Contents, Introduction

I Promise Not to Tell
by Brenda M Weber

© 2003 by Brenda M. Weber.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

I am dedicating this to my twelfth-grade English teacher,
Betty LaPointe.
She delicately helped me recognize my passion for writing.
She taught me to express my smoldering feelings with honesty and no regret.
We are not human if we can't openly express our feelings.

CONTENTS

Don't Touch	11
Home Sweet Home	15
School Dazed	18
Dear Mama	22
Life after Death	26
New Mom	29
Child's Play	32
Spare the Rod	37
Pursuit	40
Popping the Cherry	43
Wild Child	47
Pandora's Box	54
Claustrophobia	57
Red Flags	59
Near Death	63
Seesaw	66
Only the Beginning	72
Knowing Gregory	75
Skeleton in My Closet	80
And Then There Were Four	85
Another Innocent Child	89
Broken Promises	91
Unforgiven	97
Battle Grounds	100
Almost Over	104
The Stalker	108
Third Time Is the Charm	112
A Touch of Heather	116
Bad to Worse	118
A Secret Exhumed	122
Warning Signs	125
Make It Stop	129
Cataclysm	133
A Message from Hell	136
A Significant Explanation	139
In The System	142
Strike Three	146
The Parallel	149

INTRODUCTION

As I look into the mirror of my life, I see the child I was and wonder how I became the woman I am. Every aspect of my life reflects back to my childhood as it trails behind me. Everything that happened to me as a child has affected many different attitudes and aptitudes of my being. My heart cannot comprehend how every vein that extends from that pulsing mass of muscle leads back to the same heartless act, the violation of my innocence.

I have always had a hard time remembering anything from my childhood, especially the years before my ninth birthday. Those fragments are only triggered as memories by looking through old photographs or listening to others tell of their memories, but when I was sixteen, some of those memories took the form of a mass of blurred and soiled shapes in a disoriented picture.

I had no allowable control to stop anything that happened to me, just as I have no allowable control now, to stop any of the heartwrenching pictures of reality that flash through my mind. I know the human brain, with all its intricacies, has a safety defense to keep me from going insane, and isn't the line between sanity and insanity so delicately thin? Haven't we all walked that tightrope, precariously balancing somewhere in the middle, ready to fall off the wrong side at any given moment?

This book is for anyone who has lived with the pain of child abuse. For anyone who has lived with the pain of domestic abuse, either physical or emotional, for anyone who has survived or will survive from the pain of remembering, and for the memory of those who haven't survived.

For me, to try and recapture it all by attempting to understand is painfully senseless. To try and put the pictures together and have to see myself in those pictures, is painfully senseless. It is all painfully senseless, but in order to make any sense at all, I must get past the pain.

I was an invisible child - seldom seen, never heard. As an adult, I can either make the invisible child visible, or send her entity into the realm of nonexistence forever. The little girl that haunts my life, by wandering aimlessly through my thoughts, is wearily searching for her own peaceful niche. She will continue to haunt me, unless I make an adult decision to reveal the secrets I promised not to tell - and live with the memories that have been silently waiting for justification.

My story is truth, to the best of my collective memory. It is written with a touch of relish, a lot of mustard, and names have been changed to protect the innocent, and not so innocent. If you recognize yourself, it might not be you. You can ask me if it's you, but I promise not to tell.

About the Author

Brenda has been writing since the age of fifteen. She has compiled several booklets of poetry and written many short stories. This is her first book, a dream come true. She has written a fictional account of a lumberjack in Michigan which will soon be released. Brenda is working on a sequel to her autobiography as well as another work of fiction. She plans to write a series of children's books too. With four adult sons and a daughter, her children are her life.