The screaming continues into the night. My plastic chair is thrown and makes a purple streak against the wall. My mother is struck and repeatedly told how she would be killed, along with me, and no one in this world would know it was him.

Him. The monster. The psychopathic monster who slapped me because I sat on his chest and was trying to wake him up by playfully tapping both sides of his cheeks. I weighed around 50 pounds. He weighed close to 170. My hands barely fit half his cheek.

"WHAT? YOU'RE GOING TO HIT ME?" He screams. His eyes bulging out where the whites are clearly visible. He looks like a dog about to attack. I will never forget this face; his expression of blinding fury.

My giggling stops, frozen with fear, knowing what was going to happen. I want to run but it was all happening too quickly.

"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" And with one wide arch he slaps me so hard I fall off his chest onto the bed. I run to my mother in the bathroom grabbing my cheek. Huge tears roll down faster and faster. My mother is getting ready for a church event, completely unaware that the playful attempt to wake up my stepfather had turned violent within the blink of an eye.

Life goes on, the monster continues to come home drunk. My mother seeks solace in the church. I’m caught in an unstable family life but continue to laugh and smile for the outside world.

"Don't tell anyone, daughter. This is a shame. This is our secret," whispers my mother as she gently strokes my head. My mother explains the time-honored Asian cultural tradition - never share with others anything negative about an individual's family. This brings shame and all problems should be kept within the family cluster.

My mother feels guilty that her daughter lives in a violent environment but truly believes I need a male role model. She believes dragging her second husband to church will save him and he will transform into a Christian miracle.

Amazingly, he relinquishes his love of alcohol; but the violence and beatings do not stop. One day church members even stage an intervention, after a particularly serious episode.

"Why would you attack a woman and mother, let alone a nine-year-old girl?" asked one church member.

The monster pauses, glowering at the floor, probably wanting to murder his wife and her daughter.

"The girl was in the way of my arm," the monster replies nonchalantly.

Ten years pass by. The beatings subside as my stepfather becomes more and more emotionally attached to my mother. His need for human interaction with other people disappears. He becomes socially awkward and seeks to dominate full control over my mother's love. All he wants is to be loved by her, to be taken care of. This is not to be confused by him loving her. His motivation for this mentality over my mother's emotion is control not love.

But I am in the way. My mother loves me and he does not want to share this precious commodity. However, I am no longer a 50 pound five year old. I will soon graduate from college.

He thinks about how he can eliminate me day in and day out. He has a lot of thinking time after quitting his job, promising my mother he will get a new one, but three years has passed since he's even looked for a new one. I grow into an adult, making friends and allies. I become a force of my own. As I continue to grow, he becomes fearful that something will happen to him. He thinks that my dislike for him has no basis, and that I have him arrested on false charges. None of the things he's done in the past haunt him, because he has forgotten. All the punching, death threats and verbal abuse he inflicted on my mother and me have flown out of his mind. The only thing he focuses on is my continuing disdain for him. He is the victim of my looking down upon him. He is the victim of my unapproachable manner. He is the victim, he is the victim, he is the victim.

Throughout the three years, the monster tries to give my mother an ultimatum: either stay married to him or evict me and erase me from her life. It’s either him or me. As she refuses this unreasonable request, his jealousy and frustration escalates. He does not understand how the choice to pick him is not so easy for her.

The climax occurs when I come back for my last winter break during senior year of college. I come home after spending time with friends to see the house very dark and my mother wiping the floor with the doors open. This is odd behavior for midnight. I step in and my mother tries to whisk me to my room. My stepfather steps out of the living room and the screams begin. I realize she is wiping up beer. He is clearly drunk and yells at the mother: "I told you to not let her in!" This eviction notice came out of no where. I had not even see him that whole day, but he decides tonight is the night to put his plan into action.

Eighteen years of repressed anger comes out of me.

"You are nothing, just lying around," I say. "You can't do anything right."

"WHAT. I am your FATHER. You are so disrespectful to me for no reason! Get out of my house."

"FATHER? YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT WORD MEANS. YOU'VE NEVER BEEN MY FATHER. I'VE NEVER LEARNED ANYTHING FROM YOU. YOU HAVE NEVER LOVED ME. THIS ISN'T YOUR HOUSE. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A JOB."

He throws my shoe at me with surprising force for a drunken man. According to later hospital reports, this causes my neck to whiplash. He tries to charge at me, my mother's petite body holds him back as she screams to me to run. I take the stairs three by three. Adrenaline pumping into my system I lock my door and call 9-1-1. By this time, the monster had gotten past my mom. He bangs his fist and his whole body against the door.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU. I'M GOING TO BREAK THIS DOOR DOWN AND KILL YOU." He screams this repeatedly as he throws his overweight body against the white wooden door.

The police arrive at the house in a matter of minutes. Sirens off as I had requested to the dispatcher. The friend who had dropped me off called me to make sure everything was okay. Even he had sensed something odd going on. I sobbed, begging him to come back and pick me up. He says he'll be there as soon as he can, bewildered and confused - I had kept my promise to my mother and never told anyone.

The police restrain my stepfather. "Sir, you are acting like a nineteen year old drinking for the first time. You need to calm down."

My stepfather breaks down into tears as he tries to explain to the police why his behavior is justified because I do not respect nor appreciate him. He is the victim, he is the victim, he is the victim.

My friend drives up, running to the door and embraces me. He takes me away and in the car I explain my stepfather's violence against me and the mother since they had gotten married. I am angry. I decide enough is enough. Why should I live in this cultural shame, when it is no one's fault other than the monster's? I ask myself "How many more domestic violence victims do there have to be?" After dropping me off at his home, he drives the half hour back to my house to see if my stepfather is acting up again after the police had left. My departure seems to have made it calm on the front.

I refuse to live in fear any longer. If I could, I would write my real name rather than being hidden behind “Anonymous” but the situation is fragile as my mother prepares for a divorce. The monster is unaware this is going on. Soon he will be ambushed with divorce papers, and I am preparing myself for what will probably be a violent reaction.

I am not ashamed for what I have experienced. The physical, mental and emotional abuse I endured can be used to rescue others from a similar situation. I wish it on no one. None of my stepfather’s actions are faults of my own and no abuser’s actions should be blamed on the victim.

My vow of silence is over. And this is my story.  

-anonymous victim.

apologies to my mother