Goodbye, California

A Teenager's Journey: Overcoming a Childhood of Abuse
by Richard B. Pelzer

Would I ever stop being more than miserable at simply being alive?

Was I really about to remove the gun from my pocket? I'd resolved that once I did that, I'd use it as quickly as possible. I didn't want to think about it or wonder about it anymore... I quickly pulled the pistol out and put the barrel to my temple.

In his New York Times bestseller, A Brother's Journey, Richard B. Pelzer told the horrific story of his childhood: how, after his abused brother Dave was mercifully removed from the family, Richard became the target of his mother's vicious anger. Now, in A Teenager's Journey, he chronicles an equally heartbreaking-but ultimately triumphant-period of his life.

As Richard turned sixteen, the six-foot, 180-pound adolescent knew that his mother would never be able to physically overpower him again. But her mental and emotional abuse only intensified. Tormented by his deep hatred of her and a simultaneous, unrelenting need for her love and protection, he sought refuge in drinking and drugs.

With a vengeance he drowned himself in heady cocktails of alcohol and cocaine and succumbed to the lethal lure of heroin. The blissful highs blunted his pain, but the horrible lows led, repeatedly, to attempts at suicide. Then, a ray of hope: neighbors, a couple, who saw through his thin mask of normality, and reached out to him.

Yet as he stumbled toward adulthood, fighting and facing his demons, Richard's struggle-and his victory-was his alone. This impassioned, soul-stirring account of his journey to freedom and forgiveness can help everyone trying to come to terms with his or her past ... and is a story no reader will ever forget.

I had been part of what can only have been one of the worst instances of child abuse in America of the 1970s. But the preteen that once held me captive was gone-I was a teenager, and I was different now. I was determined to either stand up for myself or give up. Unfortunately I chose to give up. I wanted, needed, to take my own life.

* * *

Morning came, and I leapt out of bed and got dressed before anyone was up. For the first time in years, I was happy. The rest of the household were going to be away for two weeks. I was finally going to be alone.

A few nights before, I had been in the basement, reflecting on my life-on the child I had been and the events that had shaped who I had become. The basement had always been a place I wished I could forget. Its concrete walls held all the emotions, fears, and tears of the little boys-me and my brother David-captured and forced down there and abused. Those concrete walls held the secrets that only a few knew about. It was as if the emotions that had been absorbed in the concrete were what held the foundations together.

The memories of the things that had happened in the basement terrified me. They were telling me something, and I couldn't make sense of what I thought I remembered. I recalled myself as a little boy hiding in the basement from Mom, like an animal. Months before, the hamster that lived in my room had escaped and found his way down to the basement. I found him hiding and shaking with fear under the steps. The same hiding place I knew so well. The memory of Mom laughing as she left me cowering under the metal shelves that had fallen on top of me once she'd shoved me into them-the debris crushing me and her laughter as she walked away hurt me more deeply than I can put words to.

That's what most of my late childhood and young teenage life was like. I struggled to find words that described how I felt. I had outgrown my stuttering. I was older now. Instead of words getting tangled in my throat I found it hard to find words that expressed the hurt, the anger, and the shame.

When I recalled that same little boy slumped on the bottom step, staring at a pool of my own blood after Mom had thrown me to the concrete floor, smashing my head, I saw my face reflected: meeker than meek and utterly humiliated. I was so ashamed of what I was as a child. The ghost of my past, the memories of the child who had been so abused, haunted me. Often those apparitions would reappear in my dreams, but that one night, a few nights before, the ghosts were telling me to accept the fact that I was no longer that scared little boy.

As I got older, and felt I understood something about what had been happening to me, to an extent I was able to let go of it. But those experiences had not disappeared. Much like many apparitions will do, they reappeared when I least expected it.

Now I was a teenager, and one thing I did know: I'd seen more misery than any child should have to, and I wanted it all to end. I wanted the shame to go away, the fear to evaporate, and mostly, I wanted the ghosts of my past to just leave me alone. I wanted, needed, to end my life.

* * *

After Dad's death, Mom and Scott, my older brother, had decided to sell the house in Daly City, California, and move to Salt Lake City, Utah. The house was worth twenty-five times what Mom and Dad had paid for it years before.

When she left me in Daly City that morning, while she and "her family" went on their two-week vacation to look for a new house in Salt Lake, Mom made it a point that I "might not" be moving there with them. On the one hand I was relieved to be left alone. On the other I had no idea how or where I would live if they did leave me behind. I desperately wanted to leave that house and all the memories that lived there. I also knew that being fifteen and homeless in San Francisco was a frightening notion.

I guess what eased the fear was the belief that even if I was homeless, I would be better off. Meanwhile, I was determined to make the most of my temporary respite, no matter how short-lived it was.

* * *

Two weeks later, they were back. Mom and I were in the kitchen and she was doing her best, as usual, to degrade me. Only this time, she was ranting worse than normal. For hours I'd been listening to her drunken lies and delusions. She was pushing me further and further; her constant bombardment of insults was building up inside of me.

While they'd been away, I'd spent some of the money she'd left for me on new clothes. I'd been wearing the same shirt and pants for a year. It had felt so awesome going to JCPenney and buying myself new clothes. I knew she'd be mad if she found out, so I'd stuffed all the packaging into the garbage cans before they got back from Salt Lake that night. What I failed to anticipate was that she would go through the cans and find everything I'd put there. Not only the clothing packaging, but soda cans, and even the take- out container from lunch the day before. She was furious with me.

Suddenly, out of pure anger at what she was saying and doing to me, I made my hand into a fist and was about to square up to her. That rage helped me forgive myself for having been so timid up till then. I welcomed it, and yet I was afraid of it: that pure wrath, that building anger. I was terrified of the volcano nearing eruption from deep inside me. I knew that if I ever allowed that volcano to erupt, if I ever let go, it would be bad: really bad.

I backed down. I had to. I knew she was over the edge. It was three fifteen in the morning. Obediently, I picked up the trash she'd emptied out onto the dining-room table, cleaned up the floor, and went to bed.

* * *

Copyright © 2006 Richard B. Pelzer

About the Author

Richard was born forth of five boys in 1965 in Daly City, California. During his childhood, Richard lived the nightmare and horrors we only hear of - known as child abuse. From his earliest memories, Richard recalls watching his older brother David being abused and was the only witnesses to his mother's attempt to kill her son and Richard's older brother. Once the California authorities learned of the unspeakable acts occurring in a suburban California home, the state removed Richard's brother leaving him and three other boys behind. Throughout his adolescence and teen years, Richard suffered physical, mental and emotional abuse at the hands of his mother.