Running Away From My Abusive Father Was The Easy Part

Life after emancipation at sixteen

On a warm, sunny afternoon in Michigan while my adoptive father was out, my high school boyfriend showed up in his beat-up white Chrysler LeBaron.

It was go time.

My anxiety was so intense it felt like it might burn a hole through my chest. My heart pounded and I could barely see straight. What if my dad came home and caught me? He’d warned my sister and I since elementary school: “If you ever call the police, It’ll be the last time you ever do because I’ll beat you beyond recognition!” I believed every word of it.

My older sister ran away about a year earlier. She couldn’t take it anymore and I didn’t blame her. Still, I was heartbroken to lose my only confidant. For sixteen years we battled him together. We witnessed each other’s beatings and listened with numb ears as he found new ways to call the other an ugly, worthless, stupid whore. To this day, only we understand the real terror we faced.

Abuse Was Always Present

Verbal abuse was present since I was five, and the physical abuse came soon after. It came mostly from failing to do chores well enough, and for “talking back.” I talked back a lot, and that inflamed my adoptive father’s threatened ego…