How do you deal with something like this so lightly? If everything you ever thought, or felt, was jeopardized, could you stand up for it?

Okay… From the beginning? Well…

As a youngster, I felt that nothing I ever did was right. Nothing I could possibly do would be good enough, nothing I ever thought would suffice, No one understands what it’s like to be me, or to see things how I see them.
Though I suppose the reason I felt this way was because it’s how I was treated.
For the longest time, it was as if I didn’t exist as anything more than… well, something to be yelled at.
Whatever.
School was mental, the teacher’s always forcing me to do things that I already knew about, giving me detentions for the silliest things.
I’m not gonna say they were out to get me. That would be thinking too much of myself.
Once I tried to complain about my situation, but it was no good. No one would listen to me, and not only did I get grounded for bad-mouthing my betters, I got hit.
Come to talk of it, I got hit a lot.
After my mother died, I had nowhere else to go, so I was forced to stay with my substance and son-abusing father.
Yeah, it’s kinda hard to talk about my mother, even after all these years.
Anyway, after my mother passed away, my father took to drinking. A lot. It wasn’t like I couldn’t sympathize, I was upset too, I mean, she WAS my mother. I loved her too.
So for a few months, I figured, he would just need something to help him get over her.
No such luck.
For a year he drank, becoming less and less human contact tolerant, more and more violent, toward his co-workers and people he had tiny incidents with.
So, of course, he was fired shortly, and his severance pay wasn’t a huge amount.
Which, of course, now that he didn’t have his peers to blame for everything, it became my fault.
That night… I remember.
He came home, from the bar, and chased me around the house.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t ever been in a fight before, but never with a man twice my weight and age, and never my father.

You really want me to talk about what happened?

Well, no it’s not like I think it’s going to help your analysis, but if you wish…

As it was, he was drunk. I don’t think he knew what he was doing.

Right, no excuses. But it’s still hard not to, even after so long.

Well, he was drunk, and he’d just been fired, and he was very, VERY angry. So, naturally, he came after me. I-I stared at him for a while, like I couldn’t believe what was happening.
That night, I got the worst beating I had ever received up to that point.
I thought I was going to die.
The next day, I went to school with a cut across my cheek and a black eye. There were bruises all up and down my arms, but those were hidden underneath my long-sleeved shirt.
I just told my friends that I had gotten beaten up in the alley, but I know that at least one of them thought I was lying, and suspected.
But how do you tell anyone something like that?
Is it really that easy to just say: My father beat me.
No. No it’s not.

Yes, yes, A little off topic, but it really has a lot to do with… yeah. Okay, I’ll continue.

For a week, my father apologized, though he had no real recollection of anything he had done. And for a week, everything was good.
But, one night I came home from my band practice, and as I opened the door, he struck me. He proceeded to throw me across the room, hitting my face and arms, and he punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me.
As I lay on the floor, gasping for breath, he told me that if I ever told anyone he would kill me.
I didn’t find out that he wasn’t drunk until about three weeks later.

After that?
Oh, the beatings continued regularly, going from twice a week to four times.
I became secluded because some of my friends had confronted me with their suspicions.
To stop them from saying anything, I stopped talking to them. I locked myself in my room, and my house, and refused to go out.
After three months of beatings four times a week, I became aware of the fact that he wasn’t drinking anymore. So I didn’t even have the alcohol to blame any longer.

No, no it’s okay. I can go on. Could you hand me a tissue first please?
Thank you.

So, he was beating me, for no good reason, and he wasn’t drinking. I mean, I figured it was good for him that he wasn’t drinking anymore, but his being sober was making the beatings even worse.

It was more… calculated. He never again hit me where it would leave a mark, and I figure I was helping him by never going swimming, never wearing a tee shirt, never doing anything that involved wearing less than my jeans and a long sleeved shirt.

How was I found out? I’m getting to that.

About a year after the beatings began, my old friends, trying to get me to be social again, invited me to a party at some girl’s house, where everyone was drinking and having fun.
Okay, to say everyone was drinking would be a lie, it was really less than half. But at the time, it seemed like everyone.
After a few of the people left, it was just seven of us. My two best male friends, four girls, and me.
The girls challenged us guys to a game of strip poker, and of course, I was forced into accepting.
After a few rounds, I was the only one still wearing a shirt and pants. All four females were in their bras, and my two friends were in only their boxers.
Jealous of my success, they held me down and stripped off my shirt, only to reveal the huge purple and black bruises that lined my rib cage.
Horrified, I attempted to put my shirt back on and leave, but the six other’s held be down and forced me to tell them what had happened.

No, it actually took them quite a while to get me to tell, but when they heard, they became angry and went to call the cops.
Of course, I stopped them.
I went home that night at about 2 in the morning, my friend’s worry’s haunting me, but they soon disappeared, because he waited at the door.
As I unlocked the door, he grabbed my arm and threw me inside, and pinned me against the wall, and hit me, with his fist, in the back of the head.
My face hit the wall, and my nose broke, bleeding all over the wall.
I screamed, the pain was so bad, and then I blacked out.

Yeah, I wasn’t awake to know the rest of what happened, but turns out that my friends were so worried they followed me to make sure I was okay, and when they heard me scream, they broke down the door and got me away from him.

No, it didn’t end there, though it should have.
I never should have gone back, but after staying at my friend’s house for a week, he called and said he was getting help, and wanted me back home, where he said I belonged.
So I went.

For two weeks it was good, though my friends didn’t trust him.

Yeah, he did do it again, once again injuring me worse than before.

Two weeks after I went home; a year and a half after my mother’s death, He beat me, worse than ever before. I ended up in the hospital with two broken and two cracked ribs, a dislocated left arm and jaw, and knife wounds to the stomach and shoulders.

I was seventeen by this time, my birthday beats I now joke.
So I left my house and father behind, and went to live with my friend in his apartment. I got a job working at a warehouse, and for about a month, I was happy. I began to get over the beatings, and my wounds were healing well enough.
I came home one night after work, and my roommate, who was with his girlfriend for their anniversary, was out, and I was alone.
I felt an odd fear as I stepped into my apartment, and it was justified.

Yeah.

My father waited for me at the other end of the hallway.
This time, I was sure, he wasn’t gonna leave me as well off as the last time.
He held the biggest knife our apartment had in his right hand, and he rushed at me.
Startled into action, I flung open the linen closet door, the knob catching him in the side, and I turned to run, but he was still faster and stronger than I was.
He caught my arm, and with one swift knock to the back of my head, I went down.
He stood over me, positioned my arms so that they were pinned, and then sat on my abdomen, throwing punches into my already sore ribs.
As I gasped for breath between screams of agony, I realized that he had obviously dropped the knife.
My arms were pinned, but I located the knife by sight, and managed to throw him off of me for a few seconds, and leap over and grab it.
I now held the knife, but regardless of this fact, he lunged at me…

Yeah… that’s it.

He leapt onto the knife. It-it hit his heart.

It’s not like I meant to do it.

I know no one is going to believe my testimony, but…
Well, it doesn’t matter.

Thanks for your time.
Yeah, I’ll try to stay out of trouble.

No, the prison isn’t so bad, I mean, the wardens are all right I guess.
I have my own cell, but I’m not supposed to call it a cell.

Heh.

Actually, I really only told you so that you would know.

I know the truth, but I needed for someone else to know too.
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to start crying.
But it’s been two months since I got to see the friends who save me in the first place, and… well, I yeah, I’m sorry for wasting your time.

Thanks for listening.

As he left my office, I knew he was telling the truth, and I felt sorry for him. He only defended himself from what would have probably been his death, and I knew that I would testify in his favor when the time came.
For now all I can do is wish him a speedy trail date.