It's been a long time since I've posted here. I have started to write my life story and want somewhere to put it where I can get bits of support from people. I'm just trying to get it all out....
People always wonder what their life is going to be like, usually from a young age. Will I be handsome? Pretty? Smart? What will I do? Become a doctor? Have children? So many questions, so much wondering. And yet there is a world far beyond that; a world that many of us don’t see behind closed doors.
People often look at me and think I’ve had a perfect life. They say, “she’s so smart”, “she’s pretty”, “she’s going places”, “she’s so nice and kind”. No, nothing could possibly have happened to me. Right? So many people look at me the same way, they could never know what lurks behind the surface. And here I am, finally putting it into words. Here is my story, the story of a fighting survivor….
I woke that day and I looked around through my four-year-old eyes and I felt something no person should ever have to feel. I looked at my Mom, my Dad and my siblings and I knew something was terribly wrong. It would be a long time before I understood why I felt that way and how it would shape my life. But on that day, it became clear to me that unless someone did something my siblings and I would be destroyed. We would not make it through our childhoods. I knew this with 100% certainty. It was this deep sense of knowing.
From that moment on, I vowed to protect my siblings at whatever cost to myself. I fully expected to die, or be so incredibly messed up in the head that I would be in an insane asylum. Nobody would know my name, nobody would know me as a person, I would not go on to do or be anything. My only purpose in life was to protect my siblings at all cost.
Sometimes I wonder when it all started, what made me have this huge revelation? I honestly can’t say. I was much too young at the time and as my story unfolds, perhaps I will find an answer.
The Early Years (3-6)
By all appearances, my family seemed pretty normal. I had my Mom and my Dad. They were very young when they got together; though this was of no consequence to me growing up. When I was born, my Mom was 18 and my Dad was 20 years old. My siblings consisted of my older brother, Mike, my younger sister, Kristy and my youngest brother, Joshua. Mike was 11 months older than I, we were born the same year and were very close. My sister, Kristy, was two years younger than me and had a lot of special needs. She could be very violent at times. Then there was Joshua. Sweet little Joshua. He was nearly seven years younger than I was. When I made my vow, he was not yet born nor was he even a thought in my life yet.
There are a few very early incidents I can recall but I do not remember my age. I just know I was between 3 and 6 years old. Most of the incidents I can recall were in Calgary, though a couple of them were in Drumheller and British Columbia.
My memories of BC are extremely vague. I know I was born there and that we moved around quite a bit. I remember living on a street called Candy Lane and playing with the neighbour kids. There was one kid whose Dad worked for a company that made marbles so they had an insane amount of them. We used to roll them down the hill and have marble races.
During this time, Mike and I took baths together as we were very young. We also shared a room. One day my Mom left us in the bath together unsupervised. My brother decided it would be fun to push me under the water and hold me down. He did this for a couple of seconds. The first time I thought it was funny, after all it had only been about 1 or 2 seconds. However, he then pushed me under the water again and held me there for longer. Maybe about 5 seconds. When I came up I was confused and not laughing so much anymore.
This continued to go on for a while until finally my brother held me under the water for so long that I nearly drowned. I remember thrashing and kicking, I could feel my limbs growing weak as the fight went out of me. Colour danced across my vision as I wondered what it was that was happening to me. My brother let me up just as I was losing consciousness. I remember him smiling and laughing at me when he let me up but all I could do was cry. I immediately jumped out of the bath and went running for my Mom, exclaiming that Mike had almost drowned me. That was the end of our baths together.
What sticks out the most from my time in BC is being in kindergarten playing with all the other kids. I had a lot of fun there and I vividly remember singing “the clean up” song at the end of the day. When I went to wait for my Dad to pick me up, he showed up in a moving truck and said to me, “Get in! We’re moving!”. I had no idea we were moving or that it was even planned. It was the first I’d heard of it. I was so shocked but I did as I was told.
We moved from BC to Drumheller. I remember the ferry and drive over in the truck with my Dad and Mike. My Dad was always playing music and we loved it. As we’ve gotten older, my brother and I refer to these songs as “travel songs” because they remind us so vividly of travelling from BC to Drumheller.
Drumheller was like a desert and I remember playing around the hoodoos. The house we lived in had two levels. There were 2 bedrooms in the lower level which is where Mike and I slept. There were another 2 rooms on the upstairs level. This is where my parents and my sister slept.
It was a common trend for my Mom to refuse to take me to a doctor when I was sick or injured. I got very sick when we lived in Drumheller. I woke up one morning and my Dad was trying to make me get up and get ready for school. He had to come down to tell me to hurry up quite a few times. When I finally made my way upstairs, I sat at the table and just stared at my food. I didn’t want to eat it and I just kept swirling my spoon around in the oatmeal.
My Dad came up to me and asked what was wrong with me and I told him I didn’t feel well. He told me to go see my Mom in their room. When I went to her, she touched my forehead and determined that I had a fever. I stayed home that day and many days afterwards. I had some kind of stomach bug that caused me to throw up almost everything I ate. I had to sleep upstairs on the couch so I could easily run to the bathroom if I needed to throw up. I was sick for between 1 and 2 weeks. My Mom would try and give me over the counter medication for it and I usually ended up throwing it up. I never saw a doctor. Eventually it cleared up but it left lasting damage to my stomach.
After Drumheller we moved to Calgary. We stayed with an uncle for a while until my parents could move into their own place. As I recall we did not stay with him long and nothing significant occurred. However, the place we moved into after holds a few memories.
Where we moved, there was a park not far away. I could go to this park by myself. Looking back, I wonder why at that young an age I was allowed to go places unsupervised. Anyway, one day when I went to the park there were a couple of girls sitting on a hill and I asked if I could sit with them. They said yes, but as soon as I sat down they started snickering and laughing with each other, peeking over at my occasionally.
I was very confused and asked what was so funny when I slowly became aware of something crawling on me. I looked down at myself and to my horror, I was covered in ants! I had sat on anthill and these girls knew. They just let me sit on it. I ran home screaming and crying with ants crawling into my ears, nose, mouth and so on. When my Mom saw me she immediately ran a bath and tried to wash them all off.
Another incident that occurred in the same place happened with my brother. He had discovered a park that was “nearby” which he wanted to take me to. This was in the winter time and I agreed to go. My parents also allowed it, having no idea where this park was. It turns out it was quite far away and by the time we got to the park, a snowstorm was coming in. We decided to play at the park instead of going home right away. This turned out to be a huge mistake because by the time we stopped playing at the park, the storm had turned into a full-on blizzard. We could not see where we were, everything was white. My brother insisted he knew where to go but I did not believe him. I began crying and screaming that we were lost and we could not get home because we could not see anything. Mike tried so hard to convince me to go with him and I refused.
To this day, I wonder what would have happened if I had gone with him. I truly believe he did not know where to go and we would have ended up lost even further. Thankfully, a woman heard my crying from her house and had us come inside. I was able to call my parents from there and they came and got us after the storm passed.
When we got home, my parents were furious with me and I was sent to my room. A little while later my Dad came in and spanked me. This was my first experience with spankings but certainly not my last. He explained that I was being spanked because I had gone into the woman’s house and would not listen to my brother. In other words, they would have preferred my brother and I wander around in that storm, completely unaware of where we were going than to seek shelter and help.
We moved once again, this time going to a completely different location in Calgary. We had moved into a townhouse. There were many other townhouses near and around us. I recall an incident living in this place where my siblings and I had gotten into trouble for something or other. Each of us received a spanking from my Dad. When my sister, Kristy, received hers she said, “That didn’t hurt.” My Dad spanked her again, and again she said, “That didn’t hurt”. It went on that way for a while with my brother Mike and I cringing because she was spanked harder and harder until finally he just stopped.
I shared a room with my sister and she would often get herself into trouble at night. She would leave the bedroom and get into things around the condo. Because of this, my parents started locking the bedroom door at night. Sometimes I was allowed to sleep in my parent’s room so I wasn’t also locked in the room. However, there were some nights I was also locked in. On some of those nights I would get up and need to use the washroom but there was no one to let me out. I would pound on the door and yell that I needed to use the bathroom, hoping someone would hear me. Mike would hear and let me out sometimes. On the nights that nobody heard me I would try and hold my need to use the bathroom but eventually I would end up peeing in a corner of the room.
In general, it was very difficult for me to talk to my Mom about anything physical that was bothering me. At one point my thumb got so infected it doubled in size and was completely yellow all the way down. I hid this from my parents for a few days, thinking that I would be in trouble because of it. I don’t know why I thought I would be in trouble but I hoped it would just go away and I wouldn’t have to deal with it.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. After a few days, I finally went to my Mom and showed her my thumb. I asked her, “What’s wrong with my thumb?”. My Mom’s eyes went huge and she demanded to know why I hadn’t told her about it sooner. I shrugged my shoulders and replied that I didn’t know. She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the kitchen, breaking out a needle.
Terror shot through me and I stared wide eyed, “What are you doing?” “I’m fixing your thumb.” And with that, she jabbed the needle into my thumb and pulled upwards, breaking the skin. She did this again and again as I squealed in pain. Next, she boiled water and held my thumb in the scalding water. I screamed, yelled, cried, kicked and fought instinctually when my Mom did this to me but it was all to no avail. I was much too small to fight against her.
Every day this process would repeat; everyday I would dread the moment when my Mom would pull out that needle and start the water boiling. The boiling water was the worst of the two experiences though. Before my thumb even went into the water, I would be crying because I knew how painful it would be.
My Dad would watch, cringing. Sometimes he would say I should be taken to the doctor but my Mom always shut him down. She would say things like, “She doesn’t need a doctor, this is just fine”. He would again go quiet and not say anything. This went on for as long as it took for my thumb to heal. From then on, I did my very best to hide any kind of infection.
In the mornings before school, I got my siblings and I ready to g=-r . I knew how to tell time on a roman numerals clock to make sure we got out the door on time. There came a time when my Mom was working a different job and could no longer be home for us at lunch time or after school. So, my parents found a babysitter for us…
The babysitter my parents found was an old woman who was probably in her 60s or 70s. She was a very cranky old woman and would constantly run out of her place and scream at us kids. She would get mad at us for playing in the trees or playing on her lawn, being too noisy and so on. The neighbourhood kids, my siblings and I would play stupid games. One such game was to creep onto her lawn and see how far we could get before she came running out of the house screaming. It was a ton of fun to us children.
Sometimes I wonder if what she did is because of that. But I’ll never know. The details are hazy but I know I came home from school one day and my older brother wanted to play outside. I did not. I opted to stay in this woman’s house. So, I was alone with her while my younger sister slept. She began to very carefully suggest that I take off my clothes. I can’t remember for what reason, she wanted to look at something or other. I didn’t understand what was happening but I had been taught to respect my elders and did as she said.
She started touching me in my most private places, touching here and touching there. I recall feeling so incredibly confused. What was happening to me? Was this okay? Should I tell someone? I had no idea.
What really made me complacent was when she told me my parents had asked her to do what she was doing but that I wasn’t allowed to tell them or I would be in big big trouble. She told me this was completely normal and not to get upset or worry about it.
I never told anyone, not understanding the significance of this event until I was much, much older. Even then, it would take me a long time to realize the recurring “nightmare” I kept having was a long-forgotten memory. I still to this day do not know how long it went on. Once? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? I recall being very relieved when my younger brother was born because we had to move. I was six, just about seven years old when we finally moved.
Meanwhile at school… In grade 1 I was teased relentlessly and I had two friends. I was okay with that. I hated being teased and picked on but it didn’t bother me as much as it would some people. I was happy with just my couple of friends. It seems silly now but back then the kids used to yell “Amanda germs, Amanda germs” at me and run away screaming because “Amanda is gross”. It would hurt my feelings and I often went home sad but nothing truly major happened until I was in grade 2.
During the summer, between grade 1 and grade 2 one of the few friends I had turned against me. When we went back to school, he was my biggest tormentor. His name was Bilal. I can’t recall exactly what was said or done, but name calling was not all that happened. This kid would throw things at me, trip me, hit me, push me and all sorts of other things. He riled the other kids up and I would have a group of people yelling horrible things at me. My teacher was even in on it! She would allow them to shout things and throw things at me from across the room.
There are tons of events I could talk about but there are two that stick out the most. The first of these was when my brother and I were walking home for lunch one day. A group of kids who were in grade 8 approached me and my brother. My Mom was Christian and had taught us that if we got people to “come to the lord” that we would be rewarded in heaven when we died. So, my brother said to these kids, “Do you believe in angels?” They all looked at each other and started to laugh but my brother continued on, “Do you believe in God? My Mom says…” One of the bigger kids grabbed my brother and threw him onto the road where there was oncoming traffic. There four lanes of traffic. I watched, horrified, as my brother rolled, stood up and ran to the other side of the street.
As soon as I could see that my brother was safe, I turned to them and started to yell, “You could have killed my brother! How could you do that? What is wrong with you!?” I was tiny compared to them; they were twice my size. And yet I made them think twice. They got scared, backed away from me and ran around a corner.
In this situation, I was terrified. I knew without a doubt that those kids could do to me what they had done to my brother or worse. However, that did not matter. They had hurt my brother and that went against the vow I had made. So, I stood up to those kids and they never bothered us again.
On another day, we were once again walking home from school for lunch. I was very tired this day and was walking slowly. I noticed that my brother kept glancing behind us, at me, and behind us again. I didn’t think anything of it and continued to walk along slowly. Finally, my brother says to me, “I really want to get home so I’m just going to run home.” I thought this was a little strange but thought nothing of it really. I said, “Okay,” and continued walking home as he ran off. After a while I began to hear people behind me. I didn’t think anything of that either. But then, all of a sudden, I hear people chanting, “Throw it, throw it.” I turned to look and saw Bilal, his two brothers, their girlfriends and one other boy. Bilal had a rock in his hand and was aiming it towards me. I froze for a moment and began backing away, telling him that I’d never done anything to him and why would he do that to me. I said over and over, “don’t throw it” but everyone else was chanting throw it and as I watched him drew his arm back to throw it, panic pulsed through me and I turned to run. I wasn’t fast enough. The rock hit me on the left side of my head and I ran the rest of the way home, bleeding.
When I got home, my Mom gave me an annoyed look and told me to go clean myself up. After I had washed the blood off the side of my face, she sent me back to school as though nothing had happened. I was still bleeding. When I got back to school, I explained to the teachers what had happened and I remember Bilal getting into some trouble. What I remember most is picking blood out of my hair for weeks afterwards.
I never understood why I deserved to be treated so poorly. But one day I had had enough. I had been pestering my teacher to allow me to get up and speak to the class. For a very long time she refused, until one day she finally gave in. I stood before my classmates and I told them they made me feel like walking out the door and never coming back. It was a heartfelt speech that left many of my classmates moved.
After that, all the boys stopped teasing me. Although the girls got worse, except one. I had so many people come up to me and apologize for the way they had been treating me. It was one of the bravest things I had done up to that point. Some people admired it, others hated me more for it. As I look back and reflect on those instances, I now understand that the boy’s liked me so they teased me; the girl’s hated me because of it, so they bullied me.
At the end of the school year my parents sent Mike, Kristy and I to stay with my Dad’s
It was very shortly after this that I moved to a new location in Calgary and began attending a new school. We moved into a large 3-storey house with 3 bedrooms on the top floor and 2 bedrooms in the basement that my parents added. Mike and I took the rooms down there.
During this time period, I also recall visiting my Grandmas’ on both my Mom and Dad’s side. When I went to visit my Mom’s mom, Grandma Esther, I was the only one to go. She was concerned about bed wetting and I was the least likely to have an accident at that time. I was 5 or 6. I believe the visit was supposed to be a weeklong but I can’t recall. I know the visit was cut short. This is because I did end up having an accident while I was there. My grandmother had given me way too much to drink before I went to bed. I had had a glass of milk, juice and water spanning a couple of hours before bed. The experience was fun up until that point. I do not recall what exactly was said to me but I was taken home the very next day (this being a 3-4 hour drive). I was screamed at for a while and was forced to sleep on the floor that night.
When we went to visit my Dad’s Mom, Grandma Susan, my siblings came with except for Joshua. While we were gone, my parents moved into the new house and started working on the bedrooms. While we were there, we were not treated very well. I recall often being locked outside of the house in the summer heat for hours on end without access to water or a bathroom. We were not allowed in the house because we were “too rambunctious”. One day we all saw a rattlesnake and pounded on the door to be let in, screaming about the snake. My grandparents let us in but we were sent to bed. It was 2 or 3 in the afternoon. They berated us for a long time and finally made us go back outside. It was a very common thing to happen. However, besides this, we did have a good time on the trip. We got to play with our cousins and other family members we had not had a chance to meet.
