Part 5

My brother would have been about 7 years old when the second restraining order took place.

He was a great boy. A beautiful child, extremely cute and very gifted in roping and riding horses.

Anything he touched he succeeded at it. He was a natural at everything.

He had a very soft and tender heart.

He loved animals.

Issues were forming with this boy though, I could see them.

He was stealing money from my mom's tip money

and buying candy with it across the street at the store.

He was becoming a very crafty liar and manipulator.

Because the restaurant took so much time,

we were in there from 9 in the morning till 9 at night most days.

He got away with a lot.

He devised a plan with a neighbor boy to steal cigars and a lighter from the store.

While the one little boy took our empty pop cans back to the store,

and the store clerk went out to count them,

the other little boy went into the store and stole the cigars and lighter.

Stealing, lying, manipulation, the issues were mounting.

It infuriated me that my mom could not or would not acknowledge the fact.

The biographies I read and the testimonies that I heard from different people who ended up in

prison, started out just like this. A little bit here, a little bit there.

Fear gripped my heart for my brother.

I was deeply concerned and I could not for the life of me figure out WHY my mother would do nothing. She almost just shrugged it away.

We did try going to a family counselor after he got caught stealing the cigars from the store.

We only went once.

There were a lot of mixed reasons why we didn't go back.

The first was, I overheard my mother discussing with a friend that the counselor had said that “God loved us”.

There had been an article in one of my mother's religious news letters that talked about the whole “God loves you” lie that was going through the evangelical movement.

I remember her clearly telling her friend that she couldn't consciously allow us to go back because of this, because she couldn't have her kids lied to.

Later, when I confronted her on this, she told me it was because she couldn't afford it. That, and the counselor had laid down some consequences for my brother that my mother did not think that she could follow through with.

Therefore, counseling was dropped.

My brother continued in his downward spiral.

No consequences were made, no actions were taken.

I was loosing my mind over it.

I continued to beg my mother to get him help, to find him help.

At this time as well, he had gotten a hold of pornography which wasn't hard to do.

My dad was addicted to it and it was everywhere in our home.

I know my mom did try to get some counsel from the pastor and his wife through the church we attended off and on. I do not think that she told them the actual truth or the severity of our situation.

I know I overheard my mother telling the Pastor's wife that she had “burned the divorce papers that morning”. She DID have divorce papers. She was trying to move forward, but

through the lack of knowledge on the pastor's behalf, they had counseled her to burn them.

When my dad was home, we lived in fear. We feared that he would kill us.

He had already tried to kill my mother several times.

This was real. It was the reality that we lived in.

I never talked to the pastor and his wife. I was never asked to share my side of the story.

I constantly challenged my mother on her poor decisions she made concerning my brother and I.

The fact that she was unwilling to protect us made me beyond angry.

I was the burr under her saddle. I would not shut up.

I hated living in the constant fear:

the fear that my dad would murder her;

the constant emotional abuse we all had to endure;

because of the fear that we lived in, we were not free to live.

When my dad was home, we could not go to church.

We had to hide our Bibles when he was home.

We couldn't listen to any Christian music.

She started labeling me “rebellious” and “disobedient” which I didn't want to be.

Children are to be obedient to their parents – it is a command in the Bible and she used this to try to “control” me or rather make me shut my mouth.

She was constantly accusing me of being “rebellious” and “disobedient” and

constantly trying to point out everything in my life that was “in her mind” “disobedient” which created

confusion in my life. I was trying to balance between knowing what was wrong and needing to do the right thing but yet being told that you are “rebellious” for trying to get “adults” to do the right thing.

I hated living in the fear and she had the power to do something about it.

I hated seeing my brother not maturing.

He suffered with constant bed wetting, stuttering, and a lack of maturity.

I have read that when abuse starts happening to a person, that is when they stop maturing.

If abuse starts when a child is 3, they will have the maturity of a 3 year old, etc.

I could see this in my brother. There were so many issues there and nothing was being address.

My mom had, about this time, picked up a spiritual living book talking about divorce and remarriage.

According to this religious teacher, a person that is divorced could not remarry unless the first spouse was dead. If they do remarry without the first spouse being dead, they are committing adultery.

If it sounds silly, it is because it is.

Religious people like this keep people living in bondage and

in my situation, causing unneeded confusion for a woman that was living in extreme physical and emotional abuse, along with putting two children in danger.