My "Perfect" Dad Wasn't Who I Thought He Was

By Zion | Subscribe: | Record your story @ or our iPhone app for a chance to get animated. Comment, like, share this story.

Zion grew up and lived in the south side of Chicago with her mom and her dad, her two sisters, and her brother. At first, they were all a happy family - walking to school together, and enjoying it, coming home to eat dinner with their parents - and everything seemed normal, like a normal family.

Her dad had always been an ideal father - the perfect dad, doing all sorts of fun things together, regular father-daughter activities, and it was perfect - until it wasn't. One day Zion came home from school and her dad was with his friends and they were drinking and smoking and acting weird. It stressed her out and made her really anxious, this wasn't the dad she knew at all. Already she was telling herself, my perfect dad wasn't who I thought he was.

A few weeks later he was playing a video game when Zion came in. He said it was for kids so she sat down with him on the couch to watch him play, but she found out right away that it wasn't appropriate for kids at all. He saw that she was upset by it and he told her not to tell mom or she'd be in a lot of trouble. So, she kept her mouth shut.

He was obsessed with that dirty video game, and he would always make Zion and her brother watch. One day, he made her and her brother take a bath together, and he tried to push them closer and closer together when they were in there - but Zion said NO - she wouldn't allow that, knew it was wrong. This was not the dad she had known and loved her whole life, this was someone mean and evil, a bad dad.

She tried to do the right thing and tell her Mom what was going on and what had happened but he got to her first and made up a bunch of stuff that ended up getting Zion into a bunch of trouble. And things went downhill from there. A few weeks later, her dad made her watch things on the internet that she knew she was not old enough to be watching. It made her so stressed, and sad, anxious and shaky inside. Mostly though, it made her scared.

He tried to hurt her when her Mom was out, and he would do things to her that he was not supposed to be doing. He was supposed to protect her, and her innocence, but he was doing the exact opposite. He was doing the kinds of mean and evil bad things that can get you thrown into jail for a lifetime.

But still, Zion felt like she couldn't say anything, that she would get in trouble again, or worse, and she was scared of him now, scared of her own father. But, finally one day he left them all alone and went to work, and she built her courage up and went to her mother and told her mom what happened, and what had been going on. Her mom was shocked, and angry, and she confronted Zion's dad, and he admitted it all, said it was true and that he was ashamed of himself.

Her mom was going to call the police but he threatened her too, threatened to take away the kids and he was abusive and dangerous and she knew that. But, her Mom did take her and her brother to the doctor to make sure that they were both okay, and at the doctor's office the truth all came out. There was no way, and no good reason, to keep it a secret. The doctors were shocked as well, and they had to call the police.

After the report was made, the police went to the house and took Zion's Dad away, and then to court where her mother had to testify against her own father, and he was found guilty. He was sent to jail, which is where he belongs.

Zion and her mom and sisters and brother had to live with their grandparents, and after counselling and transferring to a new school, life has gotten much better. And with her mean and evil bad dad behind bars, and her mom now a single mom, much safer for her and her family too.

Zion's message to anyone who is going through something is to stand up for yourself, to tell someone, and to never believe something is okay when you know inside that it is not!

These are the kinds of true scary stories that need to be heard so that others like Zion can do the right things and seek a trusted adult to tell.

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