Silence of Pain

By Cheryl Tolliver

Entitled Silence Of Pain the manuscript is about an African American girl from Louisiana endures abuse at the hands of her schizophrenic mother, an absent father and the torment it brought into their family lives. At the age of five-years old and born the first of three children ; this young girl was forced to endure pain, loneliness, loss and self-worth. This young girls family was poor and had to raise their own cattle and crops in order to make a living. After the murder of a daughter, being drugged and hit in the head with an axe; her mother was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
At the age of sixteen years old, she entrapped a young man by getting pregnant. After moving out of her grandparents home, she moved with her baby daddy only to find herself in an abusive relationship. At the age of two years old, her son thigh was mysteriously broken, therefore, she finds herself under an investigation and accused of child abuse. At the age of twenty-years old, she continued to go through the torment of her mother and the effect it had on their family lives.
At the age of twenty one, she enrolled in a community college. Upon completion of her college courses and finding a job working in a Nursing Facility, she left her sons dad to live on her own. At the age of twenty four, she had worked at the Nursing Facility for two years; she was charged with a crime that she didnt perpetrate. By the age of twenty eight years old, her mother had recovered from her illness, so she moved to escape any future episodes of her mothers torments and nightmare of being charged with a crime that she didnt perpetrate. Thinking that she would have a better life living in Texas; she was stalked, drugged, escaped death, and got caught up in an on the job scheme that cost her career which led her to become depressed and wanting to kill herself. Throughout her hard times, she regained her health and strength through prayer, friends, and self-motivation that allowed her to succeed in her daily life. Finally, she established a stronger bond with Christ to find solutions for both the physical and mental problems that she was facing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477213094

Cheryl Tolliver

Cheryl Tolliver was born in Louisiana, in 1968. She received her State High School Equivalency Diploma from Block High School in 1986, attended Success Institute of Business, in 1999. She has published her first book to capture the hearts of millions of adults and young people from all walks of life to encourage, inspire and take you on a journey of reality and help find a solutions to solve his or her problems in life. Cheryl is a single mother of one son, Jimmy Tolliver 27 years old.

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© 2012 by Cheryl Tolliver. 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.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/01/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-1311-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-1310-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-1309-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909987

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.

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

Introduction

Chapter One My Family History

Chapter Two The Delivery of A Third Child

Chapter Three Our Way of Living

Chapter Four The Murder of Our Sister

Chapter Five Living With My Mother

Chapter Six Wetting The Bed

Chapter Seven Stealing Candy

Chapter Eight Living With My Grandparents’

Chapter Nine My Second Year In The First Grade

Chapter Ten The Holiday Celebrations

Chapter Eleven Going To Work With Grandma

Chapter Twelve Meeting Mrs. Sissy

Chapter Thirteen The Breaking of My Brother’s Arm

Chapter Fourteen Learning To Pray and Forgive

Chapter Fifteen The Sexual Encounters

Chapter Sixteen My Love of Music

Chapter Seventeen The Welfare Intrusion

Chapter Eighteen Mama Getting Hit With An Axe

Chapter Nineteen My Baptism

Chapter Twenty The BB Gun Incident

Chapter Twenty One Getting Burned By Hot Water

Chapter Twenty Two Conspiracy of Burning The House

Chapter Twenty Three My Surgery

Chapter Twenty Four The Car Accident

Chapter Twenty Five Transformation of Mama’s Bad Habits

Chapter Twenty Six Running Away From Home

Chapter Twenty Seven Going Into A Foster Home

Chapter Twenty Eight Being Fondled

Chapter Twenty Nine Plotting To Kill My Grandfather

Chapter Thirty Moving With My Dad Mom

Chapter Thirty One Moving Back With

My Mother’s Parents’

Chapter Thirty Two Love At First Sight

Chapter Thirty Three The Pregnancy Plot

Chapter Thirty Four The Birth of My Baby

Chapter Thirty Five Jimmy’s Critical Illness

Chapter Thirty Six Dropping Out of High School

Chapter Thirty Seven Moving with Earnest

Chapter Thirty Eight Jimmy’s Broken Leg

Chapter Thirty Nine Returning Home From The Hospital

Chapter Forty Catching Earnest Cheating

Chapter Forty One Working In A Nursing Home

Chapter Forty Two The Misdemeanor

Chapter Forty Three Moving To Texas

Chapter Forty Four Moving Back to Louisiana

Chapter Forty Five My Mother’s Mental Illness

Chapter Forty Six The Cancer Scare

Chapter Forty Seven The Affair

Chapter Forty Eight Moving Back To Texas

Chapter Forty Nine Being Drugged

Chapter Fifty Getting Fired From Flow’s Department Store

Chapter Fifty One Working At Patzie’s Department Store

Chapter Fifty Two Graduating From Business School

Chapter Fifty Three Working For A Manufacturing Company

Chapter Fifty Four Seeking Employment

Chapter Fifty Five Forgiving Others

Chapter Fifty Six Final Statement

About the Author

This is a memoir. While inspired by true events and my recollections, they may not coincide with what others depicted in the story experienced or remember. Therefore, in consideration of that fact and in the interest of protecting their privacy, in some instances I may have changed some names, locations, or situations.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the strength that He has given me to write this book and for giving me the strength to go through trails and tribulations. I thank God for being the Author of my life and ordering my steps when I didn’t know how too!

Acknowledgements

In loving memory of my sister, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and my grandfather. To my lovely and dedicated son, I love you so much. Thanks for your encouragement, your support and thanks for picking out my book design. To my sister-in-law, thanks for listening to my story and believing in me. A big God bless you goes out to Pas and his family. I would like to say thank you Pas for encouraging me through your sermons. A big thank you goes out to those who have encouraged and prayed for me to write this book and helped me along the way.

I would like to say thank You God for giving me my family, a Pastor, and friends who have stood by me during my difficult times. I couldn’t have written this book if it had not been for the very important peoples mentioned above, therefore I thank them publicly.

I love you all, and I thank each of you again for loving and supporting me!

Introduction

One cold and rainy Friday morning, I had awakened hardhearted from a terrifying dream about my life. If, I would have known at the age of five years old that I would be continuously living in turmoil all my life, I would have killed my mother, grandfather and myself years ago. After that terrifying dream, I can honestly confess that I cried a river of tears deep enough to drown in that Friday morning. I cried for being abused by my schizophrenic mother and the torment it brought into our families’ lives: I cried for struggling with the murder of a sibling, for being fondled, being deceived and for being caught up in a web of on the job schemes, for being disloyal to myself and others, for being falsely accused and charged for something I didn’t do. I cried for the rumors that have caused me to get terminated from my job and the depression it brought into my life. I cried for my understandings and misunderstandings, my haves’ and have not’s, my accomplishments and for not accomplishing enough, for the things I have done to myself and for the things that I didn’t do for myself, for folks I have shown love and received nothing in return. I cried for all of the times that I should have cried, but I kept it buried deep within my soul for years with the resentment in my heart towards other’s that came along with it and for the times I had disrespected myself and disconnected myself from God. Last but not least, I cried for who I used to be and who I became now. For thirty-two years my life was full of thunderstorms’, but today I cried for the sunshine after my storm which has brought me a peace of mind.

It wasn’t, until I had awaken this particular Friday morning to get ready for work when I realized that I had two personalities’ and each personality have different names. Cheryl is the name of my first personality. Cheryl is a noble, giving, kind, and loving woman who loves to dress for success. Sherry who is my second personality is angry at the world for what others had done to her. Therefore, she has hatred in her heart and wanted to get even with the world.

This particular Friday morning, I had awakened from my dream with a headache. I didn’t feel like my cheerful self. I didn’t want to go to work and I didn’t feel like being around other folks. I got up and took care of my personal hygiene and fumbled through the closet to find something to wear to work. Instead, I put on a pair of jeans and an oversized shirt. I went into my bedroom closet to obtain my Nike tennis shoes, but they weren’t there. In an instance, I became disoriented, because I couldn’t find my tennis shoes. I started searching the house high and low for my tennis shoes, but I was unsuccessful in finding them. I became more and more distraught of trying to find those particular tennis shoes. There were other shoes that I could have chosen from my closet to wear on my feet, but I insisted on finding my old Nike tennis shoes. I became more frustrated at myself, because I had searched six’s rooms and three closets of my house and still I was unable to find my Nike tennis shoes. I had glanced at my watch and saw that it was passed my usual time to leave for work. It was then, I had realized, why I was searching for those tennis shoes. Now, I’m going to be late for work, were my thoughts. After noticing that I was going to be late for work, I stubbornly grabbed a pair of loafers out of my closet. I walked into my son’s room to sit down at my computer, there were my tennis shoes starring me in my face. I sat down in a chair and starred at those shoes, until I became delusional. Why are you being so selfish? If you would settle down and stop trying to do things in a hurry you would accomplish something. What’s wrong with you? If you knock at the door it shall be open up to you and if you seek you will also find, I had imaged my tennis shoes saying to me. I awakened form my delusion in tears.

Unaware of my mental condition, I stampeded through the house. I put my poodle behind her gate so that she wouldn’t ram shack the house, while I was at work. I made a mad dash for the back door trying to lock it in a hurry, but I was unable to lock my door. I took a deep breath and locked the door. I walked to my car dishearten, and I felt like screaming. I felt like screaming for all of the times that I needed to scream, but I didn’t. Tears began to settle in my eyes like a puddle of water. So far, I was successful in keeping my hurt tears from falling.

I cranked up my car and pushed the button for the garage door to open, but I wanted to push it back down. When, I let the garage door up, to my surprise it was raining outside. All of a sudden, I felt like Friday was on a Monday, because only trouble arrives for me on a Monday. That’s all that I needed was to feel blue on a rainy Friday. I drove out of my garage; I put my car into reverse and parked my car. I wanted to go into the house to pull my clothes off and get back into the bed, but I didn’t. I felt as though, I was having a nightmare. If, I get back into the bed and fall asleep and wake up everything will be alright, were my thoughts exactly. Instead, I kept on driving to work.

As, I started to drive down the wet pavements of Texas, the rain began to pour down cats and dogs. As quick as the rain would fall onto my windshield tears would begin to form in my eyes. All of a sudden, I became thirsty, but I didn’t want anything to drink. I tried very hard not to let one tear fall. God rain and my tears don’t mix something is bound to happen if my tears fall. I believe there would either be a drowning or a second baptism, I said and laughed to myself out loud. I tried to overcome my emotions, but my emotions overcame me. Unaware of the time had passed; I realized that I had pulled up into my employment parking lot. I sat in the car for a few minutes to gather my thought and emotions. When I was whipping my eyes and trying to catch up with my nose from running, I had realized that my soul was crying out for help. After calming myself down, I went into work and put my purse on my desk and went into the bathroom to cry, until I couldn’t cry anymore. I jerked a roll of tissue from one of the bathroom stalls; I stood in front of the mirror and watch myself cry. Before, I knew anything; I had used up a roll of tissue and started on another roll.

My co-worker Mrs. Candy walked in on me, while I was crying. What’s wrong with you? Candy asked me. Nothing, I had told her. Whatever it is it’s going to be okay come on and go outside with me while I smoke a cigarette, Mrs. Candy said. I went outside with her and stood in the rain. When I walked outside, I started to scream from the top of my lungs. I understand, Mrs. Candy said. No you don’t understand, I said to Mrs. Candy. You’re not the only one who have problem you know! Look at my wrist to see the marks where I had tried to cut my wrist with a knife, Mrs. Candy said to me nervously. I instantly stopped crying and hugged her. Thank you," I had told Mrs. Candy.

I immediately realized that I wasn’t the only human being who was having problems. Everyone has problems, some problems small and some are large. Some problems drive us crazy, some make us want to kill, some problems make us want to cry and some problems make us wish that we were dead. Whatever the situation at hand maybe, it all boils down to a second person inside of us. I think that everyone has a second personality waiting for an opportune moment for someone or something to bring it out of us. It’s up to us to control our second personality that tells us to kill ourselves or hurt others when our lives aren’t going well! I asked of you all who read my book that you seek help when your problems get overbearing. Killing other’s and ourselves is not the solutions to our problems, but controlling our problem is the solution!

If you don’t have a personal relationship with God, then I highly recommend you letting Him into your heart to save and deliver you from whatever and whomever. Say, Lord come into my heart, forgive and save me. Watch what God will do in your life! Keep on praying to God until your situation changes. God may not come when we want Him to, but He is right on time. He is an on time God! Try Him for yourself!

When trials and tribulations come we often turn to God wanting Him to fix things right then. (29) But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. (30) When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice. Deuteronomy 4:30 NKJV God tells us through His Word that we will have trials and tribulations. (4) who comforts us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 1:4 NKJV God also told us that we are born into a world of sin and troubles. (6) For affliction does not come from the dust. Nor does trouble spring from the ground; (7) Yet man is born to trouble, As the sparks fly upward. Job 6-7 NKJV In my case, I didn’t seek professional help. I went to God in prayer and He helped and hoped me! (13) Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms." James 5:13 NKJV

Ever since that day, I have been keeping my mind in a praying state throughout the day. I ask God to help me to hold out during stressful times and to keep me safe from all hurt harm and danger. I ask God to direct me in the path of righteousness for His namesake. I asked of God that He guide me through the pastures where there are no footsteps so that when I walk through the pastures, I can leave my footprint. While, I am walking through the pastures, I would ask God to take things out of me that aren’t pleasing to Him and strengthen me where I am vulnerable. Make me, mold me and shape me into the woman that He has created me to be!

Chapter One

My Family History

A small country town in Louisiana is where I was born and raised. If you tried to look my town up on a map, you would need a magnifying glass to find it. When you have found my home town on the map and had followed all of the directions you probably would pass through unaware of the small town. The speed limit on the highway is 35 mph. The citizens drive slowly and carefully so there is no way you could cause an automobile accident. If an accident was about to occur you could avoid it. If folks didn’t have cars for transportation they would use horses to go to work or drive into town. Some African Americans would have wagons attached to their horses in case they needed supplies from up town.

The population is about a few thousand peoples who lived in my home town. I grew up in a town, where the African Americans and Caucasian people were divided. All Caucasian folks lived on one side of the town in middle class houses. The majority of the African Americans lived on the other side of town. I never have seen one Caucasian person that lived in our neighborhood. Although we were divided from the rich and the poor sections, there weren’t any racial prejudice amongst us. We were one happy town. Everyone was friendly. No matter where we met as a sign of hello we waved our hands to each other.

I have seen and heard of the Caucasian having a better way of living and a better education for themselves than African Americans. Some of our African American people did not have a good education. Education was not pushed among them. As African Americans they were forced as young as five years of age to work in the cotton fields to help take care of their families. The middle class African Americans who had enough resource to live on had better education and good jobs. Don’t get me wrong, there were some poor African Americans who had graduated from High School and found a good job.

Years ago, I didn’t see one African American working behind a register. Some African Americans had no other choice but to work for others as cooks, maids or baby sitters. The majority of the African Americans were on welfare, because some could not find suitable jobs to take care of their families. The African American men found jobs working in saw mill’s, cotton gins, railroads, or working on a construction site while their wives cleaned houses and some were stay at home moms.

In the old days some folks where I had lived farmed or raised their own crops. The grocery stores profits were low when it came to vegetables and meat. The colored folks grew, picked, canned and sold their own vegetables to make a living. They raised their own cattle to kill. To you, those days may seem complicated, but to us it was a way of survival. Although my family was poor, they were rich in spirit and were satisfied with what they had and always were thankful to God no matter what the circumstances at hand may have been.

It was a captivating interval for Ann and Charles with their four children Sam, Carol, Charles Jr and Pam. Sam the oldest son was conceived by a man named Jake from Ann’s previous marriage. Ann divorced Jake when Sam was eight months old due to a conflict encountered between them. Charles and Ann didn’t have an education. The two of them were forced to work at an early age. At the age of five years old, Charles was forced to work in the cotton fields to help provide for his family. Charles was chosen to work in the field not because he was the oldest, but because he looked more mature than a five year child should look. There were three girls and five boys in Charles family. He was the tallest and the biggest amongst his siblings. Charles family was poor and having difficult times trying to make a living. Having financial problems wasn’t the only problems in Charles family, he had witnessed men abuse and mistreat his mother and became intimidated by what he had witnessed. As Charles grew older he started looking for a better opportunity for himself. He wanted to find a suitable job to better his life and soon raised a family of his own. Charles faith came sooner than he expected and was offered a position working for a sawmill making more money.

Ann came from a troubled family in which she had witnessed abuse and was abused herself by her mother and stepfather. Ann’s mother and father were married, but they later separated due to the violent nature of her mother’s attitude. Beth was Ann’s mother’s name. Beth had borne three children two girls and one boy. I’ve heard of stories of my great-grandmother Beth becoming a dangerous person when she became intoxicated. We gave her a nickname of Big Mama, because she was on the heavy side and said whatever came to her mind. Big Mama didn’t care about how she spoke or if she hurt anyone’s feelings. I have heard stories of a couple of instances where Big Mama made one of her lovers drive her behind a levee, while she was intoxicated and shot him in his hip. The man walked a few blocks to get help to take him to the hospital. Once the hospital had taken care of him, he went back to Big Mama house as if nothing had happened. Another incident happened while she was drinking and playing dominoes with a lover which escalated into a heated argument that led Big Mama into shooting her second boyfriend. The man didn’t die. He seeks medical attention and returned home to her. Big Mama never was arrested for any of the crimes she had committed. I guess that’s why Big Mama continued to do what she did, because she always got away with her crimes without going to jail. Big Mama was a victim of abuse herself and carried it on to her generation.

Although, my grandmother Ann history of abuse outweighed her she didn’t boast about the bad often. Ann better known as grandma claims all of her good days out weighed her bad days so she would rather boast about the good days. My grandmother spoke happily about her childhood for a brief moment. As grandma and I sat on the porch one day, she told me a brief story from her birth to five years old. She lived with her mother Beth from birth to five years old. Beth had shown favoritism towards the baby girl Dawn, while she was abused. Tommy, Beth only son was killed in an automobile accident. Tommy was driving drunk and steered off the pavement to his death. My grandma and her family lived on a farm and grew cotton to make a living. Grandma and her male cousin used to jump and play on the cotton while her parents were in the field picking cotton. Ann’s parents used the sack they bought flour out of to put the picked cotton inside. Grandma recalls her parents picking the cotton to sell to different vendors. They would sometimes trade the cotton for food. When my grandma parents picked the cotton and put it on the front porch, my grandma and her cousin Henry would jump up and down on the cotton. One day while jumping on the cotton, Henry cut his tongue bad on a cotton stalk. My grandma said that Henry tongue was bleeding all over the white cotton. My grandmother uncle saw that they were playing and jumping on the cotton; he came over to the porch and whipped them both. When the uncle saw that Henry was bleeding, he said that’s what you get from jumping up and down. He took each one by the collar and threw them through the window of the house onto the bed. After her uncle whipped them, they were back out there playing on the cotton once again. Grandma said nothing stopped them from playing on that cotton. When Big Mama would tell my grandmother and her cousin Henry to stop playing on the cotton, they would keep jumping, until they were content. They weren’t worried about getting a whipping; they were having fun playing on that cotton. Jumping on the soft cotton was more exciting than to picking it, she said.

Working at an early age and abuse was handed down from generation to generation; the oldest son, Sam was put to work in the field at the age of five years old to help support the family finances. Sam witnessed his stepfather abuse his mother. The scenes of his stepfather abusing his mother played throughout his mind, as he grew older. He wanted the abuse to stop. Since, the abuse continued Sam grew weary of his mother paying the bills instead of the stepfather who should have been paying the bills. Resentment of Sam stepfather beating on his mother begins to kick in as he became a teenager. Sam took his family’s frustration out on other children as they picked at him. When he would fight, he fought to kill, but he never killed anyone. If anyone bothered Sam and thought they had gotten away with it, they may have gotten away with it for that moment, because Sam never forgot to get even with anyone. When Sam victims think he has forgotten about the incident, Sam gets his revenge on his victims by hitting them when they least expect it.

One day Sam and his stepfather Charles had gotten into a conflict about hitting on his mother Ann. Sam begins to check the guns in the house for bullets to kill his stepfather, but Sam was talked out of the killing plot by his mother Ann.

Although, Sam worked from a child to adolescent he strived to continue his education. Sam became involved in working hard to help provide for his family. Sam began to miss too many days from high school. Before he could make up any days that he had missed due to working, the teachers failed him in the twelfth grade. Sam didn’t let this failures discourage him, he continued to work and when school began he tried hard to graduate from high school. Sam was supposed to graduate in 1966, but he successfully graduated in 1967. After graduation, he packed his things and moved out of town where he is now resigning with his wife, Marge, and their three lovely children Ted, Tim, and his daughter Donna.

Charles Jr dropped out of school and left home at the age of fifteen years old due to the fact that he grew tired of seeing his dad beat on his mother. The witnessing of his mother’s abuse by his dad led Charles Jr into plotting to kill his biological dad. One day while Charles Jr dad Charles was fighting his mother he intervenes and began fighting his dad in the defense of his mother. Charles moved away from his parents’ home after that fight he and his dad had over his mother.

The baby girl Pam graduated from high school and got married at the age of seventeen and moved out of town where her oldest brother Sam lived. She and her husband Arthur were settled in an apartment and lived out of town for a year. The two of them decided that living out of town wasn’t a place to raise a family. Pam held her silence of what she had witnessed as a child and never spoke about the past. Pam and her husband Arthur lively hood didn’t go as well as expected out of town, so they moved back to their home town where they had three lovely children, two boys Shawn, Damon and a girl named Sarah.

Carol, who is my mother didn’t like what Charles her father had done to her mother. Carol and her dad had numerous arguments about her mother. She had her share of abuse from her father, but Carol didn’t let that stop her. Soon Carol became disinterested in school and became interested in boys. The situation had gotten out of hand. In the year of 1965, my mother was sixteen year old. My grandma would send my mother to school every day. She would skip school to meet men at the club. Someone told my grandmother that Carol had been skipping school to go to the club. The folks around town told my grandma where Carol would be found on a day she wouldn’t be at school. Wherever the folks would say Carol could have been found sure enough, she would be in the club. She was drinking and associating with a man. Grandma walked up to my mother without her noticing she was in the club. Since you are not going to school go find a job, grandma replied to Carol. After grandma made