Catherine Mellen's Blog, page 6

Continuing Closure

My name is Catherine Mellen.  A few years ago, I stood up, I spoke up and I shattered my silence on childhood trauma, family secrets and the monstrous predator my birth mother harbored. 

Walking into my hometown police department thirty-seven years later, was one of the most hardest things I ever did in my adult life. 

Detectives found the tunnel-like hole dug into the cellar wall of my childhood home, but due to a frail foundation and falling rocks, getting fully inside proved to be difficult for the detectives of the Lowell Police Department. 
But this is the year 2024 and I do believe that all things buried will one day resurface. 

I’ve come to realize that the hardest thing to do in my adult life is this right here…. Continuing with my fight for closure.
Don’t worry, I won’t stop until the little girl I once was and my abusers victims prior to 1975 and after 1981, are heard, known and served justice.  Because we all deserve it ♡

You can find my horrifying and heartbreaking true story in my two-part memoir: 
A Childhood Tragedy Under A Mother’s Watch: Part One 1975-1982
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953610161
A Life Given To Me: Part Two 1982-2019
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953610382

I also write poetry, comical short stories and more.  You can find me on Amazon, Goodreads and NFB Publishing https://www.nfbpublishing.com

Statistics: An Abused Child’s Number

What happens when the abused child is no longer a child?
And the family secrets are still secrets? 

How can we have statistics when more than half of abused children grow up and remain silent? 

I never had a drug problem, though statistics said I would.
I never had an alcoholic addiction, though statistics assumed I would.
I never had a mental illness, suicidal thoughts, or self harm, though statistics claimed that was the life headed for me.

I cringe at the word ‘Statistic’ when in reality I was a functioning member of society even though I was a trophy in a child predators sick world for six years of my childhood. 

Child sexual abuse is a horrifying crime committed on children everyday and the least discussed.  “ When the pity is easier to look at than what the communication will tell, we as children are told to move on and forget, as adults we are told to forgive. Yet we live our whole lives trying to forget something we will always remember and search for forgiveness in what is so unforgivable.”

It’s not about the Forgive & Forget.. . It is about the Accountability & Acknowledgement.
I cringe at the word ‘Molested’ when in reality I was raped, tortured and horrifyingly abused in ways, no one could ever imagine.

We are told to face reality, yet are told to forget the past.
We are told to stand up to our abusers, yet predators have equal rights.
We are told to tell someone, yet are asked where’s the proof.
We are told to speak up about our abuse, but are confined to talk behind a closed door.
We seek help, but are quickly given a medication, a diagnosis and a recovery regime. 
We are told to be brave, yet we are also told to put on a brave face.

In 2021, I published part one of my memoir, ‘A Childhood Tragedy Under A Mother’s Watch: Part One 1975-1982’   A graphic, in-depth horrifyingly told detail of my childhood abuse.  Not so, you know what I lived through, but what I survived through. So others know, they can also survive, despite what statistics expect of abused children and to bring awareness to my abusers other victims.  My abuser was thirty-nine years old when he came into my life in 1975.  Already having bundles of photos from his previous victims, a pro at his evil ways and with the safe family I never had… My childhood never stood a chance. 

Part two of my memoir, ‘ A Life Given To Me: Part Two 1982-2019 ‘ was published in June 2022 and begins where part one left off.

Hundreds upon hundreds of nude photos and film remain buried inside the cellar wall of my childhood home and though detectives found the tunnel-like hole in that cellar, the frail foundation and falling rocks made it too dangerous to get fully inside. 

So now I wait, in hopes for the day when all that my birth mother allowed to be buried inside that wall comes out, so it can be documented and destroyed. 
In the meantime, I will continue to shatter the silence on childhood trauma, family secrets and the monstrous predator my birth mother harbored.

I was not my abuser’s first victim, nor was I his last, but I may very well be his only surviving one. 

I am not just a statistic, I am Catherine Mellen and this is my true horrifying story of strength, courage and the little girl who just wanted to live. 

Forty-four years of Shame, Secrets and Silence… SHATTERED

Part One 1975-1982:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953610161
Part Two 1982-2019:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953610382

Understanding Childhood Trauma, Do You Understand It Now?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKL12YK2

Thank you for reading me and helping me to not remain a secret ♡

Your friend, Catherine

Biggest Fear

           
Dear God,

I know I have sinned, I’ll prove to you I can do fine
If only you’d give in, and give me a little more time.

I know I did wrong, when I told you I’d quit it all
But I just kept going on, doing drugs and drinking alcohol.

I was young and thought it was cool. I thought it was fun and now I’m the fool.

I have so many friends who care, I have so much to give
Death is my biggest fear, please Lord, let me live.

I haven’t got much time, they’re taking me away
Quick Lord, make up your mind, they are burying me today.

My drug habit will be through, I promise I will go straight
Lord don’t take me with you, please don’t say it’s too late.

Everyone is grieving, I’ve hurt them, can’t you see?
Why are they leaving? Tell me, what’s to become of me?

I guess my life is at it’s end, you didn’t answer my prayer
Tell me Lord, what happens? Death is my biggest fear.

*I wrote this poem in 1984 as a friend attended a funeral for a family member.  Even at age 14, I was pretty wise with my words. 

You can find this and over 70 more poems neatly placed together in one book…. Only Beautiful Remains: Words of a Poet
Ebook: https://a.co/d/dafteYI
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKL12YK2
https://www.nfbpublishing.com

Miracles Do Exist

Miracles Do Exist…

Fifteen years ago today, doctors told me my daughter had a 125% chance of not surviving the night.  “Are you crazy, do you know how many angels are with her?” I snapped at him. 
He looked at me strangely, “Well they better be with her now,” he snapped back. 
And I yelled, “They are.”  
Then I questioned him how the motorcycle driver was doing? 
Hours earlier I had ran red lights, drove on sidewalks and through a police roadblock to get to my daughter’s accident scene on Rt 110 in Dracut, Mass.  I saw a motorcycle crashed on the road and the vehicle my daughter was in over a guardrail, upside down in a tree along the Merrimac River. 

Days later as my daughter underwent a life threatening eight hour surgery,  I once again questioned about the motorcycle driver.  I wanted to make sure that driver survived.  A nurse then came up to me.
“Have you ever lost a loved one who rode a motorcycle?” she questioned me. 
I looked at her confused as I answered, “Yes, why?” 
That’s when she told me, “Well, they were with you because your daughter was involved in a single car crash.” 

Every hair on my arms stood up as I watched that nurse hurriedly away to tend other patients in the pediatric ICU ward at Mass General in Boston.

My daughter broke every bone from her cheek bone and down.  We were told immediately that she was paralyzed. With over 1,000 stitches on the left side of her face and nearly 400 stitches on her right side, she never questioned, “Why me?” 
June 19, 2006…My children lost their beloved Papa.
June 19, 2009… Was my daughter’s best friends first birthday in heaven.
June 19, 2009… My daughter was just 16 years old when this tragedy happened.

Today my daughter is 31 years old, a new mom and finally has a June 19th that will make happy little memories filled with diaper changes, baby kisses and the miracle we call Alayna ♡

Miracles do exist and I am thankful everyday to the angels who were there that day in June of 2009 ⚘️

Coming Out of the Closet: The Child Abuse Closet

An Excerpt from: Coming out of the closet: The Child Abuse Closet

Remembering good memories means you have a conversation starter at a family get together, cookouts, holidays and birthday parties. 

Remembering bad memories means you have to keep it to yourself because no one wants to hear about it at a family get together, cookouts, holidays or birthday parties.

Remembering good memories means it’s ok.  Remembering bad memories means you are subject to counseling behind closed doors, medication to help you forget and a diagnosis of PTSD, C-PTSD and all associated with being a grown-up abused child. 

Living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is like tip-toeing your way through so many conversations you are hit with in life.

If I grew up to be suicidal, a drug addict, an alcoholic or with severe mental issues, it would have been easily passed off and blamed on the childhood I lived. 

Because adults who lived a childhood full of horrible abuse, horrifying sexual attacks, instilled in fear, shamed into silence, cruel abandonment, lack of support, lack of love, lack of protection and lack of acknowledgement, are adults who were lost in a world of abuse.  I was labeled at a young age as just another statistic in a world full of abused children.


But because I grew up to be determined, strong willed, independent, courageous and proud I survived, I am told to keep it to myself. 

I am offered opinions and advice of how no one needs to know, it happened long ago and stop dwelling.  I’m told I should speak to a medical professional behind a closed door because the ones involved are too much of a coward to acknowledge, remember or stand by me.
So as survivors, we have rules to abide. We must be proud in silence, we must keep our childhood secrets a secret and I was told it was my fault why I have problems with my family.  I am the only one with bad memories and it was my job to forget it all. 

Thank God some rules are made to be broken, huh?
It took me to age forty-five years old to realize for the first time without shame, embarrassment, humiliation or fear, that it is ok to talk about my childhood abuse.  It was also the last time I stayed silent.  A horrifying reality which took me straight to my local police department was also the weight of hundreds and hundreds of bricks being lifted off my shoulders, my back and my self-being. 

I had support from so many who knew me, who acknowledged, listened and believed the childhood I lived, but not from the ones I wanted it from.  The ones who I should have received it from.  The ones who should have acknowledged, listened, protected me and who should have been there for me; my family. 
I had the sexual, physical, mental, spiritual and soul crushing abuse at such a young age.  But the lack of emotional support, protection and acknowledgment from my birth mother and siblings was the worst to bare and the easiest to bury. 

Who wants to remember the caring, loving, safe family they never had?  I know I didn’t.  After months of traumatizing repressed memories, I was forced to remember.  It was months and months of tears, pain and horrifying memories.

I use to hear the term, ‘Coming out of the closet,’ which was/is used as a term when explaining a person who just informed all their friends and loved ones of their sexuality.  “I’m gay,” one would say as another would congratulate the person who just came out of the closet.  I am not gay, but I do relate to the term, ‘Coming out of the closet,’ just the same. 

“I am a survivor of horrific childhood sexual abuse, cruel neglect and a horrifying reality.” 

Every time I say it, I feel the step through the doorway I am taking.  Like I am coming out of the closet, the child abuse closet.  What will people say? What will they think of me? Will they hate me? Who will support me?  Oh my God what am I doing? 

Same questions, just different reasons.  But one thing we do have in common is how important it is to know that support matters. 

We may all be different in many ways, but we all do sleep under the same moon.  Remember to always be kind. 

I was forced to believe it was normal to have family secrets and to be ashamed of talking about being abused.  Back in 1975 when social workers visited me at 346 Fletcher Street, if they had just crossed the street and through the park, they would have found my dad and grandmother had lived right in them brick apartments. 
Social workers are there on the assumption of abuse, but instead decides a child’s fate in just a twenty- or thirty-minute talk about dolls and school.  Social workers investigating child abuse should be allowed all access on both parents of that abused child.

If the law was, ‘you went home with your mother,’ then where were my birth mother’s other children?   I mean it wasn’t like it was just one kid, I was her seventh child.  I am the third daughter and seventh child to a woman whose lies would last longer than the number of kids she would claim to have had.  It is a sad world when a social worker is not protected enough so they can continue to protect children from abused homes.  Not one social worker looked for my dad or his family.  Not one social worker questioned me if I was being hurt. 

My abusers’ frustrations with me started at age five, as I would cry and fight him from forcing me to do sexual things.  Though I cried and fought him each and every time, I was just a kid who was overpowered by an evil man. 

As my mother continued to be caught in lies and realizing she was never going to stop her boyfriend as she kept telling me she would, I started to question the way of living she allowed me to get used to. 
My abuser had no intentions of letting me live past my twelfth birthday and I am one hundred percent positive if I did not run to my friend’s house that Saturday morning, causing my friend’s mother to call my birth mother at her work, my body would someday have been found in that cellar wall. 

And I am one hundred percent positive my birth mother would have defended him again.  I had to wait until I became brave enough to run as fast as I could from that house of horrors I called a home.  I truly believe my abusers only attraction to my birth mother, was me. 
My birth mother was vindictive and cruel.  I don’t know what happened to the social workers who used to visit, my school, my doctors, my two older brothers or what family I had, but I was left to deal with what I had been through alone because my birth mother was mad that I fought to not be abused anymore.  A fight that caused me to lose out on being with my family, but a fight that made my abuser never to touch me again.

I was always ashamed of talking about my childhood, but only because I was led to believe that I should be ashamed of what was done to me.  I turned to a mother who turned me away, I looked up to brothers who looked the other way and I have a baby sister who would never believe her father was capable of being the monster that he was.

I was in my thirties when I was sitting on my porch drinking a coffee when I thought to myself, ‘I really mastered this distancing myself thing.’  Then came the tears, sadness, anger, resentment and the one that still bothers me to this day, which is the why’s? 

There were so many aspects in my life which kept making me long for the meaning of family.  So, I’d throw myself back into the insanity that is rooted at the same feet which broke me, I just didn’t want to believe it.  But there I was in my thirties sitting on my porch thinking about how my life was really no different from when I was younger when it came to my family.
Even as a young kid, I knew if I was outside away from my abuser then I was safe.  I knew even if my brothers were home, I was not safe.  That morning I ran to my friend’s house in 1981, I ran because no one older than me in that house protected me.  What they didn’t realize they were doing is with all the sexual, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, cruel abuse they were nesting onto me, they were really just building that foundation up that made me strong enough to do this.
One brother once told me to repent so I could find forgiveness.  That was when I found forgiveness in myself for trying so hard to belong to a family I was never really a part of and I distanced myself to save myself. 

I did in my adult life the very same thing I did at the age of eleven years old that Saturday morning I ran to my friend’s house, I distanced myself to save myself.  I would then spend the next twenty years juggling with the emotions of wondering where did I belong.
But that longing to belong would come back in waves along with anger and sadness.  An emptiness of unanswered questions that some days can really hurt right down to the core of my soul.  Now in my fifties, and many years since my first repressed memory, I no longer feel like I am insulting those relatives, nor do I need to feel shame for knowing where it is that I belong, even if to get there, I had to distanced myself.

Some call it dwelling in the past, yet it is our past that pops up throughout our lives.  I was told often how it was my responsibility to forgive my birth mother and I did try but as I got older, I realized our childhood is always a part of us and how do I forgive what is so unforgiving? 

It took me many years to forgive myself for what was done to me and to realize I was just a kid at the time.  A helpless, defenseless child who she allowed for many years to be terrorized, raped and abused by the same man she slept next to every night.  Abandoning me, stealing my dad’s social security checks until being caught in 1987.  With all that woman had done to me, it isn’t about forgiving her.  To forgive means we accept, condone and/or forget what was done.

So many survivors are too ashamed to talk and spend their lives staying quiet.  So many stay quiet by turning the other way and pretend they don’t know of such abuse and so many continue to rape and abuse because they can, because no one talks.  Too many live their lives as victims and it’s time society along with its laws, help us to be survivors.  It’s time we speak up and make this world a better place for the children of today and tomorrow. 

They say the laws have changed since the 1980s, but why are there still so many silent?  Isn’t it time we make the ones who abuse and the ones who look away become the pitiful fools who live their lives in shame?  Maybe brand unfit mothers for the sake of future kids they may have?  Isn’t it fair to the child?
The cycle of family secrets and shame can end if we are raised to learn in school that abuse in any shape or form, from any member of the family or friend and at any age is something that is not tolerated in this world.  Imagine the children we could save when the shame is put on those who abuse instead of those who are abused?  If only I had gone to school where every morning in homeroom, we were taught that stranger danger can also mean family danger, maybe my childhood could have been saved.  If only I had been taught that we live in a world where seeking help was a courageous thing to do.  Seeking help crossed my mind just about every day in elementary school, but I was feared into staying silent. 

A fear that children should know about in school, a lesson that could have saved me.  Schools should be the one place any child can feel safe about reporting such acts of abuse in the home. 
We have billboards, public announcements, musicians, athletes and actors sponsoring awareness of abuse and rape every day.  Yet every day we have level two and three sex offenders walking our streets.  If they are a high risk that they may offend again, then what does that say to the ones they first abused and what does that say to the ones they abuse next?   We pass by them inside grocery stores, Walmart’s, movie theaters, ice cream stands, the beach, amusement parks or at a local parade.  They are free to be out in society and we are unaware of who they are because most hide their mask well.
Victims shouldn’t be left to live their lives in silence or shame.  Predators shouldn’t be allowed to live their lives so freely. 

The victim in me stayed quiet for way too long and the emotional, mental and psychological effects from child abuse leave lasting marks we carry throughout our lives.  I can only hope it won’t take another lifetime lived, for a survivor to come out of the closet.

You can read this article and so much more in my 2023 release of Understanding Childhood Trauma: Do You Understand It Now?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKL12YK2

Thank you for reading me.  

Your friend, Catherine Mellen ♡

Honest Eyes

I sat on your lap, your hand on my knee
You said, “Look in my eyes as I count to three,
Say what it is, that is on your mind…
If we say the same, we’re definitely one of a kind.”

We matched our words that we had said
We almost fell over as you bumped my head.
“How did we do that?”  we questioned each other
There’s no way, that could be done by another.

Ya, it was freaky but yet it was cool
Knowing neither of us, played the other a fool.
The feelings we had, we would always discuss
The talk that night, our eyes spoke of trust.

Forever goes the heart, forever goes the soul
Forever are the eyes of a love you don’t let go.
“My future,” are the words we both said
Keep it in the heart and it will never shed.

The feelings we’d say, of what we both felt
Explain how it is, the way we make each other melt.
Forever are the words, of our honest eyes
Forever for us, never a break up or good bye.

Written by Catherine Mellen

You can find this and over 70 more poems neatly put together in one book.   Only Beautiful Remains: Words of a Poet is now available…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4RDTC74

https://www.nfbpublishing.com

Beautiful 5 Star Review ⭐️

A beautiful 5 star review for Only Beautiful Remains: Words of a Poet

Over 70 poems neatly placed in one book is now available: $4.99 ebook $10 paperback & Free on Kindle Unlimited ♡

Links

https://a.co/d/dafteYI
https://www.nfbpublishing.com

Shattered Heart Pieces

I carry the weight of a shattered heart
Society said, “Move On.” So I played the part.
Accepting the way of my situation
Scattered emotions in duration.
Busting in words afraid to speak
An eagle’s soar like the courage I seek.

Way above the mountain, as high as they come
Shattered heart pieces in earths mighty kingdom.
Where do they go, tiny pieces of pain?
Where do they stay, if they must remain?

I carried the weight of a shattered heart
Reality said, “Stay Strong.” So I played the part.
Accepting support as a donation
Scattered emotions and explanation.
Speaking my truth so I am heard
An eagle’s soar with each new word.

Way above the mountain, as high as they come
Shattered heart pieces in earths mighty kingdom.
Where do they go, tiny pieces of my heart?
Where do they stay, if we never do part?

Written by Catherine Mellen

You can find this and over 70 more poems neatly placed together in one book…

My new poetry book Only Beautiful Remains: Words of a Poet is now available.

https://a.co/d/dafteYI

https://www.nfbpublishing.com

My Story Isn’t Over

Remember when I told you all that I had books to write? Well, I just published my sixth book ♡ 

I promised myself back in the early 1980s that if I ever published a book, I would tell my life story first.  Not so you know what I lived through, but so you know what my abuser was capable of. 

Knowing I’m not a secret anymore is a feeling I never imagined possible, but don’t think that it means my story is over.  I am currently writing A Timeline of a Monstrous Predator, an article that details the threats I was told, photos I was shown and the unsolved crimes they followed. 

When all that is buried inside that tunnel-like hole in the cellar wall of my childhood home is emptied out, then and only then, will my story be over and the stories of the victims prior to me will begin. 

It’s horrifying, it’s heartbreaking and in the meantime, have you checked out my books?

https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B08W9LLPFN

Tender Hearts

Tender Hearts…. A poem I wrote when I was a teenager for a friend who kept going back to her cheating boyfriend.  They ended up married with two kids, until she divorced him due to his cheating ways.  Sometimes the person you try to change, only becomes a stalled installment of the person who you wished them to be. 

Only Beautiful Remains: Words of a Poet is Now Available.   Over 70+ poems beautifully written in one book ♡
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1953610757
https://www.nfbpublishing.com