Dear readers,
Listen to Alisha’s moving story. Maybe it will help you to understand how many kids in this world go through living hell and also how much Eminem’s music can be a consolation for persons who have experienced sick behaviors and abuse from their parents. The same song- Cleaning Out My Closet- that has done so much good to me for different reasons, has also been Alisha’s therapy. This true story has been published with Alisha’s permission.
Alisha is only 16 years old. However, she’s been through a lot and her life could be described as a living nightmare. Alisha even thought about suicide:
« I’ve been through heaps of shit in my life and alot of the time i’ve gone to the only option I thought, witch was to kill myself because of how my life was going. »
Coming from a dysfunctional family, she had to endure her dad’s and grandfather’s sick behavior:
« It seemed like the older i got, the more fucked up my life was getting. When i was very young, my mum used to get beaten and abused by my asshole father, and he used to also beat up my younger brother and sister and i. also when i was three yrs old i was sexually assulted by my dads dad. »
With the pervert attitude of her grandfather and the increasingly violent attitude of her dad, the situation didn’t change at all. It only went worse. Alisha was put in a foster home…until her mom eventually had the courage to leave her abusive husband- which is far from being easy and I’m talking by experience. I have been the victim of an abusive boyfriend several years ago:
« Nothing has been done about it to this day, and my 2 little sisters,they still live with him and the same fucked up thing could be happening to them. my dad is such an asshole that he won’t even let any of us see them. well anyway, when i was about four or 5 yrs old i got made ward of the sate by department of community services, i don’t if u know about that where u live but yeh i live in new south wales australia and yeh they are the people that put you into foster homes and everything. when we were put into foster homes, my mother was still with my dad, getting bashed the fuck out of, but after 10 on and off long years of taking my dads shit my mother finally had the courage to leave him. »As a consequence of Alisha’s mom’s courageous decision, the Australian government decided that she was fit to raise her daughter at this time. When she was around 10, Alisha returned to her mom’s home:
Things seemed to be quite ok for a few months until her mom met another man:
« Because my mother left my abusive father, the government saw that she was reliable enough to be put back with my mother. this was when i was about 10 years old. when we moved back into my mums house for a few months it was good, but then my mother met another man… »
Sometimes reality can be worst than an horror film. When Alisha’s mom’s new boyfriend moved into her house, the horror trip began. Confronted to her mom’s drug addiction, depression and memory loss, places in so many foster homes since she was 12, sexually abused, Alisha went to consider suicide as an option:
« The man decided to move into our home and that’s when things got worse again. See he didn’t treat my mother bad but he had no respect for us kids, and at that time i felt, most of the time a lot of resentment towards my mother because she never ever stuck up for us, that was the same when she was still with dad. but I didn’t realize that my mum was beginning to get very sick, emotionally, I mean she would deliberately make herself slip in the bathroom or fall of chars or anything just to hurt herself. she has even threatened to kill herself in front of us. and I also found out another disturbing thing, that mums new man was secretly drugging her! sometimes it would be so scary because she would wake up and not even remember her kids, I remember one night she came in my room and asked me what my name was. I told her, and she replied that’s a pretty name , who called you that. when the fact was that she named me. my mum was soon diagnosed with depression and also multiple personality syndrome. we got taken back of her and put into foster care, but this time we were separated, my brother and sister were taken somewhere else and I was left to face the world alone , too soon at only 12 years old. I got permanently placed in foster care until I was 18, but they started physically and mentally abusing me and then when I was 13 the man foster person took my on a camping trip, just me and him… and u can guess what happened, he sexually assaulted me, so on the Monday, the next day at school, I ran away from them and docs just kept placing me into other foster homes and until I was about 14 i got thrown in so many different homes, I think in about a year I was in about 10 or 11 different placements. »
Hopeless, Alisha wanted to kill herself when she suddenly discovered Eminem‘s song « Cleaning Out My Closet »:
« But then I heard the song that stopped me in my tracks, Cleaning Out My closet, by Eminem… it was the first song that i ever heard and from that day on, I was just in love Eminem! »
From now on, Alisha looked up to Eminem as an inspiration, somebody who could help her to go forward and to face up life with courage:
« I looked up to him first as an inspiration, and then there more i got to know him and the more I got to know his songs I felt truly in my heart that he actually knew me and was always standing by my side, maybe nit physically but somehow spiritually. it’s like whenever I’m at home, because I’ve got Shady’s picture and posters all over my walls, it’s like when i look at him its like he knows exactly how I feel! lets just put it this way, before I knew Eminem, I never felt safe, I would let everybody treat me like shit and wouldn’t retaliate, and I was never brave enough to speak my mind or even be myself. now that I know Eminem, I think of him like the father that i never had because i am so touched by his love for his daughter Hailie, and I feel that she is ever so lucky to be able to a father like him… »
Alisha feels like many teenagers live in unstable homes and Eminem’s music is like the greatest support she could get:
« Let me tell you from experience, alot of teenagers and in my generation today don’t have very caring mothers, let only very loving and devoted dads. »
Alisha is a very supportive fan. She knows that we Eminem fans often get judged and misunderstood for loving his music, and she is ready to stick up for Marshall as much as needed, as the true Shady soldier she actually is.
« So yeh that’s my story, now, with Eminem in my life I feel so much safer and stronger, I don’t give a fuck what people think about me and i speak my mind! I don’t give a fuck if people if i get alot of shit for loving Marshall the way that i do, and believe me u do get hated on for liking him, and like Eminem says himself sticking up 4 him is a 24/7 job, but shady is and always will be worth whatever we must do to be his loyal and true fans »
Alisha, who went across my Eminem dedicated website then gave me the greatest compliment I could get from a reader:
« I must say that i believe and respect everything you said about Eminem on your website, you also are a great inspiration to me because I would like to be writer as well. »
Thanks a lot for sharing your story Alisha. I sincerely hope that it will help more people to realize that many people can relate to Eminem’s songs and look up to him as a model. Many people (including me) have been through experiences Eminem tells us about in his song and his songs are a strong support and his voice a friendly presence in our every day life.