Thoughts
By now my readers must be thinking – “How can it be that one person must have endured so much? How is it that this person has gone through the things she has and is still moving? Has she really endured this or are these events either made up or just one time event that she made into multiple events?”
I’m here to tell you, I don’t know how or why I’ve endured so much and I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of the stories, the horror I lived through. I don’t understand why. I’ll never understand why someone didn’t come to my rescue and succeed. I did have a few who did try but were told basically to leave it to the professionals. The church was to deal with it. I’m sad to say, my church failed me miserably. In later years of my Sunday School teacher’s life I found her and she told me she tried to get me removed. Others tried to help. To no avail.
How did I go through so much and am still alive today? I don’t know. I don’t know how I didn’t succeed in my suicide attempts. I don’t know except God. While I didn’t think good of Him at the time, I had a friend in Jesus because He, too, had endured so much. I felt Jesus to be holding me so much of the time and we cried together in secret. I am still here also because God gave me the creativeness to split, to create others to endure; hence, my multiplicity.
Questions must abound about the validity of my stories. They have to because it isn’t normal for these things to happen and someone not escape. Because I know questions have to abound in common sense and critically thinking people, I realize I won’t be believed by some. That is ok. That is your right. This is my truth. This was my horror. And this was my life. I do understand not everyone will be able to comprehend that these events took place repeatedly. It is OK. For some, it is going to be just too much.
How can someone go through these events over and over again? These must just be one-time events that she’s embellished. I wish I could say that none of these things ever took place, even once; however, that just isn’t true. These things were constant and I never thought there would be an end to them. I never thought I’d ever see life any other way; yet, I hoped but my hopes were always dashed.
Introduction to Mandie’s Story:
After Kelsey’s story yesterday and Ron being gone for a while like he was, I thought maybe just maybe it was over but then that is when Mandie came to be. Mandie’s story isn’t one of physical or sexual but emotional abuse and betrayal. Her story, in fact, just isn’t going to make sense because it never should have been after all that had already happened. But, it did. Her story follows.
Mandie’s Story
After Ron got out of August State Mental and went to the Bangor Rescue Mission again, my mother would go see him repeatedly. She finally asked me one Saturday afternoon late in the summer if I would like to be a church pianist. I was 14 by this time and had been taking lessons for 3 full years. I was told later in life I’d done 10 years of lessons as Leah could never keep me busy. Leah knew things and knew that a normal girl wouldn’t do so much.
The Question:
Here I was being asked if I wanted to be a church pianist and finally my dream was coming to fruition. Oh how I had worked for this for oh, so long. I said yes not knowing what was coming next. She said, “How would you feel if Ron came back” or some type question like this.
HOW does a 14 year old answer something like that? How does a victim answer that kind of question. I answered in fear for the wrath of my mother in the affirmative. A neighbor asked me the same question and I told him I had mixed feelings. I wasn’t totally scared of Roy Daigle.
At the time I had no idea what phishing was. I soon found out as Roy told my mother and she came back to me about it. Mandie was created at that point to deal with whatever came….the rest of us just couldn’t handle the betrayal…that idea. No! When she inquired of me again, I knew then that Roy told her and she asked why I had told him different. I told her I was scared and she totally ignored it.
The “New Life”
I played the piano for their re-commitment ceremony and we became one big happy family – on the outside. There were those who were dead set against this but they had no say. Even though we moved to another town and I went to another school, because it was within close enough proximity to Bucksport, and my mother figured no one would know – they did.
Bucksport and Newburg/Hampden are not that far away from each other. Because people read, talk, and I was in high school by then, families discuss things and I was the new girl in town. Because the boys knew I was the new girl, the boys put condoms in my book bag on the school bus. It was so humiliating. It wasn’t long until I tried really hard NOT to take the early bus home but the late bus part way and then walk the rest of the way.
Yes, we went to church and yes, I was the Newburg Church’s pianist but I was torn apart. While Ron could not do what he had to me, it didn’t stop him from trying things like coming up behind me and grabbing my bottom or my breasts. It didn’t stop all actions toward me. I was still used, abused, and violated. What WAS my mother thinking????? What WERE the church folks who wanted this thinking??? Did not ANYONE have an inth of a brain??????
Now, 2014 and Mandie’s Discovery
Later in life, just a few months ago, we discovered Mandie. She slapped hubby across the face one day while we were standing in the exact same places in our house that my mother and I had been in my house on Elm Street the day she confronted me about Roy’s comments. The sun was about the same, our positions were exact, and he didn’t shut a dresser drawer the way it needed to be. I drew off and smacked him one not even seeing HIM but my mother. While this wasn’t the dresser, this was the window and it was later in the afternoon. My poor hubby.
While the slap was not hard because I’d attempted to stop whoever was in the act, I didn’t manage in time. It shocked us both. We found out that Mandie was behind it and she told me her story later. I had had it written down on the heels of Kelsey’s stories; hence, the reason it made sense to follow it here in the blog postings.
My hubby has endured so much because he is my advocate, working through the painful memories with me as I move through them. After yesterday’s post I told him I would understand if he wanted me to go. He said to me, “You can just stop that little thought now” and that neither he nor I were going anywhere. I was his now. He was/is my protector now.
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