“Hi, I’m Lola, and I asked you to hear my story, because once I heard yours, I thought it was similar to mine, and I have never talked or heard about anyone who was like me. When I was about 14 years old, my mother married a man who she thought was a perfect father figure. About a month after their marriage, he had blamed me for his drinking habits, and for losing his job, and started beating me with a leather belt, and ended with his fist. I woke up in a hospital down the street, and he was sitting by my bed, and when the hospital released me, he took me home. But when I got there, my mom was tied to a radiator in the kitchen, and had been beaten with a baseball bat. I was scared and ran away, not the best thing to do… When he caught me, he tried to drown me in a pound in our backyard. I was resuscitated, and once more woke up in the hospital, and the same thing happened, but this time when I got home, I called DHS, a special organization which inspects abuse cases, and they came to talk to me. Of course, my dad pretended to be perfect, and got away with it. They said it was me who needed help, because my dad was a good man, and would never do that to me. The next day after DHS left, my dad started drinking again and once again I was hurt, except this time I was stabbed with a kitchen knife. I was put in the hospital, once more, and this time they asked me what happened. When I told them, they didn’t believe me, just like DHS… My dad was sitting right there when I told them, he was drunk, he choked me to death right in front of the hospital. My dad was arrested, and I was resuscitated again for the second time. Now, I am living with my mom in Wakita, Oklahoma, and I am happy that he is in prison for life. The only thing is, now she has another boyfriend…”