The White Farmhouse

White Farmhouse

I close my eyes and I can remember an old white farmhouse with an enclosed front porch and one large room upstairs. We were once again moving into a new house and the prospect of starting at a new school and making new “friends,” frightened me. To say I was dreading it was an understatement. I can remember that house so clearly, the cavernous hole that consumed the back yard and how one of the rooms was filled top to bottom with garbage that had been left by the previous tenants. For some reason it was our responsibility to clean up the house prior to moving in, although I’m not all that surprised considering this isn’t our first time renting from this landlord. I guess it’s only fitting that a slum would continue to rent from a slumlord. Who knows what kind of arrangement he and my father must have had in place.

The house sat along a main route surrounded by corn fields and farms. I can remember the day we moved in, there was one disgusting shock after the other. When you walked into the kitchen, it was small with white rickety cabinets. Bits of rice and other bits of food were scattered inside and I could imagine the cockroaches fighting for each scrap as they scurried across the bottom. There was a doorway to the right leading into the living room and a door to the left that lead to the “basement.” The basement was a dark and dingy corridor lined with moist stone and a damp floor. The most interesting feature was the giant tree that had taken residence right smack dab in the middle. The basement was similar to that of a root cellar but, it carried and sense of eeriness that I wanted to avoid at all cost. The truth is, we took our laundry to the laundromat so there wasn’t really any need to go down there.

The living room was small, and “simplistic.” No pictures adorned the walls and the paint job was about as plain as it could get, unless of course you considered nicotine stains “art.” For some reason, I can’t really picture the layout of that room except for the kerosine heater that was planted right smack dab in the middle of the room. We frequently used the heater when the electric would suddenly get shut off (a common occurrence when your father spends his money on beer and cigarettes rather than paying the bills). The smell of kerosine permeated through the air, absorbing into anything and everything. I can remember feeling like I was waking around with a kerosine scented perfume on and to this day the smell of kerosine causes me to feel a sense of disturbance, like that smell is going to linger with me forever, burning a hole straight into my brain, making sure I never forget the events that occurred in that house.

Off of the living room was a master bedroom, my dad slept in that room for a short while. During one of his schizophrenic episodes he was certain there were people in the room with him. He feared that room and what the “people” were telling him. Eventually he would move upstairs but, being upstairs made it harder for him to perform his “nightly” abuse routine. When you went upstairs which was located across from the main bathroom, there was a large bedroom. This is where my sisters and I slept. Off of that room was a door that led directly into another room. This is where my dad would sleep for awhile. We all hated it, we hated him being so close to us, every night hearing his heavy step slowly inch up the stairs. He and his drunken stupor made it impossible for him to enter the room quietly.

Since it was challenging for him to abuse me around my siblings, he was forced to wait until he was sure they were asleep. Once he was certain they wouldn’t wake he would call out for me. I knew I couldn’t ignore his calls, so I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer and forced myself to go to him. One night I entered his room and sure enough the abuse began immediately and to no surprise he felt “guilty” afterwards. For some reason he was feeling particularly sorry for himself and he decided to attempt suicide. This was a regular occurrence and he was never successful. His preference was to call emergency services prior to taking the pills. You would think that would be enough for the “system” to remove his children from his custody but, apparently not. Anyways, he called 911 and proceeded to take some pills. He soon would regret choosing a room connected to mine, I took a long deep breath, this was it, he was drunk and weak and growing weaker as the medicine started to take over. I needed to seize the opportunity and end my suffering once and for all. I saw a pillow laying in the ground beside the bed. I immediately grabbed it and jumped on my father. I slammed the pillow as hard as I could, pressing it firmly against his face. Tears poured down my face as I asked God to take this man from this earth and forgive me for what I was doing. It was no use, although he was inebriated and seemingly weak, his strength was overpowering and I was unsuccessful. Much like my other attempts at freedom, I knew there would be severe consequences for my actions. I quickly retreated and climbed back into bed as if nothing happened. The medics would arrive and my dad would spend a few days on a psych hold at the hospital and I would have a few days of recuperation before I would receive my punishment.

When my father returned home, he moved himself into a small bedroom downstairs. The room was more like an office, barely large enough to fit a bed and a nightstand in there. The room was located just past the main bathroom at the end of the hallway. This would be his last bedroom before we were evicted and moving into the last home I resided in prior to moving in with my Aunt. For some reason, it’s that room I see in my nightmares, I see the hallway closing in on me as I head closer and closer to the door and begin to feel claustrophobic. The room feels hot and I can see my dad, a large man, naked, pulling me towards him. I cringe at the site. This is what keeps me awake most nights. I fear falling asleep, I fear the man in the tiny room. If I close my eyes I can hear the c-pap machine and the motor of the bed as he adjusts it to a lower position to accommodate the position necessary for him to be able to rape me. I can feel my eyes burning from the cigarette smoke that fills the air and desperate screams inside my head.

There are so many memories that are trapped in my mind from that house. Schizophrenic episodes, countless cold nights surrounding a kerosine heater and abuse running rampant. This house is where I learned that one of my brothers was also schizophrenic and another was just as perverted as my father. Although the abuse started just shortly after my mother’s death, that white farmhouse is where the true torture began and that will live with me forever.

Living in Squalor!

I head downstairs, the overwhelming scent of mold permeates throughout the room. Garbage and wet clothes are scattered everywhere and makeshift hammocks adorn the ceiling. A dirty rabbit hutch reeks of urine and feces, and the rotting smell of dead mice or some other mysterious animal buried beneath the filthy ruble burns my nose. As the intense aroma penetrates my eyes, they begin to water incessantly, I don’t think I can handle this. With a trash bag in one hand and plugging my nose with the other, I proceed down into the dingy basement. I begin wading through the plethora of items in my path, deciding what to keep and what to throw out, I’m disgusted at what I see, my mother would have never let it get like this.

I stand, staring at a massive pile of clothes laying on the damp floor by the washing machine. It feels like just yesterday my mother died and suddenly life went from living in splendor to living in squalor. For me, living in “splendor” didn’t mean living in some extravagant mansion with marble floors and a spiral staircase, to me, it meant living in a quaint little townhouse decorated with precious moments figurines and glass animal knickknacks. I look around, I can feel guilt mounting, how could we let this happen, what would my mother think right now?

I start grabbing clothes by the handful and stuffing them into the garbage bag. I take my time, I have no interest in doing this and to no surprise the boys aren’t helping any, they think this is a joke. My father is upstairs with my grandmother, aunts and uncle. My grandmother is a tyrant, a wretched witch in my opinion. My siblings may feel otherwise, but, I have zero respect for her, she is an enabler, she feels some sort of obligation to “help” my dad because he is a widow with ten kids. The funny thing is, her idea of helping is by providing him with alcohol or a ride to the store to buy alcohol, therefore, she is utterly useless, in fact she is aiding in the abuse by feeding his disgusting habit.

I continue to work, slowly plugging away, section by section. My grandmother makes her way downstairs, she is furious at the lack of progress that has been made and I start to see Hitler making his appearance. Much like Hitler would begin a speech, my grandmother stands there, arms crossed in total silence, making us wait in anticipation for what she has to say. Eventually, she starts to speak slowly in a low, condescending tone, slowly building to a crescendo of fury. Face red and spit spraying across the room, she makes her point, we offer our salute and continue to work until my grandnazi decides to relieve us of our duties.

Today, I often wonder if that house is where any reminder of my mother remains. Before she died, she wrote all of her children letters, she entrusted them to my father, sadly, a poor choice because he decided to hold onto the letters until he felt we were old enough to read them. We never received our letters, my father was to busy wallowing in self pity to pay attention to anything of value or importance like those letters or his children. The house was falling apart beneath him, but, he was to consumed with alcohol and his desire for his own daughter that he didn’t even notice. I think those letters were left in that house, trapped beneath the remains of precious moments figurines, never to be seen again.

Trapped

I am sitting in the living room. I can see a small cockroach crawling across the end table. I watch its antennae move back and forth, examining every object and surface it’s comes in contact with. I see them all over the place. I have learned to sleep with the covers over my head to prevent a cockroach from crawling inside of my ear. Sometimes, if there is a cluster of them, you can hear them scurrying around in the darkness. There are so many of them, and they are everywhere. I see them mostly in the kitchen and the living room. Maybe it’s because they are the most frequented areas of the house. A lot of times, when you are cooking, you have to carefully examine your food before eating it, there might be a dead cockroach hiding in your rice or mashed potatoes.

We ate a lot of rice, potatoes, spaghetti, ramen noodles, and powdered milk. My dad’s only source of income was from disability, and there were 6 kids still living at home. Of course, his money was well spent on beer and cigarettes. Every once in a while he would treat us to pizza and wings. My grandmother contributed as well but, I’ll get into that unfortunate situation another day. We used to get our food monthly from a local church. It came with your basic staples, bread and cheese and all of the other aforementioned items. You learned to get creative with the food provided. A little bit of ramen here and some spices there, mixed with some soy sauce packets and oil and you have quite the unique dish on your hands.

The kitchen was always a mess, an obvious attraction for the cockroaches. There was no structure in our household, it was a like living in a tornado and you’re trapped inside. You’re just winding around like thread spooling around a bobbin on a sewing machine, a never ending roller coaster ride of chaos. I would be stuck inside of that tornado for the next 5 years, my brain turning to mush, blending memories together until they became one big ball of unforgettable torture.

Foster care had been a momentary safe haven, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Now, as I write these stories, describing the events of my life and narrating my experiences, my senses have been triggered. Flashbacks and certain smells encircle me, encasing me in that glass cage that I usually only see in my nightmares. I am immersed inside of the memory and I am forced to relive my experiences all over again. I can feel the cockroaches crawling all over me. I can smell the moldy clothes in the moist basement and the cigarette smoke is suffocating me. I know that this is the beginning of the healing process but, I also know this is going to be a long and treacherous journey. To say it pisses me off that the only way for me to heal is to confront my demons head on is an understatement. I don’t know if I will ever make it out of the tornado but I am determined to weather the storm and if I do come out of it, I will be stronger than ever.

More than 3 million people in the United States suffer from PTSD. A lot of times, shame and guilt forces us to suffer alone and in silence. You do not have to suffer alone. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!! #PTSDAwareness

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/type/sexual_abuse_child.asp