My first memory of daddy-Monster: I’m three years old; he beats me as I lie in bed.
There’s no place like screaming myself to sleep.
Daddy-Monster locks me in the scary basement when I’m four or five.
There’s no place like knowing I’m safer behind a locked door than with daddy-Monster.
Daddy-Monster throws me to the floor and mom yells at him.
There’s no place like mom standing up to daddy-Monster for me.
I feel at peace when daddy-Monster’s not home.
There’s no place like nowhere to hide when he arrives.
Police arrest daddy-Monster one night.
There’s no place like I can’t hug mom because her ribs are broken.
Daddy-Monster frequently explodes unpredictably.
There’s no place like living in constant fear.
Daddy-Monster often acts like a respectable man.
There’s no place like living with a volcano at home.
I’m five years old when I learn that children leave home at eighteen.
There’s no place like calculating that I’m stuck with daddy-Monster for thirteen more years.
Daddy-Monster carries me out of the Pacific Ocean when he thinks I’m in trouble in the water.
There’s no place like knowing he’ll protect me from everything and everyone – except himself.
Daddy-Monster quits drinking when I’m ten years old.
There’s no place like seeing him get drunk on explosive rage when “sober”.
Daddy-Monster blames his alcoholism on genetic predisposition.
There’s no place like choosing lifetime sobriety when I’m ten because I don’t want to become like him.
I see Reckless-Brother turn to drinking and fighting and criminal behavior.
There’s no place like the powerlessness of knowing he’ll end up dead or in prison.
There’s no place like being proven right years later when he dies in a car wreck.
I see mom descend into bitterness and excessive drinking.
There’s no place like the passenger seat when mom drives home drunk in the wrong lane.
Daddy-Monster tries to suffocate me one night as I lie in bed.
There’s no place like knowing I should be angry, but my heart is too numb to feel.
I try to focus on my homework while my parents are screaming at each other.
There’s no place like being the only adult at home when I’m fifteen.
Mom attacks daddy-Monster with a large kitchen knife.
There’s no place like the fear of losing both parents in a single night.
Daddy-Monster dies after destroying his heart muscle with his drinking and violence.
There’s no place like weeping at his funeral, not because I lost my dad, but because I never had a dad.
Decades later, I lose my youngest brother to suicide.
There’s no place like the gut-wrenching awareness that he died of childhood domestic violence – 33 years after leaving home.
There’s no place like the double injustice of child abuse:
I did nothing to bring it upon myself;
the burden of recovery falls squarely on me.
– Healing Heart Warrior (Tom M.)
There’s No Place Like No Peace At Home
