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Chapter 9

The "clean slate" & "fresh start" mode didn't last very long. And honestly anytime we all decided to "start over" it felt weird and unnatural.
Looking at my own kids I cannot even imagine our normal lives together being more bad than good. And that WAS my childhood. Accepting and submitting to suffering & than feeling wrong and uncomfortable when you're enjoying life.
Fuck that is so toxic! It's super obvious now why I as a young adult let men take advantage of me, made excuses and blamed myself for sexual assault and physical abuse (explained later).
If you take anything away from my story please know that how you treat your children is what they will expect, accept and tolerate from EVERYONE else that ever comes into their lives. Romantic partners, friendships, co-workers, bosses and even toxic family.

Our brains are very capable of blocking out trauma and events. With that said, I vaguely remember that the last time the shit hit the fan, the last time I would ever live with my parents and the last time I would run away (if you can even call it that at 21) was because I wore a pair of jeans that my step mom didn't like. Pretty sure it was because they were low rise skinny jeans. I was pretty emo/punkish in my late teens and early 20s, at least when I didn't live with them & could choose what I wore.
Here's the best part though, she gave those jeans to my middle sister. So were the jeans the problem?? Or were they just mad because they failed to control me in that moment? 😑

I remember when I moved back from Monterey she went through my panties and interrogated me about having thongs and boy shorts, just a reminder, I was a 21 year old woman. According to her only married women should wear thongs. I told her I just didn't like having panty lines, I mean that's why they were invented right? Lol. So then she guilted me for caring about having panty lines. It was always guilt, shame and weaponizing religion with me.
None of the other kids though. I'll never understand.

That's why religion will NEVER be for me. If you need it to parent or to be a good person you have a morality problem that no religion will cure. Throwing the Bible at your kids and instilling fear in them with it is a fucking cop out and lazy.
I said what I said. And I'm not sorry. Being a parent is not about militant control and demanding obedience. Gross.
Our children are people with feelings and individual personalities. We need to guide them with love and logic. Validate their feelings and emotions and teach them how to properly manage them, mostly by example.
If you believe in obedience, control and punishment. Count your days because they WILL rebel at some point. Break those toxic generational cycles of how society thought parenting was supposed to be. It can end with you.

Back to the story. I knew I was in trouble over the pants because she called and told me that she knew I was wearing them while I was at the library studying for the Air Force ASVAB.
She picked me up from the library with my dad and little brother in the car. It was always humiliating to me that he saw and heard most of it all these years. We were best friends for most of our childhood, I got in literal fights standing up for and protecting him. We drifted apart as he got into his early teens & shit with my step mom got really bad.
I don't know what his true feelings were, he never got involved like anyone else had in the past. Probably because he had a great life and got everything he wanted, he was my step moms baby after all.

I noticed the trunk (it was a mini van) was loaded with baskets of my clothes when I got in the car.
Then the interrogating over the pants started. Eventually they ended up driving to the part of base where all of the single guys barracks were. We stopped in front of a laundry Mat and my dad starting unloading all of my clothes. I was super fucking confused. He opened up my door and told me to get out. Then he told me I needed to find my own way home because they weren't coming back for me. I got out and they drove off.
I remember being confused and not knowing what to do. I didn't have any friends numbers in my phone because I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone, Uber and all that shit didn't exist. Hell you couldn't even google anything on the phone I had back then.

All I could think to do was call my job at the Electronic store on base because I had the number memorized. I squeezed what I could into a back pack that I always carried because I was never home when they weren't. I started running towards the shopping center where I worked. It was 3 or 4 miles from where I was at and they closed in 30 minutes. I cried the whole way.
I got ahold of my manager on the way over there and asked her to please stay until I got there because I had no where to go. She did.
I made it to work covered in sweat and tears. It took me a minute to get myself together because I was so upset. I told them all everything. There were 4 of my female coworkers still there and one of them said that I could stay with her until I figured something out.
She finished closing out her register and stuff and then drove me back to the barracks laundry Mat to get the rest of my clothes. I remember her being really pissed off and sad for me because they left me there where all the single guys lived. We both knew that could have turned out really bad.
I think that's what hurt the most.