I guess you could say that it started with the divorce. One day, dad was there. The next, he was gone. I don't remember any fighting, I don't remember much of that time at all. I do remember mom had a few boyfriends after dad left. I remember that dad a friends. Then dad got really depressed and moved back to NY to be with his family. And then came Ted.
Mom was always pretty superficial. Vanity and fame meant more than tucking her kids in at night. We had a lot of babysitters until I turned eight and Ted told mom I was old enough to watch my four year old brother and three year old sister.
When Ted moved in, he told us to call him dad. That our real dad abandoned us. Mom agreed with him, said Ted loved us dearly. He called my sister and I honey, he took care of us for a while. Around ages seven and eight, I don't remember much at all. My old T said this must have been around the time he raped me.
I don't remember when the fighting started, I don't remember how it started. Just that, one day, Ted hit mom and hit her hard. He threw her down stairs, out into the front lawn. Mom would antagonize him and force me to watch him hurt her. "You need to see what he's like, Ari, you need to see this," she would tell me. I hid my siblings in my room, I played music and movies really loud. I didn't tell them the truth, they were too young.
I remember when Ted threw mom out into the lawn and started laying into her, fist after fist, and she was screaming for help. It was midday and nobody would come help. I ran down the street, about a block, and knocked on a glass door like crazy and begged for someone to call the cops. I was so scared. But when the cops came, they didn't arrest Ted. He somehow managed to convince them nothing happened. I learned very early not to trust authority.
We were homeless too. Quite a few times. I've lived in shelters, I've slept in vehicles. I went to four elementary schools and moved far more than I can count. Ted ended up in Tent City, for stealing a lot of money. We ended up in a homeless/domestic violence program that helped us out a lot.
Up until we entered that program, I always thought that Ted hurting mom was normal behavior. Or that it happened to a lot of other families. I was only 10 or 11 at the time. The program had therapy groups that helped show us that what we grew up with, what we saw, wasn't normal.
The good only lasted so long until Ted was on parole and back in our lives.
Dad did try fighting for custody, multiple times. But there wasn't enough proof of mental, physical, or sexual abuse for him to claim custody.
I believe I was 14 when Ted came back into our lives and messed everything back up. Mom then started getting into heavy drugs, meth specifically. I remember waking up one Christmas and going to wake her up. I found her in her closet smoking. It smelt god awful, she said she was smoking incense. I had no idea what Incense was back then so I didn't understand.
The drug habit continued, the abuse surprisingly didn't. Ted focused more on the verbal abuse than the physical, calling her crazy and psycho.
When I was 15, I was dating a guy who sexually abused me for a couple of months, I won't go into detail. He was, however, the one who clued me in on my moms habit. I snooped around, found her pipe, looked up the symptoms and of course everything matched up. Confronted her about it, ended up with a huge blowout. Homeless again, dad and mom came to an agreement that I should live with him.
For now, that's all I've got for this entry.
Mom was always pretty superficial. Vanity and fame meant more than tucking her kids in at night. We had a lot of babysitters until I turned eight and Ted told mom I was old enough to watch my four year old brother and three year old sister.
When Ted moved in, he told us to call him dad. That our real dad abandoned us. Mom agreed with him, said Ted loved us dearly. He called my sister and I honey, he took care of us for a while. Around ages seven and eight, I don't remember much at all. My old T said this must have been around the time he raped me.
I don't remember when the fighting started, I don't remember how it started. Just that, one day, Ted hit mom and hit her hard. He threw her down stairs, out into the front lawn. Mom would antagonize him and force me to watch him hurt her. "You need to see what he's like, Ari, you need to see this," she would tell me. I hid my siblings in my room, I played music and movies really loud. I didn't tell them the truth, they were too young.
I remember when Ted threw mom out into the lawn and started laying into her, fist after fist, and she was screaming for help. It was midday and nobody would come help. I ran down the street, about a block, and knocked on a glass door like crazy and begged for someone to call the cops. I was so scared. But when the cops came, they didn't arrest Ted. He somehow managed to convince them nothing happened. I learned very early not to trust authority.
We were homeless too. Quite a few times. I've lived in shelters, I've slept in vehicles. I went to four elementary schools and moved far more than I can count. Ted ended up in Tent City, for stealing a lot of money. We ended up in a homeless/domestic violence program that helped us out a lot.
Up until we entered that program, I always thought that Ted hurting mom was normal behavior. Or that it happened to a lot of other families. I was only 10 or 11 at the time. The program had therapy groups that helped show us that what we grew up with, what we saw, wasn't normal.
The good only lasted so long until Ted was on parole and back in our lives.
Dad did try fighting for custody, multiple times. But there wasn't enough proof of mental, physical, or sexual abuse for him to claim custody.
I believe I was 14 when Ted came back into our lives and messed everything back up. Mom then started getting into heavy drugs, meth specifically. I remember waking up one Christmas and going to wake her up. I found her in her closet smoking. It smelt god awful, she said she was smoking incense. I had no idea what Incense was back then so I didn't understand.
The drug habit continued, the abuse surprisingly didn't. Ted focused more on the verbal abuse than the physical, calling her crazy and psycho.
When I was 15, I was dating a guy who sexually abused me for a couple of months, I won't go into detail. He was, however, the one who clued me in on my moms habit. I snooped around, found her pipe, looked up the symptoms and of course everything matched up. Confronted her about it, ended up with a huge blowout. Homeless again, dad and mom came to an agreement that I should live with him.
For now, that's all I've got for this entry.
