Photographer: Don White
When I was six, my mother passed away from cancer. My father loved my mother deeply and was a broken man when she slipped from this life. He wandered, halfheartedly, from one relationship to another; feeling he needed to find another person to mother his children. He finally met the woman who would eventually become my stepmother. She had seven children of her own and, I suppose, he assumed that she would be a good mother.
I grew up with a stepmother who never failed to tell me daily that I was stupid, ugly and a piece of trash that I would never amount to anything in life. She took every opportunity to demean me in front of family, neighbors and complete strangers. People were told what an awful child I was…how difficult it was to deal with me and what a burden she had taken on. I was always being warned that she would send me away to a home for bad children and I believed that. I was only a child after all.
She would whisper things to me that only I could hear…how she knew every move I made and every thing I said to others. She warned me that people would not believe what I told them and that they would only come back to her and tell her what I said anyway. She told everyone that I was a liar and that I made up stories. Her whispers burned shame deep into my skin into my soul. They became the echoes in the night…ghosts that haunted me. My nights became a fearful place filled with the recurring dream from being raped by a babysitter at the age of 5 and my stepmother’s voice whispering I was trash, ugly…worthless.
If there were fights or arguments with her other children, I was the one to blame. She would find things to scream at my father about me…to beat and humiliate me for. I would be punished for weeks on end…sent to my room…not allowed to play with others or my siblings. She isolated me as much as she could from anything that I could possibly enjoy. When she found out that I loved to read, during the long hours spent alone in punishment, I was further restricted from reading anything apart from school books. Whatever brought joy to my life was eventually taken away as part of my “punishments”.
At first, I spent hours creating stories in my head…where my real mother came and rescued me. As time progressed and I grew older I just wanted to disappear…to die. I desperately wanted the pain to stop. I became fearful, mistrusting and ashamed of myself. School was very painful…I was ostracized and the labels that were seared into my soul by my stepmother were burned deeper by the cruel bullying of my peers. I felt worthless.
When I became an adult, I thought it would all just go away. I vowed that I would never let anyone treat me like that again. I became wild, defiant and head strong. I experimented with everything life brought my way. My 20s were a roller coaster of angst and hedonistic recklessness. There were incredible moments of achievement and even deeper moments of pain. I lost the only person who I ever truly felt loved by…my father. Regardless of how much I tried to drive them from my life…fear, mistrust and shame were ever present and now my anchor was gone.
In my 30s I moved to California and found a respite from my ghosts. I was blessed to meet and work for some amazing people associated with Chicken Soup for the Soul. Through these individuals and the other amazing people I met, while living in California, I was able to forgive my stepmother and release us both from the anger prison I had held her in. I thought I would now be able to move on and all would be well. The ghosts started drifting back in…the whispering echoes not far behind. Fear somehow found me again and took up residence so I moved; hoping this time it would not follow me.
When I journeyed back to the east coast, I returned feeling defeated…as though I had failed yet again. I settled on the coast of Maine and unpacked my things…only to find fear and all those labels had journeyed back with me…stowaways in my life. I tried to drown my ghosts in alcohol…that didn’t work.
Then I found the internet and, for a time, used that to escape the whispers of worthlessness through engaging in vacuous, anonymous encounters. I created a persona that portrayed only a small part of my personality, I hid behind it; I even created a website to bolster the false power I felt with this identity. It didn’t take long to wake up to the tenuous false sense of worth I had from “connecting” with others in a virtual setting. I dropped most of the socnets I subscribed to and retreated back into my safe seclusion. The ghosts and whispers returned.
I have made so many poor decisions in my life…decisions that have led to where I am now. So many things are broken and I don’t know how or even if I can fix them, but they are my sole responsibility. My nights are filled with threadbare sleep full of my ghosts and whispers…I wake up exhausted, defeated…feeling worthless.
A lifetime spent feeling worthless has shaped me from the inside out. I live a secluded life and when I do meet others, I work hard to distract them from seeing my worthlessness. I do what ever it takes to make people smile, to laugh to not notice the ragged edges around my crumbling life…it leaves me empty and spent.
I am not writing this for pity and I care not what you may think of me…it couldn’t possibly be any worse than feeling worthless. I am writing this because I have a voice inside me that I have not always honored, respected…listened to. I am writing this because I once wrote about my love of words and the power I feel they hold.
I am writing this because I hope that no one, not another child, not another human being should ever be told they are worthless.
Before you utter another careless word that writes on the soul of a child or another human being…take a breath and think about what you say because a million positive affirmations can never erase one word….worthless.
Two Roads 
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