Abused rarely live normal lives

High Plains resident “Mary” can identify with the 13 California siblings imprisoned and abused by their parents.

Growing up with nine siblings in a northern state, she said she lived a constant nightmare.

“The violence in our home was so extreme we covered our heads whenever our parents approached,” Mary said. “We were afraid for our and our siblings’ lives.”

Her father, who worked for the federal government, announced at 39 he’d never return to work. Her mother, who had a third-grade education and became a cook, blamed the kids for his “breakdown.”

Mary, 8 at the time, says — rather than taking him to the vet — her parents stabbed her dog to death that same year.

Breaking into tears, Mary remembers when she was 13 her parents smothered to death their youngest child — a 3-month-old blind girl with a cleft palate.

When Mary’s 18-year-old brother, who was forced to marry his pregnant girlfriend, brought home the family car 15 minutes late because he’d been visiting his infant daughter — who ended up dying — in the hospital, her dad tried to choke him to death.

“My father once tried to smother me because I was crying, but a sister intervened,” Mary said.

There was constant screaming, cursing and other verbal abuse, including telling the kids they were stupid and worse.

“We were warned not to air dirty laundry,” Mary said about why they never reported their parents (now deceased). “In the ’60s, no one reported their parents anyway.”

They rarely attended school (two siblings never attended). She attended five partial, nonconsecutive years. Only one sibling finished high school.

Mary helped take care of the house — grocery shopping, paying bills, cleaning and laundry.

The siblings seldom left the house, and had few friends.

“My older sister was once beaten so badly she didn’t leave the house for weeks,” Mary said. “Because so much was kept in the family, we didn’t have close relationships with outsiders.”

They never knew what to expect.

“My parents gave us nice Christmases, but the days before and after were violent. Christmas was like a ceasefire, with the war resuming the next day.”

Her parents came from violent homes. Her maternal grandmother murdered one of her children, burned others in the face with a hot iron, and beat them regularly, Mary said.

Mary’s paternal grandmother was a violent alcoholic who beat her children, and nearly burned the house down while intoxicated.

“I never had friends, and really still don’t,” Mary said. “I felt afraid of other people, and felt stupid, ugly and worthless. To this day, I do not easily trust others.”

She and her siblings never bonded as adults, and most repeated the pattern of abuse. Five died as “younger people.” Those still living are “profoundly broken people,” she said.

She attributes her escape from the pattern to a decades-long happy marriage to a “wonderful man” that has produced a well-adjusted son and daughter, now adults, whom they never hit or verbally abused.

Mary, who still grimaces when she hears a child cry, says the 13 California siblings will probably never live normal lives.

“Child abuse produces devastating results,” Mary said. “They will have to learn that the hardest part of recovery is learning how to trust yourself.

“Healing truly comes from within.”

Contact Wendel Sloan at: [email protected]