Living With Schizophrenia

My adoption by my biological father effectively stopped Steve's beatings of me, but I wasn't thankful at first because Sue was handy with a belt, too, and she liked to slap me across the face. She'd also grab me and dig her nails into my arm until she'd draw blood and bruise me around the wounds.

Neither her or my biological father ever told me they loved me or hugged me. They never attended any of my sporting events to cheer me on or anything. They didn't want anything to do with God and openly mocked my requests for love. But I was thankful I no longer had to attend Christian church (Lutheran to be exact) like I had been doing when I lived with Peggy and Steve. I still believed my biological mother was an angel in Heaven.

My biological father kept pornography in the only bathroom in the house we were allowed to use. We were not allowed in my "stepmother's" bathroom, ever. She never turned him in for the drugs either. He put LSD in my older brother, Chris, kool-aid when he was about four years old. He remembers going on the trip. Sue never said one bad word about the pornography to him or anyone else. She was emotionally and psychologically abusive. She made me use OB tampons and go to the gynecologist when I was 16 to get birth control pills.

We also had to do a lot of work around the house with no pay. They never gave us money for anything but lunch at school. We did all the yard work without even a polite thank you. She'd also lock us in the basement when they weren't home and even when they were or we had visitors, we had to stay in the basement. They kept their marijuana upstairs.

I was severly depressed, had really low self esteem and I was suffering from paranoia but they refused to take me to a counselor. I presume because they were afraid I'd turn them in for abuse and neglect. Finally, at 17, I signed up to join the Navy because Sue told me if I didn't join she'd take me to court for being an incorrigible minor and put me in foster care. I had been caught shoplifting and I was afraid of her threat. They put me in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) until I turned 18 and was legal to join the military.

While in DEP I met Steve Harried, and he sexually abused and raped me. He pushed sex on me in public bathrooms and at his house. The first time he raped me was when he drove me home from a DEP meeting after I told him I didn't think it was a good idea that we sleep together. I had such low self esteem I didn't expect any better. I put up with it for almost a year because it was better then the rapes I experienced at seven, and I confused this with love. I dumped him because he cheated on me with a girl he met in Guam.

I left home 22 hours before I turned 18 so they couldn't report me as a runaway. I stayed at the Salvation Army until September 21, 1987 when I was shipped off to Orlando, Florida where I went to boot camp.