Trauma Dump

Trauma Dump Giving you all the tea from childhood to the present in detail and a little extra.

10/31/2024

Fried chicken and ice cream cake

Leaving 6th grade behind and my birthday in less than a week away, I was actually excited. My grandma had promised to get my favrotie take out and order the only cake any kid wants. My brother and I were living with my grandma and her husband the last couple weeks of school because mom hadn’t paid the rent for the last 3 months. She said she couldn’t bare to see us kids homeless again. Back to sharing a bed with my brother, I stared at the oil lamp that decorated the guest bedroom we were occupying. A clean house, clean sheets, and no real threat of danger was rare for me. I don’t think my brother really understood too much of anything, he was 2 1/2 years younger than me and was attached to mom like a parasite. I couldn’t comprehend the love he had for her. So hearing him cry for her every night became routine and so annoying. Watching the warm glow reflect off the beautiful mahogany dresser I slowly drifted off to sleep.

8am on a Saturday morning came too quickly. My body had become part of the bed. Peeling my limbs off the fresh cotton cloth was almost painful. Grandma liked a clean house more than anything and if we did our chores, we were able to do what our heart desired the rest of the day. Using the hot soapy washcloth on the mop boards, I made my way to his office. The smell of a cologne that would haunt me in my adult years crawled up my nostrils and hit my sinuses like a freight train. It’s like he bathed in it. Grandma told me to get every single mop board which included his off limits office. I didn’t want to hear the nagging but also didn’t want to face his wrath again. I slowly and meticulously cleaned the mop boards making sure to dry them immediately after so that they wouldn’t drip onto his carpet. I was so excited to finish that I stood up a little too fast and my shoulder bumped his desk. The holy grail of operations. I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch anything with my “grubby little fingers” so as I stared at what used to be a glass wolf replica shattered into pieces I could feel my heart sink to my stomach. I quickly gathered all the pieces slicing my hand in the process. I presented it to my grandma on a bloody white washcloth. She didn’t even ask if I was hurt, her gasp could have been heard across town. I explained what happened and I was met with silence. She went online to order another and I was sent to the yard to pick weeds with my fresh wounds.

The fried chicken tasted better than ever before and I couldn’t inhale the ice cream cake fast enough. I looked up from my clean plate about to ask for another slice when I noticed his glare. Pure hatred shot from his eyes like a laser straight into my own. Grandma must have told him. I could never trust her to keep a secret. Even ones I knew were meant to protect me. I washed the dishes after skipping the second slice and put my delicious birthday dinner left overs away. I had some time to read before bed and I wish I had chosen anything but murder mystery. I was pulling back those inviting sheets again when I hear him call my name. He was in the den. I counted my steps like a pirate balancing on a plank. He motioned for me to sit on the couch. The conversation started off normally enough “you should be greatful I love your grandmother enough to let you two disgusting rats live here”. He was only about 2 feet from me but the kettle one vodka on his breath permeated the space like a fog. My mind tends to drift when he speaks to me because it’s never anything close to nice, so when he was centimeters away from my face yelling at the top of his lungs “you’re just like your mother, you’re going to end up on drugs and spreading your legs on the street” “do you hear me c**t?!”. That caught my attention, not like his short chunky fingers squeezing my cheeks into my teeth couldn’t. Nose to nose, spit to face, he blathered on about my horrible future as my mother’s clone. He ended his rant with a good ole “stupid c**t, get to bed and never step foot in my office again”.

I couldn’t have jumped into bed fast enough. I didn’t think his words had any affect on me after years of the same innocuous sp*ech but for some reason I was silently sobbing into my pillow. I could only block out so much, I was terrified of my future. The last thing on earth I ever wanted to be was her. 

10/30/2024

Strength

I was 13 and mom left me in charge of my brother for the night so she could go out on a date night with her boyfriend Luis. I had asked her all day to let me go by my friends house who lived just across the block so I could get my straightener back. I needed it for school the next day. It was my only birthday gift I had gotten that year. The only gift I had gotten in many years come to think of it. She said no and bound me to my poor excuse for a room. It was technically a closet because I didn’t have a window. The moment they left I told my brother I’d be right back and not to lock me out. I ran down the stairs and looked for her car. The coast was clear so I took off running towards my friends house. I stumbled into a flowery bush against the church that stood between our houses and a flash of light hit my peripheral vision. Ducking down making myself as small as possible, the red Oldsmobile toting around my mom and her sorry excuse for a man sp*ed up and round the corner of our block. I took off. Jumped the curb and wrapped on her door. Her mom asked what’s wrong once I was able to verbalize “straightener, I ran, do you have it?” I didn’t have time. She must have deciphered my very breathy panicked code because she came back with my purple straightener. I turned around and ran as fast as I could to try and beat them up the stairs. Mom always needed a smoke before she left her car so I knew there was a chance she didn’t see me and I could take the ally and lock myself in my room and pretend I never left.

She knew it was me. I could hear her swearing as she stomped up the stairs. Splinters of wood landed at the foot of my bed as her shoe made contact with my door. Her face was scrunched, eyes bloodshot and piercing. Her hand was much bigger than my throat. I could only take a breath when Luis distracted her with suggestions for punishment. I slipped my index fingers between her palm and my throat. She gripped harder. Luis pulled my hands away and my back began to slide up the wall. She was speaking in tongues as the fumes of her words stung my eyes. I wasn’t crying but she took it as such and ridiculed me for it anyway. My head felt like it was going to explode and then everything was silent. She was still screaming nose to nose. The last sentences I heard were “Denise come on that’s enough” and her demonic “it’s never enough for this c*nt”.

My alarm blaring at 5:30am was solace. I slowly pulled my clothes on and dragged my feet to the bathroom. I painfully stretched my neck to gaze into the toothpaste and spit stained mirror. Black and purple fingerprints imbedded into my skin. I wasn’t crying because of the pain, I was frustrated because I knew mom wouldn’t let me use her makeup to cover it up. I pulled on my school hoodie so I could hold the hood together as I walked the halls. A few strange glances from regulars on the city bus and a couple of awkward answers for the probing questions a few teachers asked later it was time to wait for my chariot of torture. She was late, again. Blasting 103.7 on the radio I jumped in the backseat hoping I’d be left alone. Hearing her chuckle I knew it was coming. She made fun of my new necklace and asked if anyone said anything. I told her no and kept to myself. After dinner I put my finger down my gullet to induce the most convincing vomit. I stayed home for a week pretending I had a stomach bug icing my throat while I counted how many men she had pass through our threshold of nightmares. I never thought too much about my own death but that entire week I contemplated it. However, being sad was only ever temporary for me. Anger replaced it quickly and I wished for her demise every minute of every day I was stuck inside that closet.

10/30/2024

Homeless at 10

My eyes burst open at the loud boom of my mothers voice “let’s f***ing go, I don’t have time for this bullsh*t, we need to leave, wake the f*** up Denae”. I jumped out of my bed and raced to the bathroom. I washed my hands and noticed there wasn’t a towel to dry them. Not totally abnormal considering we almost never had clean laundry. The confusion started as I stumbled over the garbage bags that tumbled their way in front of the bathroom door. There were more people here now. Mom was still yelling at everyone, especially me, I had nothing packed. I grabbed a couple bags from the torn box on the kitchen table. My heart was racing and my brain was moving in a panic trying to decide what was most important to me. Clothes of course and then my diary, toiletries, my favorite photo book…yeah that seems about right. Filling two garbage bags and grabbing my backpack and the comforter off my twin bed was all I could carry to the car.

I was used to moving by now but I thought we’d be back tomorrow for the rest of our things. Mom cried the entire way to her friends house where she said she’d keep what we couldn’t carry. The second stop was dark and a little chilly. I know this park. My grandma used to take me and my brother here to feed the geese. Who knew the dark bushes that housed those geese would become my new hovel.

I don’t know if I was imagining it or if I really was feeling a spider or two crawling up my leg. Listening to the animals I now shared a cold hard bed with, I wrapped myself up as tight as I could in my blanket and held the ends shut. I don’t think we’re going to school tomorrow, mom doesn’t have a car and no money for the bus. I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how cold the summer nights became. The morning came quicker than I expected and my stomach felt like it was sinking inside my body. Mom left us under the bushes out of sight and told us to be quiet or someone was going to steal us away from her. I thought about screaming for help every time I saw a nice family walking by. I would make up their life stories as I watched them pass by without a care in the world. I wish I was born into one of those families instead of the one I was sentenced to.

My brother woke up crying that night. Mom still hadn’t come back. Telling him about the boogie man again helped him stop. I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. I didn’t have a watch or clock of any sort near me but the moon was bright and the stars glittered in the dark black pool above my head. I heard staggering footsteps getting closer and I slowed my breathing. Mom cuddled up behind me and my brother. She smelled like sweat, burnt hair, and ci******es, with a hint of minty alcohol. She started to pet my hair and slowly faded away again. This wasn’t the first time I’ve smelled s*x, drugs, and alcohol on her. I learned about all of that a few years ago when I caught one of her drug dealers smashing his fat dirty body into hers against the shadeless window. I couldn’t help but watch because I didn’t know exactly what was happening until I saw all the hairy parts and I felt nauseous. He noticed me at the window and threw a beer bottle at my head through that same filthy window. I woke up a couple hours later with a green and purple bump on my forehead that stayed with me for a week. I told friends I fell at the playground.

Crunching and slurping woke me up. I p*eked through my blanket cocoon and my brother was eating Doritos and a red sp*edway slushie. That hunger pain was back again. It hurt to sit up. Mom shoved a powdered donut pack and a water into my lap. I threw up the two bites of donut I could swallow and that landed me a chunky ringed back hand. My eye started to swell shut and the blood ran into my mouth. I slowly stood up after mom grabbed all of our stuff and shoved it in the back of a black sedan. I wanted to stay under the bush. I didn’t want to go with the strange lady with the cigarette dangling from her dry crusted lip. I ended up not having a choice as mom all but picked me up and put me in the back seat.

White musk and dog hair smelled like heaven to me. I knew I was safe when I heard her voice. My grandma was like an angel. I never believed in god and still don’t but in the moments where she came around to protect me and my brother it was like being surrounded by clouds of clean air and danger was no longer in my vernacular. We lived with her for a while until she paid for mom’s rent again for yet another bare apartment. I got in trouble at school for missing two weeks and it was torture to catch up with all the homework. But that was just another feeling I’ve become accustomed to. Always behind and struggling to catch up.

10/29/2024

Have you ever been held up at gun point? …
How about more than once? …

The very first time I can remeber the cold steel of a gun against the skin of my back I was around 13 years old. It was summer. My mascara and eyeliner were running and my hair was no longer straight. Walking from an old friends house back to the dirty crack shack I called home, I felt like I was being watched. It had to have been around 7pm, just before dark. My Walmart converse shuffling on the sidewalk were the only noise I heard against the traffic but I still felt the need to walk a little faster and keep my head on a swivel. I turned down my street about 3 blocks from my house. I looked down at my shoes as I crossed the street and I felt chills down my spine the moment I heard his voice. I can’t remember his name now but I knew it well then. It was one of my mother’s drug dealers that doubled as a s*x trafficker and I’ve gotten away from him once before by the skin of my teeth. I could feel in my bones I wouldn’t get away this time without a miracle. His big filthy hand bruisingly gripped my arm. And the barrel of his gun slid from the base of my spine to the nape of my neck. Most of what he whispered in my ear was nonsense but the one thing that stood out most to me was hearing my death warrant drip from his tongue. My mother owed him a lot of money, more than what her body was worth. She tried to barter my virginity for her debt once before and somehow found just the right customer to steal from to pay it off. He told me in the deepest voice and raunchiest breath “I will follow you and watch you until I’m ready for that ripe fresh p***y, you grew up so nice Denae, I’m going to rip you apart before I lay your cold blue body on your porch for that c**t” “tell your mother she owes me and I’ll take what I want until she pays me off”.

I couldn’t breathe. My lungs stopped working and my body was frozen. My legs wouldn’t move. As if his words dug my grave beneath my feet right into the concrete where I stood. I don’t know how long I stood there before I realized he was gone and I was alone in the dark being eaten alive by mosquitoes. The last one bit me so hard it helped my body come alive again. Suddenly I was sprinting and almost fell up my front stairs. I cried myself to sleep, something I had been accustomed too. This was the beginning of my insomnia. I hadn’t felt safe since I was sporting my Barney nightgown. I’ve always had trouble sleeping but this was a new level of terror that burrowed its way into my cerebrum and has stayed ever since.

He didn’t make contact with me again, or that I know of, until I was 18 driving down Ryan road when he pulled me over. That’s another story for another time though. I don’t think I’ll ever come out of fight mode. I’ve never flew enough to choose flight.

10/28/2024

Burnt hair at 2am.

I was about 8 years old. Living in a four family home with no electricity, no warm running water, and all of 2 saltine cracker packs and ketchup in the fridge. Covering myself with semi-dirty clothes to stay warm under my unwashed comforter, I woke up to the smell of something horrible. I also had to use the bathroom. I got up and did my very quiet careful check of the hall making sure I didn’t wake whatever random dangerous man that was passed out in my mothers den. I followed the smell and the urge of my bladder to the bathroom on my tip toes. It was as dark and cold as it was outside. I turned to my right out of the stale dirty kitchen toward the bathroom. The smell is much stronger now. I heard the toilet flush and a slight thump. I was hoping it wasn’t another scary sweaty man but then I heard someone talking. It sounded like my mom but I was never sure of anything in this house. I opened the bathroom door making sure not to graze my knuckles on the chipped paint again and saw my mother slumped on the toilet. The moonlight was just enough to see the weird piece of glass hammocked in her underwear between her bruised knees. They were a deep purple like the tip of my marker gets when I squish it as hard as I can on the paper to see how much ink comes out. More purple than yesterday. I tried to get her attention but calling for her from the doorway didn’t work and I really had to p*e. I got closer and the smell was so strong it burned my eyes and made tears wet my cheeks. I tried to shake her awake and she barely opened her eyes. She must have been really tired because she didn’t know it was me. I looked down at that strange piece of glass and noticed a very dirty spoon underneath it.

The floor is cold like ice under my palms yet warm and wet under my cheek. I opened my eyes to see the dirty white tile of the bathroom floor and it’s brighter now from the sun. Im on the floor of the bathroom and I really have to p*e now. I slowly got up because my arms felt numb. I go to the bathroom and when I start to wash my hands I began to cry because the soap was red. I looked up at the mirror and there was crusted blood under my nose and on my cheek. The pain when I turned my head to the left, I saw blue and green dots. My ear was bleeding too. I washed it off as best I could and went to get dressed for school. Mom was waiting in the car and honking her horn again for me to hurry up. I didn’t want to be left behind again so I skipped brushing my hair and trying to find clean socks. I didn’t dare say anything because she was wearing her big gold rings again. The ride was silent and smoky. When we got to school I couldn’t wait to get out of the car. Fresh air and no more danger….at least until school was over.

PTSD runs rampant in my brain and I’ve naturally suppressed a lot of memories. This one came back when I was about 18 or 19 years old and I think about it often. It was the 3rd or 4th time I caught my mother using crack. The very first time, without knowing it then, I was about 5.

As an adult, it seems weird to look back at a memory in such detail and realize I actually lived through that.

10/28/2024

Alright folks, let’s start off with a nice and juicy intro.
I am 31 years old.
I’m a momma of 1 beautiful princess.
I’m a RN-BC med surg.
I’m a divorcé.
I’m a creative.
I’m a very opinionated intellectual.
I’m a child of a drug addict.
I’m a victim of neglect and abuse.
I’m a survivor of various heinous acts ever to be placed on a human being.

I could go on and on about the way I could describe myself but one thing I don’t really touch on at all is how much trauma I have yet to deal with. If you like to read about people’s drama but also see how intricate the details of each story are and how deep the wounds tunnel into my brain, come visit this new page I made specifically to “trauma dump” and put out my thoughts and ideas just for fun 😌. A sort of free therapy if you will. What I find helps me most is just letting it all out and I think my friends are sick of hearing me repeat myself. A very good friend of mine suggested I do this as a way to not only release everything I have built up but also express myself in one of my favorite ways with creative writing. I have enough stories to produce my very own telenovela. Here’s to releasing all my bad energy into the world from my point of view and allowing good energy to replace it.

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Milwaukee, WI

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