ONLINE
BOOK

I met my second best friend, Danielle, when I was thirteen. We became friends in a rather unusual way. Danielle was new at school, and a kid I had grown up with was bullying her. I saw this going on one day when I was walking home from school and told him to leave her alone. Since we lived in the same direction, I walked with Danielle to her home. She lived in the new housing development that had taken away our orchards. Her house was beautiful. Only rich people could afford to live here, I thought. Her family had a pool and two living rooms. As I continued surveying Danielle's house, I suddenly realized it was one of the houses we had tried to destroy so no one could move in!

Danielle and I became inseparable. We went everywhere together. We shared our dreams of staying a virgin and going to college before we got married. We tanned together at her pool beginning in April, and by May we were walking through the town, all brown and tanned, waving to everyone we knew as we walked to the ice cream parlor at Loyola Corners to have a double scoop of our favorite flavor of the week. Danielle and I are still best friends to this day.

Parties and pot

Because of the abuse I had been experiencing at home, I was still down on myself. I grasped at anything I thought would make my peers accept me, like me or even "love" me. I started hanging around with older kids and smoking pot with my brothers' friends.

Danielle and I wanted to party. We decided to spend the night at the home of some older boys, friends of my brothers, who were having a party. I had known one of these boys since I was six, so I thought we would be safe with them. Danielle and I just wanted some fun and adventure. Danielle told her mom that she was staying at my house, and I told my dad I was staying at Danielle's.

When we arrived at the boys' house, ready for a big party, we discovered that there actually wasn't much of a party going on. As the evening progressed, one of the guys led me into his room for the night. Even though my brothers had molested and raped me, I was very naïve about the ways of the world. I had no idea other boys would want to do that to me. I thought I would just sleep next to him and kiss him. The possibility of more never entered my mind until he tried to force my legs open so he could have sex with me. "It won't hurt, it won't hurt," he repeated over and over again. I kept saying no and crossing my legs, and he kept trying to pry them apart. Finally succeeding, he raped me.

I was devastated. In my young mind, I had thought we were going to just have some fun. I left the bed, went into the bathroom and cried. This boy was a good friend of my family. Part of the problem was that I liked him. The rape went unreported.

Danielle and I were both in trouble with our parents. Somehow, they had learned we were not where we had said we'd be. Danielle was grounded from seeing me for a year. After that night, I almost never stayed home. I usually stayed at my neighbor Natalie's house because I felt safer there.

Still seeking acceptance and even thrills, I kept hanging around the boy who had raped me-actually, we became girlfriend and boyfriend. I even cleaned his house. I wondered about the burnt spoons I found all the time. One of the boy's brothers laughed at me. "You don't know what they are for? They're doing heroin."

Aaron was one of the guys doing heroin, but, thank God, he was saved by a man named Jesus and turned out to be quite a witness for Him. Most of the kids didn't like Aaron after he got saved, but I did. He was different-full of love. His parents were Christians and really loved the Lord, and I enjoyed going to their house to visit. There was so much love. I know now that this was part of God's plan for me. God loved me even when I was living such a sinful life. He loved me enough to place this wonderful family in my path so that I would hear the name of Jesus. So that I could experience something of His life. These were good seeds planted that eventually took root and grew.

Drinking and drugs

Continuing to hang out with the wrong crowd, I got involved in all kinds of drugs. A guy named Mitch sneaked me into bars at age thirteen and taught me how to play pool. Jimbo taught me how to bum quarters from strangers until we had enough to buy a bottle of Annie Green Springs wine. (Jimbo later ended up in San Quentin Prison.)

John, a good friend, called me "Smoke Stack Lightning" because I smoked cigarettes one after another. He loved music from the Grateful Dead. We went to a concert in Oakland, California, where someone spiked my wine with mescaline. I had a really bad trip and ended up waiting outside for John-I think? (John later put his head on some railroad tracks and waited for a train. He thought his parents didn't care about him or understand him.)

Caleb

Then there was Caleb. I was deeply in love with this guy. We were always together. We never fought, but I remember one incident that caused me to get really angry with him. We were just leaving a party. As we walked to the car, a friend stopped me and said he wanted to talk to me privately. We went behind the house near some bushes, and he started to rape me. I tried to scream, but he held his hand over my mouth. I could hear Caleb calling for me. I think he knew where I was but wouldn't come get me. I finally kicked my way free and ran to the car. I think when Caleb saw me covered with weeds and dirt, he assumed I had been cheating on him. (Incidentally, the "friend" who had attempted to rape me was later convicted for raping someone else in Washington and served time.)

Caleb broke up with me about a year later. Instead of telling me face to face, he just stopped coming over to my house. Then I saw him at a party with another girl. I was still so in love with him that I just flipped. This heartbreak, combined with the windowpane acid (LSD) I was taking every day, put me over the brink. I slipped into a deep depression. For days and then weeks, I would go over to our neighbor's house (Natalie's), lie on the couch and watch T.V. I lay there laughing and crying, and I refused to eat. I started dreaming that Caleb was with me, talking to me, telling me what to do. I couldn't separate these dreams from reality.

I dreamed that Caleb told me to lose weight, so I stopped eating. He told me to cut my hair, and I did. He told me to come over to his house, and I did. When I got there, no one was home and so I just sat in the dark in Caleb's room waiting for him to come home. After about an hour, his father showed up. I got so scared that I jumped out of Caleb's bedroom window and ran home.

Then I heard Caleb tell me to get packed-that we were leaving to go get married. I packed my bags and waited at home in my living room for him to come get me. All my brothers asked me where I was going. That day makes me think of the song, "Delta Dawn." I sat there waiting for someone who wasn't coming. Caleb didn't even know I was waiting for him. We hadn't seen each other in months. The only connection had been in my mind.

Breakdown

Natalie's mom Noreen, thought I was really crazy because I was laughing out loud when I was alone. My diet consisted of Popsicles and water. I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to talk to anyone or do anything. I just lay on the couch and stared at the television all day.

I was only sixteen years old and a total wreck. I wanted to kill myself. Finally, Natalie's mom realized that something had to be done. Noreen took me to the hospital, and they admitted me into the mental ward with a nervous breakdown. The doctors immediately gave me an antidepressant called Thorazine. All I remember was sitting and staring and laughing. People would visit me in the hospital, and I would just stare off into space.

Two weeks later, I was released from the hospital. I lived with Natalie's family for a while until one day Natalie and I had a falling out and she told me to leave her home. I didn't see Natalie or her family again until the year 2000, twenty-eight years later.

I had nowhere to go, so my brother Matthew and my sister Ashton took care of me at Matt's house. I lived with them for about a year, going to group therapy every day and seeing a psychiatrist once a week. I started eating non-stop because of the Thorazine I was taking. Actually, I suffered several side effects from the antidepressant: overeating, foot tapping and my eyes rolling up into my head.

Ashton had married a wonderful man, Ryan, and they were ready to have a baby so I was going to have to move out. My sister Savannah was next in line to take care of me.

During the year I lived with Ashton, she always tried to ensure that I was getting enough exercise. She made me ride my brother's Peugeot bicycle to the bus stop to take the bus to my therapy classes. About a week before I was due to move to Savannah's, I set out on my bike, crying all the way to the bus stop. I wanted someone to take care of me and felt like Ashton was being cruel. Locking the bike to a pole, I went on to therapy toting a packed lunch my sister had made. When I returned to the bus stop after therapy, the bike was gone. To give you an idea of how my brain was operating at the time-I had locked the bike on a pole that was only four feet high! The thief just lifted the expensive bicycle off the pole and left with it. Her husband Ryan always believed in me and did not think I was crazy. I always told him about my big dreams and he never laughed. I was not sure if he believed in God so I bought him a book about Armageddon that I thought he might like to read. He did read it, and the last page of the book had a sinners prayers. Bill died in a tragic car accident not many years later. God is so good, that I am confident he read that last page and believed.

About six months into the counseling, our therapy group was going to a San Francisco museum on an outing. I was scheduled to travel with one of the men in his car. Instead of driving to the museum, this man headed right to his apartment building. He parked under the carport and wanted me to come inside. My gut told me what was about to happen. I was so scared! He told me he wanted to rape me. He had no weapon, so I just kept talking and talking and kept my hand on the door handle. Waiting for the perfect time, I somehow got out of the car and ran. I did not know what else to do, so I hitchhiked home. The next day the group asked me what happened, and I told them the truth. It was a breakthrough.

This man never showed up at group therapy again.

Back to the hospital

During the following year, at the age of seventeen, I fell back into deep depression and again became suicidal. I returned to the hospital for two weeks.

At this time I was dating Addison, a friend of my brother Brent. Addison and I were so in love, and I thought life was finally good. Addison asked me to marry him and I said yes. Since I was only seventeen, I had to ask my dad for permission, and he said no.

Addison and his family were Mormon, and I admired them so much. In later years, I learned from reading the bible that the Book of Mormon is false doctrine; however, this family was wonderful. Addison's parents were very kind and loving. That is what I wanted-two loving parents.

Addison did not practice being a Mormon, but we did go to the church once or twice. We loved the outdoors and went camping in Yosemite one weekend. On the beautiful drive up to Yosemite, a song came on the radio called "Candida." "We can make it together, the further from here, girl the better, where the air is fresh and clean." Turning to Addison, I declared, "If I ever get a dog, I'm going to name her Candida to always remind me of our love for each other." On the way home that day we saw a Great Dane. Addison and I looked at each other, and he pulled over. Peering at the dog, I said, "Get in the car, Candida." She was very skinny and ready to have puppies-I knew she must be abandoned or lost. We had compassion for Candida because we sensed she was lost, just as we were.

Addison kept right on loving me even when I had to go back to the hospital for those two weeks. He would rub my legs when they cramped (another antidepressant side effect). Addison and I lived together for a while. Then addison's mom offered to take care of me and let me live with them; however, I didn't like rules and knew that living with them would not give me the freedom I was used to having at home. What a mistake! One 30-second decision that changed my life in monumental ways.

Had I been willing to submit to Addison's parents' care and love and discipline, the years that followed could have been so different. But I chose independence, a false sense of freedom and control. My life was already unraveling, and this decision was like taking that loosening thread and giving it a long, hard pull.

Since I was still suffering from depression and under the age of eighteen, social services thought a foster home might help. The people at the foster home were very nice, but strict. They required me to go to school, but I was not able to read or comprehend because of my depression. My mind seemed to be frozen on one thought: I want to die. Rebelling, I ran away from the foster home after only a month. I ended up at Addison's house-only about three blocks from the foster parents-and moved back in with him.

More death

One afternoon my sister Ashton called. "Dad is dead." Oh, how I didn't want to hear those words. I was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. Just the day before I had been at a friend's house, drinking and smoking pot, when my dad called and begged me to come home. I screamed at him, "I hate you! I hate you! Leave me alone. I am going to kill you. I hate you." And now, the very next day, he was dead. He had died at work of a massive heart attack. Why hadn't I gone home when he asked me? What would it have hurt?

After the funeral, I move back into our family's large two-story house for a while, but I never went back to high school. I just kept partying and hanging around bikers and people who drank and did drugs. We were high from drugs or alcohol every day.

My sisters and brothers and I rented out one of the rooms in the family home to a lady and her two daughters. One of the girls, Rowena, had no friends and very low self-esteem. I took her with me to all the parties. Our crowd would drive around in a caravan until we found a place to get high-usually someone's house where the parents were gone.

About a year later, I said good-bye to Rowena. She had met a nice guy and they got married. While they were on their honeymoon, they were both killed in a head-on car accident.

From the time I was thirteen to the time I turned eighteen, ten people I knew died. One was my best friend Natalie's boyfriend, who was shot and killed in a domestic dispute. It seemed as though every time I said good-bye to people, they would die. In looking back, I realize that many of the deaths were a direct result of the lifestyle we were living. Praise God for His grace in keeping me safe and alive during these years of rebellion.

A move in the right direction

When I was eighteen, my brother offered me a job on Fisherman's Wharf, living on a P.T. boat in the bay, cooking and cleaning for the guys who worked in his "Unique Body Shop." And so Candida and I moved to San Francisco, California, for a couple of months. I was still very depressed and not a very good cook. Caleb, my first love, worked there and affectionately nicknamed my dog Deda. I couldn't wait until Caleb came home from work each night so I could feed him supper. Then we would watch Jackie Gleason in "The Honeymooners."

I thought I was still in love with Caleb, but knew there was to be no future with him. I grew more and more depressed. After a few weeks, I left my dog in San Francisco and checked myself into a hospital for the depression. While there, I finally started looking to God for help.

A Turning Point

My only view of God was what I remember from my childhood in the Catholic Church. I had never developed a personal relationship with Him. But now I was desperate, totally hopeless and alone. "God," I pleaded, "if you are real, please help me. I'm so afraid of everything."

At last, a positive turning point in my life-a move in the right direction. In the years that followed, I still had many ups and downs, but this was a beginning. The end of the unraveling. A time to heal. As time went on, God would bring people and circumstances into my life that would form spiritual threads to help pull my life together.

The hospital staff released me the following week, and I started group therapy again. I also started a journal. For the first time I could remember, my mind felt free of fear. The initial entry in my journal was a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "There is nothing to fear but fear itself."

I still knew nothing about the Bible or Jesus, but at last I knew there really was a God. And I knew that He had helped me. This was the beginning of hope. This was the beginning of change.

REFLECTIONS (Chapter 5)

Go to Chapter 6
Go back to the top of this page

Feel free to email me with any questions / comments at changinglives74@yahoo.com.au
by addressing your email to Kaylee.



© Copyright 17 May 2005
Taken from the web site www.changinglivesonline.org
This story is copyright and can not be reproduced without the author's permission.