When I gave birth, the doctors took one look at a pregnant teen covered in bruises and reported me to social services. I stopped drinking and smoking the second I found out, and all my focus was on giving this kid a better life than I had. I got pregnant with my high-school boyfriend when I was 16-and my child finally changed my life for the better. My fury was huge, and I sought refuge in prescription painkillers and pot. Many teenagers are angry, and many experiment with drugs and alcohol and sex. When I did something that displeased her, she reminded me that my bad behavior was because I was a "child of Satan."
So she regularly beat me, and peppered me with constant psychological abuse. She wasn't mentally stable herself, and she saw me as the love child of her husband's infidelity-to her, my mother was the other woman.
I was sent to live with my grandmother, who had been a silent witness to the horrors her husband performed. My mother hanged herself on August 7, 1996, when I was almost 5. One of my earliest, haziest memories is being sent to my room for the night because I resisted, and in another I refuse to give her boyfriend oral sex. She got a new boyfriend and would use me, a toddler at the time, as a part of their sexual activity-she filmed and photographed me in these situations and sold them as kiddie porn. My mother started doing drugs, and continued the cycle of abuse. Unfortunately, we weren't suddenly safe just because my dad was behind bars.