Sitting in the basement family room, my mom was sitting on the couch, watching TV. I was laying underneath the coffee table coloring. There was a woman on the show that my mom was watching that caught my attention when she mentioned that she was sad and depressed all the time and she felt that she wanted to kill herself. I remember lifting my head up and thinking about that statement for a moment or two and then looked at my mom and told her I felt the same way. As she was trying to decipher exactly what I felt, she said, “You feel sad all the time?” To which I responded with, “Yes, but I want to kill myself sometimes too.”

Up until that point in my life, I had attempted to run away numerous times already. My mom had even gone to the extent of handing me brown grocery sacks and told me to fill them. She then called a friend of hers who pretended to be a police officer who convinced me that the hell I was living in currently wasn’t as bad as what I would have to face if I went and lived in foster care.

It was shortly after that point when I started seeing a counselor at the school. I believe his name was Mr. Wilkinson or something similar to that. He had me draw pictures of my family as a whole, individual people in my family and things of that nature. It was through those drawings that I told him I was secluded from my family. I drew the house we lived in with Gary, my mom, Jim and Nick all standing in front of it with the family dog, Lady. I drew myself off to the side, beyond the garage with the goldfish in it’s bowl. He asked me why I wasn’t with the family and I told him because I was hurt. He asked me why I was standing with the goldfish and I told him, because the goldfish is protected in it’s bowl from everyone and everything that could hurt it. All the fish needed was food, water and love and that was all I needed too; especially the protection found by the fish’s glass bowl.

The counselor continued to ask me why I wasn’t drawing myself with the family. I would explain the same thoughts and he would show frustration with not getting any further with me. I couldn’t talk to him – he wasn’t someone that I trusted, nor would trust as he was the same as my attackers – male. I finally gave up and drew my family with me standing there, looking sad, which didn’t get any questions at all.

Having felt satisfaction in the drawings that commenced from that point, I didn’t have to see him again, which was a blessing and a curse all at the same time. Although I wasn’t able to end the abuse I was enduring at home, I didn’t have to be trapped in that little room with THAT man anymore.

Where would I be now had that counselor been someone I felt I could confide in and trust? What would have happened to my brother, my ‘father’? Those are all questions I have thought about on numerous occasions and still, at this point, don’t have an answer. I lived the life I lived and endured many more years of oppression in my life before finally making my way into freedom and the scary world I find myself hiding from at times.

The smallest and most simple statements coming from children can be rather immense. They don’t have the same level of communication that adults have and trying to understand exactly what they are saying proves to be difficult at times. For all parents out there, I offer this small piece of advise:

If your child says something that completely throws you off guard, listen. Offer them all the counseling in the world to find out exactly what is bothering them if you can’t decipher that on your own. If one counselor doesn’t work, try another one and another. If they have been abused in any way, do all that you can to bring the abuse to an end and your support to help combat the negative effects later in your child’s life. IF they have been abused, seek justice. Allow them the opportunity to gain from the experience as opposed to struggle the rest of their lives.