Not all poverty is created equal (A long Part 1 of my life)

I hear the phrase root cause alot.
In order to work towards stamping out poverty
we need to get to the root causes.
In a previous diary of mine someone mentioned
that homelessness is just a symptom and he asked
if my time spent homeless was because of mental illness
or drug abuse.
These too are also symptoms.
Symptoms of a society gone awry.
Below the fold we'll see how I ended up homeless for the first time
See if you can pick up on the problems with society.

I come from a broken home,
mother and father divored when I was around 2 years old.
1st step-father was an alcholic former heroin addict,
they divorced when I was about 5 years old.
Only thing I remember of him is being beat for jumping on a bed.
Mom then had to work in a nursing home to support 3 children.
It barely paid the rent so we were on food stamps and medicaid.
Most of our clothes were 2nd hand from churches.
During this time period I dont recall much.
What I do recall is the doctors I saw got convicted of medicaid fraud.
I was made fun of for my clothing at school, and treated as sub human by 1 teacher.
This teacher tried to bar me from going to school one day for being late.
The principle got an earful from my mother and the teacher recieved a simple repremand.
We moved shortly after that incident.
In a new city my time at school was much better but homelife was not.
Many times we had no food or the food we did get was very repetive.
To this day I refuse to eat macaroni and cheese.
Mom spent alot of time getting aid from the township trustee and at times was turned away.
During one of her trips to the laundrymat
she met a man that would become her third husband.
She asked permission to marry him from us 3.
I was the one to say no, something about him didnt feel right.
He wasnt an alcholic like my father or first step-father,
But my life decended into hell.
He worked in the local steel mill so income level was above the poverty line.
You couldnt tell it from our lifestyle.
2nd hand clothes and cheap repetitive food.
Most of our toys were used or came from outside the home.
Soon after they got a house the beatings began.
Not us children, but my mother got the hell beat out of her.
He beat her on her back along the spine so bruising wouldnt show,
she is suffering from spinal problems to this day.
Then he blamed me for his actions.
One day he decided he was going to kill me, I had snuck out of the house
when he started beating my mother so my life was spared.
He assaulted the officers who arrived instead.
Soon after that he started boarding up the windows,
not to keep people out but to keep us inside.
The local church blamed his actions on my mother and set him up with another woman.
At this time period many women who got beat were told they must be doing something wrong.
We were not allowed to leave the yard and increasingly not even allowed to leave the house.
During one of the arguments mom packed up the car with us children and left.
In the process of leaving he jumped on the car and ended up getting his leg runover.
She felt sorry for him /rollseyes
She left him finally and we moved to the countryside.
A single mother now with 5 children.
Trying to care for 5 children was too much for her.
When a younger brother said he would be better off at his fathers
mom then began dropping off all the children at their respective fathers.
She then remarried her third husband.
At 15 I met my father for the first time since I was 2 years old.
My brother was sent back to moms because my father couldnt handle a mentally retarded child.
I wasnt to stay long there as well because Mom wanted me back to act as babysitter/dishwasher.
Dad didnt have custody and didnt know what to do.
Between a step-mother who didnt want me there and a mother who wanted me back
his solution was to drop me off at my maternal grandparents.
They couldnt keep me for long,
mom and the evil step-father from hell wanted me as a babysitter.
I wasnt to stay long there either, for a second time in my life he wanted to kill me.
I ran away and was sent to a christian childrens home.(A home that later came out had sex scandels)
From there I was soon back at my grandparents house.
Grandmother knew it wouldnt be long til mother would try to get me back.
She sent me down to Tennessee to live with my uncle.
He was a Vietnam vet suffering from agent orange in his spine and ptsd.
I spent time working for his landlord removing large rocks and boulders on his farm to help pay for the rent.
Mr Gore(supposedly related to yep VP Al Gore) was great to work for.Taught me how to drive in his El-Camino.
My Uncle didnt get along with him however.
The school system of Tennessee didnt allow all of my credits from Indiana
so I was going to have to spend another year.
At 18 and the prospect of having to live another year there
my uncle was getting unbearable to live with.
Between his increasing violence towards his children
and flashbacks I was afraid for my life again.
With nowhere to go I ended up on the streets of Nashville.
I spent a few months living in a carboard box donating plasma for cash to eat before
an officer showed me the way to
Nashville Union Rescue Mission.
Spent aprox 1 to 2 months there till I enlisted in the Army ending my first time in homelessness.
Aprox 13 schools in 13 years, a highschool dropout in the Army.

I have left out many things that occured,
will try to fill in things if asked and memory permits.
Part 2 and my second time being homeless at a later date.

•  life sucks

  it can only get better they say.
  NOT
  part 2 soon

  by betterdeadthanred on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 01:11:15 PM PDT

  •  I gave you mojo.

    Looking forward to reading the rest of the story. It matters. So do you.

    by wanderindiana on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 02:44:49 PM PDT

  •  Thank you for posting

    It's important for people (including me) to see stories like this.  Thank you.

    by mwk on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 02:54:06 PM PDT

•  almost all homelessness

  of women and children is a result of domestic violence.....sad that a few diaries away from yours there is a labeling/bashfest going on on the lone senator who gives enough of a damn about doing something about domestic violence to have actually written and passed federal laws which are slowly trying to seep into our screwed up way of life. I'm glad you are able to access a computer to tell your story.

  by my foot itches on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 01:48:04 PM PDT

•  You can be a beacon of hope

  Part of the tragedy is that there is another generation coming up after you, and not much has changed for them, either. Last night Firebird posted a diary looking for help for six teenagers she knows. All different circumnstances, most similar to, or worse than yours (one girl being raped by her father).

  But as someone who has survived in similar circumstances, you can be a lifeline for those kids, even if you never meet them. I hope Firebird finds your diaries and shares them. Sometimes just knowing someone else was able to hang on and overcome such adversity helps others to make it too.

  Thanks for posting your story. It will help a lot of people in ways you can't imagine. All my best wishes.

  by carolita on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 03:22:15 PM PDT

  •  I don't know about being a lifeline

    In a previous post I mentioned 2 incidents involving sex abuse in my life.
    Should of related 1 here and the 2nd in part 2, will add the 1 and add the other cases in my family during this time period.

    Before I was born my mother was sexually abused by an uncle, she was blamed.
    At a very young age my mentally retarded brother and I were abused by a neighbor lady.I had blocked it completely till a few years ago when my mother told me about it.
    I still hadnt remembered anything till today.
    She had dressed us up in womens panties is all I can remember, dont want to remember the rest.
    My mentally retarded brother then sexually molested my sister as a baby.

    If it was up to me all child abusers would be executed.They start a chain reaction that goes down thru the generations.

    by betterdeadthanred on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 03:39:30 PM PDT

    •  I meant that as an acknowledgement,

      not as a responsibility. The best any of us can do is try to live our lives honestly, help where we can, and try to do no harm. But you are right about the damage persisting through generations. I can't help but believe that if we, as a society, were quicker to intervene and provide services to the victims, the cycle of abuse could be stopped. It would cost a lot -- about the price of a week in Iraq -- but think of the lives that could be saved.

      Those are the kinds of issues I care about as a voter, too. There was a time that politicians actually talked about providing/improving services to children. And then Reagan came along, and that was all over. Democrats and Republicans raced to see who could throw the most poor and needy people overboard. The Great Society seems so long ago now.

      by carolita on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 11:23:53 PM PDT

•  A better safety net for children

  It sucks when we kids we are totally reliant on what sometimes turns out to be unreliable adults. I will never forget how my Aunt and my Uncle on my father's side congratulated me on making something of myself despite what I dealt with growing up. It literally made me sick to my stomach that they KNEW exactly what was going on and did absolutely nothing to help my mother, brother, or I. I try real hard not to play the what if game but I often wonder what life would be like for me if I hadn't had the rug pulled out from under me as a child.

  by cwaltz on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 03:42:17 PM PDT

  •  Try not to judge them too harshly.

    The unfortunate truth is, there's so often not much an outsider can do.  And they might well have tried things that you either knew nothing of or were too young to recognize.  

    Think about what their options were:

    1.  Talk to him.  They might have tried it, but I'm sure it would have made no difference.

    2.  Beat the shit out of him.  They'd have ended up in jail, and he'd probably just have made it that much worse for you after.

    3.  Offer your mother a refuge.  Would she have been able and willing to go?

    4.  Forcefully remove you from the home.  They would have been in jail.

    5.  Report it to the authorities.  Probably little if anything would have been done.  Not knowing your circumstances, your mother might or might not have cooperated.  But I do know that kids never want to leave their parents, no matter what.  

    It's not a situation easy to know what to do about.  Their hearts could well have been breaking for you, but they had no idea how to help.  Maybe you should talk to them sometime about it.

    by gustynpip on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 03:55:54 PM PDT

    •  My mother was willing to go

      Her mother and father told her that she had made her bed and now she needed to lie in it.( I can not even imagine telling my daughter that if she was ever in the same situation.) My Aunt and Uncle told her that if she wanted to leave that she should go to a shelter.(perhaps not bad advice but certainly not very helpful in the big scheme of things) In the end,she left him once and then because of the emotional abuse coupled with the lack of any support network, she went back. It wasn't until I was a teenager when he got arrested for shooting a police officer that his jail and prison time severed their and our very dysfunctional relationships.

      I have forgiven my aunt and uncle because I know that anger is a poison that slowly destroys the person who bears it but I will never forget that when I needed the adults in my life to protect me, they failed me. I don't see me having a meaningful relationship with folks I could never trust. As it was it took me a long time to heal enough to have a healthy relationship with someone who had never hurt me previously and develop trust enough to realize that not everyone is unreliable.

      by cwaltz on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 04:32:23 PM PDT

      •  families and their secrets

        makes you want to scream at times.
        Sometimes you don't learn about the secrets till the family member is dead or dying.
        Family problems stay in the family is a theme that dates back a long ways.

        by betterdeadthanred on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 04:44:55 PM PDT

      •  Sounds like a lot of people failed you

        and your mom.  I can understand not feeling close to them.  And it sounds as though you have managed to find a healthy place in your mind.  As I've gotten older, and stood in the places of people I was so disappointed in when I was younger because they weren't there when I needed them or they didn't live up to what I expected, I've realized how hard it is to know sometimes that something needs to be done, hard to know what to do even when you know its something, and harder even to do it.  So I've softened my judgements, and often wish I had learned the lessons earlier when I could have let them know I did appreciate other things they provided.
        I hope you and your mom are in a better place in your lives now.  It's so hard when people have to start out with so many strikes against them.

        by gustynpip on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 06:04:04 PM PDT

•  Tragic when your mother gets beat up

  I can see why you got depressed. I've worked with women who were abused as an attorney. The abusers are very sly and hard to deal with, very manipulative people. I'm looking foward to part II of your story.

  by BlueTide on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 04:48:47 PM PDT

•  thank you

  sharing your experiences helps me realize that I got off pretty easy, despite what gaps/neglects did occur, and that, however negligent I may have been towards my own children, they got off pretty easy also.

  That basicly translates into: no sexual abuse or violence. A very bare minimum, but a line that separates a lot of people.

  It may be hard for those who have experienced it, but there are nowadays, a vast majority of people in America whose lives are so secure that they have never experienced, personally, physical violence or intimidation.  So bland and safe a life do they lead that they seek out danger in extreme sports, and call it entertainment to view men beating each other with fists, or watch endless episodes of violence on TV and the movies.  

  All abstractions. They are clueless as to the actual mental/emotional damage done long after whatever physical bruises/injuries have healed, what it's like to live in a body that has been assaulted, knows intimately the meaning of "vulnerable".  Or to have real reason to fear for one's life.

  Somehow, you have survived all this and are even so enlightened as to seek help/empathy from this forum that fancies itself as a community. you are a rare and valuable individual, and you are far more than just your past.

  by claude on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 05:15:34 PM PDT

•  part 2

  is up

  by betterdeadthanred on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 11:09:50 AM PDT