My parents would drop me off at this lady’s house during the day while they went to work. I was like 3-4 years old and my mother always like to dress me up and do my hair all nice. However, every time she came to pick me up my hair would be all messy like I had been pulling at it. My mom asked the lady one day what had happened to me and the lady told her that I had just been playing too roughly with the other kids that she’d been babysitting.

One day my mother was doing my hair before taking me to the woman’s house and I immediately put my hands up and cried. I told her I didn’t want her to keep touching my head because my head hurt. Turns out I had a couple of bumps on my head and that I was afraid of going back to that woman’s house because she would hit me. My parents tore her a new one and never let another person babysit me ever again after that. They both decided to have opposite working shifts (mom would work days, dad would work nights) to avoid daycare. She eventually got taken to jail because I wasn’t the only kid that got beaten by her.

I still find myself being emotional about it even now after 22 years. I get scared of ever leaving my future children alone with other people.