A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer

A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer
Number of Pages: 195
Genre: Non Fiction

A victim of child abuse himself, Dave Pelzer has documented his childhood- and also one of the worst cases of child abuse in all of America- in this autobiographical book.

It describes Pelzer's life and what he endures when his alcoholic mother tortures him in numerous ways for no apparent reason at all. Starving him, stabbing him, making him eat his brother's diaper... these were all just like games that she used to like playing when she was 'bored'. We ourselves can empathise and feel only a bit of the pain that we see Dave endure every moment of every day. His mother refuses to wash his clothes and his starved and skinny look just adds to his misery each day in school when bullies jeer at him to humiliate him.

A little boy who has nobody to turn to, in his struggle to survive takes to stealing other children's lunch boxes. When his mother finds out, she makes him vomit the food out. Why? Because he does not deserve to even feed himself. He is referred to as an 'it', and does not deserve an identity of his own. He is made to stand for hours under running water and then is not even allowed to dry himself. All the chores in the house are done by Dave and in return all he gets is physical and emotional abuse. But this child still manages to survive. He is emotionally very strong and has great will power. He believes in God and prays to him every night. Using little tactics of his own- like counting numbers to make the time pass by quicker, he somehow manages to find a way out of the hell hole that is his home.

It is eye opening to read the events that take place in his life and opens us to a totally different world- this dark world that exists everywhere, but in our happy nonchalant life's we do not have the time to notice it around us.
This book leaves us empty and totally distraught with the way a child's life could have been. More so, it is incredible to know that the very child that was a victim has managed to survive and has even written an account of it. It fills us with hope that it is not necessary for children of abusers to become abusers themselves. An emotionally lacking environment for a child does not necessarily make the child grow up as an individual with 'emotional issues'.

"A Child Called It" is a book that needs to be finished the moment it is picked up, and influences the readers in such a way that they feel more appreciative of their own lives, and is a must read for all those who wish to succeed in seeing beyond the darkness of life and appreciating the little bit of light that can be called hope.

Life has its own rut. I could never really make decisions for myself, I would let life make it's decisions for me. As if I wasn't the one driving the car, the car was the one driving me. Though that's really not the way it is, when I'm actually driving. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. I could drive forever.. But life isn't much like driving. Except for the fact that you have a path.. It's always a different path, it's always a different driveway leading you home. There is no GPS to help you find your way, you do not even know your destination.. but we can't let that discourage us. We do always know the general direction in which we are headed, and as long as we keep moving in that direction, we know that we will get somewhere. The hard part is if we have enough incentive to keep moving.. But they do say, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going"

Blues.

After a point, a lot of things that originally mattered don't matter any more. A lot of people who mattered yesterday don't matter today.
Is that a good thing or bad?
Does it show that all the people who matter today will stop mattering (if that's a word?) some day?
So should you stop making them matter today?

It feels like a lot of things go wrong all the time. All we do is ignore them, or oversee them, pretend like its okay and try and be happy again.
Part of me is just waiting for the world to end in 2012 so that all this can just get over suddenly, painlessly and for everybody.
What a pessimistic attitude!

So, im a pessimist. but then, that's what I'm like. Now, I have to accept it (or overlook it, or ignore it, call it whatever you want to) and go on pretending like I'm happy.

...And then I say that I'm not fake, when all my positive emotions are too temporary to be real.

E X I L E

In exile. From the world and from all those who thought they knew me.