I tried to edit my story so not to offend or scare anyone but it seems I wrote two entries that have been considered offensive to some people so I thought by sharing my story a little deeper that all of you who were offended would understand better and stop assuming I couldn't possibly understand or that I am somehow racist or discriminatory.  Neither are true. So here is my story and after reading it could you re read my mother's day entry and my Sunday Avoided entry?  Thanks :)

  My name is Mandee, I'm a 34 year old mother of two children with severe disabilities. I was born to a Mi'kmaq/Inuit Father and a White mother (Scottish, English and German).  I live in Canada and was raised in an alcoholic and abusive home. My tail bone was broken (and not repairable) at the age of four by my father.   My older sister threw me down the stairs as a joke and laughed calling me fat at any chance she could.  By age eight I was forced to give a 17 year old young man sexual gratification without understanding the impact this would have.  At age 14 I had to leave my home because my alcoholic mother couldn't afford to leave my abusive father and frankly was content is being miserable.  ( I love my mother & father and healing has taken place today).

 So as a result by age fifteen I had 25 sexual partners because I had no idea what love was and desparately wanted to feel it.  I was told by 25 year old men they loved me and after they had sex with me they dumped me.  By 16 I met my first long term boyfriend and we moved in together.  I worked three jobs and tried to finish highschool.  At age 17 (a month before my 18 the birthday)  my boyfriend graduated from college and left the country leaving me with all the bills. I worked hard and decided the money was't enough and going to leave me starving.  I was not educated enought to earn more than minimum wage so I began stripping.  For my 18th birthday when I told my sister what I was doing for money I got called a Whore. By 19 I was a drunk myself and decided to quit drinking when I got pregnant with my daughter. I had my first child at 19 ( who I love deeply and would never regret).  The father abandonned us and we were left to fend for ourselves.  On my 20th birthday my grandfather got drunk and decided to ask me to have sex with me.  How devestating it was to reply with a  " NO thank you" all my life so this time with all the flash backs of my grandfather's advances at very young ages I managed to utter " Not this time! You aren't going to do this to me anymore!"  My grandfather disowned me for a few years after that .... (C'est la vie!  Tis life)

At age 19 when I was stripping I met my new partner who was worse than all the rest. Looking back it's not surprising that I would meet a sex offender at a strip bar.  I spent the next 12 years dealing with his abuse.  It started two years into the relationship when he forced oral sex.  With his pornography addiction the rest of the assaults got worse and worse.  He loved snuff films (films about killing women during sex)  and would act these out on me.  He raped me repeatedly until I was just a shell of a person. I went from a healthy young lady of 125 pounds to an astounding 76 pounds. It took the help of my church and dedicated men and women in the field of abuse to help me. 

During the abuse I was choked, thrown, degrated with food etc.... The deepest damage had nothing to do with the torn anus or weight.  The most significant damage was to my mind and my spirit.  I was terrified to sleep or eat because he threated to kill me if I left him. When I did try leaving he would stalk me with repeated phone calls, climbing ladders to my windows and breaking into my house.  The police in our city were far from perfect in their response so the abuse continued.  The comments I received when reporting were " It is his word against hers, we will speak to him and maybe he can just leave instead."  or the one I really detest now is the one when an insensitive male officer said, " I wake my wife up with sex" as if somehow he thought I was over reacting.  At the time this statement rang true...the officer confirmed I must be imagining this abuse. I must be crazy.  It is my fault!  I never told another soul about the next several years of manipulation and abuse in fear of the response.  He always told me if I did tell no one would believe me and that I would lose my kids and any financial assistance I was getting.   How was I going to raise my daughter alone with no money? I didn't want to continue to strip because I suffered awful flashbacks while working.  It felt hopeless and the more I saw "doctors" about my weight loss and anxiety the more I felt that I was crazy and it had nothing to do with him.  I didn't even realize after a while I was being abused because it had become so normal.  In fact I thought I was still in love with my abuser.  This was NOT love.  It was what I hear now as how war vetrans can react to their captures.  I was help captive in my own home. I was a prisoner for years to his assaults. 

During the abuse I was diagnosed with the following mental health disorders :  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, Specific Phobias, Unspecified Eating Disorder (similar to anorexia), and eventually Borderline Personality Disorder.  It was later said that all of these symptoms I was having were likely due to Complex Post Tramatic Stress Disorder and that is was normal to have these reactions.  During all of the Assessments to determine my mental health status NOT ONCE was I ever asked if I was being abused or if I knew what abuse was.  I didn't know it wasn't normal given how I was treated my whole life.  I didn't know that being called nasty names and abusive behaviours didn't happen in every relationship. After all my parents did it and I knew no different.

THE ESCAPE: 

After several months of negotiating with my abuser (which never worked) I asked for help from my Pastor who I really began to trust. He spoke with my abuser and asked him to leave but found it was fruitless.  My Pastor changed my locks when he went to work one night.  The abuser came back home and was even angrier.  He raped me and I conceived my son. AT 76 pounds there was no way my body could handle the pregnancy without complete bed rest.  The hemmoraging started when he sexually assaulted me during my first trimester.  I was bleeding so badly during the pregnancy that I was told to stay on bedrest or abort the child.  I didn't tell them the reason I was constantly going in and out of hospital was a result of his assaults and not me getting out of bed. At 18 weeks pregnant and a very severe bleed the doctors kept me in the hospital.  I stayed there for five weeks until at 23 weeks gestation my son was delivered breech and one pound six ounces.  I lost one other baby because of his violent assaults.  He was a boy and I was heart broken.   I spent another week in the hospital after my son was born and was released back to my abuser.  Less than a week after being released from hospital I went on my computer to check my emails and there was a shocking and horrific picture....a young girl who looked just like my daughter being raped in the anus.  I panicked and searched out the  computer looking at every picture I could find.   There were more and more pictures of men and women raping children!  I was in shock and freaking out.  I called the police and told them what I found frantically screaming to get to my house before I killed him.  The police didn't think that seeing all those pictures may have put me in a state of shock and I spent the next 5 hours rocking, screaming, crying and shaking. I thought for sure this was it....either I was going to die or he was.  I called them at 5:30 am to tell them to come over to my house to investigate this because I was afraid of a domestic when he got home. 

The police arrived, arrested and charged my abuser right in the hallway of our apartment before he got inside.  I was taken to a women's shelter with my daughter (my son was still in hospital fighting for his life).  My daughter and I were there for several weeks where we caught lice , were threatened by workers with Child Protective Services and made to feel even more powerless.  With a restraining order in place as bail conditions I was given the option to go home and that is what I did.  I didn't want to stay in a place where the workers were inexperienced and insensitive to what had happened.  I left regardless of whether I felt safe.  While at the apartment my ex continued to stalk me and threatened to harm me if I testified against him.

This man moved into my sister's house (the one who threw me down the stairs) and her 12 year old son just three blocks away from my apartment. He convinced my sister that I was crazy and that all the accusations of sexual harm were lies.  She didn't care and took his side as long as he paid her mortgage and her bills.  My sister left her son (my nephew) alone with a sex offender and this frightened me so I called Child Services and she lost her son for two weeks until she agreed to have my ex move out of her home.  Because of this my sister and my ex were threatening to kill me so I escaped to another women's shelter with my daughter. Eventually I was given housing for abused women and did escape the abuse for about a year. I began abuse counselling for about two years and met a nice man in which I married.  This was my first marriage and my husband was very supportive or at least that is what I thought.  He knew everything and in fact when we were dating witnessed the stalking personally.

To sum this story up I will have to shorten it to the pertenant details of my abuse and the abuse of my children.  During my 5 year marriage. I was sexually assaulted two times.  I told my husband about the assaults and he became abusive from a depression feeling helpless to avenge his wife.  He spiralled downhill and so did I.  Both of us were desparate for help to save our marriage and tried sexual assault counselling but it was too late by that point. I was already deep into the self harm and couldn't handle any of the therapy and quit.  Less than a month later I attempted to hang myself with Nike Rollar Blade Laces.  This was the start to a whole new life for me...Please read the very first entry on my message board and you can read more about that. 

I can't believe you read my whole story...thank you for caring enough to read this much.  In conclusion to my comments at the beginning of this story that inspired me to write this I want to say that I never mean to offend anyone when making statments, comments or opinions on here and I want to say I am sorry if I did.  Blessings to you all in your journey!  Mandee