Where the Angels Should Have Been
When I was thirteen, my parents found out I am bisexual. From that moment on, everything changed.
They became abusive—emotionally, psychologically, and physically. They isolated me, forced
me to undergo hormone testing, and stripped me of every privilege and possession. For six
months, it escalated. Constant berating. Screaming matches. Emotional warfare.
Then one day, it got so much worse.
I don’t remember much about the day, just fragments. Coming home from school. An argument
with my mom. Her anger. Me vacuuming the green carpet in our living room. My dad arriving
from work. My mom going outside.
Then, the sound of a hammer banging against the wall.
I climb up the stairs to find my father removing my bedroom door. When he turns around, his
eyes are filled with rage. And in his hand: a wooden paddle.
I run. Down the stairs. Toward the front door. I don’t know where I’m planning to go, but my body
screams: get out.
“Don’t you dare go out that door” he says.
My feet stop.
I still remember what I’m wearing: a V-neck t-shirt with rainbow paint splatters, and purple velour
track pants.
“Stand up against the wall and put up your hands.”
I walk to the hallway wall, next to a framed photo of me as a toddler, wearing angel wings. My
hands touch the beige-and-gold wallpaper—repeating patterns of angels and flower bouquets.
I struggle to find the words for what happened next. It’s difficult to talk about the intimate pieces
of abuse that make you feel humiliated. Violated. Disgusting. My lips feel zipped shut. My brain
feels scrambled. My head feels dizzy. My heart races.
He raises the paddle, and he hits me.
Over
and over
and over.
This wasn’t discipline. It was an assault.
I cry. I scream in pain. I shake. Brace myself for the next blow.
I’m not sure how long it was.
For me, time stopped.
He finally stops.
I fall to the ground.
He hovers over me and screams
“I will not buy a gay girl a car.
I will not send a gay girl to college.
I will not have a gay daughter.”
He walks away.
It’s been 15 years, and I’m still stuck there.
In the hallway.
On the floor of my childhood home.
I remember how wounded I felt after. Like a shaking puppy on the side of the road. I was
completely broken. I felt pathetic. Violated. Disgusting. Hopeless. I was no longer a child.
And that paddle sat on top of the fridge every single day since the first time I saw it.
As a reminder he could do it again.
I went into survival mode. I realized there was no way I would survive their abuse if something
didn’t change. My plan - lie to them and tell them I really wanted to change. Tell them I asked
God to take away my attraction to girls, and that it worked.
My backup plan - suicide.
I told them I was praying to God to fix me, when really I prayed for God to kill me in my sleep
every night, and made a plan that if things got too bad I would kill myself.
But the lie worked. They believed me.
I got my phone back. My bedroom door back. My “freedom” back. I told myself: “Just four more
years. You can survive four more years.”
They forced me to change schools and keep my identity a secret. But word traveled. They
couldn’t hide their queer daughter forever. For two years, there was a fragile peace—if you can
call living with an eating disorder and constant shaming from my mother peace.
Right before my sixteenth birthday, everything imploded. I had turned to substances to cope with
my pain. One night, drunk, I posted a photo of myself kissing a girl on Instagram.
That photo shattered everything.
No more friends. No phone. No privacy. Again.
My dad was violent, and explosive.
My mother was paranoid, and cold.
Anytime they heard rumors about me and girls I liked, the night ended in violence. One night
that same paddle he hit me with two years earlier returned - this time raised toward my face. I
crouched down, covering myself with my hands. At least, this time my mom intervened.
Another night, they overheard me talking to a friend about a girl I liked. That night my mother,
tears in her eyes, told me “I would rather die than have a bisexual daughter.” A few moments
later, I saw that rageful look in my fathers eyes once again, only this time it was paired with him
removing his belt.
He’s across the hallway from me, as I stand in the doorway of my bedroom. He charges toward
me. I close the door in his face. I step back and watch as the sliding door lock bends from the
strength he’s using to open it.
A six-foot man, trying to get into the room of his five-foot daughter.
So he can beat her with a belt.
Because she likes another girl.
I sit on the other side of the door, scratching my face until I bleed, trying to calm the terror inside
of me. I won’t open the door until he promises not to hit me.
I ran away from home twice. Once in the middle of the night. I didn’t make it very far because a
man in a truck started following me. I ran to the nearest gas station and called my dad to pick
me up. The second time, the police found me and brought me back home.
Eventually, I learned: submission meant survival.
I kept my head down. Gave them what they wanted. My mom stalked me in secret, followed me,
and read my messages while I slept. I wasn’t allowed to see my best friend ever again. I lived
under surveillance for years. It was two years of constant anxiety inducing invasions of privacy,
manipulation, and control.
The big moments were terrifying, yes.
But the small ones—the constant erosion of my worth, confidence, and sense of safety—those
were soul-crushing.
The people who claimed to love me were the cruelest people I’ve ever known. That kind of
betrayal breaks something inside a child.
Today, I live with borderline personality disorder—a condition rooted in emotional dysregulation
and deep abandonment wounds. I have anxiety, dissociation, panic attacks, and major
depression. The long term invalidation from my parents, along with the emotional and physical
abuse I survived has left me with extreme difficulty regulating my emotions. Making my
relationships unstable, my fight or flight response hyperactivated, often leading to self
destructive behaviors. My body carries the consequences: Graves' disease. Hyperthyroidism.
IBS. All are linked to chronic stress.
I’ve struggled for fifteen years. But I’m finally receiving proper mental health treatment—learning
to cope, to heal, to rebuild.
Ironically, the girl I was at thirteen feels stronger than I am now. She had grit, resilience, and
survived hardships that I’m not sure I would survive today. But now, at twenty-eight, I am left
feeling weak, sensitive, and easily triggered.
My brain chemistry was permanently altered at a critical developmental point in my life. All
because of my parents inability to accept me for who I am.
They used to say “one day you’ll understand”
Now that I am a mother myself,
I can finally say:
I don’t understand.
I never will.
I have a chosen family now, one that accepts and loves me.
I am an artist—able to paint what I can’t yet say.
A dancer—releasing pain through movement.
A survivor—still learning what it means to feel safe in my own skin.
It was worth it to stay alive, even through the darkest days.
Because I get to live a life free of abuse.
A life that is mine.
Sometimes I feel like that strong girl is gone.
But I know she’s still in there.
After all, I am still here.