On Real Help

I have been sent to live with my father for my second semester of high school, where I realize that I am far behind my classmates. I make an effort to catch up for about a week before I give up. Thanks to my best friend Rachel’s job at the Attendance Office, I can skip school without any consequences. Rachel and I skip often. We meet a series of men along the way, and I dig in deep to trouble that way.

This culminates in my father brandishing the cold fire poker at me one night. Later, I experience the heaviest period of my life. I clean myself up and leave out of a side door of the room I have in my father’s garage. I feel an overwhelming sense of urgency that I must leave as quickly and quietly as possible. When I get out into the night and see the stars above, I feel free. I run away for nearly a month.

One night it is particularly cold and then it starts raining. The tree I have settled under is barely enough to protect me. I walk to my father’s house and let myself in through the side door into my room. Of course, my father catches me.

I miss the bus to school and my father attacks me on the street. A strange man stops his car to help me. My father calls the police on me. I manage to escape and I walk to school, where I am called to the Counselor’s Office during first period. I tell the counselor the circumstances of the last month. He calls my father to take me to the hospital. My father complies. I am in the hospital for at least a week.

All these events culminate in me being hospitalized for several months at the San Diego County Mental Health Hospital Adolescent ward.

By this time, my father’s abuse escalated to heights I didn’t know were possible. When he attacked me on the street in broad daylight, I thought I had no means of escape. A passerby in a car pulled over and offered to help me, and my father got off me and I was able to get up. All I wanted to do then was walk away. I thanked the man who pulled over to help me before I started walking toward the nearby convenience store where Rachel and I used to buy our cigarettes.

On the way to the store, I passed my father at a pay phone where he had the audacity to call the cops on me. I had done nothing wrong. I wasn’t the one attacking a child on the street! I hid in the bushes while my father talked on the phone. He hung up and waited for the cops to arrive. One cop arrived quickly, and told my father I had not broken the law; therefore, they couldn’t pick me up. My father argued with the policeman for a short time. Then they both left. I continued on my way to the store.

I bought my cigarettes and then made my way to school without incident. As I stated above, I was called to the counselor’s office during first period. I told the counselor that I was physically abused by my father. I told him that I had run away for the better part of a month. I told him about the attack on the street that morning. I told him that I had been bleeding heavily for nearly a month. He told me he would call someone to help me.

Imagine my horror that the person who arrived to “help” me was my father. I thought I was done for, but he took me straight to the hospital where I was admitted once again to the mental health ward. There, a nurse and doctor gave me my first pelvic exam. I was prescribed some medication to help stop the bleeding and iron to help rebuild my blood from anemia.

I was in the hospital for a good while before I was released to my father. He took me to his home and told me to pack my suitcase without telling me why. He drove me to his girlfriend’s home for the weekend. This was not a fun visit.

On Monday morning, my father took me to the offices of San Diego County Mental Health. He argued with the administrator there about having me admitted. “HOW ABOUT IF I JUST LEAVE HER HERE?” he shouted, his words echoing through the building. I thought he was the one that would be admitted any minute. He then told me to wait outside. I took myself and my suitcase outside to wait on the front steps. I smoked a cigarette. By the time I was done smoking, my father came back outside. “Let’s go!” he said.

My father drove us back to his girlfriend’s house. A day or two later, he got a phone call. He ordered me back into the car with my suitcase and we drove into the night. We stopped at a low building that I had never seen before. There was a large blacktop yard at one end of it that had the highest fence I had ever seen. He took me inside the locked building where I was admitted to the San Diego County Mental Health Adolescent Ward.

My father left me there and walked out of the locked door. I was locked in. My father was locked out. I wouldn’t see him again for several months.

This is my most detailed blog posting. I’m not sure why I feel compelled to leave you with this. I just do. Maybe it is a cautionary tale. Caution against what? I have no idea. Maybe it’s just to reiterate that children who have problems are just that—children with real problems. Listening to them and getting them real help is our obligation as the adults in their lives. I will leave it at that.