My First Recollection of Abuse

The first time I remember my mother abusing me was when I was six. My mom was an alcoholic and when she drank she became a very mean person. For various reasons her and my dad divorced when I was five. As I remember things after the divorce is when mom began to drink heavily. That is when the abuse began. So back to my first memory. I was six and in the first grade. It was a school night so we were off to bed early. I still slept in the bed with my mom (which is a whole other issue and post). I remember we were lying in bed watching Johnny Carson. She had her favorite drink in hand which was a whiskey on the rocks. I curled up next to her so we could snuggle. She was tipsy but not drunk by any means. I remember looking up at her and she smiled, told me goodnight and kissed my forehead. I drifted off to sleep in the comfort of my mommy’s arms and good ole Johnny Carson playing in the background. Now that I think back it is so odd how I can remember the sounds in the background. Still to this day when I watch old re-runs of Johnny Carson it brings back floods of memories both good and bad. Anyway, I don’t know how long I had been asleep. I don’t know how long she had sat there continuing to drink. All I do no is that I was awoken by her slapping my head and face repeatedly. I was so confused. Was I dreaming? What had I done wrong? My first thought was do I have a bug on my head?? Is she trying to kill the bug??? I soon realized there was no bug. I looked into her eyes and no longer saw my mom. I saw a stranger. Her usually sparkling eyes were anger and rage filled. At this point I was still very confused and somewhat still asleep. This had never happened before. Hell I don’t even remember her ever spanking me before this night. I jumped up and quickly got off of the bed. Now we were facing each other from across the bed. She was so angry at me and still to this day I have no idea why. She proceeded to chase me around the room and down the hallway. She was yelling and screaming at me. There were moments when she would catch me. In those moments she would slap my head, face and upper body along with pulling my hair. I was so terrified. Who was this monster and why was she doing this to me? Where was my mom? I don’t remember how long all of this went on or why it finally ended. It did finally end that night. The next morning when I awoke I was so scared. Was she going to hit me again? Was she still angry? I heard her bustling around in the kitchen so I slowly crept down the hallway. When I reached the entrance to the kitchen I saw her standing at the counter making me breakfast. She looked up and saw me standing there. She smiled and her eyes sparkled. I knew instantly that the person standing before me was my mom. The relief I felt is indescribable. Later in the day after she picked me up from school she apologized. “I’m sorry about what happened last night. It will never happen again.” I told her it was ok and felt so relieved because she had told me it would never happen again. Little did I no that later that night it would happen again and every night after that for the next five years. The only thing that stopped was the apologies.