The Most Important Letter of My Life

I am a survivor of child abuse and neglect. I posted this on the 14 year anniversary of being set free from my basement prison.

This was the first time I put my story out publicly.

The life I live now is so wonderful and it makes me shudder to think how close it was to not happening. Thank you, everyone, for your support.

Dear Friends,

Many years ago, when my dad lived in Bolivia, he saw a long python basking in the sun. He took aim at the snake and fired his shotgun. The shot was a direct hit to the center of the snake’s head. He shouldered the slain creature and walked toward home. During his walk, something changed in my father. He looked at the snake and saw how beautiful it was and was suddenly he was filled with remorse for taking its life. I remember him showing this carefully folded snake’s skin to Fred and me when we were kids. To an impartial observer, it would appear that this skin was a hunter’s trophy but to my father, this was much more: it was the symbol of a major change in perspective. This snakeskin was a remnant of his personal evolution. It was his promise to never willingly cause the death or harm to a living creature again.

In this same way, this letter that I am writing to you is a symbol of my evolution. I seek to re-establish my integrity by explaining to you what happened 14 years ago with as much clarity and compassion as I can muster. This letter is not to be viewed as a threat to my dad or to my step-mother, Karen, however, I cannot control how they perceive this communication. If you are a close friend to them, please show them support in ways that will help them foster compassion, as well.

You may wonder what brings about my desire to write this letter. The motivations that I will outline for you below are as important as the story itself.

I have thought about my father every day since January 14, 1999. My brain refuses to reconcile that the same man who has kept a snakeskin for almost 40 years could leave a daughter behind without some amount of inner turmoil or regret.

The second driving force is three fabulous books that I have read recently: Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by the Dalai Lama, and Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. I highly suggest you look into the second book if you need a compassionate “pick me up”. I feel it has truly changed my heart in miraculous ways.

I received a letter from a family friend a year ago asking for forgiveness for not intervening on my behalf. Many of our friends and family were, in some way, present during this time but I do not begin to hold any of you responsible or hold ill will toward anyone for any of these things that happened. By reading these words you are helping me transcend what has occurred to reach a new level of understanding. If you would like to respond to this letter, I would be happy to hear your thoughts. If you’d rather quietly reflect, I understand your silence.

The fourth inspiration is time. That fact in addition to the annual need for closure and evolution (NYE) motivates me to tie up loose ends. While I will never be able to be “completely over” these things I will write to you about, I am ready for them to take a new form.

The fifth factor is loss. We lost my Uncle Bill last year and I watched my cousin, Janelle, say goodbye to her 52-year-old father and this year we lost my (40 yo) step-sister Jodi suddenly from cancer. A number of my friends have lost parents or children and I know that if they had a chance to say something to their lost loved ones one more time, they would break down walls to do it. Nothing would stand in their way and they would do whatever it took to make sure they got through to them. My father is still alive and the barriers that keep him from connecting to me aren’t as absolute as the ones keeping the aforementioned people from their parents and children. Thoughts and emotions keep my dad from connecting with me. I have also heard that my father recently suffered a health issue that almost cost him his life. I feel that no boundary to love and connection should be seen as indestructible when faced with such a real possibility.

The sixth reason I need to write this is for my siblings. My family is very important to me and I do not want them to feel like they have to carry the burden of such a situation. What happened is long in the past, but it is affecting them presently with ethical and emotional dilemmas. Please show them support because they need your guidance and love as much as I do. For the record, I do not intend to cause any harm or distress in their relationship with our parents. Any desire to do so would be spiteful and self-serving and, therefore, inappropriate. I want to make it clear, however, that our parents are the ones who have decided to remain disconnected from me and not the other way around.

The seventh reason I need to write this is to clarify what happened and why this may have occurred. I received a few communications from family members and friends who genuinely desired to help me feel better about what happened many years ago. There was a common theme to their consolation: they all wanted me to understand that they empathized with how difficult divorce can be. It took me some time to realize that these people were informed that the basis of our familial issues was that I struggled with my father divorcing my mother. I do not want to discount the impact that divorce has on families/children or the effect that it had on my mother, but as a twelve-year-old child I was adaptable to new situations and the change in my family’s state was the same grief process that you have likely seen other children go through. From my perspective and current life/professional experience, my grief process was not prolonged nor was it atypical in any way.

I am going to attempt to tell you the story of my teenage years with as much brutal honesty, compassion, and respect as I can muster.

A brief history:

My dad met Karen at the beginning of my 5th-grade year of school. I quickly became friends with her daughter, Michelle, and son, Aaron. Our families began spending lots of time together. There were certain family circumstances that made it necessary for dad and Karen to be private when we went out in public. We often had to go to Wichita or Hutchinson to go out to eat or do activities. The turning point in my relationship with Karen is one I will never forget. We had arrived in Hutchinson to go to the movie Mrs Doubtfire that was currently playing. I mentioned that I hoped a friend from Camp Mennoscah wasn’t there so that we wouldn’t get caught out together. I was likely saying this in an “us vs. them” collegial way, but it was not received as such. Karen was very upset that I would try to control the situation like that and I was much like my mother in this way. I received a long lecture and the movie plans were cancelled due to my actions. I had cried my eyes out for being misunderstood and my heart was broken. Instead of watching the movie, the family went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, Anchor Inn, while I was punished by having to wait in the car until they were finished.

Michelle and I were really into sleepovers early in our friendship. I would often sleep on her or Aaron’s bedroom floor in a sleeping bag. One night, I had one of “those” dreams. In it, I was swimming in East Lake when I decided that it was time to go to the bathroom. I woke up to realize that I had wet Aaron’s floor and my sleeping bag. How embarrassing for a 12-year-old! It was, for this reason, that they felt it was best that I wear adult diapers to bed for the next two years and sleep on plastic sheets throughout high school. I will admit that the bed-wetting event did not reoccur and so their parenting strategy worked, but the shame of wearing diapers was difficult to handle as a ‘tween. I was also no longer allowed to sleep in anyone’s bedroom or in the living room. My sleeping quarters were moved to under the kitchen table.

I started feeling unsure of what to say or do around Karen to make her feel happy with me. She began counting the words I said at the dinner table and telling me at the end how many were appropriate conversation pieces or improper ones. I recall, one time, asking what the definition of a word was at the table (it was something I came up with during the day) and was scolded for being off-topic. I began retreating emotionally from the family. By nature, I am a talkative, people-pleasing person but I began feeling quiet and nervous in our family social situations. I was definitely uncomfortable and it seemed to make things worse. I am not sure if, possibly, Karen felt rejected by me in this way? That is certainly possible. That may be why things steadily became more severe. My bed space was moved again from under the table to my dad’s van parked outside for the early evening. Later at night he would drive me in the van (in silence) to his trailer in the country and drop me off there to sleep the rest of the night.

One day, Emily Lindholm called Karen’s house to ask me a question about an assignment. I was reprimanded for her call. How did she know I was there? Why did she think I was allowed to talk on a phone? It was said during this conversation that I was “worth less than dirt” as I was held by my neck up against the wall.

I began spending more time in my dad’s van. I did homework in there and tried to avoid how awkward I felt inside Karen’s house. This may be what dad and Karen refer to as my difficulties blending in with my new family. I guess that would not be far from the truth, however, the reason I had difficulties may not have been due to classic circumstances.

When the family went to dinner or out to public places I was no longer invited or welcome to come in with them. I would stay in the van and wait until they were finished. I will admit that part of me was relieved not to have to interact since things were often very intense with regard to my words and actions.

I started a nervous habit of scratching my scalp and it was often bleeding or scabbed. Dr Lynne Frueschting diagnosed me as having a “folliculitis”, another word for an inflammation of a hair follicle (e.g. razor burn.) It was for this reason that I was not allowed to sit in any seat that anyone else in the family would sit in because they feared that they might contract the disease I had. Also, I was taken to a laundromat to ensure that my clothes likely having the disease did not touch or infect the clothes of anyone else.

In 1995, I started high school and dad and Karen got engaged. They also began preparations for building their new home in North Newton. They explained to me that they wanted to have a set-up where I would have a separate entrance to a separate part of the house, like an apartment. I’m unsure if a second doorway was too expensive to put into the basement or if they planned for the entrance/exit to be a casement window the entire time.

During the first few days of life in the new house, immediately before and after dad and Karen’s wedding, I was allowed to come upstairs for dinner but not allowed to enter or be in any of the other rooms. I was to stay by the corner of the unfinished basement that had been made into my room. I was shown the bookshelves near the door of the basement and was told that if I ever, so much as touched any of those books that I would be sent to my “mom’s house so fast my head would spin”.

My bedroom had two cement and two rough framed walls (one covered in a black plastic sheet and another with thick drapes.) Since the basement did not have a toilet or running water, if I needed to go to the bathroom I would have to go to the door to the basement, knock, wait for a response, and then ask if I could go to the bathroom. One time, I thought I heard company upstairs when I needed to go to the bathroom. (I believe the voices were those of the Wooleries.) I tried to knock discreetly and paced the basement nervously waiting for a response. None came. There had been a rule that I needed to ask to use the bathroom for years. The only time this rule didn’t apply, I found out, was when company was near. I once asked my Aunt Marlene if I could use her facilities while we were visiting her in Chicago and I was chastised for this later. How could I be sure if there were really people there? If I would have opened the door without a response, I would have violated the boundaries that they created. I continued to pace for some time before finding a coffee can and, consequently, relief.

For three and a half years, I was not allowed to watch television, listen to the radio, talk on the phone, see friends, enter or exit through the front door, or plug things into the wall sockets. I was not talked to or touched. After my coffee can incident, my dad brought his port-a-potty from our camper down to my room. This bucket became my permanent bathroom. He also would bring 2 buckets of hot water down to my room each night for me to wash in and brush my teeth. Also, for a reason unknown to me still, they decided to lock the door between their living quarters and mine.

I have a theory about why this may have happened. Previously, Karen had lived as staff in the Lisey House in North Newton. Above her family’s living quarters lived some adult males with intellectual/developmental disabilities. It seemed to be standard protocol for the door between their family and the men to remain locked at all times for everyone’s safety.

Because of my AD/HD diagnosis, I remember Karen saying that I needed to spend my time focusing on my studies instead of other things. This may, also, have been the reason that I wasn’t allowed to plug things in. I may never know for sure.

My father was put in charge of my care. Each morning he brought a cup of cheerios for my breakfast with a cup of milk. My lunch was two peanut butter sandwiches. Dinner was two sandwiches with a cold piece of American processed cheese placed on them. He would set these items on a chair in front of my door and then leave. I was not to talk to him or interact in any way. If I had a question to ask I would have to write the question on a piece of paper that was taken upstairs, edits were made to my requests and then often a “no” was written below and returned to my chair.

During the summertime, I was not permitted to leave this corner of the basement aside from when I would babysit Ruth and Terra Wiens on Saturday afternoons. The basement was quiet and I felt lonely. I began stealing books off the shelves and reading them voraciously. I knew that this was one of the cardinal rules, but without anything to think about I felt like I was losing my mind. (By the way, the Box Car Children books were entirely too predictable but Watership Down by Richard Addams became one of my favorites.)

When Michelle started high school two years later, she would give me rides to school in the morning but I had to sit in the backseat so that my head (and the folliculitis) did not touch anything. These rides soon ended and I was made to walk to and from school by myself, even though one of our family members was going that direction anyway. One time Beverly Unruh, Karen’s mom, saw me walking along the road and gave me a ride. She was chastised for this later. She came down to the basement and hugged me, crying. She said, “It’s hard isn’t it?” And then she left without any further comment. That was the only time that I realized that maybe things weren’t being done because I really was such a bad kid, after all.

I was allowed to go to Sunday school, church, and youth group at Faith Church. However, if there was ever something I did wrong, they would take away these events for months at a time. There was once a time when someone told my parents that I had been very talkative and outspoken during Sunday school that morning. While the person telling them was looking at this in a positive way, there were very serious consequences for this.

I knew that there would be repercussions if I ever told anyone about any of these things. Also, many of these things are so embarrassing that I believe that they felt that I would never tell people about them. There has been some rumor that they kept the door to the basement locked because I was stealing clothes from Karen. In fact, I did rummage through their things once in the basement and found some jeans that I wore for a while, but that was 2 years after the door had been locked the first time. Regardless, can you imagine locking someone, let alone a child, anywhere for any reason? If there would have been a fire I would have had only one exit. This is not safe.

Fortunately, my story has a marvellous ending. Chris Simmonds called me into her office during my senior year and through the work of my social worker, Michelle Drake, and my high school principal, Dr Kathy Wilson, I was placed with my legal guardian, Kay Kiger on January 14, 1999. After never going to a high school dance, Kay took me prom dress shopping and after trying on over 200, she bought me 3 of them to try on in the comfort of our home. She doted on me, treated me like a person, and helped me get back in contact with my mom. After a wonderful reconnection with my mom, I joined a step-family who helped me understand what a family is again. My friends: Jen Ratzlaff, Jess Brazil, Jenny Robb Beck, and Jenny Sanger Mitchell came together and were a BEDROCK of support. There was also a crew of other strong women who stood by me staunchly! These women are Barb Burns, Jan Saab, Karen Robb, and Judy Weigand. I cannot thank you enough.

My father and step-mother have never apologized or admitted any wrongdoing. It was my decision not to press charges against them, as the trial would have become one of the criminal variety and I would have had no choice in the outcome. They both remain employed by school districts as teachers.

By reading this you have helped me reach another level in my recovery. I still have moments where my PTSD really sucks me down and in those times my husband, Sean, is my absolute hero. Thank you for shouldering this with me to feel less alone with these memories. I lead a happy, healthy life in New Zealand and I have many people to thank for that. I am forever indebted to all of you who helped me learn to become a normal person again. And still, I remain unbroken.

I love you and I appreciate you reading this letter.

Ang

My sister in law, Lesha, asked me if she could repost this. Absolutely!!!! The more people who know, the better. If it reaches just one more person who is experiencing or has experienced trauma it will be worth it!!! The truth shall set you free!

By the way, one of the books I mentioned: Beyond Religion is available in audiobook format from Audible.com for FREE right now!

http://www.audible.com/offers/30free?asin=B0069A03IY&source_code=FBIGB9045WS010713 So worth your $0! (Or more…)

Original publication date January 2013

Link to original story: https://m.facebook.com/nt/screen/?params=%7B%22note_id%22%3A10108252553778039%7D&path=%2Fnotes%2F%7Bnote_id%7D&_rdr