My mom and I went into a Mexican restaurant in Mt. Juliet. We’d eaten there before. She needed the bathroom and asked for it. No one understood so I said, “¿Donde está el baño?”

My mom says later “you must really like coming to Mexican restaurants,”

You should see me ask for the bathroom at Red Lobster, y’all. It’s even more epic. Favorite restaurant.

See, my mom thinks I’m showing off. I am just communicating with someone who speaks a language, with which I am familiar, in their native tongue. I told her, “Mom, it’s harder to speak Spanish than English,” hoping she’d understand.

Everyone who has every been in my life has expected more from me than they were willing to give. So no one is in my life now, because I figured out something crucial: no one has to put up with abuse or control disguised as help. No one.

God (Self) doesn’t want you to do that. It’s there to challenge you and force the kind of growth I am talking about.

So, I won’t do that shit anymore. I blocked my entire family on Facebook, but not before posting this:

I’m not going to go into the abuse I’m referring to, but it’s illustrative of what I’m talking about here that absolutely no one commented, interacted at all. Not one apology. Not that that’s what I expected. I got exactly what I expected.

I’ll give you one example of what I’m talking about though.

I’m 15. My dad and mom are arguing. I dont know why. My dad comes into my room and he says, “If we get a divorce, it will be YOUR fault. And he just shuts the door. Think about how monstrously evil it is to say that to a child.

I did, but I’m 15. There is no one to save me.

So, the abuse continued while I sought psychiatric help that only served to make a tragic situation even more so.

But the moral of the story is that I am still here, I don’t need anyone else but me to make it in this world and now that I’ve broken the cycle of abuse, I know that. See, my parents were abused too. So, they didn’t really understand that it was wrong. I always did. So, I was able to break the cycle.

I remember spanking my daughter one time. Squarely on the bottom, and after I did it I felt so bad I never did it again.

I had my ass kicked by my dad multiple times until I was big enough to fight back and when I started doing that he started calling the cops on me. Of course they believed him and not me.

And you don’t have to put up with abuse either.

Inside of me there was a little boy who was still wondering why no one showed up to save him.

At a point I started to realize that, so I made him a promise, and it’s not one that I will ever break. I will be the one to stand up for you. I will make sure this abuse ends and no one can hurt you anymore. I promised him I wouldn’t let ANYONE ever disrespect him like that ever again.

See, my dad didn’t get it. When I was 3 years old and he started hitting me, I didn’t go, “Oh, I must have done something wrong,” I thought, “Why is my father hitting God?”

Because at 3, I had a super strong sense of who I was. And that’s what bothered my father. That’s what he tried to beat out of me

-Ben