Hi my name is Hillary and I am a survivor of emotional and physical abused endured as a child by my father.

I never really understood why my father treated me as he did and it wasn’t just me either my older brother was tormented as well. I don’t exactly remember when the abuse started, I know I couldn’t of been more than 7 yrs old at the time. First it started out as punishments of staying out past dark in the cold to rake leaves or pick up sticks. Then it became my father would wake us up in the middle of the night to make us get on our hands and knees to clean the kitchen we were only about 8 and 10 at that time.

Eventually physical abuse started my father would pick us up by our throats and yell at us , hit us where the bruises could be hidden. He would be little us and put us down. For the longest time I was scared of my father I would cry any time my mother left the house or we were left alone with my dad. I was afraid to tell anyone for fear it would rip my family apart or that no one would believe me. I never realized then until I became an adult how much my friends knew or at least thought they knew what was going on. The abuse lasted until my mom finally decided enough was enough.

I was 12 yrs old when my mother said she was leaving my dad. Honestly, at that time that was the best day of my life. I continued to be afraid of him for years, my mom would try to get me to go visit him but the fear over came me. In the mean time he got remarried had more children, he had two step children.

One day when I was 18 I did go visit him and I had heard that my father was doing the same to the step-children as he did to my brother and I. So I decided that day that I had to do something , even though my father meant nothing to me at that time those were still my brothers and sisters no matter if we were full blood or not. I hadn’t gotten all my courage yet but I wrote him letter telling him that his new family was his second chance and if he didn’t straighten up , I would call social services myself I explained to him how because of what I went through as a child , what he put me through. I was afraid to love , I was afraid to find someone just like him and feel stuck, I lacked self-esteem. I told him he was my father from blood and that was it.

That was 7yrs ago and my father is no longer my father because of just blood, he’s my dad that finally heard the plea of his children. I will probably never forget what happened to me and I still to this day still suffer a bit but, I’m not afraid any more. I’m me! If I hadn’t of stood up to my dad and broke that chain of abuse , I don’t know where I’d be but I don’t think I’d be as happy as I am now.