傑西·戈登/Jesse Gordon
One of the greatest laws of life that I have learned is. "I can not give up on life even if the situation is horribly hopeless." I must go on and live, and try to overcome it. My life has value. I should try to be happy, and I must 1earn how to deal with whatever life throws at me. I must not give up on anyone, because no matter how hard it gets, someone out there still cares and loves me.
I have been in a situation that most people do not think about. Many people just turn their heads and do not want to believe it exists. Some people, when I try to talk to them, just tell me it is not as bad as it seems, and do not listen. But the truth of the matter is I need to tell someone, because if I hold it in it will just build up and make matters worse.
Life is not hopeless like I thought it was. I was not even sure if I should be here in this world. I even doubted God because of the way I was treated. I started blaming my mother for allowing me to be beaten and severely punished for little things that I should have done, like feed the dog. One day, it was about 3:00 and I forgot to feed the dog. My punishment was that I could not eat for 24 hours.
Another example of this treatment was when I was eight years old. It was seven days before Christmas. At 6:00 a.m. my biological father woke up me and my sister, who was seven, to clean the yard, which was full of his beer cans and trash. My sister and I thought the yard was pretty clean, so we went inside and turned on the television. We were watching the television when my biological father came in and started hollering and screaming and cursing my sister and me. He said we did not listen and were lazy. He said because there was one little piece of paper under the steps, there would not be Christmas. That year we did not have Christmas.
Another example is when I was nine years old, my biological father asked me for a tool while he was working on the van. I did not know what tool it was that he asked for, so I stood there. He got up and hollered, "Why didn't you give me the tool?" I simply said I did not know what tool it was. He hit me and started screaming. He said that I have seen him working on the van before, and someone else had handed it to him, so I should have known what tool he wanted. I got grounded to my room for one week.