mom remarried after our dad died four years ago; mom decided she was lonely, so she found Jim. Jim was okay at first, but as we got to know him better, I found out that he was an alcoholic: he drank like a fish. When he drank he became mean. Very mean.
Jim drank because he was disabled and couldn't work again. He got a check from the government every month, but I knew where the majority of it went: to supply his drinking habit. He had a bad leg and a bad back; he walked with a cane (or on bad days, on crutches).
Anyway, we found out that Jim had a bad temper. When he got this way, he'd hit anything that moved. Seems that he hit me more than anyone else. It got to be so bad I lived in constant fear of getting smacked by him. Lately, it's gotten so bad I have been having thoughts of killing him, anything to end this cycle of violence that's befallen our family. Jim hits anyone: his wife, my little sister, and me, even his own mother. It's horrible!
I have gone to school sporting bruises and welts; when the teacher asks me how I got them, I make up some lame excuse, like "I fell down the stairs again; I'm such a klutzy kid". Lately, it seems she doesn't believe me; she knows that there's more to it than that.
Some of the kids have started calling me "Slappy". Maybe it's a good nickename because I seem to get that a lot. Slapped. It's not a fun place to be; I'd give anything for Jim to stop drinking and taking out his anger or frustrations out on us!
Well, I'd best go. Jim is awake, bellowing for his breakfast. I'd best get it on the table before he walks into the kitchen, or there will surely be hell to pay. Just pray that he doesn't hit us anymore and pray that he stops drinking; I can't live like this, in fear, much longer!
As a step father and a disabled man on a pension men like this only piss me off for no mattr how bad things get in our lifes it is not fair to take it out on others, especially children
Fee
My father was an alcoholic and also a paranoid schizophrenic which put him into hospital for most of the time that I knew him. But I am still writing out the pain of my childhood experiences of him, such that I remember them. It's a terrible thing when families have to live a lie within themselves in order to present as "normal" to an outside world. You'd think we could just blow the trumpet, but somehow it never seems that simple. Complex, unealthy co-dependencies and emotional manipulations result and are on-going. I weep for Skip and pray that his situation may be brought out into the light while he is young enough to be able to re-learn a form of "normality" in domestic relationships other than what he has so far experienced. As always, your writing always gets to the heart of the matter, Karen, and doesn't shirk its responsibilities of bearing witness to the truth. Bless you, Kate xx
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