Jasmine’s Story: I Thought Other Families Were The Weird Ones…

Fair warning this story lasts 19yrs before the surviving portion starts.
I know some people say you don’t remember lots of your younger years well I’m 25 now and I can remember being 3 years old. my mother was married to husband 5 at the time (5th time is not the charm) and he took everything… My earliest memory was probably the time I was outside playing with my sibling while my mom was mowing the grass and I had to pee, I ran inside the house but I didn’t make it in time and had an accident on the floor. My step dad at the time was very angry with me turned on the shower and yelled at me to get in while he went and cleaned up…. a few minutes later he came in the shower and started touching me in a way and area that was not ok, this wasn’t the only time and he went much farther than that ripping me in 2 body and soul… I was just too tiny. He then threatened me that if I told anyone he would hurt my family “not that they would believe me anyway”. I was then sent to bed until my mom came in and got me to go back outside to play.. It wasn’t as if this man was a decent human being the rest of the time, he regularly beat not only me and my sibling but my mother as well. I remember being lined up against a wall with my sibling, our pants dropped, hands against a wall while he whipped us with a belt buckle or prodded us with a cow prodder while my mom watched. I’ve seen my mother with black eyes, bloody noses, and bruises all over her body. This went on for a couple years, my sibling was 4 years older than me but we were both too scared to say anything but there were signs. I went to visit my aunt and that night she gave me a bath but when the soap touched my privates it burned, I remember her calling my mom and putting ointment on it but nothing ever changed (i don’t think she suspected or I’m sure she would have done something).
The day my mom left him she sent my sibling out to the truck to get it started while she grabbed my hand to take me outide. he pushed her against the door and kicked her in her calf with a steel toe boot, i’ve never been more scared in my life but he still only spent a night in jail so i guess she didn’t file charges.
After he was gone my mother dated around some more and one of her really good friends stayed with us for a time (him and his wife were having issues) well he was really upset one day so i drew him a picture… one he never received because my mother intercepted it but it was of a naked man and woman touching.. Instead of inquiring why i would drawl such a picture i was punished.
My mother isn’t purely a victim in all this but for several years i was ok… more invisible than anything my mother was trying to buy my siblings affections with what little money we had while i got hand me downs and no new clothes for school. i was manipulated into being quiet she told me if i ever said anything cps would come get me and take me to a much worse house where i would be abused daily.
I have a physical disability what is it? well i don’t know but from a young age my mother had me act a certain way infront of doctors, weaker than i was she told me what to do, how to walk, talk ect. Now i did fall a lot and had broken several bones but i had issues but not as severe as she let on and eventually in the 6th grade i was wrongfully diagnosed with muscular dystrophy (which my mother has) but as an adult i now know she did it so she could acquire benefits for me in her name. That money didn’t go to me it went to in the beginning buying my siblings love with guitars and gifts.
When my sibling turned 18 they left and didn’t look back not to my mother or me. I didn’t get to see them again for 10 years until my grandpa passed away this December. After they were gone my mom kept the money and bought herself things like new clothes ect. while i was getting old clothes from friends so i had something to wear to school. and all the sudden my moms attention was on me ( i don’t blame my sibling for leaving me or this situation anymore after experiencing this) my mother would not hardly ever let me leave the house except to school. I had friends i have had my entire life that i wasn’t allowed to go hang out with or have a sleepover to unless i cleaned the entire house or did something extra and even then it was pulling teeth to go. now most households are generally clean right? Not mine. If i didn’t do the dishes, they weren’t done, if i didn’t do everyone’s laundry? it wasn’t done. dusting? sweeping? vacuuming? SAME. Now I’m a firm believer in having kids do chores but my mother had in home help to help do her side of things but she never inforced it and those chores would stack up for weeks, i had to clean my own mothers room! i felt like a slave in my own home.
i was regularly degraded mentally and emotionally by her and i felt worthless.
I don’t think it was much to ask to see my friends outside of school, i was an honor roll student and graduated high school early to immediately start cosmetology school before my friends even got their diplomas.
I couldn’t stand being in that house (the same house where HE happened) i was regularly bullied at school and at home being called a “fat ass” by your mom can definitely tear a person down… i had no safe place to go. it was so bad i wanted to die, i never had a plan or could never build myself up tp take my own life but i wanted to. i cried every night for years after my sibling left for god to just take my life i cant stand to live with this pain anymore please just make it stop.
i did talk to a counselor at school when i was 15/16 and told her everything and yet still no one came to help me.. no one must have cared enough to just help me or i was close enough to 18? i could get out then right? NOPE I had no where to go. i was estranged to my other family because of my mother and i had no money and had started college. My mother still controlled me. i was under her house so there for had to abide by her rules i was rarely allowed to do anything. when i graduated cosmetology school (a year later) i was not allowed to get a job so i could afford to pay for the test i needed to get my license. if i got a job my mom could lose the benefits she still received under my name. But i was constantly told that she couldn’t wait for me to leave so they could travel and she would have so much money after i was gone…
after a couple months i met my now fiancé online and we started talking, within just a few months i told my mom i was going to move in with him and she screamed at me and told me i had to get my shit right then and i wouldn’t be allowed back. i wasn’t allowed to take my vehicle at the time because it was in mine and her name because i had to buy it 1 day before i turned 18 so i had a way to and from college. She also told me i would lose my SSI because i was no longer living with her and couldn’t obtain it on my own.
my best friend came and got me and what few possessions i had and drove me the 3hrs to his house the next day. I will never be more grateful than i am to that wonderful human being that she is for helping me.
After moving up here i went to the SSI office and found out that i could get my benefits in my name and that my mother had put on my file that i was incompetent and incapable of handling my own finances but that i could have had her name taken off when i was 18. Also i was receiving over $200 more than what she told me my check was for. Just another way to control me.
I didn’t contact my mother for months but eventually we started talking again and this passed year after hearing about a friend who shared her story on here i started going to therapy and eventually confronted my mother about everything.

I’ll never trust her. Our relationship will never be what it should be. I’m burning the house down when she passes away (which ive told her). But we are ok at this point. And i still have no relationship with my sibling but i have faith that one day they will want to be apart of my life again.

I may never have my day in court to confront the monster who hurt me but if he ever EVER reads this. You didn’t beat me. You NEVER owned me. And you will ROT for what you have done one day. And that is enough for me.

I’m a survivor. I have never been stronger than i am at this moment.