Overview

      I grew up in a coastal town of South Carolina. I grew up in what looked like, from the outside, a normal home in a middle class neighborhood. To all that knew my family we were a happy family. Little did everyone know that we were all things wrong. My mother and father did not work real jobs. My grandparents lived in the same house with us. Every bit of money our family had was dirty money. However I was the child that never went without. By the looks of it I was spoiled rotten.
To this day I wonder if anyone thought how a child with no working parent had all the latest things. My fancy toys were not enough to make my childhood good.
      My childhood consisted of many thing. Rape, molestation, sodomy, massive hate littering, destruction of property, breaking and entering, grave yard stealing, and elderly abuse were just a some of what my childhood consisted of. All of this at my father's lead. A man with a criminal record a mile long in multiple states was the destruction of both myself and in many ways my mother who still remains with him even though she knows all he has done. 
      My father married my mother not long after she turned 18. He was in his mid 30's at the time. My mother had already given birth to a boy. I still don't know what happened, but he ended up growing up with my aunt and I didn't even know he was my brother until I was 12 when my grandmother let it slip. My mother never finished high school. The only life she has ever known has been what my father has taught her to be. I struggle to not make excuses for her. I so desperately want to believe that she wanted what was best for me but was too scared to do it. That somehow fear is what made her choose him over me. That she didn't know what was going on, but in my heart I know that all my excuses will never be enough to make me understand.