My father abused me for 14 years, since I was little. He hasn’t hit me in a year and a half, and six months ago he apologized. I don’t fully trust him, yet I want to forgive him because I think it will help me let my anger and shame go.

I don’t remember my mother at all, but I’ve been told she did a lot of drugs and left me with nuns. I lived with my grandmother, my father’s mother, in Lima, Peru until I was 3 years old. When I was 3, my father and I moved from Lima to the Big Apple. My first memories are of living with my father, his wife and her daughter, and my aunt in Queens. My stepmother cared for me. My father was nice to both of us and to my stepsister, who was older.

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But I saw another side of my father. One day when I was in the 1st grade, my aunt gave me a pair of her earrings to wear to school. I took them off in class because they were hurting my ears and I put them in the desk. I forgot about them until I got home.

My aunt was mad and said, in Spanish, “Why did you take them off?” I said, “Because they were heavy.”

“I’m going to tell your father!” she yelled.

I started to cry and begged her, “No, please” because I knew he had a terrible temper. When my father came home, I told him I’d forgotten the earrings in the desk at school. He said, “You’re lying! Where are the earrings? I know you have them!”

“No, I don’t, Papa! I forgot them in school.”

He called me a liar. Then he grabbed my hands and put them on a lit burner on top of the stove. I cried and screamed. He stopped, and then he did it again. My hands were bright red like blood, with some black spots like coal.

Gloves in School

After he did it, he said “Sorry” and kissed my booboo. Then he went into his room. The next day, I wore gloves to school. My teacher told me to take them off. I was scared because I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened. I was also mad. I was also ashamed; I don’t know why.

I finally took off the gloves and my teacher and the principal called the police and a guidance counselor. I said I was playing with the fire on the stove and I got burned accidentally. They didn’t believe me so they called Children’s Services (ACS).

That was the first case that ACS opened on my family. Before ACS and the police came to the house, my aunts and uncles said, “Your father is going to go away really far unless you lie about the stove incident. But if you lie then he’ll stay here with you.” I lied so my family would stay together.

My stepmother was furious at my father for burning me and making me lie to ACS. She left about a year later. I was devastated. I cried a lot and my grades in school got worse. Then the abuse happened more. My father would hit me to the point of a nosebleed, a swollen lip, and bruises. Every time my teachers would call my father about my bad grades, he would hit me. Since I got in a lot of trouble, my father beat me most days from 2nd grade through 5th grade, sometimes in the shower so it would hurt more.

I hated him, and I started to feel like I was worth nothing and like I was nobody. Even when he wasn’t mad, it was never nice with my father. We never really talked; he was too busy with work, and at home he’d avoid conversation with me. After I cooked us dinner, we would watch TV together while we ate. He hit me every time I did something or said something wrong.

Father Figures

image by YC-Art Dept

When I was 8, I started to run away. At first I would go to older friends’ houses. I also started drinking. Then when I was 10, I met this 24-year-old guy and I lived with him, though we didn’t have sex until I was 14. I didn’t understand at the time that this “relationship” was child abuse. I stayed with him for more than four years and then got into other relationships with much older men.

At first I felt safe when I was with these guys. They would tell me they loved me and they wouldn’t harm me. One of them kissed me on the head like a father should. They filled the hole I had inside my heart, and they protected me from danger, including my dad’s abuse.

But when one of them hit me, I felt no safety from anyone anymore. I felt betrayed and trapped inside a ball of depression, abuse, and heartache.

ACS opened about 10 cases over the years because I ran away so much and because they would see bruises from my dad on me. But I always got put back in my dad’s care because I always told ACS that I had hurt myself. My uncle and aunts did tell my father to stop hitting me and they’d have these big arguments. In many Latin American families, hitting a kid is considered normal discipline. But I don’t think it’s OK to hit a kid, and besides, I think my father hit me to relieve his own stress, not for discipline.

ACS opened the final case when I was 14. After I’d run away a few times, a cop told my father that he could get a PINS warrant on me, which is when parents (or a caregiver or the school) can’t control a kid and ACS takes over. I got placed in a diagnostic center and eventually was moved to an RTF called Linden Hill, where I still live now.

I was happy I was away from my father (the monster, that’s what I called him back then), but I didn’t want to be in the system. I was alone and miserable. I got depressed when I saw my peers going home and having relationships with their families. I felt like the only girl who couldn’t keep her family together.

I was ashamed of my father and of myself. I felt ashamed of being the girl who was abused, who ran away, cut herself, and tried to kill herself. People at Linden Hill didn’t know the girl who was a great poet, had a nice smile and positive things to say, the girl who was smart and talented.

I’d had therapy before, on ACS’s recommendation. Starting when I was 12, I would go once a week, and once a month my father would come to the session too. I told that therapist about cutting myself but never about my father’s abuse.

Starting to Tell

Bringing my father in was my therapist’s idea; he said it would bring the two of us closer. I didn’t want my father there. I felt like if I talked freely with my therapist when my father was there that my father would get angry and take it out on me later. My father acted different with my therapist; he acted nice and not like an abuser. He said things like “I didn’t do anything to her and she leaves my house without permission. I give her everything she wants, and she does this to me.”

I started to tell my therapist in the diagnostic center about my father’s abuse, and then I got moved to Linden Hill. Only in the last year or so have I told my therapist at Linden Hill about it (and I still haven’t told her the worst things or how long it lasted). I didn’t tell anybody before because I was scared that my father would hit me when he found out I told. I’m also scared that if they know how bad my father is, I might not be able to go home for the weekends. I don’t like being with him, but that’s my only chance to get out of Linden Hill on the weekend.

I have a lot of anger from being abused and also from hiding the truth. I fought a lot and even bullied other kids. It also made me run away (AWOL) from my placements. Since I’ve told my therapist and a few other people about the abuse, I’ve been feeling better. Telling the truth was a big relief.

I’m learning to express my feelings and it’s helping me get control and self-esteem. But I still haven’t expressed my anger in therapy because I really don’t know how. When I’m angry, I put my head down and cry. A wall goes up between me and everyone else. I can’t hear what other people are saying and I can’t tell them what I’m feeling.

When I get angry, I feel like talking is a waste of time, especially with my father. I’m afraid if I express my anger, he’ll hit me again.

Why?

image by YC-Art Dept

After about six months of therapy at Linden Hill, I asked my father, “Dad, why did you abuse me?” We were in my therapist’s office with my therapist and a couple other staff.

He answered, “I don’t know! I was never loved and all of a sudden I have a kid. I was scared and I didn’t know how to take care of a baby!”

Tears were coming down my face. “Why didn’t you ask for help?”

“I just wanted to do it my way, I was hard-headed! I didn’t want help. I wanted to raise you my way because I thought there was no other way!”

“Well now I hate you and I never want to see you again!” I ran out of my therapist’s office and to my apartment. I felt furious because he was lying to me and my therapist. He said he didn’t want any help, but he had stuck me with my aunt on Long Island for two years when I was little.

He’s also lying to my therapist about abusing me. It was worse and it lasted longer than he admits. I want him to tell everyone that he used to put bruises on my body, that he acts nice with everyone else but screams at me when we’re alone.

I think that’s one reason that I haven’t told my therapist the whole truth. I would like my father to admit to everything he has done.

He has admitted that he hit me, though, and he finally apologized for that recently. He didn’t tell everything, but I do believe that it was a true apology.

I didn’t feel anything when he said it, but everyone at Linden Hill says I’ve changed for the better. After AWOLing almost every day since I got there, I’ve recently moved up to the highest level of freedom, which you get for being well-behaved.

Will Forgiveness Bring Peace?

My father and I are trying to learn how to communicate with each other, though I still don’t feel safe telling him my feelings. I’m afraid that he will judge me and make fun of me. He used to make stupid jokes about my weight.

I want my father to accept me for who I am. I want to talk about our feelings without him laughing, hitting, or threatening me. We have been working hard in therapy, talking about our problems but he still yells at me. I go to his house every other weekend. I feel safer now than when I was young, but I don’t want to live with him again.

I’m learning ways to express my feelings so I don’t get so angry and run away. I’ve told my current therapist more than I’ve told anyone else, and I’ve talked about it to a few other people. Here at Represent, I’m telling the story and it’s helping me figure out what to do.

Even though I have times when I hate my father, there are days that I love him too. I think that truly forgiving him will feel like relief. I want peace within myself, and I want to learn how to control my anger.

At the therapist’s office, I said, “I forgive you, Dad.” But there are still days that I don’t, or won’t. I think that he deserves forgiveness, but I also have to be wise with my trust, and make sure I don’t get hurt any more.