My Autobiography

No Way Out, No Choice?

By Francis A. Sepulveda

Francis, why did you get raped at the age of three. …My earliest childhood
memory of pain, which were many…. My rst traumatic experience had me talking to
myself, I was only three years old. I was in my babysitters house and she left me long
with her son who was fteen years old at the time. He raped me, I could not ght him
o , and I was so embarrassed and confused. I thought that I did something wrong, I
did not tell my Mother, I thought that she would really spank me if she knew. I kept
saying to myself, like a mantra: “I can’t wait till this is over.” For a little while I had
nightmares and I would wake up in the middle of the night in a puddle of sweat. My
three year-old self felt unsafe, confused, and unprotected.

When I was ve years old my Mother told me: “Do not go outside, there are bad
kids out there, I don not want you with them.” But watching them play from my
window, and wishing that I can also play ball and run with them, it left me making a
tough decision. I knew that my Mother was going to whip my ass, but I thought it was
worth it. This was the confrontation that I had to face. My Mother would come home
from a sixteen hour shift every midnight, get information that I snuck out of the house
to go out and play. So while I am sleeping, she would put a pillow over my face
smothering me as if she was going to kill me. Then she said: “I told you that I was
going to kill you with this pillow if you went outside.” I was scared and stayed awake
all night worrying, I could not go to sleep, thinking, my Mother is really going to kill me!
I did not know if I was going to live or die. I was a nervous and frightened kid, and often
I would urinate on myself when my Mother would violently scream at me or beat me
like I was a savage. Again, I kept repeating my mantra: “I can’t wait till this is over.”

At the age of eight, I was getting a slew of ass-whippings, three to ve a week,

on a bad week six to seven. I wondered if Mother knew I was a human being? One
evening I was playing with a toy, and my Mother would shout, “Francis take a shower.”
I would reply, “just a minute,” time would pass, like ve minutes, I was really into the
toy and forgot to take a shower. My Mother came over and snatched the toy out of my
hand and smashed it on my head. Blood started pouring out of my head, meanwhile
I’m saying, “I can’t wait till this is over.” Then what made it worse was that my family
and I moved to the suburbs, supposedly to make a better life, yeah right! Imagine that!
We lived in a predominantly white neighborhood where I thought I was ending one form

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of abuse, but in fact I was entering into a new form. As a Dominican American child in
an all-white neighborhood I was often called “nigger.” This is where I began to develop
P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I was being chased from my house to school
back and forth, chased from my house to the convenient store almost every day. Most
of the time I would get beat up real bad. In school I sued to day-dream a lot, plus I had
A.D.D. (Attention De cit Disorder) back then I dod not event know what this P.T.S.D. or
A.D.D. was.

In life my biggest question is why me ….? There are many days that I nd
myself drifting o into deep thoughts of my rst encounter with pain. Like clock-work I
would ask myself, why me …? Francis, why did all of this happen to you at the age of
three? You were only a little child and could not explain or nd a name for my spacing
out and note being able to focus. I just know that I had issues, that I was strange.
Even now I’m considered as the odd one, I watched no sports and have conversations
with myself on the regular. I’ve talked to myself, I just don’t answer back (smile).
According to my Mother, I was bad and so she sent me to a boarding school in the
Dominican Republic. It was rough, I went through a culture shock, I had a nostalgic
homesick feeling. Still, it was better than being around my Mother. I nally came back
to the U.S. of beautiful America to get more beatings from my Mother.

At the age of fourteen, I was told that if I did not do good in school, that my
Mother was going to kill me, and did I believe my Mouther would do that? Hell yeah! I
was confronted with a tough decision, will I live or will I die. I chose to live, but that
meant I would be an up-hill battle. Two weeks later, I came back home, because I got
word that my Mother was in the hospital. Much to my surprise, she was worried and
scared that something might have happened to me. She always thought the worst.
When everything bad that happened to me was because of her! I did not believe that
she loved me. She did not know how to go about raising a child. Her intention may
have been good, but her actions did not come out good. Maybe because she was
uneducated, overwhelmed from working so much, and had been wronged by so many
people because of her black color and accent. I tried to come back and work things
out, but that did not work out. I left the house again, but on better terms, by letting
them know in advance and with notice that it was okay and that I was not holding her
responsible for her past actions towards me.

At the age of seventeen, I was struggling as a man to survive. For instance, me

trying to b a man I got some fake identi cation, and got hired removing asbestos.
Good pay, but the work was very hard and it was on the graveyard shift. I was only at
this job one month, because on my fay o I asked someone for a ride not knowing that

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 he was carrying drugs. We were stopped by Detectives. At the moment I thought we
were clean, but then I saw the owner of the car trembling. A bag was retrieved from
under the car seat, then all I head was, “freeze, nobody move!!” This is the rst time I
have had a gun in my face. I remember saying, “I can’t fucking believe this shit! Just
when everything was going well I got caught up in this mess!” “I can’t wait till all of this
is over!,” I scream again. I got arraigned, stayed all night in the police station. The next
day they sent me to County Jail. Listen! Prison, back in the day was much more crazy
than it is now. Way too many stabbings, everyday prison, I kept saying my mantra,
“when is this going to be over.” When it was time for me to go to Court, I just plead
guilty to get out. But in the back of my head I knew it was not over yet. So I lost my
job because of that month in jail. I now see that life has been a curse, from the
beginning up to that time. I am living on the streets, I accept my fate with resignation
and will remove or hurt anything or anyone that gets in my way. It is somebody’s turn
to take the … why me? … for a change, and have them have a self-talk with
themselves, because I had enough.

I found a girlfriend that has two adorable children and an apartment. I moved in
with them and wished the best for my new family. I took a vow that they would not
su er how I did. But one morning, my stepdaughter Janil poured some cereal in a
bowl, and when she opened the refrigerator to get the gallon of milk, she noticed that
there was no milk and looked at me. This hit me like a ton of bricks. I reached into my
pockets, hoping to nd some change or a bill, but I did not nd a cent. I went to the
Bodega on the corner to get a gallon of milk on credit, but the owner said no. I
couldn’t go back home without the milk, or some sort of food for the little ones. So I
said wait a minute, there has to be something in our cabinet for me to make so they
can have something to eat. So I go back home to nd nothing. I ask my girlfriend Iris
what happened with the money I gave you. She said, I ran into a problem, there is no
money, no food, and I did not want to worry you. I was only worried about the empty
stomachs and the hunger pains of Janil and Stephon. My eyes got watery and I began
to cry saying, they are not going to go through what I went through. I don’t want these
kids to su er, kids should only worry about school, homework, and event with that we
adults should help them with that too. I cried, “Lord! When is this going to be over.” I
am going to feed this family one way or the other. This is when I bumped into my
codefendant, and my codefendant says to me, are you willing to do a drug heist? I
went along with hit, … it blew out of proportion … now I am here in prison doing a
Second-degree life bid trying to get out, which is hard to do. So now my self talk is,
“Get comfortable, and make the best out of this, because this will never be over.” It is

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 why I try to keep a good sense of humor. We can laugh or cry! I heard that a good
laugh is healthy and therapeutic. That is releases harmful toxins from you rbody, that it
is good for your arteries and gives you a longer lifespan. So why not laugh about
everything in life? My self-talk now is, nd humor in everything.

At this time I am in prison, the worst prison that I have been in was my Mother’s
house, and the Warden was my Mother. Because of this lifestyle I have many aws,
imperfections, that I worked hard as we speak to get rid of. Hopefully in the next life
when I reincarnate into another body. Hopefully I will convince myself to get help, and
search for the truth and a way to succeed in this dog-eat-dog life, where sometimes I
nd myself in bacon underwear.

The End

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