Tyler Today Summer 2010 : Page 17
vational speaker and a special volun- teer with numerous child safety orga- nizations. His recently published book, I Love you Mom - Please Don’t Break My Heart, is opening the eyes and speaking to the hearts of readers nationwide. “I want people to read my story and understand that this problem is all around us. I want to help the children, the teachers, the case workers and everyone in between so that no child ever slips through the cracks, like I did,” he said. From the moment he was born in December of 1977, his destiny lay in the hands of an emotionally unstable mother and a vicious, cold-hearted father. Drugs and alcohol fueled his mother’s dangerous behavior; aban- donment and lack of maternal love for him or her other children. Johnwas the target of daily abuse and neglect as he often got in the way of her social life woven with addiction. By the time he was five years old he had been a victim of physical, emotional, sexual and sub- stance abuse before being hospitalized and institutionalized several times. “My mother was a master manipula- tor. She would research disorders and behavioral problems of children and memorize each symptom. When there was a party or drug and alcohol binge on her schedule she would rush me to emergency rooms and convince doc- tors and nurses that I had a severe con- dition. She played the role of a caring, concerned mother very well and she was so familiar with my observed behaviors or ‘symptoms,’ the doctors almost always believed her. I was often heavily medicated or kept overnight for testing just as she had planned,” said John. Over the next few years of his adoles- cence, John was placed in a number of institutions because of his various fab- ricated conditions. Austin State Hospital (Children’s Psychiatric Unit), Psychiatric Institute of Fort Worth and DePelchin Home for troubled and spe- cial needs children all were facilities that became his short-lived homes away from home. After a couple of weeks of testing and observance, John was always discharged and released into the custody of his mother when his test results revealed no serious con- ditions. As his stays in hospitals became more frequent, his mother and father’s relationship severed and his father became a haunting memory of anger and aggression. The battery and emotional abuse grew more severe each day he was home, his body often covered in welts and bruises from lashings with an extension cord or broomstick, whichever makeshift weapon was available at the time. His mother crushed the potent medications administered by various physicians and laced his food in order to instantly sedate him into a state of paralysis and unwanted coma. The frequent physical, emotional and verbal beatings formed calluses on John’s soul, housing the deep wounds of anger, frustration and aggression that had overcome the tender disposi- tion of an innocent child. John bounced from state hospitals to Boys’ homes and juvenile detention centers throughout his teenage years building a vivid documentation of combative behavior and mental instability. His life-long battle to survive had hardened him to the ways of the world. Paired with the unsavory characters he asso- ciated with in the legal systems, this led him to a high-powered weapon trafficking operation that would soon send him to a Texas penitentiary at the young age of 19. “After the constant string of hardships I had faced at my young age, I had a bullet proof attitude and a reckless sense of control that led me straight down all the wrong paths,” he said. When he was finally released from Bill Clements Penitentiary at the age of 22, he was also released from a strug- gle with the feelings of pain that had suppressed him his entire life. “Within the blink of eye, the huge weight of aggression, bitterness, and animalistic instinct for survival vanished. For the first time inmy life, I felt safe and total- ly liberated. In that moment, God filled my heart with gratitude, hope, joy, peace and love,” said John. SUMMER 2010 17
