78% of abductors are the non-custodial parent

78% of abductors are the non-custodial parent. At least that was approximately the statistic when I was a kid. One day I remember being dropped off at our paternal grandmother’s trailer. She lived in a trailer park in another part of Lake Elsinore and we would go there once in a while. I didn’t have school, so it must have been during the summer sometime. Sometime during the day we were out front of the house when my biological mother walked up and took us by the hand and walked off quickly. My grandma yelled something but I didn’t quite catch it.

She took us to a small duplex she was living in. She did cleaning of the other units in the area and I was never clear on the whole arrangement. She was on welfare, so we were fed regularly with powdered milk, cheese, bread, and the other food you could get on food stamps at the time. We also had several toys to play with. One day I took some of the toys out to play under a tree with other kids in the area. One by one, the other kids mentioned they once had a toy just like one of mine but they had lost it or it disappeared. After this was said a few times, it finally occurred to me that my biological mother had stolen them all when cleaning the other units.I didn’t take the toys out again after that.

I have a few other splintered memories of time. I remember one day running along a field with my bio mom while gripping a toy semi truck in my hand. It was a brown overcab designed one and one of my favorite toys. We were running to get away because she thought our bio dad had seen us and we needed to get away before he could catch up. Another time we were taking off around town with her boyfriend because we had been spotted again and needed to make some fast turns for him to lose us. Her boyfriend gave me some fried pig skins to eat and then when I complained of being thirsty he gave me the beer he was drinking and laughed at me when I said it was disgusting.

One day I remember going by our maternal great-grandma’s house. Their garage had a wall covered in soda cans. They were nice enough to my brother and me  but after I think my bio-mom asked for money, they told her to go and never to come back.

It was a one bedroom duplex we were living in. It had a small kitchen and a stall shower. I of course got chickenpox so I spent a miserable week on the couch. For some relief they sprinkled baking soda on the shower floor and plugged the drain with a rag for me to lay miserable in the water for what relief it gave.

One night I woke up to hear voices from the other room. My brother and I slept on the living room couch while my bio mom slept in the  bedroom. I looked in to see the screen off her window and it forced open. Our bio dad had found us and forced himself in. He was drunk and angry at her about something. I was told to go back to sleep. They were half naked in bed so looking back I can tell he had sex with her but I’m not sure if any of it was consensual at that point.

The next day he had us all jump in his car and we drove to Mexico. I have no clue why we went there for a day or two. They got me some shoes for cheap from a market down there as mine were left behind when we left and were a tight fit anyways.I’m not sure what the trip was for. Maybe a drug pickup? My bio dad was a dealer and used it along with my bio mom. We drove back to California and he kicked my bio mom out somewhere before he drove us to the other side of town back to his girlfriend’s house. That ended the strange time I was apparently kidnapped by a non-custodial parent.

Hello my name is Paul Darr and I am a survivor of all forms of child abuse

Hello my name is Paul Darr and I am a survivor of all forms of child abuse. Some of you might know me from different walks of life and might be barely aware of my past. I mean, I am a 42 year old man now, but I can tell you those physical and emotional scars you gain as a child are still there under the surface the rest of your life. I used to talk about it more when younger but I do so less often now.

Today I saw someone casually calling someone a “child abuse advocate” when the person they accused has never advocated on behalf of any abuse and has done so against it. I have also seen people call people child molesters (chomo) and groomers because they identify as part of, or support the Gender & Sexual Minorities (GSM) community. In other conversations I have seen foster children invoked as part of the conversation with reproductive rights, no matter the side of that issue. 

In all of the cases, I find it disgusting that individuals that genuinely show little to no real empathy towards those of us that have been victims will then invoke us for their own arguments. Since we are victims, do they see us as weak and unable to defend ourselves from that use? By using us as pieces in that argument I think they weaken the focus on our actual abusers and they themselves are the actual abuser advocates. This is an argument I have had with people in my political life and also some with church policies. I would just ask these people to stop misusing us and leave us out of arguments that are not meant to really help us.

That will end my rant on something that has been bothering me for a while but maybe I should talk about some of the abuse I have experienced in my life. My first memory of abuse was actually of my biological mother being the victim. I remember one evening seeing my biological father beat the living crap out of her while he was drunk. I screamed at him to stop but he continued on and beat me later but I don’t remember the details of that beating too much. This was around when I was 4 or 5 and lived in Sun City, CA. My brother luckily slept through the whole thing.

After that, my biological parents divorced and my brother and I lived with our biological father with his girlfriend and several other people that lived in the home. That is when I experienced all the other forms of abuse before entering foster care. Neglect was the first one that comes to mind. My brother and I were often left to ourselves for the day. That included me getting up and ready for school and finding food to eat. I remember finding some stale ice cream cones in a cupboard and having that for a meal one day. I also remember the dogs would get fed but we would not, so I remember grabbing dog food and eating that. Since we lived in California, there were also plenty of orange and pomegranate trees around for me to raid and get food from. So food was scarce but I found ways to obtain it for my brother and I.

At the time, my biological father worked at the local card house and sold drugs. I think he mainly sold marijuana and cocaine. He was also an alcoholic. During this time of living at his girlfriend’s house is when he started beating me on a more regular basis when he came home drunk. He had this thick leather belt with a heavy metal buckle. He would swing it, hitting the buckle against the back of my knees or the center of my back. With my back, it would just make me curl back in pain and the back of the knees would cause my knees to collapse so I would fall forward. He would then tell me to, “get the fuck back up” so that he could swing again and knock me back down. During these beatings he would typically say other things like wishing I was never born but really that felt minor compared to what was going on at the time.

Another memory was the time my uncle told me to run while my biological father was there. As I took off he pulled out his paintball gun and took careful aim before shooting me in the back of the knee. I don’t know what it was with going after the knees but they must have enjoyed seeing me tumble and fall.

This sort of thing was my daily life until the day my biological mother kidnapped my brother and I but I think I will split some of this up into follow up blog posts.

May – Lawn Post

The winter weeds are trying to go to seed before the heat kills them. Keep the lawn mowed every week to reduce production of the weed seeds for next winter. Yes I know this can often be easier said than done when we have a rainy May.

You will be stuck with the weekly watering recommendation provided by SAWS. https://www.saws.org/the-drought-continues-and-so-do-stage-2-watering-rules/ Make sure to check the SAWS website for the latest watering schedule based on the aquifer level.

San Antonio lawn care schedule