Chapter 1

Today I was told to write.  I was told it was my destiny.  This may be my most self-absorbed moment.  I was told I have a story to share.  I’ve thought this for most of my adult life, but again, would never presume I was important enough to write about myself.  Or more importantly, that anyone would care to read about me.  I am not famous.  I am not rich.  I do own several pairs of Manolo’s, so I guess I have reached a modicum of success, at least in the world of us girls.  A book seemed a bit ambitious, being my first day as a writer and all.  So I’m starting here, the same place that discovered Justin Bieber.  My story is a bit different from his, but just like “the Beebs”, I came here to help people.  My story is one of survival.  Not from cancer or some flesh-eating virus.  No.  I survived childhood.  I survived a childhood with a mentally ill mother and an extremely abusive stepfather.  But then again, who didn’t?  I not only survived, but also found the strength and the means to thrive.  I decided today to share my story with you.  Maybe it will help you.  Or someone you know.  Maybe it won’t help at all, but make you feel better about your own life.  Kind of how I feel when I watch the “Real Housewives”!  See you soon…

Chapter 2

“How are you so normal?”  This is always the first response when someone hears my story.  My flattered reaction is always a smile.  Normal.  High-functioning member of society, maybe, but normal?  Let’s not get crazy.  I don’t have a lot of memories of the time before I was born, but the one thing I do recall is how my mother felt about being “with child”.  According to my maternal grandmother, my mother wanted to end my life before it even began but my grandmother wouldn’t let her do it.  Sweet story, Granny.  Any other bedtime tales for me?  I’m not sure how many times Grandma shared this little nugget with me, but enough for me to always be grateful for her heroic efforts.  Go ahead, Granny ~ the schnapps is in the fridge.  You deserve it!  So born I was ~ feet first, from what I’ve been told.  Shortly thereafter, my father and mother divorced.  They were only married a short time, so I never knew him.  I know nothing of him or the Utley side of my family.  I do know he passed away when I was about 23 years old.  Kidney failure brought on by liver cancer.  Hmm, he might have also been fond of schnapps.  Anyway, my birth brought on my mother’s very first nervous breakdown.  Or that’s what we called them in the 70’s.  She was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and continues to live with it today.  I’m not sure if she was medicated at the time or not, but I am sure she didn’t stay on any meds.  When my parents divorced, we moved in with my grandmother.  Until my mother married the man who would become my stepfather when I was three years old.  Thanks for reading ~ see you soon…

Chapter 3

Today I went back to Iowa to see my family and to see my mom.  I knew I would be writing about the apartment we moved into when my mom married Phil so I decided to drive by and take a picture to share with you.  It doesn’t look 36 years older as I do; it looks exactly the same.  I didn’t need a picture.  That entire building is permanently engraved on my memory.  The smell of wet cigarette smoke so embedded in my mind that I smell it now.   I can see the dark walls of cheap, lead-based paint and peeling wallpaper, the bathroom with no door, and my bedroom directly across from where he and my mom would sleep.  In my bedroom was a large, dark closet where I would often find the only quiet of my childhood.  This home also had a great big coffee table that when I stood on it, I could see myself in the mirror.  Thus began my love for dancing on that coffee table pretending to be Shirley Temple.  Also born was my love for looking at myself in the mirror.  I remember having a nice friend named Michelle and a mean, older girl named Renee as my neighbor.  She would only be my friend if her other neighbor, Donna wasn’t around.  When Donna was around, which was too often for my taste, I would have to settle for Renee’s little brother, Terry.  Terry had a penchant for human flesh and would bite me at every opportunity.  I can only hope he is enjoying “Twilight” as an adult.  I once retaliated by pulling his pants down and laughing.  He had the last laugh when the next day he punched me in the nose whilst holding a golf ball.  I will continue to blame him for the slight bump in my nose for the rest of my life.  One thing I don’t remember is any feelings of love either for or from my mother in my early childhood.  I do recall feelings of embarrassment whenever I was with her in public.  She just was never “normal”.  She didn’t do normal things.  She drank coffee.  Only coffee.  Never Pepsi.  My cool Aunt Peg and Uncle Doug drank Pepsi.  I just wanted her to drink a Pepsi.  She had normal brown hair, which never saw the light of day.  She only wore platinum blonde wigs, which were clearly wigs.  She was not fooling anyone.  And lots of makeup.  She was really a beautiful woman, but it was clear that she didn’t know it.  My mother struggled with eating disorders her entire life.  It is still all she thinks about.  It is the last thing she said to me today as I dropped her off at her residential facility for the mentally ill.  “Debbie, none of my clothes fit”.  Her eyes are filled with a sadness that is difficult to describe.  She is trapped.  Trapped in her own mind with no way out of the thoughts that plague her everyday.  Her eyes long for escape.  “What about the clothes you are wearing, I think you look great” is my only response.  And of course, “I love you” and “I’ll see you soon.”

Chapter 4

Did you ever see the movie “The Kid” with Bruce Willis?  Don’t deny it, Demi, you know you saw it!  I came across it channel-surfing one night about 10 years ago and had a very strong reaction to it.   Bruce’s adult character was able to talk to himself as a kid.  I suddenly had a longing buried so deep I could hardly contain it.  I so desperately wished I could’ve met my adult self as a child.  “You’ll be okay” the adult me would say.  “You’ll have everything you’ve ever wished for.  Just hang in there.  Stay strong.  You can do this.”  That would have been very comforting.  But the adult me never showed up.  I had no comfort.  I had no end in sight to my silent torture.  I’m not exactly sure when the abuse began, but let’s put it this way, I have no memory of a time when I wasn’t afraid.  Would he come into my room and wake me today?  Would my mom maybe stay home today to protect me with her presence?    How can no one see what is happening to me?  Clearly I was a great actress long before my days in the actual theater.  Just to inform you, I’m not going to get excessively graphic in the description of my abuse ~ I’m saving that for the book!  Let me start today by introducing you to my stepfather, Phil.  Phil was an uneducated man, so uneducated that he could not read a word.  Phil’s life’s work was for Blackhawk Foundry where he was a manual laborer.  Phil stood about 5 feet, 2 inches tall and could swing a belt with such force it could take down an elephant.  All that manual labor was not lost on his upper body strength.  I have no idea where he met my mother and I have no idea why she chose him to be her husband and father to her only child.  A little more about my mother, Martha ~ she has never worked a day in her life.  I’m certain anyone with a job and a car would have sufficed.  So she chose Phil.  She unknowingly married a pedophile.  A pedophile who now had 24-hour access to a sweet little girl.  And from what I remember, there were few hours a day when I didn’t have to service him in some way.  To be honest, one of my least favorite services was rubbing his feet.  I had to rub each foot for one hour each night while we sat and watched TV.  Now, I understand that this may be starting to sound a bit unreal or overdramatized.  Believe me, I have no intention of going through what James Frey went through on Oprah when his writings in “A Million Little Pieces” turned out to be “less than true”.   I’m here to write my truth and share it with you.  See you soon…

Chapter 5

“Why are you wearing pants?  It’s like a hundred degrees outside!”  Because I have welts on my legs the size of watermelons! Any other questions?  “I’m always cold” I would instead reply.  Which was true and still is, but I would have rather had my cut-off jean shorts on like Daisy Duke and everyone else in the late 70’s.  But I didn’t want anyone to see my raw legs because then the real questions would begin.  I can’t really recall what my stepfather did to keep me from telling our little secret.  I don’t remember any threats on my life or my mother’s life.  I think what kept me from telling anyone was my own inner fear.  I just wanted to be a good girl.  And on the inside, I was.  But not on the outside.  I remember always being in trouble.  I just could not behave.  I would throw temper tantrums in the store if I didn’t get what I wanted.  I would run up and down the aisle of the public bus that would take my grandmother, mother and I to either downtown Davenport or Northpark Mall.  I would also pull the overhead dinger (I’m certain that is the official name for the thing you pull to alert the bus driver to stop) at every corner.   We had to take bus, you see, because my grandmother and my mother never learned to drive.  Another thing I loathed about my mother.  Everybody’s mother could drive a car!  Not mine.  I must have only been in first grade, but I have a strong memory of being spanked by Sister Catherine at my school, Holy Trinity.  School had been let out and there was a crosswalk with a light right in front of the school.  Now, the school was just across the street from our apartment.  I remember pushing the button to get the Walk light and then running back and forth across the street to see how many times I could do it before the light switched to Don’t Walk.  I’m certain I did this several times and with great speed and agility (I may be remembering that wrong).  But I could not outrun Sister Catherine.  She came down the steps of the school, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me kicking and screaming into the main office where she commenced my spanking.  I was furious!  I marched home to tell the tale of my injustice only to get another spanking.  This one by a stronger arm and a thick, leather belt.  Now remember, this was Iowa in the 70’s.  Attached to that belt was a buckle the size of a plate!  Looks like I’ll be wearing pants again tomorrow.

Chapter 6

My mother married Phil when I was three years old.  I lived with fear, hatred and self-loathing until I made my bold escape at age 11.  By now, quite a lot of damage had been done not only externally but internally as well.  Everything was dark and bleak.  This sounds so cliché, but it was dark and bleak.  I saw the world though critical and distrusting eyes.  I still managed to do well in school ~ again, I just wanted to be a good girl.  But I didn’t have lot of friends.  Just one more thing I could blame on my mother.  I had a sparkling personality and was a wicked tetherball player so that couldn’t have been the reason why.  It had to be how I looked.  My Aunt Peg and I always laugh when I talk about this now, but back then, it was horrifying.  In the early 80’s, you had to have Lee jeans and Nikes.  Well, my mother would only buy clothes for me from Kmart, so I had Wranglers jeans and Macgregor’s.  This combination along with my hideous boy haircut and cavities in all my teeth was a friend repellent.  But I did have one good friend, Missy.  I would spend a lot of time at her house where the world was normal.  One night, back in the land of my torture, my mom, Phil and I were watching a TV movie called “Something About Amelia” starring Ted Danson.  The movie was about a young girl being sexually abused by her stepfather.  I watched the movie as if I were in a trance.  I couldn’t believe we were watching this!  Isn’t he going to change the channel?  How could he sit there and watch this?  This movie was very different from my life.  In the end the mother saves Amelia.  That was not going to happen for me.  I knew I was going to have to save myself.  But I didn’t know how.  The next day, in Art class, I told my friend Missy about the movie.  I then told her the same thing was happening to me.  She told me she didn’t believe me.  How could she not believe me?  Wasn’t she my friend?  Then she said she would believe me if I told her mom.  So after school, we went home to Missy’s house.  I told her mom.  I told her every gruesome detail about my life.  She told me I was going to stay at their house that night.  That was not out of the ordinary for me, so I called my mom and told her I was staying at Missy’s.  Little did I know I would never sleep in my mom’s house again.

Chapter 7

I will never forget the first day of the rest of my life.  It was March of 1984.  “The Wizard of Oz” was going to be on television that night as it was every year in March.  However, I would not see it this year.  Sometime during the morning, I was called down to the Principal’s office at school.  I went tentatively as one often goes to the Principal’s office.  I was met by the Principal, Missy’s mom and a social worker.  Missy’s mom had called the school that morning to report my story and the school acted quickly.  I was ushered into a large conference room where we sat around a large table.  I had to tell my story again.  I had to tell every detail.  I was mortified.  I feared they wouldn’t believe me.  I feared what would happen if they did believe me.  The social worker asked me very specific questions.  I gave very graphic answers.  I was told I was going to be taken to a foster home and may need to stay there for a while.  The social worker drove me to my house along with a police escort.  When we arrived, I would not go up to the house.  I begged the social worker to let me stay in the car.  She finally agreed which I can’t believe to this day.  I could have run, but where?  I was paralyzed by the picture that was unfolding.  The social worker and policeman knocked on the door and it was answered by my mother.  I have no idea what they said to her, but she disappeared into the house and returned a few minutes later with a bag for me.  The memory of those few moments haunts me to this day.  What must my mother have felt to have her daughter taken from her?  Did they tell her why they were taking me away?  Did they give her an explanation?  I certainly didn’t care back then, but it shakes me to think of it now.  The social worker then drove me to my first foster family.

Chapter 8

“There’s no place home.  There’s no place like home.  There’s no place like home. “  We pulled up to a beautiful house in Blue Grass, Iowa at about dinnertime.  I remember that day like it was yesterday.  We knocked on the back door and were greeted by my new foster mother, Ruthann.  I noticed immediately she was wearing Lee jeans and a white sweatshirt with their painting company’s red logo.  She had a red bandana tied around her neck and I instantly wanted to dress just like her.   She was so cute and bubbly.   She also talked very fast.  My head was already spinning with the events of the day.  This was information overload!  Her husband Jay, the quiet one, was sitting at the dining room table.  The sun was shining through the big picture window just behind him and the light made it seem as if he was glowing.  He was a very tall blond man with a smile that made me like him straightaway.  My social worker didn’t stay long as my new family and I apparently had somewhere to be.  My only tie to what had happened that day was disappearing.  I’m not sure why, but I felt like I was being abandoned.  I had yet to speak a word and I was now living with these strangers.  They were in a hurry and so we said goodbye to my social worker and off we went.  I can’t really remember the car ride, but we ended up at a daycare center.  Ruthann and Jay had volunteered to help out there that evening.  I was sat down in front of a television set just in time to see Dorothy click her red ruby heels and mutter the words that would bring her home to Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.  She was right.  There is no place like home.  But I wouldn’t know the meaning of home for many more years.

Chapter 9

My mother was scared.  I could just sense it.  But she wasn’t scared for me; she was scared for herself.  She thought I was a liar.  My grandmother thought I was a liar.  I was sitting on the floor of her living room with her and my mother on the couch, scolding me from above, sternly instructing me to tell the truth.  We were going to court that day and I had clearly made a mess of my mother’s life.  I needed to tell the truth and go back home.  My grandmother had always been protective of my mother.  She always treated my mother like a child, which I now believe truly stunted my mother’s emotional growth.  When we arrived at the courthouse, my social worker was there to greet me.  The day was a blur of people and information that I didn’t understand.  My mother and grandmother went into the courtroom, but I stayed in another room with my social worker.  She explained to me what was happening in the other room.  I don’t remember what I felt for myself that day.  I was mostly worried about what would happen to my mom when Phil was sent to the electric chair.  I imagined we would move back in with Grandma and life would slowly get back to what it was before she chose to marry Phil.  They would have to forgive me eventually for causing all this trouble.  I’m sure you realize Phil was not given the death penalty for his crimes against me.  As I’ve said, I’m not going to get too descriptive in this venue, but you can be certain ~ my little body and my mind suffered greatly at the hands of this man.  For these crimes, Phil was handed two years probation.  He and my mother went home.  I went to therapy.