My Story, chapter 1

I founded SEASCAT to help survivors of child abuse gain support in their community. You can only really be supportive, if you understand what others have been through. And the best place for me to start, to explain, is to tell you my personal story. (Andy, the book, is already published and available for download. But what I'm writing here, is my life- the rest of it.)

So much of my story has been written and lost, so I'm starting over. And the most relevant place to start is with the song above, as the purpose of my writing is to help you, the reader, gain an understanding of me. Sounds vain, LOL- and there was a day when I'd never believe my life meant anything. But people are different. We've had different experiences. And everything we say and do is filtered through those very lenses.

Connie/Connie Jean

I think the first 3 years of my life were “normal”, if there is such a thing. My parents married, built a house together, and moved into it the year I was born. I lived in that one house for 19 years, which with today's perspective (2017) is a very long time. My childhood did not prepare me for the life I've lived as an adult.

There were a few things that were consistent in my life.... a home, a family, food, a few basic things I took for granted. But there was also anger and yelling and fear- oh fear! It was paramount, once my sister was born.

My sister is not ready for her story to be told, so I will do my best to gloss over much of it and write it at a later date. Better yet, maybe my sister will write it herself. As nothing in my life would be the same if not for her coming into it.

I remember a time when I saw little of my father and nothing of my mother and my grandmother (father's mother) and aunts were in and out taking care of me. No one told me what was going, at least not that I can remember. But then one day my sister was brought home and she was hidden from me, or so I remember it. I was only 3 years old.

She was in a crib in the next room and one evening I snuck into that room and climbed on the side of the crib to look into it. I saw her and I wanted to pet her. I wasn't going to hurt the baby, I just wanted to touch it.

It is interesting, I think, that the memory of seeing that tiny baby, climbing up and reaching into that crib.... is so very vivid all these decades later. But the memory of exactly what happened after that- doesn't exist. My memory is of FEAR, fear of my parents. The rest of my childhood is tainted by that fear, always underlying everything was some degree of fear.

My sister was born with a birth defect, which my parents didn't accept, and for that she was punished from the time she was about a year old. I was not big enough to help her, and I hid in the closet- terrified.

I became hypervigilant, and that hypervigilance has colored my world every since. I will point out the ways as you read on.

Watch for articles I link to about birth defects and child abuse, and note my sister's story will come along later. I will skip ahead now.