Patricia Marie Garcia - The Stranger in My Bed: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse

The Stranger
in my Bed

breaking the cycle of abuse

Patricia Marie Garcia

The Stranger in my Bed

breaking the cycle of abuse

Copyright 2013 Patricia Marie Garcia .

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-0793-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0794-4 (e)

Abbott Press rev. date: 1/18/2013

Contents

I was born in 1943 in a small town in Michigan; South Lyon was a small tiny quaint town where everyone knew everyone else and their business. So what went on behind closed doors stayed behind closed doors? As you will soon read.

I was a very terrible student in school. I had a very hard time grasping what the teacher was trying to get across to the class. When I entered high school that was the worst time for me.

I tried so hard but I just could not take it in. I struggled all through high school, when it came time for me to graduate I was not sure I was going to make it. My father was so angry at me that he sent my mom over to talk to the principal to see if I was going to make it or not. My mom was told I would graduate but not by much. The abuse started and you will see just how I lived through it all.

My childhood was the beginning of all of the abuse I have endured and how I finally broke the cycle of hurt.

I have lived with this for almost 50 years and I want to help anyone else with the same problems.

The Stranger in my Bed

A story of years of abuse and the time it took me to brake this horrible cycle. So you see it took many years to get to where I am today. Guilt is still there, but way in the back of my mind. I live a great life and this is how I broke free!

If it had not been for my second husband I would have died years ago.

Chapter 1
Wonderful first few years

B orn in South Lyon September 19, 1943. I came in this world at Mrs. Havashaws she was the midwife in the small town. Most all of the babies born at that time were born at her house; she helped with birthing, signed the birth certificate and took care of mom and their new born. My dad was happy about me being born but he really wanted a boy.

The first year was normal for mom and dad and me.

My father got his Uncle Sam wants you letter, I was only about 2 years old and I was sent to live with my Aunt Erma and Uncle Charlie, They lived in just a basement and had a ton of kids not even sure how many they had. Mom and dad thought they would not know they had one extra kid. I was sent off with bag and baggage to live with them while my mom went with my father to California for his training. I stayed with them for what seemed life forever.

When my father came home from serving in the Marines, he was sent to Okinawa Beach and fought in WW II, he saw horrendous sites, and he was never the same after that. He had become a mean bitter hateful man.

It was a great time for me. One day we wanted to go swimming they lived just a short walk to the Huron River, all of the kids and I were off to go swimming the oldest one not sure now which one it was, was told to watch me so I did not drown, even though the water was very shallow they watched me like a hawk, The sun was so hot I got really sunburned and had huge blisters all over my back and shoulders. We did no swimming for a few days until they started to heal. But then off we all went again to the swimming hole. But this time Uncle Charlie put on one of his T-shirts me, Well Uncle Charlie was a fat man he had a protruding stomach and he was about 59 and Aunt Erma was half Cherokee Indian, she was tall thin, with high cheek bones and straight jet black hair. She talked really loud but with the number of kids, she had to talk loud for them to hear what she was saying.

I went swimming with all of my cousins; I had a rough time keeping up with them all. I kept tripping on the long big t-shirt I was wearing. I had such fun living with them; I do not remember the amount of time I was there.

My mother finally came home and we moved in Tess Smiths house she had made the upstairs into three apartments and we lived in one of them.

Then one day my father came home from the Marines. They bought a small house on Calkins street it was tiny but nice, it was an old house and we had no inside bathroom we had to use the outhouse, I was so scared of that thing. I was sure I was going to fall through the small hole that was for me. I thought it was full of spiders and snakes so I used the old Thunder pot at night and the outhouse during the day light hours. There were only two bedrooms upstairs the roof sloped so much that my parents had to walk with their head to one side, just so they did not hit their heads on the roof. I was so small it did not hurt me.

I had this old cat his name was smutty; he was a huge old male cat with long silver gray hair. Since I had no playmates he was my play thing. I used to dress him up in my doll clothes and pushed him around in the yard for hours. He and I even had tea parties. I would feed him cat food from a spoon like he was my child.

Smutty got caught in a steel jaw trap, in order for him to get out of it he chewed off his foot. It healed and when he walked across a hard surface he clicked like he had a peg leg, he could sneak up on anyone. He was such a joy to have.

The street we lived was a very short one but very colorful. The Hawleys across the street then the green in the corner of the street and behind our house was the Browns. That was about all the houses on our street except my Grandma and Grandpa Allens house, it a large red brick house there were three bedrooms upstairs and a large kitchen, there was a big living room and a tall front porch, there were I think four steps going down to the front yard there was one huge old tree in the front yard out by the street. My grandparents used to sit out there for hours, I remember going over there and sitting on my grandpa lap and falling asleep.

My grandpa had this huge cement building that was his work shop. It was about the size of the down stairs of their house. Quite large in size and it was always so cool in the hot summer days.

Grandpa Allen kept all of his building equipment in that building. Wheel barrows and trowels all kinds of tools in there.

My father made such hell for my mom and my Grandparents that they sold the house and moved far away. My Grandpa was a mason; he had built most of the basements in that small town of South Lyon They now lived far away from us. They moved to Lake City, Michigan, that to was a small town, as well.