Begin reading the series here. Or, go back to Pushed to Suicide.
*****
Of course my parents found the note and woke me instantly. Instead of taking me to the hospital and admitting I had a serious problem, they decided to handle it themselves. That night they poured an entire bottle of Ipecac syrup down my throat and sent me off to work with my dad the next day. Even his coworkers were concerned as they could hear me continuously vomiting all day long and my dad refused to send me home because I was sick. I called my Youth Pastor’s wife from work and told her the story. She told her husband and he called my dad that evening with the request to bring me in for counseling. My dad refused and forced me to admit to my Youth Pastor that I “hadn’t tried to commit suicide. I was only trying to get attention. Nothing is wrong with me.” Afterwards, my dad informed me I was being sent away to Northland Baptist Bible College (NBBC) in two weeks. I was 16.
I enrolled at NBBC one month shy of my 17th birthday. Once my roommate walked in and found me counting pills and laying them out so I could swallow them. I eventually told a couple of students in whispers that I believe I had been molested and told them about my dad. This was the first time I found the courage to say, “Something bad happened to me.”
By this age, I knew something of sexual sins. I was aware of the term rape, but I was bit uncertain about molestation and abuse. To me, abuse was when you had black eyes and your parents weren’t Christians. I thought beating meant you had marks everywhere on your body when of course, under Biblical spanking, you should only mark the butt. I believed molestation to be an act of violence ending in rape. It took me several years to accept the fact I was molested and not every child molester leaves marks or rapes their victims. I didn’t understand that pedophiles and their victims can actually have a “good” relationship. It took me several more years to recognize the fact my parents didn’t “spank”, they beat me brutally and just because you strike a child on the butt instead of the face or arms doesn’t mean there isn’t abuse taking place.
College money ran out and I returned home to live as an adult in my parent’s home. My mom and I had an unspoken agreement to simply stay out of each others’ way and it worked. We became…very civil and polite, like strangers. My dad and I were still close. However, hearing his porn through my door each night (I lived in the basement now) and seeing his girlfriend (whom I knew as one of his counselee’s from ICBCI days) riding in the car each night my dad came and picked me up from work was too stressful. So after a year at age 19, I moved out. The affair was discovered several months later and Ken Copley resigned from ICBCI.
Read the Final Part, Part Nine - Unfinished Justice.
I enrolled at NBBC one month shy of my 17th birthday. Once my roommate walked in and found me counting pills and laying them out so I could swallow them. I eventually told a couple of students in whispers that I believe I had been molested and told them about my dad. This was the first time I found the courage to say, “Something bad happened to me.”
By this age, I knew something of sexual sins. I was aware of the term rape, but I was bit uncertain about molestation and abuse. To me, abuse was when you had black eyes and your parents weren’t Christians. I thought beating meant you had marks everywhere on your body when of course, under Biblical spanking, you should only mark the butt. I believed molestation to be an act of violence ending in rape. It took me several years to accept the fact I was molested and not every child molester leaves marks or rapes their victims. I didn’t understand that pedophiles and their victims can actually have a “good” relationship. It took me several more years to recognize the fact my parents didn’t “spank”, they beat me brutally and just because you strike a child on the butt instead of the face or arms doesn’t mean there isn’t abuse taking place.
College money ran out and I returned home to live as an adult in my parent’s home. My mom and I had an unspoken agreement to simply stay out of each others’ way and it worked. We became…very civil and polite, like strangers. My dad and I were still close. However, hearing his porn through my door each night (I lived in the basement now) and seeing his girlfriend (whom I knew as one of his counselee’s from ICBCI days) riding in the car each night my dad came and picked me up from work was too stressful. So after a year at age 19, I moved out. The affair was discovered several months later and Ken Copley resigned from ICBCI.
Read the Final Part, Part Nine - Unfinished Justice.
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