Through a Mother's Pain, the Child Cries

By Pickle Dell

As a mother, do you understand that your child may have to live with every decision you make for the rest of his or her life? This book takes you on a journey into the life of a young girl dealing with domestic violence and child abuse. It gives you an awareness of not only the physical effects, but also the mental effects, your decisions have on your children. Abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level across ethnic and cultural lines, within all religions and at all levels of education. This book might not stop it from happening but it will let you know you are not alone and give you some ways to recover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452074610

Pickle Dell

The author, after getting a degree in “surviving child abuse” with a concentration in “thanking God I’m not crazy” from LIFE University, realized that her life had more of a purpose than she thought. So she sat down and she looked back, and realized that all of her good days out weighed her bad days, so she won’t complain.

Book preview

Statement of Purpose

AS A MOTHER, DO YOU understand that your child may have to carry the baggage of your actions for the rest of his or her life? The purpose of this book is to give you some insight on just that and to bring awareness of how a young woman can heal from the domestic violence/child abuse issues of her past by setting down the baggage she carried around for so long.

Contents

Statement of Purpose

Acknowledgements

Getting to Know Us

Moving In With Mr. Wrong

Dominance

Humiliation

Denial and Blame

Intimidation

Isolation

The Beating

Making Up Should Be Hard to Do

The Healing of a Family

The Healing of a Woman

This book is dedicated to:

every woman who has dealt with something,

every woman who is dealing with something,

and every woman who will deal with something;

and the children who stand at her side.

I love you, Mommy.

Acknowledgements

TO WRITE A BOOK OF this magnitude is healing. It is love, strength, and most of all, it is God. I want to thank my family for allowing me to share my/our story. I’m thankful for my mother, step-mothers, father, step-fathers, and all my sisters and brothers.

To my grandparents, Lorraine, the late Charles, and the late Essie, I owe you my all. It is your humble foundation on which I build my life. Your guidance comforts me and your eternal love protects me.

For the man that god took a rib and formed me, Tony, I am grateful. Your love and support through this process, I will always cherish. My daughters, Ashley and Tiffany, I love you more than words can say.

Finally, a special thanks to all the brick layers that took each individual piece of my life and helped build the house called this book. You know who you are.

Getting to Know Us

AS I SAT IN THE waiting room of the therapist’s office, I realized that what I was about to do might change my life forever. I had never told anyone the story of my childhood before. No one had ever asked, and so the story stayed deep inside, eating at my soul.

A well-dressed, middle-aged woman emerged from her office. Are you Carmen Baker? she asked.

Extending my hand, I replied, Yes, I am.

I’m Doctor Snapper. Come in and have a seat. We will get started in a minute. Something to drink?

No thank you, I replied.

She began, This is the longest therapy session you will have with me, because I want to take you back. I want you to start describing your childhood from the beginning, not leaving out anything, even if you don’t think it’s important. My notes say that you lived with your grandmother at first, correct?

Yes, I answered.

Tell me your story.

Sitting back in the chair, I paused for what seemed like minutes. I crossed my hands, took a deep breath, and began to speak.

Living at my grandmother’s house was fun. It was safe, and we ate well. It’s not that my mother did not take care of us. She just did not do it like my grandmother did. So when my mother called me and my sister into the bathroom on that warm day in May of 1978 to tell us she wanted to talk to us, we knew it was something serious.

I am going to have a baby, she began. The father is a guy I have been going out with for a while. He is in jail right now, but when he comes home we are going to move in with him.

My sister Corrine, who was five years old at the time, was too young to understand what this meant. I, at the age of nine, was not. I began firing off questions. What is he in jail for? Why do we have to move? When is the baby coming? Did you tell grandma and granddaddy?

My mother replied, Slow down. One question at a time. By this time my grandfather was knocking at the door and yelling. Can you talk somewhere else? I have to use the bathroom.

My mother then patted me on the head and said, We’ll talk later.

My mother was a slender, well-built woman who stood about 5’6" and wore about 130 pounds. She had long, beautiful black hair, and she dated a lot. I did not take her dating life seriously. After all, I would hear my grandmother and grandfather talking about how my mother was enjoying herself and the safest place for Corrine and me was there with them. So, like a child, I thought that the longer my mother enjoyed herself, the longer we would live with