My name is Randy Boyd and I am a 53 year old survivor of childhood sexual, emotional, verbal, physical and spiritual abuse.
This is the second of my three-part story.
From age 12 to 17 my stepfather both sexually and physically abused me. Jack, my stepfather, verbally assassinated my mother and me as well as physically beat us both. More than once my mother came home with black eyes. When the beatings took place at home, I was usually next to “get it” as I would usually “smart off” to Jack while he was beating her. Jack was the father of three other children, two sons and a daughter. One of the sons was a product of the sixties and smoked a lot of pot and took a lot of LSD. I believe Jack took all his frustration and guilt of his son’s bad behavior out on me. I know this because I witnessed it first hand on a job site. My step brother would screw up or pop off to Jack, and Jack in turn would take out his frustration on me. I was constantly being falsely accused of things I did not do. This was a wonderful trait of Jack’s: he was constantly accusing and punishing me for things he said I had done and I was not doing. Eventually my attitude became: “Well if you are going to accuse me of it and beat me for it, I will just as well do it.”
His way of punishment was with violence and beatings. He used the term, “With thy Rod and Staff” from the bible as his mantra. There was no discussing anything with Jack or my mother. What they said was all that mattered; my opinion or feelings did not matter. When I would try to talk about how I felt, it usually resulted in a beating or restriction of some sort, and my feelings were not valid and didn’t matter.
My mother had absolutely no parenting skills. If I got in trouble after school, she would send me to my room and let my stepfather, Jack, who sexually and physically abused me from age 12 – 17, deal with me. I remember countless times lying on my bed all tucked into a ball trying to protect myself from either his fists or the belt. I even tried laughing at the belt lashing one time, only aggravating him and increasing his rage towards me.
I remember when I was 17 years old. I had come home from school and my mother and I were having a conversation about something. I was trying to tell her how I felt about something and her answer was, “That’s it, you are going on restriction.”
Well, now being the rebellious 17 year old I had become from extreme sexual, emotional and physical abuse, the next day the surf ‘came in,’ so I came home from school, loaded up my surfboard and as I was leaving, my mother approached me and reminded me that I had been put on restriction. I laughed and said she had to be joking. I said, “I try to explain how I feel and you put me on restriction; good bye.” Jack was out of town working so it was just me and my mother. Well my mother called the police on me and when I got home I got a good lecture by the police reminding me that I was only 17 years old and what my parents said is what I was to do, period! Jack got home the following night and my mother told him what had happened the day before. I was sound asleep in my bed and Jack burst into my room, grabbed me by the hair on my head, and yanked me out of bed and started beating the living daylight out of me. My mother was yelling at him to stop. My brother woke up from the yelling and had to pull Jack off of me. Years later I asked my brother about that night, if it was as bad as I thought or am I crazy. He told me if he had not been there to pull Jack off of me, he probably would have killed me.
By the time I was 17, the physical, emotional, verbal and spiritual abuse were all in full force. My brother played football in high school and was a really good player (he was named defensive player of the week on the varsity football team almost every week.)
One night we were all at the dinner table and my stepfather, Jack, asked my brother if he were going to play football again the following year and go on to college to play. My brother replied, very respectfully, “No.” When my stepfather asked him why, he told him he wanted to get a job so he could buy a surfboard and eventually his own car. Jack told him that as long as he played football, he would provide a car and surfboard to him.
When I turned 16, I was given a brand new VW for a Christmas present; however, later Christmas night I was pulled aside and told “I” would have to pay for the car on monthly payments, the insurance and maintenance. What was given to me as a gift, unlike my brother, had a price tag on it. I reluctantly said OK because they had already put the money down and could not recover it. However this meant I would have to get a job and give up certain things like my love for “baseball” in order to be able to work and study in school.
At 16 years old, I was doing anything for acceptance from whomever I could get it from and however I could, and I knew the car would make me “noticed.” When Jack told my brother he would be provided with whatever he wanted and needed as long as he played football, I could not keep quiet. I told Jack he had to be kidding. My brother plays football and you will provide him with whatever he wants, yet you bought me a VW and presented it as a gift to me, only to tell me later I had to get a job and pay for it, and I had to give up the game I loved, baseball. “That’s just wrong,” I told him. Well needless to say it was the wrong thing to do, challenge Jack. At the dinner table a pretty heated argument ensued and I was kicked out of the house that night.
The next evening I went by the house when my family was eating dinner, went through the garage door to my bedroom so they could not hear me, to get my things. However, they did hear me and when Jack approached me and asked what I was doing, I told him I was getting my stuff and moving out. Once again a heated and this time a physical confrontation, on Jack’s side, ensued. I remember standing in the driveway with my arms full of the ceramic pots I had made and Jack coming up and hitting me in the face. My mother threatened to call the police; however, she was stopped by Jack. I was able to leave without any further confrontation. I remember the girl who took me home to get my stuff, a member of our church, could not believe what she had just seen, yet it remained a secret in our church.
I realize that the sexual, emotional and physical abuse I suffered as a child is the root of some of my character defects as an adult. I always felt less, not enough, not worthy of love or the good things life had to offer. Anytime things started going right or everything was good in my life, I would self-sabotage it. You see everything good that I had in my life had a high price tag attached to it: something negative. Starting with the love for my father, his leaving us when I was 9 years old, and divorce from my mother; then my father died when I was 12. At Christmas, our house was always full of gifts, more than any one person should get. Yet it was all “MORDITA” gifts. I had learned how to manipulate my abusive stepfather, Jack, into getting things I wanted or “else” – man, he hated those words. And when he told my brother that he would buy him whatever he wanted, including a car, as long as he would play football, the message I got was that I was not worthy of such goodness, and I carried that feeling with me all my life.
Please if you have been abused in any way, please have the courage to speak up; you are not alone. As hard as it might be for you to do, I promise you it will be the best thing you can do for you! Know that I, as well as a group of other men, am here for you to walk this healing path with. Whether you are an adult male, adolescent or teen male, it is never too late or too early to begin your healing journey. Please tune in to the third part of my story in two weeks on this website: americanspcc.org