Conversation / WITH A VICTIM OF PARENTAL VIOLENCE

The repeated abuse and even murders of children sent back to their families after being removed for violence or sexual abuse has caused a furor in the L.A. County courts and agencies charged with protecting children. Decisions made earlier to “reunify” families even if the situation for the children is far from perfect are being investigated by the chief Dependency Court judge. But what would children say about it, if they could speak for themselves? TRIN YARBOROUGH asked a 26-year-old Los Angeles woman who grew up in another state, one of six children of an abusive, schizophrenic mother. The woman asked that her name not be used.

Often when Mother would beat us or stomp on us or throw us downstairs, so that sometimes our faces would swell with bruises or we’d get concussions and broken bones, she’d tell us kids that Satan or demons made her do it. Other times she’d blame us, saying our badness had driven her to hurt us. “Look what you made me do!” she’d say when she’d look at our bodies covered with purple bruises.

Mom told us that when she was 13 she was at a baseball game when Satan spoke to her and told her he was taking over her body. She never again let anyone look into her eyes, because she believed they would see the Devil there. But from the time I was 3, she would make me stare into her eyes and ask me over and over if I could see the Devil staring back. She has scary, evil-looking, tormented greenish eyes, and as a child I believed I did see Satan there. I was terrifed by all this, but never imagined that it wasn’t a normal way of life because it was all I knew.

This is the story of my family and the theory of family reunification--keeping families together no matter what. My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic. Her first stint in a mental hospital came when she was 13, and she had her first baby when she was 15. An aunt adopted him and would never let Mom see him. Mom married at 18 and had four kids--my brother, me and my twin sisters--in less than three years before my Dad left. Another child, my last sister, was born when I was 7.

Over and over again we kids were removed from Mom and put in foster homes for a few days or longer. But we always got sent back except for the twins, who were put up for adoption when they were 4. That day we knew the social workers were coming to take them. I was 5, and I’d always helped take care of the twins, sheltering them from Mom when I could. We sisters hid in a closet, all of us crying. When the workers found us, the twins clung to me, begging: “Please don’t let them take us!” I didn’t see them again for 22 years. When I was small I was always scared to be taken away. Life with Mom was the only life I knew. But by the time I was 10 I didn’t want to go back to her. It’s sad, because many times I had the chance to be adopted. Once an aunt wanted to take me, but Mom backed out of the adoption. A lot of the foster parents were mean, but one foster mother who was really nice wanted to keep me. I begged the social workers to let me stay with her, but they said they’d promised Mom to bring me back if she attended parenting classes, had counseling and looked for work, and she’d done that.

I began to understand that although the social workers pretended to care, no matter what happened I would always be sent back. I was angry because they never really listened to me. They’d say “Oh, that’s impossible,” or “You must have done something to cause it.” So I stopped telling them I didn’t want to go back, and tried to act loving to Mom when I got sent home. Otherwise she’d go into a so-called demon-possessed rage. She’d say she’d just seen Satan, that he’d told her we must be punished, and that he was coming to get us some night while we slept. Sometimes I’d wake at night and find her sitting at the end of my bed in the darkness, staring at me. She also said demons would come out of the TV and enter our minds unless we truly had faith in God. So I always prayed when I watched television.

Over the years I had many concussions and hairline fractures, and shattered shoulder blades, wrists and an arm. The worst was when I lost our house keys when I was 7. She had hallucinated that a certain neighbor was evil and would break in and rape all of us. During the night she broke one of my ankles by throwing me downstairs over and over again, then making me walk back up to her. Later at the hospital she acted very loving. She would tell doctors I fell off a bike, that I was clumsy. I never disagreed because I was afraid. As a teenager I was hospitalized for anorexia and twice I tried to commit suicide. My brother also tried several times--once I came in and found him hanging, already unconscious, but paramedics saved him. He ran away over and over again. I don’t know where he is now.

My mother joined several churches that held exorcisms. At her first exorcism when I was 3, church members told us kids to duck behind the sofa, because exorcised demons “shoot out like black bullets” and might enter our minds. One preacher gave us family counseling, which he said was according to the Bible. He’d tell us to “obey your parents” and he’d tell Mom not to hit us. She’d act very sweet, and cry that all she’d ever done was slap us.

When my youngest sister was born when I was 7, I became very protective of her. Once she cried while Mom was washing her hair, and Mom bit her like an animal, all over her head and arms. I washed her hair myself from then on. Mom sort of favored me because I tried to be a mediator, helped her around the house and acted loving to her. She even went to court several times to get us back. Maybe one reason was the AFDC she drew, but more important, she was terrified of being alone. I hid the worst things from everybody. But social workers should be smart enough, or trained enough, to understand how kids act in that situation.

Family renunification is total nonsense. Parents and relatives should be held to the same standards as non-relatives, and have the same psychological testing and background checks. Social workers need more training in understanding abuse. And my mother should have gotten evaluation and treatment even before she had her first baby. Doctors did try for years to give her medication, but she would never take it. She’s lived her whole life in torment, and her disease has made her horribly torture her kids. Maybe someone like her should have their tubes tied, so they can’t keep having children they abuse. But then I wouldn’t have been born, and I wouldn’t have my sisters.

As for me, I should have been taken away from her for good when I was 3 and my face and body turned purple with bruises. While workers were banging on our door to take me, she was frantically trying to cover my bruises with makeup. She hid me in a closet, but they found me and took me away--for a few days. When they returned me to her, many of the bruises still hadn’t faded.

My husband has helped me a lot with my feelings and fears from those years. Mom lives in another state. I’ve never mentioned demons to my own little girl and never spanked her. But sometimes, when I’m alone at night and hear a strange sound or see a curtain move, my same childish fear of demons can come back. ‘Over the years I had many concussions and hairline fractures, and shattered shoulder blades, wrists and an arm. Sometimes I’d wake at night and find her sitting at the end of my bed in the darkness, staring at me.’