The House On Telegraph Hill

The inner sanctum

What was done in that place so many years ago seemed to vile to put in print. However, as time passed I began to think quite differently about what happened back then, and decided not to let them, my "loving parents", get away with what they did to not only me but to the others as well. 

No one, not even the next door neighbors, ever suspected them of any wrong-doing, ever. No one on the outside ever knew what went in on the inside, behind those perilous walls of deception. As with me, the others were too scared to reach out and let someone know just what was being done to them even though they all had a means of escape...troubled homes to go back to. The place had a mesmerizing effect on those in need. Those that came around found it quite difficult to leave, to break loose, once they stayed a while.

That place took its toll on anyone and everyone that ventured through that ominous, faded green, warped front door; it was always ajar. It always looked so strange, slightly cracked open but yet somehow inviting...to the weak and unwanted.

Those tortuous shenanigans went on year after year, and yet not one of us uttered a single sound about the frightening truth. Why? We were too scared to that's why. Why were we scared? You'll find the answer to that question in my memoir of nightmares: The House On Telegraph Hill.  You'll be shocked to learn just what those two creeps did to all of us, and yet escaped detection.

As I grew into my teens I began to take on that oh so familiar look; the look of a real "graduate" of that place it was! I knew I looked a "bit funny", like the rest of the flock that crawled out of that hole, but yet struggled and tossed my way through life somehow.  I knew my abberent behavior and appearence were always in question.  My parents made sure that everything was easily explained away as "a quirk of nature." They, the neighbors, thought that I was simply "born that way." I once heard a neighbor comment that "it must've been a lack of oxygen at birth that did it", as I hobbled by.

They thought that my poor sister Annie was born that way too. Well neither she nor I were born that way. We were manufactured, made that way because of the relentless abuse dished out by our "loving parents" day in and day out, year after year until we could no longer function. We looked as we were; dysfunctional. We were simply a product of our environment, of what went on in there, in that asylum.

My parents should've been prosecuted early on but yet escaped detection as they carried on with their criminal antics right up until their miserable ends. Those two creeps were pitied because of their so called "bad luck." The way we turned out was always passed off as their "bad luck."  Instead of being thrown in jail they were pitied. They escaped detection, and continued on their abusive ways for years on end.

My two sisters are dead now because of my mother's relentless tortuous tampering; she just would not, she could not, leave them alone. My mother was a murderer on the prowl! Even though those poor girls spent years in therapy, and time institutionalized, they still succumbed to it all. As for me, well I've been through all that too, and yes I've succumbed to it all but got the worst of it; I'm still alive. There's one thing for certain; I'm still a sight to be seen, and mumble to be heard, grand testimony to what went on in that torture-chamber so many years ago.

Throughout my life I've hobbled down many roads in search of relief for the physic pain I've endured but yet to no avail. Believe me when I say there is no cure for the damage done by childhood abuse. It cannot be undone! There are no survivors no matter what you've been told! All the sufferer can do is stumble from one psychiatrist's office to the next with the hopes that each and every prescription written will offer some relief, undue some of the wretched pain created years before.

The best that I can do now is to come out of my psychic shelter and tell you, the reader, just what went on in that god-forsaken place, the asylum that I grew up in, The House On Telegraph Hill, well over half a century ago. You'll read about the consequences its had on my life, and those close to me.

I sincerely hope that by writing this book that just one parent will read what I've written, and try to understand the consequences of what those two monsters did to me along with the toll their abusive actions took on other young lives as well, and take heed.

The worst mistake any parent can make is to let alcohol/drugs dictate policy within their household with young ones around. I've often wondered just how many households hide terrible secrets behind closed doors while their young ones are tossed about by one belittling remark, and back-hand swat at a time.

My writing tells of the terrible consequences of being trapped within a household run by two abusive alcoholic parents, and the effect it had on me, and other young pliable minds as well. It's a warning.

Be well.