My parents were both extremely strict, and unable to control their anger. Thusly, we went through a lot of child abuse in every way EXCEPT sexually, or any due to alchohol or substance abuse. I got beatings on usually more than a daily basis with belts, wooden boards, shoes, brooms, whatever was handy. They dragged me around the house by my hair, through things at me, made me kneel in corners without support for hours on end and more.

My mother strangled me to near unconsciousness three times. The first time was when I took her rings to show and tell. During recess, I playfully lent three girls a ring each for the day saying that I would marry them on the playground. By the time I walked home for lunch, one of the girls' mothers had already called my mother and told her about the ring I had loaned the girl. As soon as I walked through the door, my mother grabbed me by the hair to the center of the room, threw me down, sat on my chest, and began to fiercely strangle me - banging my head on the floor all the while. Just then, to my luck, Michele's mother, Mrs. Poteracki, called to talk - taking Moms concentration on me away until I had a chance to explain. I still got beat again for it later.

The second time occurred when Mom found a faded ink spot on the bottom of a living room couch cushion. I had not done it. It was a complete mystery to me. It turned out later that my sister, Jeannie had done it, but was too afraid to admit it. Who could blame her? In the meantime, we were beaten silly, then sent to corners of the family room to kneel for an hour. At the end of the hour, the oven timer buzzer would go off. If whoever did it had not yet confessed, we would both get more beatings, and sent back to kneel again according to the same pattern. During one of these beatings, my mother lost her patience with me convinced that I had done it. (I almost ALWAYS got blamed for everything even though most often I hadn't done what I was accused of.) She strangled me until I was able to get loose. When she found out later that I hadn't done it, as usual, there was no apology.

The third and final time was due to the fact that I had nerve to be a half an hour late coming home. I had gotten caught up in playing soccer with a neighborhood friend around the block. There we were, kicking the ball back and forth on my friend's front yard when my father drove up. He bellowed at me to get into the car. Embarrassed, I said good-night to my friend, David, and got into the car. The second we pulled away, Dad began to pound on me with his free hand - shouting at me about how stupid I was to lose track of time. He dragged me by the hair into the house and threw me at my mother. They began beating me with the belt that always hung threateningly over

one of the oven handle bars. I broke free for a moment and ran into the dining room. My father came around the other side, and they cornered me as they usually did. (Sometimes, I was able to get down and quickly crawl through the bottom of the dining room table and chair legs and get away. But not this time.) Once I was again in my mother's grasp, she began to strangle me again demanding to know who I thought I was to be home late. I kept thinking, "I'd be glad to answer you if you would JUST LET GO OF MY THROAT!!" I tried to pry her hands free, but was unsuccessful. I felt myself blacking out. It felt like I was down to the last few seconds of my life before she finally let go. I began gasping and heaving. I looked up at her with a look that I suppose made her feel guilty. She began to cry this time, giving me a flurry of apologies. I said nothing to her. I just looked at her again, turned, and headed to my room - wheezing and clutching my throat.

My father, being a butcher, used to have my mother drag us over to him. Then he'd he slam our hands down flat on the kitchen table, and raise a large knife or cleaver in the air with his other hand, and convince us, in full temper, that he was seriously going to chop our fingers off. Obviously, he never actually did it. But he sure had us scared that he would. He WOULD beat us, though, and good. (Well, not really good!) I remember one time he threw everything he could at me from across the room including a set of knives. Luckily, he had terrible aim. Only the bigger things like the broom actually got me.

Back when I was ten years old, after getting beaten to a pulp again, I tried to keep up my optimism as usual, and remember that deep down, I knew that things would turn completely around to the opposite end of the spectrum. But that particular day, it wasn't working. I felt so trapped that, for the first and LAST time in my life, I actually tried to commit suicide. I used my bicycle chain to do it. I didnt have an ordinary padlock. I had a chain that had its own locking mechanism on it. You only had to line up the numbers to a horizontal line off to the side. Even when I locked my bike up, I only moved one, maybe two of the numbers on the end. Not this time. I wrapped the chain around my neck as tightly as I could to the point where I could feel myself start to choke. I then screwed up ALL the numbers.

I changed my mind REAL fast! It was working all too well! I ran to the mirror in the blue bathroom and tried to see the numbers on the lock under my chin. But it was hopeless. I couldn't. I felt myself start to black out. I gave up trying to see what I was doing, and began to randomly, desperately scramble the numbers to get the lock open. Just as I felt my time was seriously up in this world, somehow, someway, the lock opened, and my neck was free! I took in huge breaths of air. I still believe that was a miracle. I vowed then and there, that no matter how difficult things got, no matter how much I should EVER despair, I would NEVER try to kill myself again. NEVER! And I haven't even thought about it again to this day. Death is NOT the answer!

Then there was the housework. I was made to single-handedly do all the chores in the house and with the lawns - with the exception of cooking. I even had to clean my sister's room - the filthiest room in the house - when she was more than old enough to clean it herself. They made ME do it because they knew that she wouldn't.

My chores were timed by the oven-timer. If I was not done by the time the buzzer went off, I got a terrible beating, and was sent to do it again. My mother used to take particular pleasure in bursting into my room, taking her arm, and sweeping everything off my dresser and desk tops onto the floor for no apparent reason. A lot of times, she was mainly just in a bad mood. She would then pull and dump out all my drawers. My father did this sometimes, too. Then they'd go start the oven timer

There were also times when my mother would wake me up in the middle of the night. She'd scream at me to get up and find things that SHE had lost or misplaced. If I didn't find it within half an hour, I'd be made to kneel in the corner for the next half hour. It didn't matter whether or not I had school in the morning. Sometimes, if I couldn't find it, she'd lose her temper and I'd get beaten.

The second to last time there was an episode, I was home for the weekend from the dorm, as I was every weekend. Fall was starting to kick in. I had a slight nose cold. Michele came over while my parents went out for something. We sat on front porch and talked. This was our usual place to do everything through the years: talk, joke around, listen to music, etc. My parents soon came home and were furious that I was outside with a cold. Michele knew that was her cue to leave. Once inside, we started to argue. It wasn't that big of a deal to me. It was a simple little cold. I had had bronchitis as a child, but that disappeared when I was around eight years old. History repeated itself as they began to chase me around to try to beat me. I ran out the front door. The outer glass door shattered from the speed, but I didnt even notice. I reached the bottom of the driveway before I noticed that my wrist was bleeding profusely. The flying glass had cut it in a diagonal angle. If the cut had been any straighter! What was strange was that I hadn't even felt it until now. I happened to have a bandana in my pocket. I pulled it out, remembered what I had learned about injuries in school and Boy Scouts, and wrapped it around my wrist. My parents appeared at the door screaming at the top of my lungs. I held up my wrist. "See what you made me do?!! Trying to kill me again??!!" They didn't come out to check. So I went inside. I pulled back the blood-soaked bandana back to look at my wrist. What later turned out to be a blood clot looked a little too much like an exposed artery to me at the time. I was also still heavily bleeding despite the pressure I had been trying to put on it. I almost went into shock, and suggested that I be taken to a hospital. They nearly laughed in my face. So, I went into the green bathroom to continue to treat it myself. I washed it off. Eventually the bleeding stopped. After awhile, I figured out that I didn't have an exposed artery, though it sure had looked like one at the time when the cut was fresh. I still have that scar across my right wrist to this day.

Speaking of my former bronchitis, I'd be coughing like a barking dog sometimes. My parents had no patience for that. It wasn't my fault. Yet I'd get screamed at and beaten senseless for having to cough. I began to be afraid to cough. I'd have to, though, so whenever I could, I'd bury my face into a pillow or the car seat, or whatever was handy that could muffle me when they weren't looking. Thankfully, as mentioned above, that disappeared at around age eight.

The physical abuse finally ended one day - just after the start of my high school sophomore year. I had begun to interfere more and more with my sister's beatings. I refused to let my parents hit her anymore. All she had to do was call me in fear and I'd be right there in a flash. I would stand between Jeannie and them. They usually gave up. One time, though, I had to grab my mothers wrist in mid-swing and hold it, looking her square in the eyes, saying, "Don't!", until she agreed not to hit her. I began to threaten to call the police on them whenever they were about to get violent. Eventually, that last day came.

My mother was on her way home from the evening Christmas Eve mass, and was headed home before going back to play for the Midnight Mass. We would also attend this one as we did every year. The little girl across the street was over playing with Jeannie. Jeannie, meaning well, invited her to join us if she wanted to. Their family never went to mass, even though they, too, were Catholics. You'd think this was a nice gesture, but for some reason, it sent my father into a rage. He began screaming at Jeannie for it right in front of the girl, who also began to cry in fear. He chased my sister around the house. I was about to go after him to stop him when Mom walked through the door. Being that Mom was so religious, I thought it would make her happy that a girl from a family who never attended church would want to go and shed be pleased with my sister for inviting her. To my utter shock, she sided with my father, and also flew into a rage! She helped him chase her around the house. I quickly went over to the girl and reassured her that I would make everything okay, because she was crying again. I had her stay on the living room couch while I went to intercept my parents. Mom locked the green bathroom so that Jeannie couldn't get back out that way. (We had two bathrooms. We referred to them as the green bathroom and the blue bathroom. The green bathroom had two doors. One led to the family room, and the other to my parents' room. The blue bathroom was in the hallway between my bedroom and my sisters on the other side of the wall not connected to any rooms.) Mom began to go all the way around the whole house to get to the other side of their bedroom. (That led to the hallway. My room was right behind their's.) However, I got there first. Dad had Jeannie in cornered in the back of their room. He began to raise his shoehorn. It was on the end of a long metal rod. Jeannie screamed for me. I ran in and stood between them before he had a chance to swing. I warned him that if he didn't back down and tried to hit her, this time I'd fight back physically. Now even angrier, he shoved me out of the way, and went to swing. But I got back in the way before he could.

All in a second's time, I grabbed his shoehorn out of his hands and threw it across the room with my left hand. With my right, I threw a hard punch right into his mouth that sent him staggering backward. His glasses flew off his face and nearly across the room. He looked at me in shock. His mouth was bleeding and his lips began to swell. My mother arrived at the opposite door just in time to see it happen. She couldn't believe her eyes.

I turned to them both half crying, and half still in rage. I remember basically what I had said."I warned you! The next time, not only will YOU (Looking directly at my father) get it again, but I WILL call the police and have you BOTH arrested for child abuse something I should have done long ago! If there is ANY retaliation tonight, I'll do it right now! I know you'll try to lie your way out of it, but I think they'll believe US! Plus, there's a little girl crying in the other room scared out of her mind who saw the whole thing! Let us get past without trying anything, and DONT talk to us for the rest of the night!" I turned to my father specifically as I pulled Jeannie up. "Now, get out of my way!" Nothing like that ever happened again.

But it wasn't only at home that I was put through abuse. Because I was conditioned (only at the time) to fear everyone and everything, I was very timid at school, and felt that I had to be perfect, or my life would be in danger at home. I was labeled a quiet, timid, goody-two-shoes, a geek, a wimp, got beaten up often, and became nothing short of a joke-on-legs to the entire school from my public grade school, Robert Frost, up to sixth grade to the Catholic school, St. Emilys throughout junior high to the seminary high school, Quigley North up until towards the end of my junior year. At that point, I finally realized that, though it was originally my parents' fault these things happened to me, it had now become my own fault for allowing them to continue. I finally put my foot down, and began to stand up for myself. I also began to BECOME more and more the person I always knew I REALLY was deep down - outgoing, brave, VERY strong on the inside, intelligent, witty, very deep, mature beyond my years, talented, adventurous, athletic, free-spirited, and a lot of fun on all levels. And I FINALLY felt I looked good, too.