Chapter 3. 

This is the first chapter in which I get into some of the details of my sexual abuse. I feel it necessary to put some sort of trigger warning at the beginning of any post that may address a topic such as this. From here on out if any post contains a topic that could be triggering to some I will state, “Trigger warning: This post contains details about ______.” filling in the blank with what it talks about. This one specifically talks about sexual abuse.

After talking to my mom, I realized I had some of the timeline about when we moved to Farmersville, when I started school there, and when she had my sister wrong. Forgive me. The memories are there but timelines are weird for a 4, 5, and 6 year old. Before releasing chapter 3, I went over the details with her and what is stated here in regards to time is what is true according to her. According to her, we didn’t officially move to Farmersville until half-way through my first grade year, and that’s when I started school in Farmersville. My little sister was born in November of my second grade year. 

I started first grade in Farmersville half way through the school year, and that is where I spent majority of my grade school years. From first grade to five weeks into my senior year, I was a part of Farmersville ISD. Farmersville is a small town. When I lived there, it had a population of 3,000 people. There used to be no stop lights and only a few select places to eat such as Sonic or Dairy Queen. Much like any small town, there were a ton of traditions and a lot of small town pride. Our school mascot was named Farmer Joe… yes we were literally the “Farmersville Fighting Farmers”. I give you permission to laugh; it’s hilarious and ridiculous all at the same time. Most of the teachers in FISD were born and raised in Farmersville and had taught many of the students in my class’ parents. Everyone had the same pediatrician and we were all delivered by the same gynecologist. That might be a weird fact to throw in here but I want you to see just how small of a town it was. Everyone in town belonged to either First Baptist Church or the First United Methodist Church of Farmersville. Sure some people went to the few other churches in town but the Baptist and the Methodist ones were the biggest and most popular. There was Tatum Elementary school which held grades kindergarten through 3rd, Farmersville Intermediate School which was grade 4 and 5, Farmersville Junior High which was grade 6 through 8, and Farmersville High School which was grade 9 through 12. To put it into perspective, my grandmother went to these exact schools. Back in the day the junior high was actually the high school and that’s where my grandmother (Granny Kaye) graduated high school from. The roots in Farmersville run really deep. 

I have some memories of first grade but not many. I remember my teacher loved Hank the Cowdog books and we got to read most all of them. My parents were both working in McKinney and my mom was pregnant. We moved into our new home and all was well. I loved it. It was the nicest place we had ever lived and I loved my teacher and my school. If you ask any one of my classmates from Farmersville about the principal of our elementary school, they will beam about how we loved Mr. Markoff. He set the tone for the school by being such a positive person with a huge smile on his face at all times. I will never forget French Fry Fridays where Mr. Markoff would serve french fries at lunch from the cafeteria serving line. He was never beneath doing what others would consider the grunt work. He also had what was called Markoff Dollars that he would hand out personally to students that he caught doing a kind or noble act. You could go to his office with the Markoff Dollars and “buy” prizes out of his prize box. He remained the principal for all three years that I was at Tatum Elementary School. 

In second grade, I had Mrs. Leforge. She was a doll. I loved impressing my teachers by working hard but I did get in trouble a lot for talking too much. I’m not kidding when I say it runs in our family. I was born around a bunch of loud mouths and we all love to talk. My family would agree. I’m sure many of you have heard a child say, “I changed my color today” and that just refers to the system in which if you do something bad or get in trouble at school you have to “change your color” from green to yellow and then to orange and then to red and at red there is some serious consequence. My color was almost always changed for talking but besides that I really thrived in school. I was doing really well and I remember this because my mom was asked at the end of my second grade year if I could skip third grade and go straight to fourth. I remember this being a big meeting and I felt so proud. Thinking back to this, I find it kind of odd. Do they still request for students to do this these days if they are doing really well in school? To skip an entire grade? I don’t know, but my mom said no. Back then I was so sad but now, I’m glad because my grade brought me some of my very best friends to this day. The funny thing is that after she said no, they tested me for the Gifted and Talented program and I failed. I remember looking at that test and being so confused. I had no idea how to take that test and I cried my eyes out afterwards because I felt so defeated. In third grade there was such a thing as the “advanced third grade teacher” which was Mrs. Bradley. I along with the other students in our class who were doing really well were placed in her classroom. A few of us even got different school work to do because we were bored doing the third grade work. I put all of my identity and worth into being smart and gaining the praise and approval of all of my teachers. I wasn’t a popular kid. I vividly remember being made fun of by the kids in my class for smelling like cigarette smoke and wearing pants that weren’t long enough. I was also always the kid that had lice and unfortunately, everyone knew it. The approval from my teachers somewhat made up for the judgement coming from the kids around me. 

When I was in second grade, I was being introduced to sexual abuse. My moms little brother, who we called Bubba, lived on the road that we moved to. Although I don’t remember the very first time anything happened sexually between us, I do have vivid memories of the abuse that started and continued to occur until I was 12. This is going to be very blunt and even hard to admit or talk about, but I said I would be the realest of the real on this blog so here it goes. When a young child is introduced to sexual stimulation, no matter how wrong it is, the human body starts to crave it no differently than an adult who becomes sexually active. So sadly, when I was introduced to sexual stimulation at the young age of six, I began dealing with masturbation and struggled really hard with that at school and at home. It wasn’t a matter of putting my hands down my pants. I wasn’t that obvious about it but I would sit in certain positions and squeeze my legs together in order to feel a certain stimulation. Now, people can read this and call me weird but I want to remind everyone that I was six years old and had very little of an idea what I was doing when I was doing it. Although this is uncomfortable to talk about and is only something I’ve ever shared with my husband and best friend, I want to bring awareness to the fact that if you know a child who is consistently masturbating at an age where they shouldn’t know much about sex at all, then maybe it should ding a red flag. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Leforge, catching on that something weird was going on; but since it wasn’t a blatantly obvious act, she couldn’t do much about it. I sometimes wish I had made it more obvious so maybe the abuse would have been known way earlier on. 

I remember dealing with a lot of shame and guilt starting in second grade. I felt guilty about what was going on with my uncle although I couldn’t control it. It’s not like I was choosing to come on to him. He was abusing me and deep down I knew it was wrong. After every single occurrence with him I was washed over with severe anxiety to the point of shaking and crying uncontrollably. The occurrences happened often. He lived on the same street as me and I stayed the night with my grandparents a lot. They would make me sleep in his bed with him and every time, it happened. I feel the need to add that he is seven years older than me so when I was 6 he was only thirteen but the abuse continued until I was twelve which would make him nineteen. We spent almost every weekend playing outside, riding four wheelers, fishing, and running around in the pastures playing hide-and-go seek. Often times it would happen out in the fields or in my grandpa’s barn. Some may wonder why I never said anything and the truth is, I was scared. I always felt like if I said something, I would get in trouble and honestly that’s just how a child’s brain works. It’s not easy to “come clean” about something that you know is wrong and although he was doing it to me, as a child I blamed myself and I thought everyone else would too. 

My uncle was also showing me porn magazines that came from my grandpa’s room and I did finally get brave enough to tell my mom about that. I remember thinking to myself that if everyone believed me in this situation then I could tell them about Bubba touching me inappropriately. My mom believed me and she confronted her parents and Bubba. Bubba denied it and my grandparents told me I was lying to get attention even though I could tell them exactly where the magazines were coming from. There is no way they believed deep down that I was lying because I know my grandpa knew where those magazines were; under the mattress on his side of the bed. But he looked me dead in the face and said, “I don’t look at porn and neither does Bubba. You are making this up to get attention.” Never once could we get them to go look under the mattress but there is no way my eight year old self would have known those magazines were there unless someone showed me. So although they “didn’t believe me”, I know now that what they really did was turn a blind eye. 

Now that Bubba knew that I told on him about the porn, I was terrified to be in his presence the next time we were alone. Rightfully so because the next time we were alone, he choked me. My mom had errands to run so I had to go to my papa and granny’s house. Papa was working the fields and cattle and my granny was out in the yard leaving me and Bubba alone in the house. I remember being in his room and he started yelling at me for tattling on him and next thing you know I was pinned to his bed with his hands around my neck. I just remember him telling me that if I ever said anything to anyone about what else was going on, he would kill me; then he let go. We lived within walking distance so I walked home and sat with my dog, Cinnamon, in her doghouse and cried until I saw my moms car pull into the driveway. Then I cleared up my face really fast and prayed she couldn’t tell I had been crying. This. This is why I never told anyone and why the abuse continued for years. Often times I would say to my mom on any given day, “Mom, I want to tell you something.” and when she would respond with, “Yes?” I would chicken out and say, “I love you so much”. and that happened probably millions of times.