The Past Ten Years (From a Child's Perspective)

On July 17, 2014, my two younger sisters ran away. That's the story that got so many people involved with my family's situation. But the story behind what happened this July has lasted over ten years... It's the story of my life.

When I was nine years old, my parents separated. I never understood what it was like to not live in constant fear of my father. I felt that I was living with a ticking time bomb, because if my sisters or I did things such as eat the wrong way or close a door wrong, he would become extremely aggressive towards us. He would hurt us physically by pinching and twisting skin, thumping on the head, yanking limbs, etc. He also attacked my mom if she did anything he disapproved of--and that could be literally anything. I saw him not only psychologically but physically abuse her, and that was so harmful to me. Up until the time of my parent's separation, I thought that's what dads were like. I thought being afraid of my dad was normal. Seeing the way he treated my mom, I learned to think that was just how fathers treated mothers. I was always confused when I went to my friend's houses and saw that their dads were loving and treated their wives and families with kindness and respect.

When my mom chose to leave late one night and take us to a shelter, I had never felt more safe and protected in my life.  I felt so happy because I was away from my dad. Being a nine year old girl, I wasn't sure if I should feel guilty for being so happy and not missing his presence. Knowing we were somewhere where he couldn't get to us made me feel so secure.

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After a few months we started seeing my dad again. We moved into an apartment with our mom, and started weekend visits with him. We had counseling through ACAFS in Provo, Utah and some others. My dad began to use different types of abuse, like mental and emotional, to punish us for anyone we'd open up to. He'd threaten us, and say things such as "I know everything you've ever said and wrote about me. You're such a liar, I can't believe you're so untrustworthy." He'd talk constantly about our mom going to jail if we told people what he had done. It was absolute terrorism to such young children--my younger sisters were only five and three and a half years old.  Since the youngest was a toddler, she often cried during the weekends with our dad because she missed our mom so bad. She would beg to call our mother, and my dad would take the cell phone my mom had given us and wouldn't let us call--not even to calm his daughter from her constant sobs. It would not have taken more than a quick call to help her.

My  mom, on the other hand, tried to encourage a healthy relationship with our dad. She made sure we made our weekly calls to him that were court scheduled, even when we resisted. When we'd scream and cry before visits to my dad she would try her best to soothe us. She didn't speak negatively about our dad--not even when we told her what he had said to scare us. I distinctly remember her nourishing the good memories we had of him, and trying to help us focus on the positive. She encouraged us to be involved in art and music, and develop our talents. She helped us reach our potentials and boosted our self-esteem continually. 

Flash forward about five years, and the situation with our dad had continually gotten worse. He didn't let us call our mom on visits with him, was bashing her more and more frequently, and continued to target and threaten us individually for things we'd said in the past to therapists. This was hard for my sisters and I, because all we'd done was try to cry for help, and we were being punished relentlessly for that. He began targeting our character, saying things such as "You're choosing to follow the adversary/Satan," "You're throwing away your life," "It's so sad that I will never be able to trust you for what you've done," etc. These things were destructive to our self-esteem as well as our spiritual well-being, because we were strong members of our church. 

He was attacking everything about us--our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual selves. My self esteem plummeted, and my sisters' did as well. We had to learn to hide how we felt from everyone (church members, neighbors, peers at school, even my dad's side of the family), because if we seem depressed or even sad in the slightest, he would lecture us and drain us even more. He wanted us to appear constantly happy to the community, to appear to everyone that we were a perfect family and my mom was the 'bad' parent, but those who were closest to us saw when our walls of perfection came down. Those who knew us the closest were aware that we were crumbling inside.

My mom was aware of our suffering, and it affected our time with her, because my dad was emotionally abusing us so severely that we would come home extremely weighed-down. We'd have to "unwind" from being in such a toxic environment--it was as if we'd have to come out of depression after every weekend we saw him. We were physically sick more often than normal, from all the stress he caused. My sisters and I felt that it would never end. 

My dad won custody in March 2011, after an unfortunate series of events including technicalities, as well as conflict of interests between appointed court people (I won't go into depth, but more answers on this can be found on the timeline and documents tabs). Sydney, Dani and I will never forget the day custody was changed. 'Painful' would not be an adequate word to describe that day. We had been checked out of school that day, and once we traveled to Provo to be informed that custody had changed, we weren't allowed to see our mom or go get our things. We were torn from everything we ever knew--our schools (although the courts promised we could go to our registered schools, we were forced to switch), our friends, our family, church community, neighborhood, and our primary caregiver; our mother. My mom had full custody for six years, and even before that, she was the parent that was most involved in our raising. The three of us were unprepared for the amount of detrimental change that altered our entire universe.

Our world crumbled around us after we moved in with our dad, as we anticipated. Without our mom's loving understanding, we were forced to endure my dad's relentless attacks alone. We were not only kept from seeing our mother, but kept from each other--my dad would monitor us constantly and we weren't allowed to talk without being in his presence. Many tears of absolute hopelessness were shed behind our bedroom doors, alone. It didn't take long--merely months--for our dad to tell us to "get over it." We weren't allowed to cry in front of him or my stepmom, express that we missed our mom, or even show that we were sad. Our emotions were being extremely bottled at his decisions, for reasons I still don't understand. 

I would like to go into a little more depth about our switching schools. As we sat at a long table in the office of our GAL (who had never even spoken with us before, by the way), and he told us that custody had been changed, we were so shaken that we couldn't speak. When tears began to surface as the weight of what had happened hit me, I looked at him and asked, "We still get to stay at our same schools, right?" His answer of "yes" wasn't enough for me--I asked him to promise us. He and the others in that room promised me. I couldn't imagine moving to a new school, on top of everything else. I knew that I was going to be depressed for a while, and I needed the small amount of social support that came through friends. It wasn't just that I'd lose all my friends, but I was concerned about bullying and other social aspects. I was especially concerned for my little sisters' young vulnerability to bullying. As we fought back sobs when leaving that Provo office, the only thing I could focus on was that I wouldn't have to change schools. So, when my dad told us later that summer that he planned to have us change schools, it shook me to the core. It was the only promise the court people made to me, and my dad broke it like it was nothing.

A major loss to my sisters and I was our most prized talents and passions. Art was a way I'd expressed myself since I was old enough to pick up a crayon.  Our mom recognized my gift, and nurtured it with love and devotion. She built my self esteem through my talents, and allowed me to reach my fullest potential with it. With her help, I was awarded countless trophies, certificates, and medals for my artwork through Utah's 'Reflections' program, state fairs, and school district competitions. I watched her do the same with Sydney and Dani. We thrived through art, including music. My mom was a piano teacher, and she taught all three of us. We won numerous awards through piano, and joyed in the knowledge that we would always have that instrument to rely on in our lives. Everything I am now I owe to her--the reason my sisters and I didn't absolutely fall apart through the past ten years was because of her and her faith in us. Not only our creative abilities, but our strength and other emotional, spiritual, and mental abilities.

When my dad got custody, there was no more art and music. We fell out of our regular practice, because whenever we'd try to play, he would tell us to stop or give us tasks to complete. We began losing our hard-earned abilities with the instrument we'd known our whole lives, and that was hard for us. It was just as bad with art. As soon as custody was transferred, I was forbidden from taking any art classes. (In fact, I got in trouble for having to go behind his back to sign up for a college art class my senior year). My whole life I dreamed of being an artist and pianist. Art was a huge part of who I was and how I expressed myself. It was therapeutic for me, a critical outlet in times of stress. When my dad took that from me, I felt like I was going to unravel. The years I have lost in my musical and artistic development, as well as my sisters, are irreplaceable. 

Something that was terribly difficult for me to watch was the way Dad started treating Angie. As soon as we found out she was going to be our stepmom (a few days before the wedding), I feared for her. I even wrote in my journal about it at age twelve. I hoped with all my heart that my dad could somehow change--that somehow he would never mistreat his new wife the way he had to my mom. When they were married, it was obvious that Angie had no idea about what had gone on in my family's past. He had entirely kept her in the dark about how he abused us (and now its clear to me that she had no clue about the affairs and other marital issues, too). I felt so bad for her, but my sisters and I didn't know if warning her would help anything (we were only 12, 8 and 6 years old at the time). Angie was the sweetest, kindest woman we ever could have asked for as a stepmom. She came into the situation with such grace, and tried her best to make the transition as normal as possible. We love Angie, and seeing the way my dad began to use the same abusive techniques toward her as my mom killed us inside. 

I honestly don't know how I lived through the next four years. My sisters and I weren't living; we were surviving. Every day we were walking on nails. Anytime our dad was away at work, we mentally prepared ourselves for what was inevitable once he got home--hours of incessant tirades full of disrespectful words towards our mother and our character. It was hard to focus on school, homework, friends, chores, etc. while we were engulfed by constant fear and stress. We suffered physically through our emotional distress--constant headaches, stomach aches, severe acne, bed wetting, and numerous other symptoms. I struggle even now to describe the severity of the effects that came from living with him.