The Tenth Memory

Luckily, I wrote a nice summary about the rest of that summer:

06/27/01
Diary,

Ok, I haven't written in forever.  I mean I've written, but not everything.  Ok well we went down to Kerrville to finish packing only to find that Larry broke parole and trashed the house...again.  Not only that but had racked up some serious bills that mom has to pay.  She's pretty depressed.  Sonnie's not any better.  Today he got realy bad and Aunt Janis and him got into it and she pushed him and told him that Dad loved his money more than himself.  Mom says she's disappointed.  I'm not sure what this will do between the two.  I hope it doesn't mess things up too bad.  Night!

Love, Cassie

So perhaps it wasn't right for my aunt to push my brother.  But if you know my brother, you know how he can get.  And she was under a lot of pressure.  She was helping raise us and she was basically watching my mother fall and drag us all down with her.  After being in Cleveland only a few months my mom was already debating on going back to Larry.

07/18/01
Diary,

Mom wants to go back to Larry.  What the heck is her problem!  I'm not going back.  He is an ass!  I don't even think she cares about us anymore, just him and no one else.  I don't even like being around her.  All she thinks about him is mad.  That makes me so mad.  Where is my mom???

Love, Cassie

So I'm going to attribute my feeling rejected by my family to me being so clingy to my "first" boyfriend.  There are tons of follow-up entries about him, and believe me, he was a total asshole.  But I was so vulnerable and needy that I didn't care.  I threw myself full force into school and my friends, especially the ones who could drive and take me away from this mess.  Several times I remember sitting after a play rehearsal in Ms. Stuart or Holly's car waiting for my parents to pick me up, and they never came.  The teacher would offer to take me home, but I was scared that as soon as I got there they would be at the school and I'd be in huge trouble. Several times my teachers drove me home, and one time one even was so upset she went to the door and knocked because Larry had told me over the phone that I could just walk home.  I lived a good 15 miles from the school.  So he refused to pick me up, and she took me home and knocked and the door and Larry, of course, answered in nothing but a towel.  She stood up for me, as she often did over the course of my childhood, but it didn't matter.  He was a fixture in my life, thanks to my mom.

The Ninth Memory

That summer two kids in my grade killed themselves.  It was really shocking to me, especially because I had for so long entertained my own suicidal thoughts.  It really got me thinking about things and my diary entries got more and more desperate.  Mom was back with Larry, and things hadn't changed at all.  Sonnie and I began fighting even more.  He was always so desperate for a father figure, that he didn't see the way Larry really was, and Larry fed into that by always treating Sonnie better than me because he allowed it.  I really wasn't close to anyone in my family at this point and felt totally unwanted in my own home.  This is when I started to get angry instead of feeling hurt.  I was pissed and I was determined to get the hell out of there as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

10/25/00
Dear Diary,

"We're priority here, you're not."  Those were the magical words said to my by my mom not more than 5 minutes ago.  We will see about that.

Love, Cassie

Luckily, this is when I really fell full on in love with theater.  I was a drama kid through and through and they all accepted me and loved me.  The first play I auditioned for I got a big role (Amy in Little Women) and I was set.  It was like it was meant to be, me finding theater.  My new friends were older, and they empowered me.  I saw that not all kids lived like I did, and that I could make my own future and I didn't have to do this my whole life, I just had to struggle with it a few more years.  And I was out for revenge.

11/30/00
Dear Diary,

I can't take this anymore.  I am going to blow.  HELP ME SOMEONE!!

Love, Cassie
I'm going to get them!!!


12/03/00
Diary,

I'm NOT putting up with it anymore.  I am getting out of here.  I will live with Dad if I have to.  I HATE LARRY!!! I will make him pay, he'll be sorry.

Love, Cassie

Although my entries were still filled with self-loathing, they became more and more angry.  My dad was still doing drugs, nothing had changed with Larry, and now something new thrown into the mix...REAL boyfriends.  Boyfriends that I was too embarrassed to let them pick me  up at my place because it was always a toss up of how the house would look, or how the mood would be.  Mom was often depressed, and when she got depressed the house got filthy.  And I mean FILTHY.  To the point where I would intentionally break dishes so I didn't have to wash them because they were covered in moldy food.  Or the point where when it came time to take the trash out there were maggots on the kitchen floor.  It was really bad.  It had been this way off and on for a long time, but the older I got the more embarrassing it was.  I mean who wants people in their house that is THAT dirty?  The school year went on, as it always did, and at the beginning of the summer mom decided that we were moving to Cleveland, again.

The Eighth Memory

Honestly, it kind of freaks me out how much Larry is mentioned in my diary.  It seems as though my life revolved around him, and I guess it did, but only because I was still a kid and I had no control.  Everyday was a struggle.  I would come home and simply stay in my room, or escape to Sarah's house across the street and stay until I wasn't allowed to anymore.  I tried to avoid the drama at this point.  I rarely even came out of my room to eat.  But that didn't mean that Larry didn't sometimes seek me out knowing that he could get a rise out of me easiest.  I didn't have friends over, it was too embarrassing.  And they didn't know how he really was, they just thought I had a "hot step-dad," not realize what an asshole he really was.  He even got to where he would say things that mad me uncomfortable, one time I will never forget, we went to the river.  I've always been a shorts-over-my bathing-suit-bottoms type of girl, and he said "take those off, my women don't wear shorts with their swimsuits." Now let me clarify right now, Larry never did anything inappropriate with me.  He just made comments that made my skin crawl from time to time.  And he seemed to do anything he could to upset me.  Neither he, nor my mom had any regard for school at this point.  Many times I would find myself in the car outside someone's house on a school night, night before a big test, or a big play, waiting for Mom and Larry to finish partying and take me home.  I even have the entry to prove it:

05/31/00
Dear Diary,

My family is totally selfish.  It's midnight and tomorrow is the play, my 8th grade promotion, and dance.  I just want to go home.  SELFISH.

Love, Cassie

This entry was followed shortly by a barely legible scrawled entry that simply says "I'm scared, Larry is acting like he did the day he went to jail!! HELP ME!"  Larry often went into fits of rage, many times I would peek around the hall corner to see him trying to get into the bedroom where my mom had locked the door by using whatever he could find to bust the door in.  Our home was filled with countless holes in the wall.  Dishes were often casualties, and although he never hit me with one, he threw some pretty close a few times.  I remember one time he and my mom were fighting and they had a waterbed.  He took one of the runners (bumpers, whatever) off the side of the bed and tried to ram the door in with it.  I tried to avoid being in the middle of this.  I often found myself lying on the floor in the bathroom (it was the only door that locked) with a blanket just closing my eyes and trying not to hear it.  I grabbed Chase whenever I could, but that usually resulted in greater punishment for me.  Chase was Larry's leverage because he was HIS son.  I felt terrible for Chase, that I couldn't save him.

06/16/00
Diary,
I think my life is sooo confusing.  Larry yells so much and I bet Chase feels so alone.  I wish I could help him. I'm so sorry Chase.

Love, Cassie

A few days later I see an entry stating that we are moving to Cleveland, TX.  This is where my mom's family lives.  My mom was really sick that summer.  I mean she couldn't get out of bed at all.  My Aunt Janis and Uncle Quinten took care of us that summer while mom got better.  My Aunt did everything she could to keep me from feeling left out.  She bought me new clothes, I made new friends (my cousin is the same age as me), and I had a pretty good summer all in all.  I was about to start High School, and as nervous as I was, I knew I was safe from Larry here.  My grandparents wouldn't let him get anywhere near us, so things started look up. Until I found out we weren't moving after all.  My mom got better, and I guess she was ready for another round.

The Seventh Memory

As I got older, the more I saw through Larry.  It was painfully clear that not only was he a jerk, but a creeper, and a manipulator.  Larry and I argued almost daily.  He knew I saw through him, and he couldn't stand it, so he picked on me relentlessly.  If I was hurt and cried begging my mom to hear me out, he would mock me.  Both of them would.  They would fake cry, call me dramatic, say I was just trying to manipulate, when that was so far from my 14 year old intentions.  This was a real hit to my self-esteem, which was already in a pretty sad state.  I have several entries about wanting hugs, someone to hold me while I cried, and someone to listen.  Although Larry's abuse toward me was all emotional, there were times when he would do stuff that definitely put us all at risk.  If for whatever reason, he was pissed off (or high) while we were in the care, he would drive like a maniac,  once to the point of actually breaking the steering wheel and the seat of the car.  It was so scary and I would just close my eyes, hoping and praying that we would get pulled over, but somehow he was so adept at evading the cops it was unbelievable.  And my mom allowed it.  Perhaps at the time she felt she had no choice, but I can't help looking back and wondering why she wasn't more protective of us.  But, despite how much I disagreed with what my mom and Larry did, it never kept me from wanting their attention and approval.

03/29/00
Dear Diary,

I am so tired of Larry making me feel worthless, it is so depressing.  He mocks me and that hurts so bad.  Mom seems like she can't stand me.  She hates taking me anywhere or going.  It's always "how long is this going to take?"  Today I tried to read her this play I am in and she sighed and said "How long is it?  Why can't you just tell me about it?"  I am crying now and I hate it.

Love, Cassie

03/30/00
Dear Diary,

I am so angry & upset.  Last night after Larry left, Mom didn't come out of her room at all.  Then, this morning she was crying.  I can't stand to see my mom cry.  I hate what Larry is doing to us.  I am so alone.

Love, Cassie

04/12/00
Dear Diary,

Larry called me a "little bitch" and it really hurt my feelings.  I am completely alone and I hate who I am.

Love, Cassie

Now if someone were to call me a "little bitch" now, I would probably, in all honesty, tell them to fuck off and then think about it for hours wondering why they would say something so ugly.  So it really isn't that different than the way I reacted back then, other than not saying anything in response.  The truth was, Larry despised me, and since my mom and brothers saw him so differently, they seemed to despise me as well.

While all this is going on, Dad is still in rehab, and we are  invited to a "family weekend" where we do a bunch of feeling sharing.  So here we are, all in a room with our beloved addicts, not knowing each other, and having to share some of the most painful feelings we have.  We went through an exercise where you told the addict what they did that you "liked" and "disliked" and it had to end with how it made us feel.  So for example (I kept the folder and all the info from this, but I don't feel like digging it out to see what I actually wrote) "Dad, I dislike it when you don't show up to pick us up on the weekends, it makes me feel rejected."  Now this was unbelievable emotional.  I had to look my dad right in the eye and tell him all the things I had been too afraid to tell him up until that point.  I can tell you that if I had to do it right now, I would definitely shed tears, yet oddly enough it actually says in my diary that "there were a lot of tears shed, none shed by me."  So after all these teary diary entries, why all the sudden were my tears dried up?  I still don't know.  Perhaps it was because people were watching, or because I was afraid if I cried, my dad would cry more.  Unfortunately, my dad left the rehab program shortly after this (without finishing it), and it was all a wasted effort.  I really began to wonder what I had to do to save my dad, and what was so wrong with me that just him knowing what he was doing to me wasn't enough.  Perhaps that sounds selfish, but I couldn't see any greater motivation than a person's children.  And honestly I still don't.

The Sixth Memory

About this time my dad entered rehabilitation, Larry got out of prison (and came straight home), and I began to turn to my teachers for help.  Looking back I'm sure they thought I was a crazy depressed child, and didn't know what to do for me.  But I was desperate and lost.  Embarrassingly enough I began writing letters to my teachers about what was happening with me.  I feel silly about that now, but I didn't know what to do.  Finally, the one teacher that I confided in the most, passed my notes on the school counselor.  I was called into her office and spilled everything.  And I think even she was overwhelmed, not just by the story, but by my  emotion overload.  I have always been an emotional person, but to me, even for a 7th grader, this is a little much:

12/3/99

Dear Diary,

For the past three nights I  have cried myself to sleep.  I hate this.  It hurts so bad.

Love, Cassie

See, as soon as my step-dad came home I rebelled.  I recognize that now.  I argued, disobeyed, begged, pleaded, did everything I could think of to make my mom see how negative Larry being in the house was for all of us.  But she didn't see it.  She saw a bratty child, and everyone else looked to Larry like a god, and me like a jerk.  I was the outcast in my own family (a feeling I still struggle with to this day).  I wasn't trying to be an outcast, I was just trying to make everyone see what I saw.    I was desperate to be acknowledged, to be listened to.

12/16/99

Dear Diary, 

I am known as "grouchy" at home.  Nobody likes me here.  I promised I wouldn't do this.

Love, Cassie

So the "this" I am referring to, is fighting the situation.  I wanted to be loved and liked by my family, not disliked!  I fought with myself over how to act at home.  Struggling between doing what they all wanted me to do and being liked again, or doing what I felt was right and being ostracized.

1/5/00

Dear Diary,

No one cares about me.  No one is satisfied.  I live my life for whatever everyone else wants.  I HATE MYSELF.

Love, Cassie

01/28/99

Dear Diary,

I'm sorry if I don't explain things.  I am upset often these days.   I always want to cry, I wish there was someone I could talk to.  I don't know who, just someone.

Love, Cassie

There were a lot of these self-hate entries to follow.  I felt guilty a lot.  Mainly guilty for the strain I knew I was  putting on the school counselor and my teachers.  Guilty for anyone having to go out of their way because my own parents wouldn't.  I was miserable at home so I joined pretty much every UIL club I could just to stay gone.  This immediately became a problem because Larry would often take off with the car for days on end and I would be stranded either at school or at home, without a ride.  My grandma tried her hardest to get me places, so that I never had a missed opportunity and there were a few very special teachers that did their best too.  Then one day the school counselor started a "guidance group" where several kids could get together and talk about everyday stuff that bugged them while she oversaw it.  It was soon after that I wrote this entry:

03/01/00

Dear Diary,

Yesterday in guidance group we were supposed to draw these pics of our worst experiences and I drew the house full of glass and stuff.  I started to cry and Mrs. L (the counselor) said she thinks I am severely traumatized and that Larry emotionally abuses me.  I'm really glad I talked to her.  I feel much better.  I have really needed some help.  Well I hope this works.

Love, Cassie.

Finally, I had someone to talk to (regardless of the fact that it was her job)!  But then I started feeling guilty for constantly dumping on her.  Rereading all this I'm not sure when I started hating myself more than the situation or the people putting me in it, but around this time it becomes really clear that I have blamed my misery on myself.

03/10/00

Dear Diary,

How am I going to handle this life?  I am extremely glad I talked to Mrs. Lehnhoff, but now she has referred me to the school psychologist.  These people are so vital in my life and I don't know how I will ever repay them.  I'm still not sure of myself, I am very confused.  I will never be able to really love Larry because he has proved himself not work it too many times.  So many people are probably disappointed in me.  I feel the need to apologize to the world and I'm not even sure what for.  I don't like this feeling at all.

Love, Cassie

Soon after this things really started getting bad, it seemed that the older I got, the more obstinate I was and the more my family refused me.  

The Fifth Memory

So this diary entry falls in after Chase has turned a year old, and Larry has been in prison for about a year and half or two.

05/22/99
Dear Diary,

Hello!  I am having a pretty bad day.  Dad is on drugs and I heard someone say they are afraid he will OD tonight.  I'm so scared.  I really need someone.  I'm lonely.  PLEASE LET DAD BE OKAY!!

Love, Cassie

Thankfully that entry is followed by this one:

05/23/99
Dear Diary,

They found dad around noon today.  I'm not sure where but he is alive.  I'm still really scared.

 Love, Cassie

So something to understand here is that while drugs were nothing new to me, someone in my actual family on drugs was.  I didn't see Larry is a part of my family.  I saw him as a parasite that latched on and was harder to get rid of than lice.  So although it was rough knowing what he was doing, witnessing it and the effect it had on my mom, he wasn't my family.  When I found out my dad was following that same path, I was devastated.  I had my dad on a bit of a pedestal I think.  I always thought of him as the more stable one.  This was probably mostly due to the fact that I wasn't around him as much.  He didn't always get us on his weekends when he said would, and when he did, he spoiled us rotten to make up for his absence.  So as a kid, I saw him as the solution, and even though I didn't live with him, there was some security in thinking I did have a stable parent there in case of emergency.  And although Larry was in prison, mom was distant and distracted.  We didn't get along and because she was unhappy, that projected on to us.  And because I felt disregarded, I was bratty.  I felt like nothing I did was good enough, I have several entries where I talk about making dinner for the family, and even more about how "I can't do anything good enough" for Mom.  Through the summer of 1999 I have several tear-stained entries about how unhappy and miserable I am.  Looking back I do think some of them are the over-dramatic rantings of a young teenager, But then I read some entries and wonder if they are just pubescence or if they are the first signs of the my childhood effecting me.  Like this entry for example:

08/09/1999
Dear Diary,

Maybe I should explain something.  Now I know that reading back through this my problems may seem small and my tears over nothing, but you don't understand my feelings. After all the horrible things from the past life should be wonderful, but it's not.  I hate it.  What do I do?

Love, Cassie

The Fourth Memory

Wow---I'm sad to say it's been over a year since I have updated this blog!  But in my defense it was a crazy and pretty crappy year.  But I'm back again and ironically enough, my next diary entry wasn't until almost a year later.  But that doesn't mean I don't remember what happened next....

So shortly after Mom found out, and Stephanie began to taunt me from her front step, Danielle and her family moved.  They just up and left, and because of the situation, there were no goodbyes, nothing.  It was totally traumatizing.  I was back to having to lock my feelings up, and keep my situation a secret.  So begins what I have labeled "Diary of Depression II" (yes, I've always been dramatic Ha!).  So basically in that year things calmed down.  I would say about a month later Larry was arrested.  But not before completely terrorizing our house.  See, before the cops came to our place to get Larry, Mom packed us up and took us to grandmas.  We waited until the coast was clear and went home.  When we got there, we were shocked.  Larry at literally busted EVERY window in our house.  He even threw a rock ashtray through the sliding glass door.  Our house looked like a crystal palace and pieces of glass glittered everywhere.  As we scavenged the place for our belongings I saw many of my unicorn trinkets and my stereo smashed into the floor.  Nothing was spared, not a dish, not a glass, not anything.  My mom immediately burst into tears, completely overwhelmed.  It was clear we couldn't stay there until it was cleaned up.  There was glass EVERYWHERE.  A couple days later, we rented a shop-vac and with the help of a few friends began to pick up all the pieces of glass off the floor.  Finally the house was basically livable.  We had covered the sliding glass door with a piece of tarp and some paper plates and we were set.  But years later we still couldn't walk barefoot in that trailer because we would find pieces of glass in the most random places.

 I really thought that meant it was all over, things would finally change, and I would have my mother back.  But what really happened was that she became even more withdrawn.  I mean think of it, she is pregnant and my step-dad (the father of that baby) is now in jail.  So I suppose it is fairly understandable that it would be a dark time for her.  But instead of seeing how nice things were without him, she pined for him.  Constantly.  To the point that all I felt like she ever did was write him.  Constantly writing letters, love letters, letters of undying devotion.  And then I knew that my hope that she would get over him was looking bleak.  Then she did the unimaginable.  That January she had my baby brother, and soon after she announced that they were married, and oh joy!, could have contact visits.  This is when I knew that things were far from over.  So here's that entry for you...

06/08/1998
Dear Diary,

Today I found out mom married LARRY in prison!  I can't believe it.  I am so mad.  I don't ever want to talk to them again.  Mom tries to make excuses but she is really married to Larry and she doesn't even know if he is different.  She just wants contact visits.  WHY!??  I want to move in with Dad really (forever).  Why does Mom do stupid stuff?

Love, Cassie

I will confess that after this my diary gets very 13 year old girl and has entry after entry of which boy I like and who my boyfriend-of-the-moment is.  So it's nice to look back and see that despite what was happening in my life, I still had a life somewhat of my own and I still was just a normal 13 year old girl.  There's even some funny entries about some lovely little sibling rivalry fights such as this one:

06/27/98
Diary,

Sonnie is the biggest jerk I know.  I can't stand him.  I almost hate him.  If I could I would.  (and what has he done to upset me so??) He keeps trying to come in my room and kill my fish and steal my bike!  Ughhhh!

Love, Cassie

This was followed by a lovely entry from Sonnie himself that says:

Diary,

I love my brother more than anything in the world.

Love, Cassie Baker
P.S. I am talking about Sonnie

So in lots of ways my life was no different than any other kids life.  Still had the same fights, "loves", and friendships every kid does.  There was just that impending doom feeling looming, just waiting, for Larry to come home.  Luckily, we had a couple years before that day came.  I couldn't have been happier about my baby brother, Chase.  I became, for all intents and purposes, his second mom.  When my mom was too depressed to get out of bed in the evening, I'd make bottles, dinner, etc.  Make sure he went to bed full and happy, played with him, sang to him, and spent most of my free minutes with him.  Needless to say, when my mom did discipline him, I was the person he came running too.  Sometimes I don't know if I would've made it as well as I did if it weren't for his smiling face and funny antics.  It's hard to believe he is this giant teenager now, the same age as I was when he was born.

So at this point, though things have calmed down with Larry gone, my dad seems to find himself getting deeper and deeper into drugs, and it all begins again...