I Was Just A Child

By April Longabaugh

Pat Potter McAndrews, M.A

1515 The Alameda, Suite 202

San Jose, CA. 95126

408-287-2103

November 5, 2008

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing to endorse a book written by April Longabaugh named I WAS JUST A CHILD.

This book was written as a part of her therapy to address the issues of her physical, emotional, and sexual abuse which she suffered at the hands of her parents. I encouraged her to write and use art to express her feelings and thoughts about the severe trauma that she experienced as she was growing up in her family. It is a miracle that April can function today as a complete human being that expresses love and kindness to others, including her parents. This process has allowed April to heal and be able to share her growth and insight with others in a very powerful modality.

I have witnessed how her story has affected others and helps them address their issues and begin the long journey of healing. For those who were not abused, this book is enlightening and informs them that something needs to be done to stop abuse. I believe that this book has something in it for everyone.

Yours truly,

Pat Potter McAndrews, M.A.,BCPC

This book is about a family consumed by violence, and also how it affected different members of the family. This book also shows how the abuse or violence affected the parents as the perpetrators. Then the book shows where the violence came from and how it came to be. How the father felt he was God's equal and how the mother wanted to be a queen. When the parents didn't get the reverence they wanted the children were dealt with and received unbelievable treatment. Finally, how the oldest child while fighting off advances from both parents still learned to survive, cope, heal, forgive, and then use the past and help others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098034955

Book preview

cover.jpg

ISBN 978-1-0980-3494-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-3495-5 (digital)

Copyright © 2020 by April Longabaugh

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Child Abuse

Family Tree

The Beginning

Father

Mother

The Consenting Child

Mom and Dad’s Beliefs

A Perfect Family

Queen Mother

Broken Promise

The Shepherd

Children Have No Purpose, Except to Serve

Mom and Dad’s Trophies

A Taste of Hell

No One Will Care

The Punishment I Would Never Forget!

Sex Abuse

Satan’s Child

The Pit

Exorcism

I Was Just a Child Left All Alone

Resurrection

Not Wanted

I Was Just a Child

The Effect of Abuse on Me as the Victim

Shamed

I Will Never Be Good Enough

Panic Attacks

Reactive Attachment Disorder

Insecurities

Catatonic

Immaturity

Flashback

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome

Social Anxiety Disorder

Conditions of Dysfunction

Control Not Love

Price of Love

Rage

Manipulation

Always Negative, Never Positive

Fear

Resentment

Always Trying to Please

Holiday Blues

Verbal Abuse

I Just Can’t Win

Intolerance

Scapegoat

Sabotaging

Animal Abuse

Ostracized

The Result of Dysfunction is Dysfunction

I Stood Alone

Parents as the Perpetrators

A War of Wits and Control

Self-Esteem

Being Perverse

Dad’s Time in Jail

On the Run

Co-Dependent

Domestic Violence

They Were Their Own Worst Enemy

Stressed Out

Not My Fault

Denial

In God We Trust

Displacement

Deception

Top Secret!

Embitterment

Depression

Validation

Coping with the Abuse of My Life

Fantasies

Being Acknowledged

Sleep

Dissociation

Staying Distance

Compliant

Repressing My Feelings

My Elusive Tears

My Fat

Defensively Living

Staying Busy

A Child’s Love

Our Survival

Second StanzaI Was Just a Child

Obstacles

Acknowledgment

The Obstacle and Finding Forgiveness

Confronting My Parents

You Owe Me, Now Pay Up

Two Different Views

Helping Others Is Helping Myself

Changing the Programming

Killing Off My Demon

The Opposite Sex

Once Again Thrown Away

My Depression

Do I or Don’t I?

My Impotence

Suppressed Anger

POW

Third StanzaI Was Just a Child

Healing of Self

Who Am I?

One of God’s Creations

Wine and Roses

A Highbred Rose

To Touch Again

My Pain Within

My Emotional Needs

My Husband

A Compassionate Spirit

Flying Home

Seeing the Light

Transformation

Afraid of My Own Power

A Journey to Self

I Am No Longer a Child Left All Alone

Preface

We pretend there is no such thing as child abuse. No one wants to believe humans are capable of such terrible things because we would then have to question the norm. My book will tell how I defeated and overcame child abuse in my life. I want to make others aware and familiar with the effects and symptoms of abuse in an effort to stop abuse.

The format of my book is in sections, for a better delivery of my message to my readers. I use my art, and events of my life to show my emotional state of mind. Art has always been important to me. And my art says what words cannot tell. These events will help show you what I went through in different situations. My poetry is another way of expressing the rhythm of my feelings at a given moment in my life. My dreams are to show my emotional state of mind through the events of my life in my book.

Child Abuse

No animal on earth tortures its young, except man.

We take pride in thinking we are better and smarter than animals, but are we? Who are really the animals? Where does aggressive behavior come from? Is it taught, learned, or instinctive? Is the enormous brain a benefit or hindrance?

Are we getting closer or farther from God? It seems mankind has forgotten how to love. To me, God is love. The more you love, the closer you are to God. Hell is the absence of love. My childhood was a true hell. This is my story.

I am a survivor of child abuse: emotional, financial, mental, verbal, physical, sexual, and spiritual abuse. We must take the responsibility of finding a way to eradicate all kinds of abuse, and the first step is to believe that these brutal crimes occur.

My children were grown before I ever started dealing with the events of my childhood. I have always tried to put abuse out of my mind, closing the door to my past, not wanting to look or understand why such things happened. Out of sight out of mind. Not so! I was never good at pretending things didn’t bother me. There was always turmoil in my life, centered around my parents. These events refused to stay buried. When I started looking at the past, it was like a flood, and I was overwhelmed.

To others outside our family, I’m sure that our life seemed normal. My parents were very good at putting up a good front. No one would ever expect they were capable of the crimes committed in our home behind closed doors. It took me a long time before I accepted the memories of childhood abuse. I was taught to believe I deserved the extreme treatment because I was so bad. Once I accepted the past as abusive and that it wasn’t my fault, I was devastated. How could my parents have committed and maintained such evil, dark, secrets? I always knew I was sexually abused, except my parents taught me to believe that it was my fault and that Dad was the victim. I, the devil child seduced him to the dark side.

Some say, you must look for the good when things are bad. The one obvious good that I can do with my past is for me to tell my story in an effort to stop abuse. For those who have never been abused, I want to enlighten you and encourage you to fight against child abuse. For those who were abused as children, I hope we can find a common bond. Perhaps I can help in some way with your healing.

I’m here to tell you it is possible to suffer such extreme abuse and become healthy, well adjusted, and living a normal life. It is a long road to recovery, and I still have a long way to go. But every day I get a little bit closer to healing. I’m introducing my parent to the reader to show their dynamic personalities and the affect that they had one everyone around them. Without the dynamic duo as my parents, my life would have been much different.

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Family Tree

I use my family tree to show how abuse was handed down from generation to generation.

I hear a lot of stories of abuse and I wonder what the cause was that started it. Where does abuse come from? When? How? Why? What was done after to make amends? As I start my quest, I study my family tree. By looking at my lineage I found it to be more of a blood bath than a bloodline.

I’m using my family history to show how abuse is passed from generation to generation. You will see how sex abuse and trauma were present, especially on my Dad’s side of the family. You will see how the women on both sides stayed quiet and did nothing to stop the abuse. Sex abuse and trauma are taught and then handed down to the next in line. My story started many, many years ago, but the blood bath was going to end with me!

No one ever showed affection in my family, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any touching. There was an extreme amount of bad touching. No one did anything to change the behavioral patterns. I will show how the dynamic personalities of my parents started. My knowledge of my family is limited, but I believe it to be true. I have heard these stories more than once and from more than one source. I’m only going back three generations. Names have been changed for legal reasons.

Mother’s Maternal Grandparents, Henry and Mary

Henry was a quiet man to most who knew him. He was a teacher by trade. Henry was a man of few words who taught with a ruler in hand. While he did express his severe anger loudly to everyone, he never expressed his feelings of love, to his wife or his family. In fact he considered his wife no more than a common ordinary slave. Henry believed that God intended it so. I’m sure he was considered a normal man by most in his time. He was a man of good means because he provided for his family.

Mary was the average woman to most who knew her. She was a very quiet, submissive woman, who allowed her man to walk all over her. Henry always came first, his trivial wish was her mastering command. Mary went about her life doing her duties as if she were born to serve, and never dared to utter any request for herself. She always stayed in her place and never challenged the rules because she knew not to while Henry was free to do whatever, whenever he wanted to. Henry and Mary had one child, Grandmother Clara.

My Mother’s Paternal Grandparents, William and Delphila

William was a farmer and better off than most. They always had enough food for the family to eat. He was a quiet man, kept things to himself. The family was church going but William only went sometimes because he was a drinking man. He got mean when he drank and was extremely abusive to his family. The family kept quiet about his drinking because they were not proud of it. William treated women like they were servants and he believed women were his to toy with when he wanted. Woman didn’t have any say in William’s house. The entire family was expected to keep his secrets, while his corrupt and improper mistreatment toward his women was abundant and deliberate.

Delphila, again, was your average wife of her time. She was a religious person because her husband permitted it. Once she did leave her husband to escape the abuse. But William found her, dragged her home, and told her that he would kill her if she ever left again. She believed him, and became the good Christian wife that he wanted. Meaning she was his doormat. It was his way, or no way. Even when he was wrong, he was right because he was the man. Delphila simply closed her eyes to all the wrong that William did, even to the pain of her daughters. William and Delphila had six children. My grandfather was one of the middle children. His name was Lloyd.

My Maternal Grandparents, Lloyd and Ruth

Lloyd was not rich, but always had work, doing odd jobs around town. He was a very fat man. Everyone in town knew him and some liked him, while the woman avoided him including his own family. I didn’t like him because he had fast hands. If I got too close, he would grab me. I remember the female relatives talking about him grabbing them. He felt the females in his family were his toys, just as his father did. No one ever tried to stop him. They just took it quietly.

When he was at home, he always expected my Grandmother Ruth to wait on him. She was his servant to use as he saw fit. One of my most vivid memories of them was with him sitting in his big old chair and yelling for her. Ma, and she would come running. All he wanted was for her to rub his back. She would comply. He would then scream at her.

Where is my dinner? She would quietly go back to what she was doing. Lloyd was never one to say thank you to his family, especially his wife. To Lloyd woman were of little value. Ruth was one of my favorite relatives. At times I felt that she was more like a mother to me than my own mother. Ruth kept quiet about her husband, even when he was wrong. Her husband was king in his house.

What he said went, she never challenged him on anything. Ruth seemed to be a good mother, but her husband came first. She was married to Lloyd for over fifty years. They had ten children, nine of which lived to be adults. My mother was a middle child. Ruth died of cancer on Mothers’ Day just before I was married. Lloyd died five years later.

My Mother, Mrs. Goodman

Even though she never went hungry, Mom still had to fight for what she wanted because of the size of the family. My Mom was old-fashioned in her beliefs that a man is King in his house and woman had little value. My Mom was powerless to change what she didn’t like, hence Dad’s needs always came first and he had total control, at least for the first few years of their marriage.

After Mom knew about Dad’s many problems, such as molesting me, and his many warped sexual needs, she didn’t try to stop him. Dad always said she stood by him. Yes, she did for the first few years but when all was revealed to Mom, she used her knowledge against Dad. She never protected me from Dad and his abuse because she felt it was his right as man of the house. The dynamics of Moms personally was entitlement, cold and distant, embitterment, calculated, and vengeful.

My Father’s Maternal Grandparents, Jacob and Sarah

Jacob was very poor. He lived on a farm and married Sarah. They had twelve children. He was known to have many women friends even after he was married. He also was known to have molested his own daughters, especially the retarded one. This apparently lasted for years. He was extremely abusive man to his children and his wife, especially when he was drinking. He never hid the facts that he was a drunk, and that he sexually abused his family. He was even abusive to anyone around him. In fact he seemed to be proud of all his doings and dared others to try to stop him.

I know very little about Sarah. I just know she stayed married to Jacob, even though he abused her and their children. In the wedding picture she seemed to love him. Yet in another picture taken about ten years later, and after six children, she looked pitiful, about thirty years older and not happy at all. She became very depressed because of the treatment from her husband, and felt that there wasn’t anything she could do to improve her life with Jacob. One of the middle children was my grandmother Dora.

My Father’s Paternal Grandparents, Albert and Della

They married and had thirteen children and lived on a farm. My Dad used to tell me how Albert’s disruptive boys would do terrible things to the venerable farm animals and their unprotected sisters.

The boys were free to do whatever whenever they wanted. The boys would torture, burn, and then finish their play by having sex with the animals. This was all done while the animals were hanging upside down. It was inevitable that the boys would then turn on their sisters, to do the same abuse. They devastated any and all life forms on that farm.

Their father would only step in to stop the rough play when the life of an animal was at stake. Their sister’s safety was a different story because the girls had no value. Della, their Mom would sometimes stop the boys to save the girls. Still Della had to be careful not to offend the boys or her husband, for fear of her own safety.

My dad excused the behavior of the boys, by saying they were just boys. I was told never to talk about it. It was another family secret that I was expected to keep. There were many secrets about their family life that my Dad wouldn’t tell me. He always said he would tell me when I got older but never did. He just said they were too evil. He was afraid that others would find out, yet, Dad was laughing while telling this story.

Della was also old-fashioned and set in her ways. She was the one that would never call me by my name because she didn’t like it, or me. She was the great grandmother who had only one leg. It had been amputated in her adult life because of a farm accident. When she broke her leg her husband was too busy to take her to the doctor. Even with her broken leg she was still expected to do all of her work around the farm. Days later her sister was finally allowed to take her to the doctor, but it was too late for her leg. One of her children was my paternal grandfather, Robert.

My Paternal Grandparents, Robert and Dora

Robert met and married Dora on the same day. She was a mail-order bride. At least they called her that, in reality Robert paid a good sum of money for her to her dad. They had written and exchanged pictures. She never went back home after she got married, not even for a visit. My guess is that things were so bad when she was a child that she didn’t want to go back. I know that Robert was abusive to Dora and the children, but I’m not sure to what extent. After all he was one of the boys that abused the farm animals and his sisters.

They were very poor and lived a very sad life during the depression. They packed up all their belongings one year to move north about a hundred miles. Someone had promised Robert a job. It took everything they had to move. When they got there, there was no job. The family almost starved that year as they groveled for survival.

That winter the children got sick with Scarlet Fever, and the three-year-old boy and girl twins died. A couple of months later Dora had another baby girl, who also died five months after her birth. They lived in dugouts, shacks, abandoned train cars, and their own car. They never recovered, carrying the scars for the rest of their lives. They moved back to their hometown about two years later, totally broke, starving, and three children less. They returned home with just the two oldest boys. My father was the second oldest.

As a child I remember Dora telling me about the bad times, and the babies. She kept their belongings as reminders of them. She became very protective of her youngest that was born after they moved home. Dora also became very controlling of everyone around her. She was afraid of losing any more of her family. Dora was a miserable person to be around. She was always negative about everything, and was so very sad. Robert died at forty-two of a heart attack. Dora lived for a miserable eighty-seven years.

My Father, Mr. Goodman

I know my dad was abused as a child. I also believe he was sexually abused because of all the family symptoms and signs of trauma. The fact that he had sex problems is proof something wasn’t right. Dad always said how controlling his Mom was and how sad his life was as a child. My dad’s family was very religious but also very superstitious. After Dad’s siblings died, he had to do many things to ward off evil, like wearing garlic rings around his neck until he grew up and left home.

When Dad told me about his sex problems, he told me that he had them all of his life. He also told me how the sexual urges controlled his life. He became a peeping tom, he exposed himself, he stalked women, and he was also arrested for attempted rape and kidnapping and he spent time in jail and eventually in prison.

With all of Dad’s problems his dynamic personally was that of a very troubled man. He was driven to prove that he was a man of quality, a true man of God, and a man to be trusted. While trying to hide all of his shortcomings and evil ways his life became a total lie. Because he was unable to achieve greatness he became enraged, and took it out on me. With all of Dad’s troubles, and his sexual hang-ups he eventually came to me and sexually abused me.

And so my story starts.

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The Beginning

I was like a college mascot and everyone adored me—

well, almost everyone.

Mom was seventeen and Dad was twenty when they got married, and in nine months I was born. At that time they lived in a one room shack in the middle of a pepper field. They had a mattress on the floor to sleep on, and my crib was an orange crate. They ate off an ironing board and sat on wooden boxes. The shack was only the first of many places that they called home.

To some this might be romantic or taken as a challenge. But they were two young people working to make a life for themselves! I know this story all too well. My parents told me this story many times, to show me how hard life was for them. I agree that they did have a very hard life full of financial problems and no real job skills.

My parents were unhappy, and they had a very negative outlook on life. My dad had many personal problems since his childhood and they would only get worse with time. As a child it was natural to want love, attention, and bonding from my parents. As an infant, I never realized how deadly it was to have these needs. My parents were never able to give me what I needed or desired.

Until the day of my first memory, my parents were just a dysfunctional couple. Unable to love themselves, each other, and me. They were very unhappy with life in all respects. Feeding a child was all the attention they felt a child needed. Their needs always came before the child’s needs. Spanking me was the answer to everything, even their problems.

When I told my parents about remembering living in a basement apartment, it made them uncomfortable to know that I could remember back that far. They confirmed that we did live there, and that I was only eighteen months old. This is my first memory, and I have never forgotten it.

We lived in a basement apartment of a college building in a small town in Texas. Dad was going to school to get his high school diploma. He was the janitor at the college in trade for the one room basement apartment. In my memory, I was running from class to class, I was like the college mascot. Everyone adored me, well almost everyone. While I was going from class to class to get the attention I was so hungry for, Dad saw a young man playing with me while he was holding me in his lap, and Dad lost it.

I got spanked hard with a belt because Dad believed that a man’s lap was no place for a female child to be especially his baby daughter. After the spanking, he took me downstairs to our apartment. He then yelled at Mom to keep me there. Then he threw me from across the room, bounced me off the wall, landing me in the crib, and went back to work.

Our room was dark. My crib was in the corner. On my left was an old dresser, with an old radio playing country western music. On my right was Mom and Dad’s bed. The walls were brick with windows up high. There was also a big chair in the far corner. I always felt sad in that room, but this time I was upset because of what Dad had just done.

Being pregnant and barefoot was not what my Mom wanted out of life. She just wasn’t the domestic motherly type. Mom didn’t like being tie down with children, and was always much happier working outside the home. But Dad wanted her to stay home and take care of his needs. After Dad left our apartment, I was crying, Mommy, Mommy. But Mom just ignored me. Mom was ironing, with the iron plug into the hanging light. She was also crying. After some time and with robotic movement she stopped, unplugged the iron, turned, and came toward me. I knew something was wrong at that point. She grabbed one of my hands, paused, and burned it with the iron. She then went back to ironing, as if nothing had happened. I will never forget the act that was committed against me. That was the day my relationship with my parents took a turn for the worst. It was the beginning of a spiraling downward that almost became deadly to me as a child.

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Father

Everyone called him a true Man of God.

His hand on my head was there to keep me quit.

I was five years old. It was a hot and dry Sunday, as I stood beside my Dad in front of the church. The sun was shining in my eyes as I looked up at the people coming out of the church. They were shaking Dad’s hand as they said a few things to him about the sermon he had just given. As always, it had been a very loud sermon. My dad was a pulpit-pounding preacher, and he frequently would lose his voice.

As the congregation started to pass by, they would pat me on the head, sometimes saying.

Bless you child. I liked the attention I got because Dad was a preacher. I was always eager to please Dad and to get his love. I desperately wanted to believe all the good things everyone was saying about my dad.

This was just one of a few moments in my life when I felt safe and secure standing next to my Dad. But my security was growing thin as the people of the church left. Dad sensed this and put his hand on my head to keep me quiet and next to him.

As a child, I was taught to be proud that my father was the preacher, a true man of God better than most men because God had sent my dad to save all the sinners. That day my father had everything he had ever wanted in life. What more could anyone want? At that moment he seemed totally committed to God. As people walked past us, everyone was speaking well of him. Dad was a very gifted speaker, just as Hitler was. He had the ability to summon people over to his way of thinking. In his own church, he was like God. I believe he even enjoyed thinking he was God. Perhaps he even felt beyond reproach. In the right time and place, I know he could