In my church we believe families can be together forever and what a beautiful concept. In 2004 I was sealed to my parents in the Anchorage Alaska Temple. I don't think I could have had better parents than mine. They loved me uncondionally and never gave up on me in my hard times.
However, I've had family members who've abused me terribly throughout my life.
At 20 years of age I was beaten unmercifully with a belt by my oldest brother. Just a few days before his death this year in February he had his daughter call to apologize for what he did. It took him 40 years to apologize.
Now all it would have taken during those years was that apology you know?
How did that beating affect my life? Well I didn't have much self-confidence in me. I had a hard time holding down jobs or finishing things I started. I was married to an abuser in 1979 who constantly put me down. I remember finding one of my cats in the garage who'd been abused by neighbor dogs and I took her to the vets crying all the way. It seemed her little spirit had just given up. She'd been so happy and full of life before my marriage. I think I knew then I had to leave my husband because he was doing that same exact thing to me as the abuse of my cat by those dogs.
I had one niece write me a letter and tell me how much harder she'd worked in her life
than I had and that I couldn't hold down a job. Oh yes, she was better educated as well. She went on and on in a handwriting that looked wo
rse than a 8th grader with all the misspelled words and poorly written grammer. I didn't answer that letter because it didn't deserve an answer.
I went through alot living in Washington and Alaska. Never had a husband to take care of me. I guess it was easier being alone in the world than putting up with some abuser to constantly make fun of me and put me down.
It wasn't until I went through counseling did I realize just how much I had been abused in my life and why I always found abusive men. It was because women that have been abused feel that abusive men are all that they deserve. If they see their dad's abusing their mother's the daughters will pick men who abuse them.
I didn't have a dad who abused my mother but I saw my sister Carolyn plenty abused. I remember her husband beating her black and blue and she came home to Oregon so broken. He'd punched her in the stomach and beat her terribly. She had one boyfriend who'd leave bruise marks on her arms. One time she came up our road to our house after one had beaten her bloody and I remember my mother screaming. Another time another boyfriend had driven on the freeway about 100 mph screaming at her she was nothing but a whore and I asked him "What are you then? A whoremonger?"
After I left Mel I found someone at college when I took a Medical Assistant Course at a community college in Washington. I thought he cared about me but his mother was so controlling and manipulating I couldn't take her anymore. Bill eventuly joined the Mormon church but he'd psychologically abused me. Back in the 80's the economy was so bad there wasn't alot of jobs. I remember going to pick him up for a church function or dance and he gave me a bunch of pennies to get home on even though he was working and I wasn't. After he joined the church he thought he was God's gift to women I suppose. He'd call me up to help him "fix up" for his dates! I could go on and on until I couldn't take it anymore and finally sent his ring to him.
I remember one girl that wasn't very pretty, homely actually. After my divorce the bishop asked me to stay with her on the weekends because she'd tried to kill herself and had ended up in the Psychiatric Unit of the hospital. She would tell me how her husband would beat her even when she was pregnant and go to church on Sunday and act like the perfect Mormon priesthood holder. One time when Bill and I were at a dance I saw Kenny dancing with his new wife and they'd invited Bill and I over for dinner. I told Bill I wouldn't step one foot in that man's house for the way he'd abused Andrea.
I saw so much abuse in my own church I just stopped attending. My sister Carolyn lived by members that would beat their kids so badly with belts she couldn't stand the screams!
I loved my church don't get me wrong but I had a hard time with the hypocrites like Mel Fahnholz who went to church on Sunday's yet abused me and one time took a belt and beat his son with it. Back then I'd get sick easily because I've suffered with a chronic lung disease most of my life and when I couldn't go to church Mel Fahnholz would tell everyone in the church what an "apostate" he had for a wife!
After our divorce they gave this man a temple recommend! And you know? I wouldn't even go into the House of the Lord until I felt totally worthy of one. I wouldn't go as a liar and a hypocrite. I remember him telling a bunch of lies about me right in church and I just looked at him and said--"You know Mel you can lie to a bishop and you can lie to a Stake President but there is one man you can never lie to and that is God!" And I walked out.
Abuse isn't just from men or family it can be from authority figures as well. I struggedled so hard to get my teacher's degree after graduating from Centralia College. I transferred my credits to Grays Harbor College in Aberdeen, Washington and there was virtually no work because of a spotted owl.
Jobs were so hard to find. I'd worked almost three years as a Nursing Assistant but got let go because of hurting my back and qualified for a Timber Grant from the State of Washington. I majored in Early Childhood Education and got two free years of college. I'd already went there for my prerequisites to transfer to a four-year school to get my teacher's degree.
Anyway I was forced into moving into this really bad house because I couldn't afford my rent. It was so bad that rats would eat my tin cans! The City of Hoquiam condemned the place and threw out all my hard earned college papers, books, pictures of my family, and even a quilt I had given to me by family. Just outside in the mud. I got two fines while living there and just refused to pay them. I could have gone to jail for not paying those fines but I didn't think they deserved to be paid.
Anyway, when I went to Alaska I didn't have to worry about going to jail in Grays Harbor County although it felt like Gestapo County instead. In Alaska I at least had my freedom. I started writing to a man Herder Winkleman in Anchorage who sent me a plane ticket to Anchorage. I had one unemployment check left. I had almost finished my teacher's degree and could have finished it by Satellite Disc from Central Washington University. I had worked at Childcare Connections on a worksite position and did practicum's at both daycares and a Elementary school.
But I started writing to Herder and we had so much in common. He had almost his Master's in Education and I had worked so hard to get my BA degree. We both loved kids and he had two kids and he liked gardening, etc.
Anyway, when I got to Alaska he wasn't attracted to me because I wasn't as skinny as his blonde ex-wife. Within a months' time found myself homeles in Alaska. It wasn't fun especially during the wintertime. I asked him to watch my cat and when I finally found a place to live in, he'd taken her to a animal shelter and I knew what happened to cats there!
How I mourned for this cat just like I did my cat when I was married. How've I've suffered because of no account men and a family who could care less about me. I waited for buses in -40 degree weather, lived in a Bed & Breakfast on Spenard Road where the ice would come inside the windows. I had men deliberately try and run me over while waiting for a bus. Once I had two job interviews and two rednecks deliberately splashed me with mud. Like anyone is going to hire someone covered in mud! But I still went on those interviews.
Well I'd left the church many years but one night came upon an LDS church in downtown Anchorage. I remember what an old bishop had said about "When you see an LDS church it's like coming home again." I sat out in the cold and wind and cried and wondered why I had left a church I loved so much.
So when I saw the Anchorage Alaska temple being rebuilt I wanted to go inside. I went to the bishop and told him I wanted to get a recommend. We talked about why'd I'd left the church and within a year's time I had my limited temple recommend interview. I wouldn't go as a hypocrite though inside the temple. I prayed outside the temple gates and asked the Lord if I was worthy and I could see my savior telling me and showing me his hands with the scars from where he'd hung on the cross. He told me I was more than worthy to go into his house and showed me the flowers.
When I was baptised for the dead, I felt every sin I'd committed just washed away! And I knew the Lord had forgiven me. I just needed to learn to forgive me.
Before I'd gone to the temple I thought I finally found someone in Anchorage, Alaska. His name was Sidney Cates and he was tall and handsome and had blue eyes and dark hair. But I'd lost my job right before Christmas because of illness and we'd gone to a Mexican restaurant to eat dinner after shopping at Walmart. I couldnt' afford the $100 a month car insurance so would leave my little truck at the bus stop to do shopping.
So we went to the restaurant and I kept having chest pains from the spicy Mexican food and I asked the waiter for a glass of milk to help my Acid Reflux Disease I suffer from. Did Sidney help me at all? He was embarrassed about me almost passing out at the restaurant and stood outside screaming at me to get outside. By the time I could catch my breath and breathe again I went outside in the cold and snow and he called me a bitch and few other choice words and threw my Walmart shopping bags at me. Told me I could carry them home myself! And there were quite a few.
By the time I got to my apartment after walking in the cold and snow I sat sobbing on my couch and said--"Nobody loves me. Just nobody loves me." Except my old Grandma Cat Pokey who I hugged.
We went together about three years and after getting my temple recommend and going to the temple and taking sacred covenants and forced to moved to Wasilla, Sidney called and told me basically if I didn't have sex with him we couldn't see one another more. I told him that I wouldn't give up my temple recommend for any man nor lie to Heavenly Father someday why I couldn't live the law of chastity. Told him to find some hooker in Anchorage if he wanted sex so badly. So he did!
And you know? The name John Hansen came to me about then 'once again.' A man who was killed in a war, a man I knew who wouldn't abuse me, but just simply love a Deborah.
And I knew the Lord had blessed me from beyond.
Have I been abused since? Oh yes, plenty by ward members making fun of me when I had to go on a disability and women who left me on the side of the road on the way to the temple. When I left Alaska I had a RS President and others who went through my stuff and threw away things I held most dear. Stuff I couldn't afford to send right away. And things I told her I would send more money for postage for. They even took my sacred garments and threw them in an Old Liquor Store Box.
But since moving to Boise I've had a bishop get me a brand new bed and other household items, and a RS president who brought me over some furniture I am still using. A Visiting Teacher who gave me a couple chairs and a Home Teacher who gave me this laptop computer. Plus my sister just sent me a most beautiful temple dress in the mail. The Mormon women had gotten rid of my dresses too. And my sister came over 600 miles to bring me stuff too. The only one in my family who seems to care.
When I got to Boise all my sister Doris could do was call me and tell me I looked like a Mexican and said very patronizingly that it's "too bad I didn't get my teacher's degree."
I didn't know how to answer her you know and didn't think she deserved one you know?
Yes, we can't be the same can we? But I am thankful I've never deliberatly tried to hurt others like they've hurt me. I guess this is why I have "Avoidant Personality Disorder" because I've been too hurt by people. It's a disorder where people don't really like being around people or associating with them.
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