From Darkness to Light: A Survivor’s Tale

By Nicholas Ray

My book is about one man's journey from being in an abusive system and how he grew out of the pain and sorrow he knew throughout his childhood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823005999

Nicholas Ray

During my life I dealt with major child abuse at both the hands of those who were supposed to care about and love me and after being placed in foster care from the hands of my older foster brother and one of my foster families. throughout the pain I persevered and learned how to love myself when no one else would.

Book preview

PART 1

IN WHICH I’M HURT MATTHEW 18:6 BUT WHOSO SHALL OFFEND ONE OF THE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE IN ME IT WERE BETTER FOR HIM THAT A MILLSTONE BE TIED AROUND HIS NECK AND DROWN.

CHAPTER 1

My story is a hard one to tell but in order to understand who I am and how I became the man I am today it has to be told. I don’t remember much about the day I came into the world but the stories I’ve been told about that day are ones I hold dear. To understand how my life came to be, we have to take a trip through time, landing on April 21 1961. In a place called Yreka, California, my father, Jonathan Guy, was born in a mild spring. A third generation child of Yreka. His mother’s name was Phyllis. My grandma from the memories I have of her was a sweet little lady who would do anything for her grandkids and kids. So I’m sure that she was even sweeter then. My grandma, may her soul rest in peace, was one of the greatest women I ever had the pleasure to know. In my opinion, her love for her kids and her grandkids knew no bounds. From what I’ve heard, she was like a mamma bear protecting her cubs. From what I remember of her, nothing could be truer about how she was.

My father was born the middle child of his family, the younger brother of Kristina and Bertha Ann, and a big brother Phil. My aunts were amazing big sisters always protecting their siblings from any harm their father could do to them. My uncle was also great at protecting his siblings I’ve been told. Speaking of their father my grandfather, from what I’ve heard, thankfully I never had the chance to meet him, was an asshole who loved his alcohol as much if not more than the abuse he would perpetrate on his children using them as nothing more than objects to fulfill his sexual desires and his need to be in control of everything. A control I’m sure he didn’t get to have when he was a kid due to the abuse he and his brother’s endured from their mother. As my father grew up he looked for any way he could to escape his family life choosing to become a carney for a while just to escape his life at home. As the saying goes Hurt people, hurt people and from every story I’ve heard about my great grandmother it must have been true. Because the story goes that she abused her boys the same way that my grandfather abused his own children. As I’d learned later on in my life, my family, at least on my Grandpa’s side, were all taught that the way to show love was through abuse. A belief I personally don’t have. As you’ll learn from my story. I struggled with it until I realized how wrong that kind of love was. I don’t know much about his school years but as I’m very smart I’d imagine he was as well because my mom sure wasn’t. My dad was my hero for more than one reason and my mother was a royal bitch. My father met my mother when she was fifteen, and he was twenty-two. After choosing to bring her home, to give her a life away from the street, they soon fell in love. Their love bloomed and my father soon realized that he loved her more than anything in the world and eventually when she was nineteen, the two married. Mainly due to them expecting their first child, my sister Dawn. Wanting to give his wife the things that he didn’t receive as a child he soon joined the Navy, planning to use it as his career. To my father, serving his country was a high priority and a way to provide him a much-needed opportunity for change. Just as settling down and having a family was. To my father, not only did his service allow him an escape it also allowed him to provide for his soon to be family. Back at home he was a role model for his little brother and sister and a shining example of positive change for his sisters. Serving in the Navy was an opportunity he’d been given to show that it’s possible to defy what history has in store for you and defy history he did, or at least for a while. And show that change he did. I believe that’s where I get my knack for survival.

Unfortunately however, fate had something else in store for my father, as he was injured and hit in his head by a torpedo falling off the wall cutting his time in the Military short as his injury led to him being dismissed. Upon returning home he learned that his family had gone through a major change. His mother had divorced her husband to allow for her children to be given a possibility of not becoming predators like their low-life father. His mom, my sweet grandma, may she rest in peace, had fallen in love with another military man as my father had been and he was the closest thing I ever knew to a grandpa. My father learned his girlfriend, also known as my mother, though that wouldn’t be for another two years, had had my sister Dawn on March 2, 1987. Knowing he didn’t want my mother raising a child as a teenager he asked her to marry him. Together they felt they could take on the world no matter what the world threw at them. Their marriage in swing, as love continued to blossom, they found happiness between the two of them. With happiness taking hold of them they made the decision to have another two children, not knowing it would actually be four.

To the outside world it appeared they were a man and a woman happily married, while, behind closed doors the relationship grew toxic. My mother chose to pick up drugs and my fathers’ and us kids’ lives began to stink. My father soon chose to drink. With the disease of alcoholism finding him in its grips, he began to change into the man he had hoped he’d never be. As addiction began to run rampant in my parents lives their siblings could see the once true love shared between them unraveling before their eyes. The mere sight of the relationship heading for a fall caused a rift between my mother’s family and my father’s, which only served to cause major strife in the family, that soon led to anger and hate for each other and my parent’s as their relationship began falling apart. At times both sides of the family, when they weren’t at each other’s throats, would remind my parents to think of their daughter and the kids they wanted to bring into the world and what it would mean for us if we were exposed to it, silently hoping that the two would stop fighting. Encouragement for them to seek counseling was tossed about as both sides of their families tried to get my parents to act normal for the sake of us kids and the life we would be born into if my parents didn’t seek counseling. All of my family knew that if their niece/granddaughter was going to have a healthy family my parents would need to pull their heads out of their asses and act like parents. They had made the determination that to help them do so, they were going to do whatever it took to help them. As my family fought for their niece/granddaughter and her soon to be sister, life changed for the better and with that change came my sister Joy on June 21, 1988. Joy’s birth led to my parents to get their act together and for another year things became better for everyone involved. As Joy approached her first birthday the news broke that my mother and father were expecting another child, a boy that would be born on November 10, 1989, not realizing it would actually be two boys.

For a while as the story goes my parents began to treat each other equally, and their love grew stronger. However, as history tends to repeat itself, so did the addiction repeat itself in my family. As the days grew closer to their son’s birth my parents once more began to fight and sink into their alcohol and drugs. My dad would often disappear to work for days on end while my mother sat at home shooting herself up with drugs and selling her oldest child to men to support her habit, or selling herself to men to make sure she’d have money to support her habit as well as pay the bills. Whenever my father came home to his loving wife, they’d pretend life was great between them when in reality my father was growing further away from her little by little. Despite my mother being pregnant her anger towards my father led to her continuing to use drugs the entire time she was pregnant. As November 10, 1989 approached, my mother continued to use it, not caring that she was pregnant.

However my mom, a fresh-faced twenty-one year old, couldn’t quite deal with the responsibility of two children on her own and began to cheat on my father whenever he was gone, claiming as she carried out her affairs, that it was just because she’d never had a chance to sow her wild oats. Life grew ever increasingly worse as my mother continued to carry out her affairs and they began to fight like rabid dogs, always at each other’s throats which caused my sister Dawn to act out. As time flew by and the fighting continued my father began to spend more and more time away from the house, often going out and drinking like a fish. My mother continued to seek sex from an unknown number of men and chose to allow herself to fall into alcohol and drugs and to run wild. The time arrived on a cold November morning as the chill of winter began to set in.

On November 10, 1989 at 9:30 in the morning, my mother was rushed to the small red brick building of a hospital that would in later years become the welfare office. As she was rushed to the hospital and labor pains began, she was surrounded by her family, like a cluster of crabs. Two little boys were pushed from her nether region entering the world of abuse and neglect that was my family.

The first boy entered the world with hazel eyes and brown hair, a birthmark of a star on his infantile leg. As the story goes the doctor barely had enough time to wipe his face and smack his butt to get him to cry before he died. His name would have been Jesse Ray, named for his mother’s sister and her uncle Ray. Unfortunately due to his heart being outside of his body he never had a chance. Immediately after he stopped breathing a towheaded little sprite of a boy with green eyes came into the world. That baby was me, named after my father, my mother’s brother and my own twin. With me being born a jaundiced yellow it worried my mom and dad as they had just lost their first son and didn’t want to lose me as well. The doctor seeing my yellow baby self immediately rushed me to the NIC U praying as he did that he wouldn’t have to bury two babies that day. Sadly I only got worse and had to be life-flighted to Saint Josephs’ Hospital in Los Angeles. My mother being the only one allowed to go with me, led to my father having an excuse to drink. For six months I lay in that hospital bed with my mother not knowing if I was going to make it. While at home my father went on a bender, pushing as much alcohol down his system as humanly possible. Seeing my father in his drunken stupor, my aunts removed my sisters from him so that he could sober up. Finally, I took a spin for the better and was allowed to go home where I was placed in my father’s arms. The attachment between us became one of instinct. From that day forward my father and I became inseparable.

The feelings between us unfortunately only served as an excuse for my mother to use heavily. I lost one baby, she’d say and I’m just going to lose him too. Hearing my mother’s whiny attitude, my father told her that had she not been shooting Meth into her veins, she never would have lost my brother and that she needed to pull her head out of her ass and act like a parent. As I grew older I took longer to do the simple tasks which only led to further drug abuse by my mother as she blamed herself for the delayed growth I was experiencing. My dad, seeing the way she was and how hard the drugs had gotten her down, soon began to take off and work for days on end again. While at home my mother’s downward spiral continued. My father began to regret coming home and chose most of the time to just stay away. Soon, my mother began to see herself as being forced to raise three kids she never wanted and fell even harder into her spin out as she once again began to see her children as nothing more than a source of income.

Once again she began to spend her money on drugs and refused to even care for her children as she fell harder and harder. My sisters found themselves being used as payment for her habits. My father hearing what his wife was doing came running home and with him came his addiction to alcohol. From the moment he came home the stress and violence became more common. Yet still nothing changed, my mother still wallowed in her addiction while my fathers’ and us kids’ life drowned in his alcoholism. As a result, us kids began to learn what neglect was. With the feelings of neglect becoming commonplace we came to a sense of unworthiness.

Feeling unworthy served to take a hard toll on the oldest, forcing her to feel like she needed to mother her younger siblings because their caretakers cared more for their alcohol and drugs than their own children. Seeing my mother continue to sink into her addiction led my father to find his sanctuary at the bottom of a bottle. The tension grew ever higher between them and soon my dad began to beat my mother like a redheaded stepchild. Whenever us kids acted up, we were forced to watch as our father beat our mother telling us as he did, If you kids want to act up then your mother will get beaten. As a result of our punishment, fear became rampant in our hearts causing us to fear our father and hate our mother.

Two years went by and in those two years we were forced to watch the abuse as it went on, ending only when the two finally decided that what was best for them was to call it quits. My father loved my mother dearly and continued to do so all his life up until he was murdered. My mother though, I’m not sure if she ever really loved my father but I do know that when he left she began to sell all three of us children to support her habits again. As a result the divorce only served to cause more strife in my family. My father fell away from his family choosing to be on his own. My mother chose to continue to spiral into drugs turning a blind eye to what was happening. To her we were no longer her children but rather her ATM. Whenever she wanted something she’d sell us to whatever man she could find that would give her money for us. Though my father was still around she began to seek companionship with new guys.

As she put it, she was just trying to find herself a man and her kids a new daddy. We began to suffer in silence as our home became a revolving door of different men coming in and out of our household. Luckily for me I was beginning preschool and had my teacher and my friends as my one constant sense of stability. I still got to see my dad on the weekends though and seeing my dad made me feel good since despite what he’d done to my mom, he was still my hero in my eyes. My father’s presence was the thing I looked forward to and wanted more than anything. You could say I was a daddy’s boy and you’d be right. My father, for me, was the only thing that kept me sane and feeling normal, not that a child at the age of two knows anything about sanity but for me I knew having my father around was what felt right. Seeing who I clung to, my mother grew jealous of the relationship my father and I had. I know now that it was her fear of being alone that had developed in her before she had even met my dad that caused her to begin to act like a witch.

However, back then I didn’t know what was going on. To me it felt like my life was falling apart around me. Almost as if I was caught between two warring factions: my mother and my father. At two I didn’t know the difference between healthy relationships and unhealthy ones and being forced to choose between the two as a toddler, built up a feeling of being unwanted. I hated the way they acted towards each other but there was nothing I could do to let them know. Especially being raised in the belief that children are to be seen and not heard, as well as not having the words to be able to say how I felt. Of course who would ever listen to a barely audible two years old anyway, even if I had had the words to voice how I felt. My sisters, being ages three and four, were my idea of what being whole meant and my dad coming around helped me feel alright. With him not being constantly around however, the three of us found our love in each other. To this day I still cling to my sisters like they’re my mom and dad. A relationship dynamic that I learned was the way things were.

As my sisters and I clung to each other, our home became a home of love at least for each other. As things began to escalate and our parents divorce carried on, our little hearts were broken. Our teacher, Jane, could see how things were going and seeing her students torn up inside, caused her to want us. It was she who became my mom and it didn’t matter what I went through. Somehow I knew that she was the person I could always rely on to be there in a flash if I ever needed an adult.

Here I was, two and a half, almost three years old and beat up from my parents’ relationship that was falling apart. As heartbreak took hold of me I began to withdraw into myself, raising suspicion that my home life wasn’t alright and looking back now I know it wasn’t normal. Back then though, I didn’t know any better, all I knew was that my parents didn’t know how to show proper love. As a result I began to seek affection elsewhere, finding it in my best friend’s mom and dad. A couple that would later become my aunt and uncle at least as far as I knew. My best friend AJ, though a year and a half younger than me, caused me to feel like, for once, I had someone that truly cared about me.

At three he and I had become the best of friends, always spending time together, while at home the fighting between my parents was only getting worse. His mom and dad, my adopted aunt and uncle, started doing everything in their power to make sure I had some sense of stability. I doubt they know today or even knew back then that at home I was starting to learn what sex was from my mom’s new boyfriend. A bit of knowledge I’m sure that led to my later life issues with boys my age and younger than me. To me that was love and I never got taught any better.

AJ and I became thick as thieves, always together like two peas in a pod. To me, back then, he and his parents were the closest thing I had to a true family outside of my sisters. Between the time I spent with my best friend and his family and the abuse at home that my siblings and I had grown accustomed to, the weekends began to blend together in a flash of memories that helped me to see what my dad was really like. I began to say that I wanted to go to daddy’s house. As my mom watched my dad become my favorite, it set her off to the point of no return. Hearing that I wanted my daddy, my mom began to force me to sleep with her boyfriend whenever he came over saying you want your dad so bad here you go, this is your new daddy. Things weren’t right, even back then I knew my mom was the only parent that was always around, except for the weekends. I began to do as she instructed me to do and allowed her boyfriend to do stuff with me, that looking back now, dads wouldn’t do to their children. As things got worse my dad began to refuse to give me and my sister’s back to our mom, oftentimes taking us into hiding to keep us away from our mom. I still remember the day my dad went to my mom and told her You’re never going to see your children again. as if it was yesterday. Mainly because it was that moment that my mom put her plan into motion