8
Enduring Rage

One memory stands out. Our family had gone to a restaurant. In those days, Dad took us out to eat quite often and in nice places. It seems strange because he was so tight with money, but I think he was showing off that he could afford to eat at fancy restaurants.

Mom sat across from Dad, and my brother, Daniel, sat across from me. Like many kids, my brother and I used to play games. As we had several times before, we wanted to see if we could sip our soda without our dad catching us. We did it because he had a rule that we weren’t allowed to drink until we’d eaten because we’d lose our appetite. Whenever we sipped our soda and he caught us, he became angry. My brother and I became good at swallowing soda while Dad was looking elsewhere. Then Daniel and I would smile or laugh.

Dad caught me drinking my soda. “Stop that!” He became so angry, he struck me with his fist and knocked me off the chair. “I told you not to do that! You never listen to me!” Once Dad started, he was like a violent animal and couldn’t control his temper. “You kids are terrible!” He also swore at me.

As I lay crying on the floor next to the table, Dad’s yelling grew louder. Other diners stared, and even the employees in the restaurant looked at us. It was obvious they were horrified, but no one knew what to do.

Knocking me to the floor wasn’t enough for Dad. He stood over me and pummeled me. Because other patrons began making loud, harsh comments, he grabbed me and half-dragged me outside the restaurant. On the sidewalk, he continued to beat me—and most of the blows were on my face.

The more I cried, the angrier he became. “I’m sorry, Daddy! I’m sorry!” I kept yelling between sobs, but he was like a maniac. Nothing would make him stop.

Just then, a woman came up on the sidewalk and yelled, “The poor kid! Can’t somebody stop this man?”

By then Mom and Daniel were also outside, and they were embarrassed and ashamed of his behavior. “Get in the car!” Mom yelled to me and pulled me away from Dad. “Just get in the car.”

One of the waiters yelled, “Don’t ever come back here!”

In the backseat of the car, my brother snickered because he had won the sneak-sipping competition. Then he must have realized I was hurt, and he stopped. I don’t remember if he said anything, but he didn’t tease me again that night. He became quiet, maybe because he realized that he could have been the one Dad slapped around.

All the way back to where we lived, Dad continued yelling and cursing at me. “It’s your fault!” To my mind, he repeatedly used every swear word he knew. “How terrible for a daughter of mine to embarrass me and make me do things like that. Why do you do those things that you know will upset me? I am a businessman, not some kind of a bad person.”

I cried from the pain of his blows, but even more because of his words. He made me feel that it had been my fault.

Mom tried to make it better and soothe him, but it seemed to have no effect. At one point, she turned around and said, “Don’t make your father angry. Next time just obey him!” As young as I was, I felt she was trying to appease him more than excuse his behavior.

Despite the problems with Dad, I never questioned that my mother loved me. However, I don’t think she understood my pain and turmoil then or for years afterward.

The most serious effect of Dad’s frequent rages was that it made me fear men. The only way I knew to pacify him or other males was to let them have anything they wanted. In the years ahead, I related to men in the sex trade in the same way: I submitted. I hated myself for being in such situations, but I believed the lie that sex was all I was good for, that men always abuse, and that’s how life was.

Although my dad changed before he died, it didn’t erase the painful memories of my childhood. For most of my life, I thought of him as the most evil man I ever knew.

And it wasn’t only because of his treatment of me. He was like that with Daniel too. Even when my brother was a little kid, Dad would walk by and flick him in the head. I know it hurt him. I’m sure he made Daniel feel bad, because Dad used to say I was his princess and that I was special.

The evil went beyond our family. Many times I observed Dad deceiving clients. He bought and sold businesses and constantly used underhanded methods—always to his advantage. Lying was nothing to him. Mom was just the opposite. I think of her in those days as loving and naïve.

The older I got, the more estranged I felt from my dad, because I didn’t want to be around his angry outbursts. For a few years on weekends, he’d take me to movies or teach me to play golf or tennis or how to shoot pool. I liked doing those things, but it wasn’t worth it to take his verbal and sexual abuse.

Despite the abuse, by the time I was seven, I was working for Dad. I went to his office and did little things like sort papers, occasionally answer the telephone, or run errands, for which he paid me seven dollars a week. I absorbed the business language and learned how a small brokerage business functioned. That part of my early training would later pay off well.

After my parents’ divorce, we moved often. We went from the house in Keystone Point to an apartment—really a duplex—in Miami’s Biscayne Park.

More and more, I felt ashamed and didn’t like anything about myself. I started gaining weight. Until then I had been thin and athletic. People said I was pretty, but that didn’t help my self-esteem. The prettier I was, the more that meant I was unsafe; men and other people would want to take advantage of me.

Abuse happened again, and it’s a terrible account. I’m not writing it for the shock effect, but because it taught me an invaluable lesson—I wouldn’t be believed if I spoke up. Not only was it true in my life, but it’s something I hear from other survivors of abuse and trafficking. Most of the time they don’t speak up, but even when they do, no one believes them.

That time the perpetrator was my babysitter. I was seven years old, and she was a few years older than I was. One day after my mom left for work, she said, “Oh, we’re going to play a game. Do you want to play one with me?”

“Okay,” I said, trusting the older girl. Of course I didn’t realize it then, but my childhood experiences created a vulnerability to trafficking recruitment.

The babysitter started touching me in various places and finally she performed oral sex on me. “Doesn’t that feel good?” she asked.

I have no idea what I said, but I felt ashamed. She was a girl I trusted, and she did that to me. I felt dirty and, as strange as it may seem, I worried that if I told anyone, I’d get into trouble or they might think I was weird. What am I supposed to do? This is somebody I trusted and now she’s doing this strange thing to me. Am I going to get in trouble? Am I normal? What’s wrong with me?

When I told Mom, she had already had a few drinks and didn’t give it the concern it needed. Or perhaps she didn’t believe me and was dismissive because she didn’t know how to handle it. Regardless, Mom didn’t listen and did nothing about it.

The next time the girl came to our house and said she wanted to play, I said, “I can’t play today,” and closed the door.

As a result of being molested by a female, I would struggle with my sexuality for a long time, wondering if I was supposed to be bisexual or homosexual. Why did that happen to me?

A few days later when my mother asked about her, I said, “We got into a fight. I don’t like her anymore and she doesn’t like me.”

A few months after the abuse incident, Mom invited that girl to my eighth birthday party and told me that I had to make up with her. I felt betrayed by Mom inviting my abuser—as if she had not heard a word I said.

“How could you do that?” I demanded.

“You have to make up with her. She’s your neighbor and wants to be your friend.”

“But Mom—”

“Whatever did happen,” naïve Mom said, “she didn’t mean anything bad.”

I felt Mom had stopped defending me and instead defended the girl who molested me. Reflecting now as an adult, I realize that was also an especially bad period for Mom. My father was making life extremely difficult for her. But as a child, I was oblivious to her pain.

I hated not being able to stand up for myself. That’s when I became aware of rebellion and anger entering into my life. Even now, I look back on that as the day my personality changed. I no longer lived in a good world—a safe world. I felt sick inside, and yet my mother wanted me to be friends with a horrible person who did something terrible to me.

Within days after my birthday party, I started missing school. As often as I could, I claimed to be sick. I didn’t want to be around that girl, who attended the same school. I felt as if she now had permission to do whatever she wanted to me.

I missed school often—one time for three whole weeks. By then my mother had figured out that I faked being sick and was trying to avoid school altogether. She called the principal.

After Mom had gone to work, the principal drove to my house and knocked on the door. When I answered, he said, “Get in the car. You’re going to school.”

“I don’t want to go.”

He threatened to call the police, so I said okay and got into his little red sports car. He drove me to school. Even though not a lot of kids saw us pull into the parking lot, it was embarrassing. Word got around about what happened, and other girls teased me. They snickered because I wouldn’t go to school like a big girl and had to be chaperoned by the principal. I was marked as an outcast, an outsider, like something was badly wrong with me.

I began putting on the pounds. At that age, I couldn’t connect gaining weight and hating school with sexual molestation. Only later could I look back and realize how bad I felt about myself. Although I had been victimized by the neighbor girl and my father, like many children, I internalized everything as my fault. Something was wrong with me.

Perhaps I think of that incident with the principal because it exemplifies my craving for male acceptance that started early with the abuse I suffered from my dad. I used to follow my brother pretty much anywhere he went. Whatever he did, I tried to do it too. Certainly I was a nuisance, and he yelled at me or ran away from me.

Once I could no longer fake illness and didn’t have any friends, I focused on my schoolwork. Through sixth grade I received a lot of praise for my scholastic ability, and I was almost a straight-A student. I was on the student patrol and got involved in school activities; however, during the summer after sixth grade, I changed. I lost all interest in school.

About that time, I began to hang out with the wrong group, smoked Kool cigarettes, and had my first trafficking experience in the hotel. Still hanging around with the wrong kids, I moved from cigarettes to other drugs. I became “sort of” promiscuous in my pursuit of boys, wanting them to recognize me and my developing body. That is, I let boys touch me. I yearned for love and acceptance—by anyone—although I never allowed any boys to go beyond touching my body.

About that time, I started getting into serious trouble at school—rebelling, again faking sickness, and often just not caring.

I’ve gone into detail about my childhood because it’s important for parents to become aware of what’s going on with their children as too many of them “check out” on their kids. That is, they’re not emotionally available. They seem unaware of the problems or the changes going on in their kids’ lives. They’re not suspicious enough to investigate what their children say.

My mother was so emotionally beaten up by Dad and so dependent on him that we tried to appease him so he wouldn’t lose control and lash out at us. I’m not blaming her. She was caught up in her own problems and heartaches, and she wasn’t fully available for me.

I never doubted her love for me—and later she proved how much she truly loved me. Because she hadn’t been able to protect me from Dad’s volcanic eruptions, however, I felt as if it did no good to go to her with my problems.

Traffickers seek kids who are vulnerable because they feel unloved, alone, and misunderstood.

I was a perfect candidate.