When I was a child I hated the dark.  To this day I don’t understand why and I don’t remember when that fear left me.

I shared a bedroom with my sister and when the lights went out I would think there were witches outside the door waiting to pounce on me. Yes I said witches complete with black gowns and weird hats and big ugly noses. In fact now that I think about it the witches looked just like the witch in the Wizard of Oz movie with Judy Garland. And yes I did see that movie as a chil...

My ex-husband and I had no children and no money to speak of yet it took two years to finalize a divorce.

I had to go to court at least 3 times and each time was a big waste of time since he did not want to agree to anything.

The second time I had to go to court was especially frightful as it seems my husband came toward me to attack me but my attorney stepped in and he walked away. We were in court for more than 2 hours and I understood from my attorney the primary reason was to see if my...

We all have our own morning routines.  Some of us get up and do some exercise, some of us enjoy some coffee and breakfast and then off we go to get showered and dressed for our day.

When I was married I would get up and start my day by showering. The first thing I did when I looked in the mirror was to say to myself. “Tomorrow will be a better day.” I had already determined at 6 a.m. that I was going to have a bad day.  But as I was walking out the door I would say “You can always leav...

I attended the local catholic grammar school in my neighborhood.  Part of our curriculum involved religious education. There are 7 catholic sacraments.  One of the sacraments is confession, today its called reconciliation.

Confession or reconciliation is where you confess your sins . I am not an expert on confession or the sacraments - my purpose in talking about confession is to relate my experience during my first confession.

I was in first grade when I made my first confession.  My first c...

Omerta is a popular attitude and code of honor, common in areas of southern Italy, such as Sicily where criminal organizations like the Mafia, are strong. A common definition is the "code of silence".

A common misconception is that the Mafia created or instituted Omerta. In fact, the code was adopted by Sicilians long before the emergence of Cosa Nostra (some observers date it to the 16th century as a way of opposing Spanish rule).

Something that goes back as far as the 16^th century has b...

Knuckles or Bloody Knuckles is a card game and a sadistic one at that. The object of the game is for you to have the lowest score.  The person with the lowest score wins and gets to “bloody” the knuckles of the loser by hitting them with the cards.

My cousins and I played Knuckles and if children could be mean, we were. I remember losing one time and one of my cousins put the deck of cards on my hand and stomped his foot on my hand. Needless to say I did have bloody knuckles.

As I am wr...

“The Bride of Frankenstein” was a 1935 horror movie starring Boris Karloff as Frankenstein and Elsa Lancaster as his monster bride. Like all movies of that time it was in black and white which always looked dank and grey to me.

Since this was a horror film it was always night and no glimmer of light other than what I call “spooky light”, the kind meant to scare you.  Just for the record I hated that movie. It was the first horror movie I was forced to watch and the last one I have...

I hate being cold. I’m not sure but there was an incident in grammar school that may explain this.

It was the routine at school that classes would line up in the yard with our class each day by a certain time. I really don’t remember what time but it was early, something like 8 o’clock.  The nuns would come open the school doors at a specific time and as we were trained to do, we would march in to our classrooms. The truth was you could set your watch to the time the doors were opened...

My mother enrolled me Immaculate Conception grammar school.  All my cousins went to that school too.  Kindergarten was a half day and I was enrolled in the morning session.  The first day of school I was dressed in a pink dress.

My mom drove me to school and walked me to the classroom. 

The classroom was set-up with small round tables and chairs.  I was told to sit at a table with the other little kids. Separation anxiety ran rampant! All the kids were crying, but I didn’t.  I did ...

I was born in the Bronx to a Sicilian Roman-Catholic family.  I was the oldest of 3 girls.  My mother’s family lived in the Bronx and since she was one of 10 children I had a large group of cousins and aunts and uncles.  I was told from a very young age that children should be seen and not heard and I listened.  I was not a loud or rambunctious child, if someone told me to sit I sat and I did so quietly.  My favorite places to sit were in corners and to this day I still like to sit on the c...

There I was lying on the floor outside out bathroom, naked. I had just been repeatedly sodomized by my new husband.  It was the day we came home from our honeymoon.  I had put the towels in the bathroom not to his liking and this started him off screaming, pushing and hitting me.  It ended with sexual assault.

The honeymoon was over and my 20 years of married life was just beginning. I knew I was bleeding from my rectum and told him to stop but rather than stop he continued telling me all wo...

I am Nancy Salamone and I’m a survivor of domestic violence. For 20 years I kept a secret from my family and co-workers. The secret was that I was physically, emotionally and economically abused by my husband. I kept this secret for 20 years - because I was ashamed.

Then on December 28, 1991 I left.  To this day I do not know the Nancy who left but I will always be grateful to that person inside me who summoned the courage to leave. 

I have started this blog to tell my story.

 I am tell...