My Life Story In Detail by Rodney Calmes

My Life Story In Detail by Rodney Calmes

From the time I was born until I was 4, my mother and dad were married. My mother was a good mother to me. My dad was an absentee father. I was slow to catch on to things, and my dad showed more favor to my brother during that time, but yet he did not spend much time with either of us. He worked a lot, and then ran off going hunting and fishing a lot, and not a lot of time at home.
When I was 4 years old, I lived with my grandparents who used to spank me with a 3 foot stick until I could not feel the stick hitting my butt anymore for every little thing. I got at least one round spankings a day. A lot of the time, I had no idea what I did wrong to get spanked, and they would either respond after spanking me "What in the Hell is the matter with you?", or they would respond "Behave!". I did not know what I did to misbehave, and I asked them and they gave me another spanking for not learning the first time around. I moved to live with my mother when I was 5, and she married my dad's brother. At first, my dad's brother spanked me with sticks and spanked me bare butt, I also got hit on the hands with sticks also. They took parenting classes and learned not to do that, and a lot of that stopped at that point. My mother loved me and my dad's brother accepted me as his own, and loved me like I was his own. My dad hardly ever came to see me or my brother, and one day my dad came and picked up my brother and left me behind. My mother addressed the issue to him and since then, we were both picked up, but it was not very often. My step dad was more of a father than my biological father at that time. I started calling my step dad "dad" and I called my biological father by his first name. One day, my mother came to me and told me that I was going to my grandparents, so I ran in the basement and hid, and she had to convince me that it was not my dad's parents, but it was her parents and had to reassure me that nothing was going to happen to me, then I reluctantly went. My experience with my mother's parents were good.

I was also picked on often by other kids in my first neighborhood in which I lived in for about 1 year, and those kids were older than me, and they would chase me down and spank me with a stick, until my mother walked me to one of those kid's house and had me hit him with a stick to show him what it felt like. I had no issues in that neighborhood since then. I was also picked on from kids in school from grade school to junior high school, and I went through life thinking there was something wrong with me. I was not like the other kids, I was not good at the same things they were, but I was different. I was slow in my earlier years in life, and my first year of school, I went to Cybil Hopp in De Pere, WI, which is a school for mentally handicapped people. I moved to another neighborhood when I was 6 years old, and went to one school near by for a very short time, and the teacher would punish me every day because I did not know how to tie my shoes, and she would very quickly explain it to me, but I never caught on, and I was never shown and walked through it to learn, but was punished. The teacher told my mother that I was "retarded", so my mother moved me to a different school, where the teachers there were more patient and worked with me. When I was in school, I misbehaved a lot, and I would get spanked by the teachers. The spanking I got from the teachers were what was normal at that time - reasonable open hand spankings. Many kids who got spanked by the teachers would jump, flinch and cry. I was not affected by the spankings, so I continued to misbehave. I cannot say that what the teachers did was wrong, everything they did, I had it coming. The kids were not so kind to me at that school, and I started doing mean things to them as a result, and carried anger and a need for revenge. There were times I got spanked for not paying attention, but I was not understanding them and it went over my head, and was being punished and accused of not paying attention. I had to go to speech therapy to learn how to communicate with them and get the help I needed. It was nearly daily that I got spanked in school either from misbehaviors or from the issue of "not paying attention" when I just did not understand. Most of the time it was for misbehaving.

I hung around another kid who was trouble and the both of us misbehaved. I was sent to the principal's office for bullying another kid and the principal grabbed my ear lobe and pulled me into his office, and that felt worse than anything I ever felt before. I was 9 years old at that time. Getting spanked with a stick until I could no longer feel the stick hitting me was only mild compared to getting my ear lobe pulled. I had a bruise for about 1 week behind my ear lobe, and the next day, I took a stick and scratched up the principal's 4 month old car. There was not one panel on that car that was left unscratched. I never got caught with that one. I had never done anything like that after being spanked, and I had never felt like killing a person who spanked me, but after the principal pulled my ear lobe, I had many thoughts about taking a gun and shooting him. When I had researched the effects of different punishments, I have found that thoughts of killing a person who pulled the ear was a common response of kids who got their ears pulled. There were no other punishments where thoughts like that were common.

I was still being picked on by kids in junior high school, and there was one kid who was slow that I hung around with. I spent my grade school years and junior high school years in special ed classes, and moved out of special ed by the time I got into 9th grade. That kid that I hung around with when I was in junior high also got picked on, and I thought that if I participated in picking on him, that I would be more accepted, so I turned on him and picked on him to find out that I was no more accepted than before. I have done mean things to him along with turning on him. What I had done was a terrible thing to him. I thought that what I did could not be forgiven. . I regretted that. I also became detached from my emotions and became robot like. I became withdrawn from others and thought that it was not right for me to be loved and to have friends. I felt like I was no good, I was ashamed of who I was, I always felt like there was something wrong with me. It has got to the point where I could not accept kindness. If someone would show kindness to me, I would break down. I wanted to commit suicide when I was 22 years old. I thought about taking a cable around a post and tying the other end around my neck and getting in a car and flooring the gas pedal. The only thing that stopped me was the fear of being seen by someone before the task was complete. I felt like I was no good. I felt like there was something wrong with me. I felt ashamed of what happened to me. I have done mean things to others, and I did not like the person I was.

I started to seek out spankings that I could remember at age 8. I did not understand why, but I started to like getting spanked at around that age, and found myself wishing to get spanked. I was about 9 when I stopped getting spanked from teachers and at home. I did get my last disciplinary spanking at age 10 at home.

At age 10, I played games with other kids and we should shove each other off the 500 gallon propane tank and the first one who touched the ground would have to go through the spanking machine, and I would always be the first to fall off. I actually liked going through the spanking machine, and I would want to continue to play that even when other kids would go to move on to something else. At age 11, those games were no longer being played.

I started to use pins and poke my bottom at age 11, and also scratched it deeply with finger nails. I did not understand why I was doing that, and I started to want to get spanked the way my grandparents spanked me, and I had no understanding why I would want that. When I thought about my grandparents doing that to me, I would cry, but on the other hand, I was wishing to get spanked like that. At age 15, I was alone at the hunting shack and grabbed a stick from the fire pit and spanked myself until I was well swollen and bruised. I had much adrenaline flowing through me, and I had no understanding why I did that and why I wanted it. I was confused at that time.

When I was 18 years old, I spanked myself severely on a daily basis. Sometimes, my self spankings was self destructive behavior and not S&M, many times it was because of my fascination with spankings which most of the time my fascinations were not sexual. It created flashbacks of the severe spankings I got from my grandparents and cause me to relive that, and I would get greatly depressed.
When I was 19, my mother and step-dad got divorced, and I carried a lot of pain because of that. My friend read passages out of the Bible regarding divorce, and those passages lined up to what was happening in my life, and I started to see that the Bible was true at that time.

I started hanging around my mother's parents during that time and ever since then. They gave me more stability than my parents did. My grandparents were more understanding as to what I was going through, and they stuck by me. They prayed for me, and treated me like I was their very own. They listened to me without judging me. I was never told by my grandparents "The divorces never had that bad of an effect on you!", or anything like that. They would encourage me to respect my parents, but also would try to encourage me. I ended up becoming closer to my grandparents than my own parents.

The emotional pain from the abuse and bullying was so deep that I just wanted to bury that since and never wanted to talk about it, but pretended these things never happened. When I was 19, my dad's brother took a turn for the worst and had a girlfriend who had a child. He treated the child like I was treated by him before parenting classes. When I saw step dad's girlfriend's kid have to pull his pants down to get a spanking, and I went into an emotional shock, I was shaking so bad, I could not get the keys in my friend's car, so my friend took the keys and had me talk about it, I could not get one word out clearly, I was muted for a while. He had me stay overnight at his house until I could talk about it clearly and well composed. It took till the next evening for me to do that. During the time period when that kid was being treated like that regularly, I had trouble in school and could not concentrate. I ended up having one course with 2 "A's" on 2 tests prior to this happening and on the third test, I failed. Taking the second part of that class on another semester turned into a disaster and got my semester grade point below 2.0, which lead me to get kicked out of college.

The emotional pain was then still very deep, and I tried to make myself feel better by trying to convince myself that I deserved it. That lead me to believe that others should be treated like that. I realized that I was not going to like the person I become if I continued that. That also lead me to engage in self-destructive behavior, in which I would do the same things to myself what my grandparents did, and even worse, I would spank myself with a stick until the skin was gone then put baking soda or salt on the wounds, or I would sit in boiling water and then spank myself with a stick afterwards. Sometimes I cut with with a knife or stab it, or would sit in a vice and clamp my bottom and then twist around until the skin got torn. I thought my bottom was a bad part of my body, because I was told that one time when I asked why I always got beat there. I left many scars and became ashamed of the scars that were left. Then I got drunk one day and sat on a heater, and thought "good, now I can say an accident happened", just to find out that those scars did not get covered up, but got worse, and I did not solve anything. I had consented to getting whipped later on that left some very deep scars.

I was ashamed of who I was. I was afraid of what people would think if they knew that I was involved with BDSM and had a fascination with getting spanked. I asked God to take that away from me and He never did. Through this, I have learned not to call anything a sin if the Bible did not call it a sin. I also learned not to be judgmental of others and to understand people when they were struggling and pray for them. Through this, I have also learned to accept the differences of others. This has also taught me to accept myself for who I am also and to embrace in my differences as long as the Bible does not call it a sin.

I also felt that if too many people discovered that I was abused, that they were going to think there was something wrong with me. I though that I was no good for going through that. I felt like I was not worth anything.

I accepted Jesus Christ in my life and realized how much I was forgiven when I was 24. I randomly opened the Bible and the first passage that showed up was in John 15:18-25 which said this:

John 15:18-25
"18 If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'"
NKJV

That was very encouraging to me, and helped me realize that even if no one loves me, God loves me, and I was set apart by Him to be in His kingdom, and I was His child. I became reattached with my emotions and I know that I am a very sensitive person. I am not like most men who are not as sensitive. I cried very easily, especially when I see someone else who is sad. Most men were not like that. I knew that was not normal, and had a hard time accepting myself because of that. I also knew that I was loving toward others after becoming reattached with my emotions. I can thank God for making me the loving person He has made me. I came to one of the elders in the church, and told him what I have done to the kid in school, and had asked him if I could be forgiven for that. He told me to read 1 chapter a day in the Bible starting with John. When I got to Acts, I have seen that Paul who was an "Apostle" was killing Christians before Jesus reached out to him and asked "Why do you persecute me?" and I realized that Paul accepted Jesus and became saved and he was forgiven. I had realized that if Paul could be forgiven, so could I.

When I was 27, I gave all the things people did to me to God and asked him to help me to forgive all who wronged me, including my grandparents, and those who picked on me in school and God helped me forgive them. I had a list of those people in my mind which may have consisted of over 300 people, and I prayed for each one individually for God to help me forgive them the way He forgave me, and for them to come to know Jesus. God helped me forgive them, and I held no more grudges or bitterness toward those people. God has died on a cross to forgive me and the least I could do was to forgive them. There was no one person who could have wronged me as many times as I have wronged God, yet God forgave me, so I should forgive them. The healing started when I forgave all who wronged me, and it felt like a huge burden was lifted off when I forgave all who wronged me. That was a major step for me to bring healing from the things I have been through.

God lead me to Romans 8:28 saying that God will work all things for the good of those who love Him. I had to have faith that God would do that for me. Now doors are opening for me to share this with others and help them heal. God has shown me that you can only combat abuse with kindness and love. Forgiveness is the only key for me to heal from my past. I have also learned that I am not any less of a person because of the mean things done to me, and there was nothing wrong with me, but there is something wrong with the abusers. I also realized that I do not have to answer to God for what people did to me, but they will. I will only have to answer for the wrong things I have done. I realized that God loves me and considers me precious to Him. God loves me even if others do not. I have nothing to be ashamed of because of what happened to me. The apostles and prophets were also mistreated by others, only because they did not deserve them. I also realized that those who mistreated me did not deserve me. I also learned that God created every one of us different, and no 2 people are the same. We all have things we need to learn and we all have things we are good at. Most important of all, showing love and kindness to those who are hurting inside will greatly help you heal as well as the other person - that is how we combat abuse. I am now doing just that to help others who have been abused. Sharing our stories, how we came to forgive and what we have learned helps all heal from their abuse. I am now going to make speeches regarding this for others who have been abused to open up and also to encourage them so they can heal more quickly. God used all the evil I went through to encourage others. God has also used me to make a difference in the world and to impact the lives of many.

When I was 29, I got a letter from the person who raised me and was my step dad throughout my childhood, and he told me in the letter not to call him "dad" anymore. I was deeply hurt by that, and I started calling my biological father "dad", and my biological father realized that he had a second chance, and he started to step up to the plate. He may not be perfect, but he has shown many improvements. He started to do what he said he would do. He helped me build my cottage, and he became more active in our lives since then.

I met my wife when I was 29 and dated her for about 2 years and got married when I was 31. She had listened to me and became a great blessing in my life. She stands behind me when I run my page and share my story because she knows it will bring healing and help others heal. My wife is a great support.

As I read the Bible more and more, I realize that the things I have been through and the things I have learned from what I have been through had to be unlearned, along with many behavior patterns, self destructive behavior, thought patterns, and I had to relearn the correct way of doing things. This is a daily process, and there are always new things that come up, even to this day. Being able to accept myself has been a struggle for a long time, but I realize that God has created me for who I am and He loves me for who I am. The only things I need to change is the sin in my life, but God has made me into a loving and kind person who cares for others, and I learned that I should allow those things to grow, and if God accepts me and loves me for who I am, I should also accept myself for who I am. God has made me the person I am, and I would not be the person I am had I not gone through these things in my life. I have also learned that I am now a better person because of what I went through than I would have been otherwise.

I became an elder of my church and my pastor resigned in January, 2012, without warning. Me and 2 other elders felt lead to keep the church going, even though we did not know what to do. I organized meetings, and did what I had to in order to keep the church going and keep the people together. During that time, I had spiritual warfare going on, I had depression with extreme sadness and could not find a reason for it, I could not point out what was making me sad. If someone asked me what was wrong and I told them "nothing", I would be telling the truth, because I was extremely sad for no reason. I had strong temptations of suicide, and had to fight it by taking my thoughts captive, and give myself reasons to live. I came out of it and realized there was a teaching that that needed to be corrected that was introduced by a well known speaker who was not affiliated with my church who speaks at many churches spoke at a conference that my church attenended. At that conference that my church attended, along with other churches, that speaker taught that if a person has depression, he/she does not have a walk with God. Some people who attended that conference felt intimidated if they went through depression and felt like the church would believe that they were not a true Christian as a result of that. My old pastor resigned and shortly after I had my bout, and after I came through it. I addressed the issue to the church. I stood up in front of church and announced my experience and declared that the type of teaching that took place, especially in that conference by that speaker will not be accepted in the church. I also made sure that the new pastor would be supportive to those going through depression, and not accept a teaching like that.

Had I taken my life, my church would have never held together and it would have folded. 30 people would have been hurting. I realized I was used to prevent 30 people from hurting and also keeping the church together. I started a web site to help other victims of abuse overcome it and heal from it. Had I taken my life, the web site would have never existed. Because of my experience with depression and suicidal thoughts and temptations, I understood 4 people who were going through that and helped them to think of the same type of things I had to think about, and it saved their lives. Their lives would be gone if I had taken mine. I realize now that I matter, and God can use me to make a big difference in this world. I now realize that God has made me into a beautiful, loving person who even cares for strangers as much as I care for myself. God gave me that heart. I also realize God's love for me, and His love for others, and every person is precious to Him. God even paid a heavy price for each one of us by dying on a cross. He did it for me and He did it for you. God loves you and He can make you a beautiful person as well, and God can use you to do great things if you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and let Him use you.

Rodney Calmes