The Story of Channon Rose: Lessons between the Lines (3 page)

Chapter 2

M
isty was now my dad’s new girlfriend. I never understood what he saw in her. My mom was so much better looking than her, so for my dad to be leaving my mom for this other woman just didn’t make any sense. I know it’s not nice to talk bad about someone’s appearance but she wasn’t a nice person so I’m just going to say it like it is. Misty was very off-putting and unattractive. Of course I had a bias against her, and I despised her the minute I knew she was a main cause in my parent’s separation, but even if that wasn’t the case, I could say the same thing about her appearance. She had brown frizzy hair, brown eyes, and was slightly overweight. There really wasn’t a wow factor in her looks. She wasn’t tall, she wasn’t thin, and she didn’t have amazing eyes. This was not the fairytale life I was hoping for. My young mind could not make sense of my dad’s betrayal. My mother was an excellent wife and a better mom—she worked very hard and took care of our family. Misty had two kids of her own, Vicky and Terry. My little sister Birdy was the same age as Vicky, and Terry was a few years younger. We all knew each other because we were family friends, went to the same private Christian school, and played many of the same sports together.

At Valley Presbyterian School, Christianity and religion was a large influence in our daily lives. Every single day before school started the entire school would stand outside lined up by grade in the quad area in front of our school and we would pledge our allegiance to the American flag, and also pledge our allegiance to the Christian flag. On Mondays we had to attend chapel, Sundays we would go to church, and before each new subject in school we would pray as well. It was a very religious school. It was a little weird to me, because my family was the least religious family out of everyone I knew at the time. In fact, our family wasn’t religious at all. I think my parents just sent us there because they wanted a better education for us, wanted us to stay out of trouble, and it was the closest private school to our house. I have to say though I really liked that school. The teachers were nice, I had a lot of good friends, and I got to sing in choir class, which was something I loved. We did a lot of school plays, which were fun as well. Our classes were much smaller than in public schools, which was helpful as I do better in a more one on one learning environment. Still, I always felt a bit different than the other kids and it always bothered me a lot.

They say lefties think with the right side of their brain, so that could explain why I felt so different from everyone else. I don’t know if I was actually different than the other kids, or just thought differently than the other kids. I don’t have ADD or ADHD—at least I was never officially diagnosed with it at the time—but I struggled to understand what the teacher was trying to teach me. When the teacher focused on me in a one-on-one environment and took the time to explain it to me, I would understand it. I learned things differently from the other kids, and I think each of us learn in different ways. Special attention was something I needed to learn something properly. The teachers at that school were very caring and understanding—they knew what I needed and were very helpful. That’s the biggest reason I enjoyed going to Valley Presbyterian and it was probably my favorite school I attended.

The hardest part about going to school was waking up for school. I hated the early mornings, and still hate early mornings to this day. I have always been a total night owl. My brain wakes up at night, and it’s also when I’m most creative and productive. In an effort to minimize getting up early as a kid, I developed a system that allowed me to sleep a little more—by dressing in my school clothes the night before. Sleeping in my school uniform, even with my socks and shoes on, to get an extra 20 minutes or so of sleep. I had a pretty good little system going until one day my mom caught me doing it. My mother had noticed one evening that I was trying to fall asleep fully dressed in my school clothes. She made me change into my pajamas and made me promise to never do it again.

I got away with it for awhile since my mom and dad were usually gone by the time my sister and I were ready for school. My father owned his own electrical company so every morning there was a bunch of Hispanic workers that would wait outside our house and drive these work trucks provided by my dad to go to their jobs. My dad was always busy so my dad’s workers would drop us off at school. I was always so embarrassed to get dropped off at school in an old work truck. You know the work trucks I’m referring to; they were white, dented, beat up, toolboxes on the sides and long ladders sticking out the back. The other kids were dropped off in fancy cars by their parents, while I would exit a work truck smelling like exhaust fumes. As you might guess, after awhile I told my dad’s workers to drop us off a block away from school so nobody would see us getting out of the beat up work trucks. I was always so embarrassed by that.

When I would see the other kids at school getting out of their parents’ nice cars, I always thought they had great parents and that they were setting good examples for their children. I thought since I was going to a religious Christian school, the parent’s were probably good people too right? Christians were supposed to lead by example and love one another, and be faithful in their marriage to their husband or wife, but that was far from the truth. Up until then I believed in God. I thought how could God be real and let this happen? I started to think it was all just one big lie. I lost faith that day and I’ve struggled with it immensely since that day forward. It didn’t help that Misty was that “nice Christian” woman my dad introduced me to. I’ll never forget the day Misty and her two kids moved into my dad’s house.

She had been my Christian role model, and now here she was cheating on her faithful husband with whom she had two kids and leaving him for my married father. She ripped her two kids away from their dad to put them with mine. Since my sister and I spent most of our time at our mom’s house it felt like my dad had a new family that took our place. It hurts to feel like that and when we were there, Misty demanded all my dad’s attention. Misty did not love my dad; she was clinically obsessed with him. My sister, my mom, and I were replaced. I was the oldest child, and that came with a lot of awareness, guilt, and pressure. I wasn’t aware of everything, but I was old enough to understand much of what was occurring, as the other kids and my sister were much younger and it’s hard to comprehend the reality of situations at such a young age. As time passed, I would spend more of it with Misty—who was fast becoming the most horrible person I had ever encountered. She was just a terrible human being. But I was raised to respect my elders, so I began to swallow her abusive nature.

Misty would not tolerate my father giving me any attention; instead she chose to manipulate situations to cut me out so that she could have him all to herself. Her jealousy was powerful, and it was totally crazy. My dad barely gave me any attention anyway, but she made sure the few times that he did offer some, she would sweep it away. My dad wasn’t affectionate with us kids, he worked all the time and was emotionally distant. From the age of eight years old, I have no memories of him ever telling me he loved me, hugging me, or even asking about my day at school. Perhaps he resented me for causing problems early on with him and Misty, or perhaps six kids did not leave much time for affection. The only time he did spend with me was on the sports field, where he coached our teams. He was a good coach but hard on us. I played basketball, soccer, volleyball, and softball and I was always the best player on the team since I practiced so much.

The coach’s kids are usually the best players on the team so I felt that pressure to do better than everyone else. I strived for perfection. I wanted to be the best to make my dad proud, but most of all I just wanted his attention. Any attention after the divorce would have been nice, but it rarely came my way. Being the best in sports was just expected. Sports meant everything to my dad. With both parents working hard, long hours, we were placed in after school care and early morning care. I only got to spend an hour or two with my parents at night, and on the weekends I would play sports and see friends. Attention was something that wasn’t given out freely, or there simply wasn’t time for attention. Gaining love and attention from my parent’s for doing something great is what I wanted, but it didn’t happen that way.

Then, I learned something new. Doing bad things got my parents’ attention. It got to a point later on where I did not care what kind of attention I got, as long as I got some attention I was happy. Misty understood this, but with four kids in the house, attention was not something she was willing to give up. It was always about her and her happiness, and she was willing to do anything to get my dad’s attention. Misty slowly but surely started verbally abusing me the first year she moved in with my dad. It began with little things—she kept mentioning that I was too chubby and needed to lose weight.

Looking back at photos, I was skinny, and she was the one who needed to lose some weight. She would tell me that my nose was big, and it actually was a little big so when she would say hurtful things like that it made it much worse. It made me self-conscious because my dad would make fun of my nose too. However, Misty was very careful to never say anything bad to me when other people were around. She wasn’t stupid when it came to manipulation, and when you’re a young girl like I was; it’s even easier for an adult to win at that game. One time on the way home from school, she picked up McDonald’s for everyone—Happy Meals for the kids. I was so excited to get my toy! A bunch of my friends at school had the toys from McDonalds and I wanted one so bad. I was so excited when I found out we were getting Happy Meals because now I would get a toy too! My dad had to work late that night, which Misty knew. When we all got home and sat down to eat, there was no Happy Meal for me. Keep in mind my dad wasn’t home to see this. I was so distraught that I wasn’t getting a Happy Meal and I was even more upset that everyone got a toy but me. When I asked her where my Happy Meal was, she told me that she didn’t order me one because I was too fat for a Happy Meal. She made me eat a bologna sandwich instead while I watched all the other kids enjoy their McDonald’s Happy Meals and play with their new toys that night. This may not seem like a big deal to most people but I was so young and it was very upsetting to me. Misty did things like this to me all the time. Misty knew I absolutely hated bologna. I personally believe this is where my eating disorders stemmed from. Constantly being told I’m too fat even though I wasn’t, and being denied to eat meals with the rest of the family.

Even though I was skinny, Misty did her best to condition me to believe that I was fat. Every day she would find new ways to tell me how fat I was getting. Over and over, again and again—all I could do was listen. At that age, you soak up everything like a sponge. Misty had stepped into my life and had convinced me that I was grossly overweight. Eventually, I started to believe her and I was convinced I was fat. The abuse continued, and moved into every aspect of my life. Sometimes we would go to the store, and Misty would buy toys for everyone but me because I was a “bad girl” even though I had not done anything wrong. She had also decided that she would never allow me to sit next to her in the front seat of the car. I was made to sit in the back while the younger kids got to take turns on the way back home from school. This escalated, as abuse does. Whenever one of the kids got in trouble, she would blame it on me even though it was never my fault. The stories were fake and made up to make my father believe that I was a bad child when, really, I was a great kid. Misty was raising me in hatred, abusing me because I reminded her of my mother and because of the night I told her that my mom and dad were having sex. Each time she blamed, excluded, or taunted me; I accepted it—not knowing any better as a young child. I started to feel like a loser, unloved, self-conscious, and that I wasn’t a good little girl. With each hurtful and demeaning gesture made towards me, I would also be told that it was for my own good and that my parents think the same bad things about me but they don’t want to tell me anything negative because they don’t want to hurt my feelings. So, Misty would say that she was only trying to help me, and she was the only one telling me the truth.

Then I was put in the middle of my mom and Misty’s immature games with each other. When I was at my mom’s house she would call Misty a cow because she was overweight. This was a horrible thing to do, especially in front of me. My mom was so hurt by what was happening, and the fact that it was her best friend who ruined her marriage and betrayed her made it even worse. My mother would call my dad’s house and when Misty would pick up the phone she would tell me to say “Moo” and then we would hang up. Then Misty would say awful things to me about my mother when I was at my dad’s house. This went on for awhile between them. Misty would send my mom singles ads in the newspaper that she highlighted in bright colors, implying that she needed to date and get over my dad. It was awful and I was right in the middle of it all. It sucked.