Trouble

We were all settled into our new house in Taylorsville. I was in the Third grade I attended Plymouth Elementary School. The housing projects we lived in were really cheap and the neighborhood was very scary. Every house in this small and desperate neighborhood was a town home. Our neighbors had two older sons around 21. They were in a gang along with the rest of the guys in this neighborhood. They always had their blue bandannas and flashed their WEST SIDE sign every chance they got. I had one close friend, her name was Jackie. She was a year older than me but we were best friends. There was an older black man that was a retired gang member that lived in our neighborhood. He had been shot in a drive by and was paralyzed from his waist down. Jackie and I always liked to visit him. He'd always give us money to go get a treat at the Conico up the street. The neighborhood was full of drug addicts, alcoholics (Jackie's mom was) dead beats and trouble. This is what i lived in for the next year.

Mark started staying the night every night. My mom worked at Cottonwood Hospital at the time and usually worked at night. Mark would always come to our house and take a long bath. Afterwards he'd go to my mom's room and smoke weed. He barely talked to us and if we tried to talk to him all we would do is annoy him! We all kept our distance. My older sisters who were 15 and 14 at the time began to spend a lot of time with kids that weren't so great for them. Both ended up getting pregnant by older guys and old three months apart. Brandy (15) told my mom and that was drama for about two weeks. But soon everyone was excited to have this baby and we all started to prepare. Belinda (14) was also pregnant but didn't tell anyone about it until the day she went into labor. During the 9 months of Brandy's pregnancy things got kind of hectic at home. My mom was smoking weed with Mark all the time, Belinda was always getting into trouble with my mom and was always being beat up for one reason or another. Mark started to get more upset with me and Michaela and nothing seemed to please him. My home life had really started to scare me. One night while Brandy, Belinda and Michaela were down stairs I went into my mom's room to take Mark's weed. I was terrified but couldn't stand who my mom was anymore and only saw this as the reason for it. I went outside to the backyard, climbed the fence and dug a hole. I barred Mark's weed and pipe. I made sure to mark the spot with some toys I had from Burger King or some place like that. I went back inside and watched TV with my sisters... Then all hell broke lose.

Mark had gotten out of the bath and as usual went the room and went to go for his weed. It only took him about 5 to 10 minutes to come down stairs and he instantly started to scream at me! He always knew it was me that hated what they did the most. Michaela was too young to notice or understand and my older sisters just stayed out of it. He took me upstairs to watch him tear apart my room. He tore my dresser apart and with his knife ripped holes in my bed and continued this for about 10 minutes trying to scare me into telling him. I was so scared!! I could barely move but I had enough strength in me that that I never said where it was and I continued to deny taking it. When my mom got home she talked to me and I lied to her too. They gave up on me and wouldn't you know it Mark just ended up getting a new bag of weed and a new pipe. My little stunt got me no where but a ripped up bed and a torn apart room.

Meeting Mark

My mother hates to be alone. I don't mean alone as in her own alone time I mean without a man in her life. Shortly after my dad left she met Mark. She worked the graveyard shift and was on her way home from work; it was raining and she saw this man riding his bike in the rain and offered to give him a ride (crazy right) she took him home and from that moment on he was here.
I was almost eight years old and I was out of school for the summer. It was Saturday morning and my little sister Michaela was up before me. I heard Michaela, my mom and a man's voice talking and kind of laughing. I got up and looked in her room and there he was. My mom told me to come say hi and meet Mark, i said I don't want to and went back to my room. He left shortly after that. My mom got herself and us ready for the day... ready to really meet Mark.

My mom couldn't afford to live in the apartment we had anymore. She sent my two older sisters Brandy and Belinda to live with their dad and step mom for awhile. My mom moved us into a house unit in Taylorsville that the state of Utah had set up for people on welfare like my mom. I was now in the third grade and my two older sisters had moved back in with us. Mark was staying over all the time and I didn't like him. He drove a beat up, flat black Toyota pickup. He worked in Construction and did framing. When we moved everything went down hill really fast.

Things I remember

There are a few things I remember about my mother when I was young. My parents separated when I was pretty young, I don't even recall how old I was. For some reason they separated but shortly after they got back together and then later divorced. My dad has epilepsy, he's had it since he was a toddler but kind of grew out of it as he got older. When he first met my mom back in the day he didn't have seizures and seemed to be perfectly fine. One day they just came back and ever since then he's always had them. The stress of having to take care of him and be a mother at the same time seemed to be a little to much for my mom to cope with and she then started to have affairs on my dad. I can remember a time when she took my two older sisters, Brandy & Belinda who were about 12 and 13 at the time to the mall... they left late and I remember it was late because my little sister, Michaela and I were in our PJ's and watching the news with our dad while they got ready... funny thing even as a 6 year old I remember it being odd that my mother was leaving so late to the mall -side note- my dad hates fighting. He would rather just deal with something rather than bring it up to you. He also didn't believe in fighting with his spouse. He truly loved my mom and even though he knew first off that the mall was closed and that she really wasn't going to the mall he never confronted her about it and if he did we were never around to hear about it. So that being said he just let her leave and put us to bed and off to bed he went as well. This continued to happen here and there and still nothing was really said about the subject but one day a guy that I had never seen before came to the door. His name was Mike. No one knew him except my mother and of course my mother knew him. She started to freak out at this Mike guy while trying at the same time to answer some of my dad's questions. Turns out Mike is someone my mom was having an affair with... This was her second affair. The first was Mark- Remember my parents separated because of my dad's epilepsy. She started seeing Mark. He knew about my dad my dad knew about him and things were all out in the open. They dated for about 6 months until Mark died. Turned out Mark also had epilepsy but choose not to ever tell my mom that for fear she wouldn't want him either. My mom felt that was a sign from God that she needed to go back to her husband and be with him "in sickness and in health" that's when they got back together... Back to Mike. She obviously couldn't just stick to the marital vows she promised and met Mike started a fling and it all came out. So anyways, when my mom finally got Mike to leave the apartment and of course told him it was over she came back inside and my dad told her he was done and that he wanted a divorce and so they did. I was very upset with my mother. She had hurt my dad and my family more than she knew.

Intro

Hello, my name is Courtney. I'm 20 years old and I live in Utah. I have three sisters; two older and one younger. My mothers name is Patty and my fathers name is Mike. I had a very different and at most times very difficult childhood. I have seen things a lot of people twice my age never have. I have great people in my life now. I have wonderful and caring friends and people who have become family to me. I am happy 90% of the time. I have my good days and bad days just like anyone else... But for sometime now I have really wanted to get everything that has happened in my short 20 years out. I'm hoping if I do this I won't have it all botteled up anymore. I'm hoping if I get it all out there might be some closure to some of it. I will warn you now that at times it may go back and fourth between different dates, people and events but I just want it all out. I'm going to start as far back as I can clearly remember. Well here goes nothing.