Joyanna Adams

How a Horse Saved my life

The Child is Mother to the Woman. OR…How a Horse Saved my Life

Nobody Knows

This is going to be a HARD one to write. People don’t usually talk about horrors that happen in their childhood, but recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. A lot of what happens in our childhood affects us as adults. It makes us who we are.

Some of us have happy childhoods, two parents, some do not.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that people SHOULD talk about it. Preferably to your local bartender or drunk, skip the psychiatrist, they are pretty worthless when it comes to this stuff I’ve found.

Soldiers are committing suicide daily because they are just not talking about all the pain inside.  

I was thinking the other day about men of war. WWII men never talked about what they went through, most men that have gone through war…just don’t. The rule of thumb is, just forget it. Go on. Shit happens. BE A MAN. Watch some war movies. I recently saw a Vet on video crying uncontrollably because he wanted to end his life, he was crying for help. The police were trying to help him, but couldn’t. Oh, my heart.

So, Nobody Wonders, if not telling future generations about horrors of your life is wise? Have you noticed VERY few women talk about their abortions? Very few. They might say. Oh, I took showers with my dad all my life, but so what?

He’s the President, so it’s okay. (Biden) It’s treated as normal.

Is that good? Would we have less war if we knew the horrors? Less abortions? Less rapes? They show it in movies, but movies…are…almost just not real.

Elon Musk is the only man I can think of that has admitted he had a rough childhood because of his dad. He was beat up a lot. His dad was a monster. That took some guts being as famous as he is.

And I’m glad he did it.

And because of that, I have decided to look into my childhood, to analyzes myself, and decipher, what REALLY happened in my childhood horror.

While I’m at it, I wonder what happened in Obama’s and Hillary’s childhood? We can guess Bill Clinton’s…but that’s another topic.

 I realized it wasn’t the horror itself, it was the way it affected my family forever.

THE HORSE

For background, I was a real tomboy growing up in the swamps of Naples, Florida. I played all day in the palmetto bushes and trees in back of our house. Sand everywhere, snakes, gators, it was fantastic to me. It was perfect, I was the happiest of happy kids.  

Back then, the parents told the kids “Get out of the house, go play.” (LOL…I often wonder if my mother truly WANTED to rid of me…. anyway.)

It was about 3 that afternoon, I was about five, and all the kids were playing in the sandlot down by the railroad tracks, a good ½ mile down from our house. There weren’t many houses down there. And then, I saw it…

My first horse. It was golden. It was beautiful. Some older kid was on it, was giving rides to all the boys (I was the only girl) and oh, how jealous I was. My older brother got a ride and went home. It was the most magnificent creature I had ever seen. One by one, he gave all the kids a ride. Why won’t he give ME one? PLEASE! PLEASE! I was holding my hand up, jumping up and down, I couldn’t think of anything in the whole world I wanted to do more than to get to take a ride.

Why not me? Why?

These rides went on for about it seemed eternally, and then finally as the kids drifted off, the kid said to me, “Do you want to ride now?”

Oh boy! He put me up front.

 I remember we left the sandlot, and went back into the woods. These were MY woods…I was confident. I’d walked these paths every day, but the feeling of the horse between my legs…felt like I was sitting on a heavenly seat of rolling ease. The smell was godly. The way the horse walked… strolling from side to side, as if time was not important. And it did lose track of time. I remember touching his mane.  I didn’t even care about the guy behind me. I was in the most heavenly spot-on earth.

And then…I felt, the boy’s hand on my crouch. It was big. And it kept rubbing me, and he kept saying “Let me do something to you, it will only take a minute, your mom and dad did it. It will be okay”

 Well, instinctively that did scare me, so I used the horse as an excuse.

“No, I want to keep riding.” So, minutes went by, and he kept asking, and I kept saying…no…no…and frankly, in my mind if that’s all I have to put with, him rubbing me (it didn’t hurt) even though it creeped me out. So be it.

Then by his words, I could stay on that horse longer. I didn’t want to get off.

Suddenly, I noticed it was getting dark. The shadows on the ground told me, it was getting late.

I knew I had to go home soon. I told him so. He kept saying it wouldn’t take long, and we could ride more…we just had to get off the horse for a minute.

“Okay, okay.” I spoke. Annoyed.

He led me to the bushes. Told me to lie down. And then, he started to take off my clothes. My pants…I started to cry…He looked as big as a gorilla in front of me, and I thought I saw him pull out a knife.

Later on, I wondered if it was his penis because I had never seen one, so my memory might be a bit fizzy on that, after all, I had a hard time seeing through my tears.

NOW…are you ready for the next part? This is where it gets interesting:

Right when he was going to put the ‘knife’ in me, I heard my mother scream my name…” JOYCE!!” at that exact moment in time.

I turned my head and screamed back as loud as I could “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

The giant got up, and left in the other direction. I somehow managed to put my clothes back on (I think) and ran out through the bushes…there was two cops’ cars there, headlights flashing and my mom, and all the time I ran to her I kept saying “Mom…it’s okay! I’m okay! He didn’t have a gun mom!” Over and over, I kept telling her not to cry, because he didn’t have a gun!”

Think about that. I was the adult, comforting the mother. The whole time, I was comforting my mother.

The ride in the cop car was strange to a little kid.  They took me to a doctor’s office who examined me gently and told my mom that I had semen on my stomach, and that…get this, I’d probably grow up to be promiscuous. WHAT? Trust me; I’ve never been promiscuous. One man woman, always. (Stupid doctor)

 YEARS later, when my mother was in her 50s. She also told me that the same kid had a week before raped a young girl my age, killed her with a knife and threw her in a lake. She was dead. He was the sheriff’s son, and try as much as they could, they could prosecute him. They said he was ‘retarded.’ Can you imagine my parent’s anger that they couldn’t even prosecute him?

Analyzing…

For the next few days, I was left pretty much in my bedroom. Then one morning, after my dad had gone to work at his Phillips 66 station that my mother’s father had bought him, she came into my room with a huge belt and beat me. She was crying, hysterical, screaming, and I kept asking “What did I do? What did I do?” I was crying…Tell me, tell me!! Why oh why was she beating me? She had never done that before. But what was worse is that I did NOT know why? And she wouldn’t tell me. No matter how often I asked her to.

 Kafka. No trial, no explanation. Nothing.

The rest of the week I stayed in my bed hugging my Raggedy Ann doll and looking at her heart. Thank GOD there was heart there. If my mother hated me, and I’d never know why, at least I had Raggedy Ann. I STILL have that doll.

Now, to this day, if there is any kind of whipping scene in a movie, I get up, leave the room or quickly change the channel. The emotional pain of the fury of the mother you love, always comes rushing back. She was not much of a hugger after that. She took care of her family, really great in every way…but love? REAL love, smiles, hugs?

That was not her style.

After that event, my father disappeared from my life. He was there, but never talked to me. Neither did my mother, until we were older.

My older brother became their star.

And I escaped into the world of books.

THE CHILD IS MOTHER TO THE WOMAN.

So, I’m 71, just now thinking back on all of this and how it affected my life. And I come up with two things.

1. Think about it. IF I had NOT loved that horse so much, and had agreed sooner to get off, I no doubt would NOT be writing this. Recently I made a HORSE bedroom. Here’s a few pictures. Thank you.

• AND…if she had not called my name at that exact minute…I would be dead. That brings us to luck? Synchronicity? The universe saving me? Something.
•  I think this sort of stuff happens all the time.

Recently, Mel Gibson released a film on children sex trafficking. Sound of Freedom.  Everybody should see it. If you don’t think ANY kind of rape does not affect a person’s life, you might as well go join the cartels.
And I hope you get shot. We must ALL start protecting the children. My God. We must.

Being so far away from the incident I can imagine that probably my father blamed my mother for not watching out for me that day. I’m sure my brother didn’t let her know. It probably caused a major upsetting event in both their lives, and for many years. But they stayed married…for the kids.

Later on, in life my mother and I became close friends. I didn’t grow up to be a prostitute. (LOL) and I also shared the love of horses with her. Now, after being a parent, I can forgive whatever horror that she and my father went through after having this event happen to them. After all, as Jordan Peterson always says, Life is hard. VERY hard.

Look at the good side and be glad you survived. There is always another day as Scarlett claimed.

What did I get out of telling you this? I don’t know. Probably I don’t think enough people search their hearts for WHY their parents did the things they did. They are too busy living their lives, and if parents are cruel, they don’t look any further. What happened in THEIR lives to make them that way?

What were THEY going through? How does any human turn out to be a monster?

I’m not sure what to do, but you know what? I have a BEAUTIFUL room in my basement with nothing but horse pictures because in my mind, that horse, saved my life.

He did. He did.
 

December 14, 2023 - Posted by Joyanna Adams | Uncategorized | Books, fiction