Julie Reed Story

take me back 13 years ago you're just about to turn 12 and tell me about your life then it was great it was just my brother and my mom and I and we had a really close relationship then somebody new came into your mom's life it was my mom's new boyfriend she didn't really date around a lot so this is kind of new and I remember the first time I met him I he picked me up from a cheerleading practice and it was like the start of a competition season so it was tryouts and my mom told me that somebody was gonna pick me up and kind of told me what his car look like and then I that was the first time I met him it's hard to speak from specifics cuz it's been so long but I remember that there was one time when he was still living at his like a motel thing he I ended up going with him over there and he was packing some stuff up I think to come to our house and I was looking at some like drawings or paintings that he did because he was into art and he snapped at me about something I touched or something I moved and like that was the first time that I was like whoa where did that come from that was that was different that wasn't what we had experienced over the last you know a few weeks before that so that was the first time that I noticed something different and then let's go through a little bit more of a timeline six months later things started to change a little bit more of them yeah really quickly he moved in with us and he became kind of over time became the disciplinarian in our home where anytime something my brother I did he was the one that made the decision on what kind of discipline was gonna happen tell me about some of the changes that you noticed from your life around you to some of the things he may have started up along with the tours of stuff family relationships friends I'd like that so I was really involved in my competitive cheerleading and pretty quickly after he came in the picture that ended and then my mom's family my dad's not in the picture and never really has been but my mom's family we have a really small family and we were really close before and he just come into we pushed them out of the picture where they just weren't a part of our lives anymore was it before your mom and him got married or is it after they got married they got married when I want to say it was when I was in high school and so it got worse before that I remember one of the we used to go to Florida every year for spring break and one of the times that we went my mom didn't go because she was working so much she worked like 80 plus hours a week she had any given time two or three jobs and she so she didn't go with us and I remember being in Florida and having a conversation with him that he thought that I was maybe I'm mature enough to start having a boyfriend and so he thought that and to prove to him that I was mature enough to have a boyfriend I need to have a conversation with him that was sexually-based so we had this conversation about what he would do to a female and he was trying to make me tell him what I would do to a boyfriend in a sexual manner and that was the first time that I remember there being something sexual to the abuse before that it was all that excessive chores and the controlled eating and being grounded to our rooms and those kinds of things this was the first time definitively that I remember thinking this is not okay and it makes me feel really creepy alright so the trip to floor is over you're back home you're doing the chores and everything like that life is staying the same it's not going up or down it's just staying the same or did you start to see more things happen it just over time he just became more and more controlling it got to the point as I got into high school my freshman year that I started I was in cheerleading my whole time but then I also started pole vaulting and this was new for the high school that I went to they had never had a female pole vaulter in the past and so they just kind of asked me if I wanted to and I was I said sure and he was one of those people that since he didn't work he spent all of his time on the Internet and looking stuff up and he just kind of taught himself how to be a coach for pole vaulting excessive workouts monitoring my weight all the time monitoring what I ate constantly even like at school he would like really monitor what it was I had for lunch and those kinds of things at what point did things start to get really bad in high school my freshman year in high school he so pole-vaulting was in full swing and I caught on pretty quickly and so it became kind of a like he latched on to it even more because I was pretty good at it and made it where he pushed me more and more and more and at this time my mom was still working a lot and she he had just kind of pushed my mom out of my brother and I his lives like she worked so much like we never saw her we would my brother would go back and forth like she would take him to school in the morning and my brother would have conversations with her then about what was going on but she was so immersed in her own drama with him that it just didn't we kept hearing from her like yeah things are gonna change or gonna leave and even to the point she was coming up with plans like how she was gonna leave and it would just never it would always fall through it would never happen so there was some domestic abuse happening between them too I didn't have a name for it at least I knew that he was really mean to her and that the things that he expected of her with making money and the hours that she would work and physically how she looked he was very picky about physical appearance for both my mom and I that's where the inner Exia came in with my mom at the very beginning and actually at the very end I got to that point as well he over time he would tell me that if I didn't need a boyfriend he would be my boyfriend that he was only with my mom because of me and kind of alluding to that once I got old enough that like I would be his girlfriend you know how old you were when he said those comments about 14:15 something like that remember his age in his 40s he would just like come in my room and like laying in bed with me or have me given back massages or give me a back massages or like come up behind me when I was doing dishes in the kitchen and just things that made me feel creepy but not where it's like oh I know this is abuse that's happening to me I can't remember how old I was but it was pretty close to the end I had gotten to the point that he had driven such a wedge between especially my mom and I my brother and my mom still had kind of a decent relationship because he treated my brother the same way he treated my mom where it was just kind of like like you probably treated the dogs better but for me I was the favorite one I was the star child so to speak why don't you meet Joseph I met him a beginning band so it would have been between fifth and sixth grade we sat next to each other because we both played flute and our last names were really close together and I remember thinking that he was he was kind of a troublemaker he was known as the troublemaker and so I just didn't really give him the time of day at first but over the years we sat next to each other all the way through the rest of elementary school into junior high he has always been one of those people that's real receptive to other people's emotions and he was one of those guys that was friends with all the girls because he just understood without like you know hitting on him and that kind of stuff like he just understood girls and so I would just talk to him during class we got in trouble for it often but I would talk to him and he kind of caught on to some of the stuff that was going on at home freshman year we dated for a short period of time around Christmas and this was the first time that my stepdad had allowed me to have not even we didn't call it a boyfriend but he came over to my house one time when did you notice that things my freshman year was a big turnaround point for me mentally realizing that what was going on at home wasn't what was supposed to happen it wasn't normal it didn't happen in other kids it's households I talked about the fact that I pull vaulted and he was in you know in control of that and he ended up being an assistant coach on our track team my freshman year and at that time other people on the track team got to see him as that perfect guy but then also saw him slip up and would hear the way he would talk to me and some of the things he would say and the school really realized like there is something wrong with this guy yes animosity ourself you had towards her yeah was because of some things he put North because he would say you know if your mom would just do this things will be so much better or when it came down to finances everything was blamed on my mom meanwhile he's sitting at home and not working or doing anything but at the time I saw it as I can't do such-and-such because my mom doesn't make enough money so yeah he really brainwashed both my brother and I against my mom but it was me specifically Julie when did it get at harvest I would say my junior year of high school I had been switch schools because of the situation that happened with the track team and him not being allowed on school grounds so he switched me schools and I was really secluded and for my mom from my brother because I was his favorite child I there was a lot of animosity there my junior year they had kind of my first school communicated with my second school about their concerns and so going into my second high school they kind of knew that there was something off with him so they became a really big support for me at school and my junior year was really pivotal and that things at home got worse at that time that's when I had told my mom about some of the things he say to me not necessarily anything he would do just things that he would say about you know I'll be your boyfriend those kinds of things and she promised she wouldn't tell and she did and I got in trouble and he called me a liar and told me I was making everything up and that I had it out for my mom in him like I wanted them to you know break up and I didn't want my mom with him anymore so just even more drove that wedge between my mom and I and I secluded myself from everybody at that in our house even my brother and I didn't have a good relationship at that point and at school I just I got put into a study hall I'm not really sure how they worked it out that he didn't question why I was in a study hall for an hour but every day during that study hall I will go to the counselor's office and sit and talk with her and her and another teacher at the school became a huge support system for me and then it also drew Joseph back in to like they had contact with him and they gave me a cell phone like a prepaid cell phone to use to have contact with my friends when I was at home so I kind of had an outlet and as something that I could use in an emergency there was one night during my junior year that I can't remember what led up to it but I was in bed and I would spend a lot of time praying when I was at home and I didn't have a lot of time to do other things so I would just pray read and pray that's what I did and he came to my room one night and just like any other time that he would come in and lay in bed with me or there were times when he would like lay on top of me but I was under the blankets he was fully clothed so it was in that gray area it never crossed the line this time was different he was more forceful and he tried to take my clothes off and my mom wasn't home she was working and I just remember kind of giving up and not maybe if I just did what he wanted me to do everything would be okay maybe he would be nicer if I just did what he wanted me to do and so I did and it finally crossed that line but I felt so ashamed and I felt like I was a willing participant that I didn't say anything to anyone about it even at school talking with my counselor my teacher that I had that was a big support I still felt too guilty to talk to anybody about it did the sexual abuse continue yeah until I got out until my brother and I were taken away tell me about taking you away I finally told Joseph I had alluded to something sexual sexual happening and I didn't disclose what it was I think I just kind of slipped up and alluded to something happening and he let my grandparents know and then there was another report made and on July 29th there were five cop cars that pulled up in front of our house I was sitting in one of our living rooms watching TV and my brother was up in his room and somebody came to the door and just said that they needed to talk to my brother and I and they such a whirlwind it's it's hard to remember specifics but I remember being led out of the house by the departmental services worker and being put in the back of his vehicle with the cops holding my stepdad back because he was yelling and irate and angry and calling me every name under the Sun taller I was 17 her mom doing she was at work she was in there yeah she was at work when this happened and we were taken to a Child Advocacy Center but I finally disclosed everything that had happened all the sexual stuff all the physical stuff everything so they remained together even when you're out a year and a half almost two years they were still together afterwards so we tried the counseling thing where she came to family counseling with us and that didn't go well because I wouldn't talk to her during counseling I talked to the counselor and I would talk to my brother but I wouldn't talk to my mom because I blamed her I was very angry for being put in the situation and then very angry for her staying in the situation with him when she could have just left and I didn't understand why did he ever come back around school or anything he terrorized me for a really long time afterwards I remember so we were removed and marching band season had just started and I had gone back to my old high school where I grown up I went to all up the elementary schools to junior high and then the high school so I went back to that high school for my senior year and wanted to be a marching band and he ended up giving my flute to my mom to give to our caseworker who gave it to me and I opened it right before going to marching band practice one day and it was destroyed like the keys were all torn off of it it was bent and deigned and just those little things to still get at me even though it's a torment you yeah even though he couldn't have any contact with me that was his way of still terrorizing me at what point did you decide that what happened in your life needed to go beyond just in your memories that it needs a need to go out there to try to help other people decide that maybe you want to do this for a career try to help other people I got to a point where it was okay to talk about it I was in college and I had gone to on a mission trip down to Indianapolis and had gone to a place called the Julian Center that was the Center for domestic violence and that was the first time I was studying social work at st. Mary's and that was the first time that I had learned about what domestic violence was I understood what child abuse was but I didn't understand that domestic violence piece so I was still very angry with my mom and still very much blamed her for what had happened to me and to my and while down there going to this place and hearing about domestic violence it was like whoa you know I that this is like textbook he literally is textbook an abuser and I contacted my mom just kind of on a whim Joseph actually helped me he was the one that talked to my mom first and then gave me the phone and I told her about this place in Indianapolis that I had been this was the beginning of April by the middle of April she left and went down to Indianapolis looked him she left him at some point now that you've seen what happened to Julian senator Anderson says did you come point me start to forgive your mother he did that was a big that trip down to Indianapolis and seeing the Julian Center was I remember coming back to kind of our small group that night and just breaking down and crying and really feeling like I went to that place for a reason and I saw that for a reason the past made you a better parents wife well I thought after going through what I had been through even after we got out that I would never want kids because I never wanted to end up like him I never wanted to be like him but Joseph had a daughter and she was one when I came in the picture after we were removed and I was you know in his life fully Joseph and I have now had three kids together and I feel like I'm a really great mom I even thought after having my own kids that there would be times that I have a question am i acting like him would am I being too harsh am i jumping to anger versus being kind of an understanding parent and I that hasn't been the case I don't know what it is that makes it not that way but I know that's not okay so that's not how I act so today you're a social worker you work in the industry that allows you to help people that were affected just like you hey Danny about what you do for so I'm a trained forensic interviewer I am the person that interviewed me when I was a teenager I'm that person doing the interviews now if there are any people that are watching this video right now and they have not told anybody about abuse that they're going through are scared to tell somebody won't you say to them it's not your fault that that it's okay to talk about it and that no matter what's happened to you it's not your fault that it's happened one of the biggest things with me growing up is that I blamed myself and that's why I didn't tell anybody and that would be the biggest thing I would tell somebody it's not your fault it's okay to talk about it if I could say something to anyone who suspects that a child they know is being abused it would be to not turn a blind eye support the child and whatever way you can even if it's just with a smile support made a huge difference to me and don't think that just because they seem like the perfect child that there's no way abuse could happen to them I was a straight-a student varsity sports player and had many friends but I was covering up a dark secret about my home life and I did a pretty good job of hiding it having the support from school staff friends coaches extended family and even our neighbors made a huge difference for me and truly saved my life [Music] you [Music]

Channel: TJ21 Media Group

Views: 115,566

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Id: -TB49G-SzyA

Length: 21min 16sec (1276 seconds)

Published: Mon May 09 2016