Cinderella has arrived

 Writing that first post last week was rough. BUT, I do feel like I’ve let somethings off my chest by sharing my story. I was talking to a friend last night who helped me realize that I am strong from what I’ve been through. I need to stop letting others words get to me and put me down. 

Okay continuing on with my story. My two brothers and I had just got taken in to live with my grandma and grandpa. Donna (grandma) was that grandma you see and you just smile and run into her arms. She would drive her Lexus she always had cinnamon gum in her purse and always had a mug of Sprit with lemon in it. She smelt unbelievable all the time. She was every child’s dream grandma. UNTIL She wasn’t. Life was good for the first 6-12 months but than we got adopted by her and grandpa. Everything changed as soon as the adoption was finalized.  I was about seven years old and I remember she had yelled at me over something and I remember popping up out of bed crying & screaming at her saying then why did you adopt us? I instantly received my first slap across the face.... That released something within that women. She was not our grandma anymore.. She was Cruella now. 

We were no longer aloud to be children. 1 day at a time this women beat our spirits down and formed us into her own personal slaves. When I say that I am not kidding. Normal children come home from school do their chores do their homework and then go play with friends until it’s bedtime. My brothers and I came home from school by 330 and instantly started cleaning. My particular chores DAILY were to wipe down all of the blinds (which had to pass the white glove test), vacuum the edges in both the living room and dining room. Dust EVERYTHING meaning walls, books, ceiling EVERYTHING EVERYDAY. A home is apparently supposed to be a museum of nice things. Then Saturdays came... Saturdays were miserable. We got up early and DEEP cleaned.... we took rugs outside and shook them, we cleaned the baseboards and vents and kitchen cupboards. We organized every cupboard and closet. We literally cleaned from 7:30-5 and sometimes even later. She would come downstairs and go through our bedrooms and make sure that every article of clothing was folded. If it wasn’t than your dresser drawers got thrown ALL over the bedroom and you had to redo everything again. 

See what I mean by Cinderella?

When I was in 3rd grade Donna came to pick us up from school. When I got into the car she called me Raquel. I was lost.... who was she talking too? Well she let me know that she was legally changing my name from Tori Lynn Fullerton to Raquel Lynn Spencer. Shane went from Shay Able to Shane Able and Jesse was Jesse Cole and is now Jesse James. I am not sure why she felt that this was necessary but in my mind I still think that she was trying to change every bit of us that she could so that we were no longer children of our birth parents. Maybe I'm wrong in that. IDK. All I know is that having that name changed in 3rd grade really messed with my classmates minds. I think up until about 5th grade people would slip and still call me Tori. 

Life as a young Raquel was HELL. Like I said before I absolutely HATED who I was. I could never tell my friends the truth when they would ask if they could come over and play or if I could go to there house. My brothers and I learned at a very young age that if we wanted any kind of fun in our life or friends then we had to sneak out through our bedroom window. One of  us always had the others back so that nobody would get caught. There was this one particular summer we were in St. George and Donna asked us to stay inside while she went into town to shop. My brothers & I got bored and went outside to go swimming. My little brother Jesse threw a rock and he ended up breaking her big bedroom window. We knew we were all dead. So we went inside and laid back down thinking she would never know what happend..... WE WERE WRONG. This is where real abuse started. She had my brothers and I line up against her bed pull our pants down and she beat the shit out of us with a wire hanger. We couldn't sit down for a good week. We all got the beating because we stuck up for each other and wouldn't tell her which one of us broke it. That is how things through our childhood went day after day. We were the three musketeers, All for one and one for All.