I Killed My Abuser

David, welcome to the Shadow Sessions.

Thank you for having me.

There's so many places I wanna start your story from, but I think I wanna start it from when was the first time you realized that what was going on in your childhood was not normal?

Um, I'd say that it was the initial time the abuse happened to me.

Okay.

And that was January 1st, 1991.

Um, I had went over to visit my brother, and my mom and stepdad had just moved back-

Mm

... from California to Washington State.

The day that was supposed to be joyous, 'cause I hadn't seen my mom in two years, turned out to be this day that changed the whole aspect of my life.

Mm.

And for three hours it was good, and then our abuser asked me and my brother to go play hide-and-go-seek.

As an 11-year-old [laughs] you're like, "Okay, hide-and-go-seek.

This is what we do"

Yeah.

So I went downstairs in the basement, found this, uh, spot in the closet, and I thought I found a good spot.

Mm.

But once the abuser found me, that's when he started putting hands on me in ways that shouldn't be.

Mm-hmm.

I was just in this place of, like, like a deer in the headlights.

Yeah.

Like, "What's going on? How, why is this happening? Is this supposed to be happening?"

Mm-hmm.

But then really what n- made me know that this shouldn't be happening is when I walked up the steps, this abuser told me, he's like, "If you ever tell anybody, I'm gonna kill your family and you."

Mm.