Chosen: An Inspirational Story

By Paul J. Caden

Take a journey with a boy growing up in a small Montana town as he gets drawn into physical and psychological torture, incestuous relationships and near death experiences. He then gets sucked down to the pits of Hell by addictions to sex and alcohol. Only when he hits rock bottom does he find God and himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781468542561

Paul J. Caden

Paul J. Caden is involved in Voices of Hope which is a suicide prevention hot line and a he is a sexual abuse advocate for victims. He is in the speaker's bureau for RAINN. (RAINN is a Rape Abuse Incest National Network). He was a Police Officer for five years and now he is currently a Sergeant at a Correctional facility in Montana. When he is not working or writing you can find him deep within the woods of Montana.

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© 2011 by Paul J. Caden. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 12/27/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4685-3151-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-3152-7 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011962909

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Author’s Disclaimer

Authors Notes

In the Beginning         Chapter 1

The HOUSE         Chapter 2

The Remission         Chapter 3

The Plunge         Chapter 4

The Abyss         Chapter 5

The Escape         Chapter 6

A Brush with Death         Chapter 7

Homecoming         Chapter 8

A Step Up         Chapter 9

A Dream Realized         Chapter 10

The Letter         Chapter 11

Forgiveness         Chapter 12

The Fall         Chapter 13

The Journey         Chapter 14

My Inspiration         Chapter 15

How is life for me now?         Chapter 16

Statistics, Tips, and Myths

About RAINN

Big Sky Apantao

The Redemption Prayer

Acknowledgements

I would like to take a moment and thank everyone in my past, present and future for making me into the man that I am today. Though there were years and years of tremendous turmoil, you have all seen me through this. I want to thank everyone who helped me throughout my life and those who continue to help.

I especially want to thank Sierra, through her own confessions of sexual abuse led me to have the strength to write this book. I thank you all and God Bless you and your families.

Author’s Disclaimer

Please be advised that the content within this book is and can be very painful for some to read. The events in this book are graphic and will affect everyone differently.

Authors Notes

Some of the names and locations in this book have been changed in order to maintain the dignity and privacy of others.

All scripture referenced in Chosen was taken directly from the Holman Christian Standard Bible (The Police Officer’s Bible)

For more information on Paul J. Caden visit us on the web at

www.paulcaden.com. He is also on Facebook and Twitter.

In the Beginning         Chapter 1

By Paul J. Caden

January 5th, 2009

2155 hrs

God doesn’t give you the people you want, He gives you the people you NEED; to help you, to hurt you, to leave you, to love you, and to make you into the person you were meant to be.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t born to a loving married couple doting over their new found bundle of joy. I was born to a twenty-year-old unwed woman who had a one night stand. She transmitted the ultimate disease, a baby. Within a few days of being born my mother, Maggie, gave me up for adoption. God intervened in my life and did not allow the adoption to go through. God chose who my mother was long before I was born and He assured that it was not going to change. Did that mean that it made my mother want me? No it didn’t, but God had a plan and in order for that plan to work I had to have Maggie as my mother. God knew what Maggie was going to do to me. He knew what each individual person was going to do. But God knew that I would not become the person I am now if I hadn’t sustained such maltreatment and abuse.

I grew up in a small North Central Montana town with a total population of 250 people. The main two industries were grain farmers and bars. The people were either drunks, farmers, or both. That fact aside, there were some great people in that town back then and now. Although I haven’t gone back there often for obvious reasons you will learn later. The town was simple in design; there was a main street coming from the interstate which intersects with the railroad. Along the railway there were several grain elevators. There was a gas and vehicle repair shop and a post office. At one point, there were several businesses but they had all died off. In my early years most of these buildings stood but were not in operation.

In this town there was a large water tower. It stretched to approximately 150 feet. It was silver in color with the town’s name on it painted in large black letters. The school was a large one level building that housed grades kindergarten through senior in high school. Everyone knew everyone in my town as well as everyone in surrounding towns. Nearby, the Teton River flowed having cut its path over thousands of years. The river bottoms were good for hunting and fishing.

My mother worked as a farm hand during the day and a bartender at night. When I was of six months to about five years old she sent me to a family in a town ten miles away to stay while she worked. When she had a day off she would come and get me if she was not partying.

I loved staying at that family’s house because it was as close to a home I ever knew growing up. It was a home where I was safe, warm, and had food. Bert, Nancy, John, and Ric treated me like a person, a son, and a brother. I wished that they were my family. They were an intricate part of the value system I have today.

The earliest memories I can recall with my mother, was when I was about 3 years old. We lived in a small mobile home. It was green and white on the outside and had dark wood paneling on the inside. The carpet inside was dark green. The mobile home was infested with mice and moldy dishes. These two wretched odors have stuck with me to this day. Any time I smell old or moldy syrup it nearly causes me to vomit. Rarely did we ever have visitors due to the condition of the mobile home we lived in, especially since my mother did not care too much about cleaning.

We did not have a television and I remember sitting on the floor for hours listening to music on an old record player. I have always preferred music over television. When we weren’t in the mobile home listening to music, we were driving around on old dirt roads in her blue Ford Maverick listening to classic country. I enjoyed doing this looking at the fields and old buildings on homestead farms.

Driving or sitting in the bar was much better for me because when we were at home the gates were opened to use me inappropriately. During this time my mother started abusing me sexually. When I was 2-3 years old, the sexual abuse started by my mother filling up the dark green bath tub with water. She disrobed in front of me and got in the bath tub. I asked her questions about her body like what’s that? She told me to get undressed and she began teaching me about bodies. She had me get into the bathtub with her and the game would continue.

After the bath, we dried off with dirty clothes because at that time I don’t think we owned an actual towel. Then she invited me into the bed. I thought this game was great because it answered many questions that I had. She took it to a level that went far beyond my years of questions into a dark and foreboding path of sexual deviance.

One particular time we just finished a bath and she again invited me into her bed. As I asked my sexual questions she showed me how I could make mommy feel good by licking her, touching her, and so forth. She went on to teach me the Bad push-ups. I thought my mommy must really love me to be showing me this. She told me I couldn’t tell anyone how much she loves me and that most parents don’t love their kids this much. I felt special, but dirty.

As she was making me perform the Bad push-ups for her a knock came on the front door of the trailer house. She had a look of horror on her face as she screamed at me to get dressed. It was in the middle of the day. She got dressed and went to the door; no one was there. Many years later, I came to the conclusion that it was Jesus at the front door knocking to put a stop to what she did to me that day. But it did not stop. It just got worse.

That was the first time that I had any inclination that this could be wrong. I was beginning to feel it in my stomach that something was not right. No matter how many baths I took in that green bathtub or any other tub I felt I was never going to be clean again. I started to question why she would do this to me? But I reeled back to the words my mommy said; that I am special and no one loves me like she does.

The abuse continued long after we moved out of the trailer house. We had moved into the cellar of an old restaurant. This place was a dungeon at best. There were two wood doors that lay on the ground but opened to a set of steep dilapidated stairs. The foundation on both sides of the stairs was crumbling. I often had to swat spider webs out of my face as I walked down the stairs.

After braving the stairs you came into a tiny kitchen which opened up into a living room. There was enough room for a couch and that was about it. Passed the living room was my bedroom. Often I got out of my bed to go to the bathroom or get a drink and there were salamanders all over my floor. Let me tell you, the feel of a lizard’s tail between your toes is a feeling you never forget!

The bathroom was a toilet sitting in the middle of a concrete room with an enclosed shower next to it. My mother’s bedroom was connected to the bathroom. There was a bed and a mirror on the wall. At the age of five I did not like to look at myself in the mirror.

Another time my mother abused me, she was wearing a pink night gown and black underwear that had Saturday embroidered on them. When she finished with me she became angry with me and screamed at me. I did not know why she was angry with me then and to this day I do not know why she was angry with me. I did not know if I did not do a good enough job or what the case was. This particular event stuck out in my mind.

My mother began to leave me alone for long periods of time when I was this age. I was always told not to go anywhere and not to talk to anyone. She was at the bar drinking and gambling. She worked at the bar, which was across the street from the dungeon. Whether she was across the street or in another state the fact remained that I was alone and very lonely. She had no business leaving a five-year-old home alone.

While living in the dungeon, I was outside riding my tricycle when I tried jumping a pothole in the concrete. My front tire went into the hole and my behind went over my head. My chin was used as landing gear as I came in for a crash on the unforgiving concrete. I immediately stood up and ran screaming with blood gushing from the laceration in my chin. I remember screaming so hard I could hardly keep my balance and my vision was very blurred. I don’t know if it was from the crying or from how hard I hit my head. This was the one time I remember my mother actually taking me in for medical care. I received five stitches in my chin and a permanent mark on one of my front bottom teeth.

Shortly thereafter I started kindergarten. I remember my Uncle Samuel was up visiting and he took me to my first day of school. I was very sad that my mother would not take me but she was sleeping. Samuel got me to school and to my correct classroom. Like most kids my age wanted our parents to take us to our first day of school, but not my mother. My first day went well but it went downhill fast.

It did not take long for the kids in the class to figure out by my poor hygiene and hand me down clothes that I was very poor and different. They began ripping me apart psychologically by daily teasing and pushing me around. The anger began swelling inside of me. But instead of beating someone up, I would cry. This would fuel them even further. I would tell the teachers but they did nothing to help.

One day in class, we talked about alcohol and drugs and the teacher made a comment to me in front of the entire class. You should know what it is like living with an alcoholic because your mom is one. I felt like I could have crawled inside my shell and never come out again. At the same time I wanted to lash out at this teacher who ridiculed me in front of the class. I was so embarrassed that even though it was true I wanted to protect my mother. That teacher knew that things were not kosher at my house but still failed to do any investigating. She had no problem humiliating me but she did nothing to save me. If you are a teacher today and you see red flags don’t turn a blind eye to them. Open your eyes. If there are red flags then likely you are only seeing a portion of what is truly going on.

That is not a slam on our underpaid teacher’s. It is a cry out to them to stop what they see. I know, easier said than done. Finish reading this book and tell ME it cannot be done.

Shortly after this event in school with the teacher, my mother met an adult man who could then satisfy her needs. After dating for a short time she went to Wyoming to see him. I was left with a young married couple Melvin and Kathy for the weekend.

During that weekend, I was safe. No one yelled at me. No one made me take my clothes off and perform. I didn’t have to lick anything I didn’t want to lick. And you know what? I got to play with toys! Melvin even took apart an old music box just to show me how it worked! I was so excited to be getting this attention. I never wanted to leave. They treated me very well that weekend and many more to come after that.

We had one problem though. I had a serious problem with wetting the bed. And you guessed it! I wet the bed. I lay in the wet bed for as long as I could, not wanting Melvin and Kathy to be angry with me. Kathy finally got me out of the bed and discovered why I didn’t want to get out. She hugged me and said Oh, sweetie this is nothing but a thing. Now go get in the shower and I will get this cleaned up. I did not want Melvin knowing about it because I had not had many men in my life that I wasn’t scared or intimidated by. I was afraid of Kathy and Melvin coming in and taking a shower with me but to my surprise neither one bothered me! I felt a warm sensation in my stomach. I prayed God would make this my home.

The weekend passed all too quickly and it was now time to go home. My mother came back and told me we were moving to Wyoming. I was crushed but I thought about school and maybe Wyoming kids weren’t as bad as Montana kids. There was one important thing that I didn’t even take into consideration. The sexual abuse stopped while we lived in Wyoming. I didn’t understand it then but I understand it now.

Before my mother met Gerald she did not have another adult to share or express her sexuality with. Now that I did not have anyone to express my sexuality with, I began to act out.

Having been subject to the extreme sexual abuse that I sustained, I was now a sex-a-holic at the age of five. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad my mother stopped abusing me now that she had an adult male in her life. That was a Godsend. I just fantasized about girls in my class having sex with me. Everyone I looked at I wondered if they were also having sex with their parents. Not a normal train of thought for a five-year-old kid.

The six months I lived in Wyoming I was skipping out of school, getting into fights, and cut a man’s fence down. I was hell on wheels. My mother soon took me back to Montana and the abuse started again.

When we moved back, we lived in the HOUSE. The house was much bigger than any other place we had lived in and it even had an upstairs. My mother told me that the entire upstairs was mine to do what I wanted. I was so excited. Maybe this time it will be different, I thought to myself. As I ran across the kitchen floor I noticed that it bounced like a sponge under my feet and by the time I made it to the living room a few steps away, my mother warned me about walking careful on the kitchen floor as the beams underneath were bent, twisted, and warped. There was a 2 inch gap in the perimeter of the floor and the base boards. This worried me as I did not want to fall into the new dungeon.

As with all kids, I was excited to explore the new house and I ran from room to room. I went upstairs to my bedroom and the ceilings were slanted at a degree that made it very easy to hit my head. There was also a 12" square cut out of the floor apparently to allow heat to get to the upstairs. I thought it was neat because I could see into the living room from my bedroom. We moved what little we had into the house and at first it was clean and it was like a mansion to me. But that soon changed.

It was now summer time and school was out. I made a couple of friends and just as soon as I did my mother shipped me to Kalispell, Montana to spend the