Shame

So I said it, I have let the world know my big bad dark secret that I have only told 2 people in my life that weren't involved with the situation. Some of my own family doesn't even know this. The worst day of my life was the final day of testimony for me in court, and the one person who should have been by my side that day wasn't. See my Mom was pregnant, and went in to labor the night before my last day in court so as much as she wanted to be there she couldn't. My little sister was born on the worst day of my life. As I later learned I also have a younger cousin who was born on that same exact day. With one statement I changed my whole life forever with no chance of repairing it... at least not for a long while. I blamed my Mom, I blamed the counselor....I blamed myself. I would cry myself to sleep at night, almost every night, for years. I ruined my father's life, his whole family, my whole family....and myself. Don't get me wrong I'm sure my Mother loves me, at least so she says, but she was nothing near what a Mother should be most of the time. To hear her I never remember the good times, I do, but the bad sort of outweighs the good. My step-father (my Sister's Dad) was abusive, verbally and sometimes physically. My Nana called DSS on him twice but somehow they always fooled them. I would wish they would take me away and send me to live with Nana and Grandpa but they never did. Nana saw some bruises on my chest one day when I was about 10 that were from my Step-Father and called DSS (this was the 2md time) and after that I was told I couldn't see them anymore and kept away from them for 2 years. I used to call my big cousin and she would come see me and we would talk and cry together. When it would rain my grandparents would come to my school and drive me home but I would never tell anyone. For the first 8 years of my life my grandparents raised me while my mother was working and partying and they couldn't stay away, just as I couldn't stay away either. On half days I would go to their house instead of going home. Years later my Mom told me she always knew this because she had the school schedule but never told my step-father... She was abused as well and knew not to say anything because he would have taken it out on her. My Mother finally got the nerve to leave him, though she did go back to him a year later, but she left him again and for good a few years later. When I turned 12 or 13 things changed between my mother and me, I'm not sure what but she was always yelling and throwing things, and I stopped taking it. I would yell back, and throw things back. One day she pushed me up against a wall...before I knew what was happening I punched her. I was sick of being used as a punching bag emotionally and physically. Fist fights between the two of us happened often. When they got bad enough she would kick me out and send me to live with my grandparents. We went to a counselor to try and fix things but it never accomplished much because I refused to open up about anything. there was NO WAY in hell I was gong to do that again.