What’s the most twisted thing your family used against you?

The Prosthetic as Punishment

My father unscrewed my prosthetic leg and drove away. I was 12 years old when he did this in the middle of nowhere. He had been driving under the influence when I lost my leg in the accident that killed my mother when I was 8. Dad walked away without a scratch. My mother lost her life, and I woke up missing everything below my left knee.

He played the grieving widower perfectly, acting as the devoted father caring for his disabled son. What they didn’t see was that my ability to walk completely depended on whether he thought I deserved it. When I refused to use the leg to smuggle his substances through airport security, he’d say, “This leg is mine. You’re just borrowing it”.

He would lock me in the attic without it. At first, he’d take my leg away for an hour or two if I talked back to him. Once, he hid it for a whole day after I failed a test. Once he discovered substance smuggling, he took everything up a notch.

Dad worked airport maintenance and discovered cargo areas with broken cameras. He figured out he could stuff packages in my prosthetic’s hollow compartments. He knew security never thoroughly checked a child’s medical device. Who suspects a limping 12-year-old?

As I got older and the prosthetic got bigger, so did the packages. Dad upgraded me to a more advanced leg with larger hollow spaces. He told doctors I needed maximum comfort. Really, he needed maximum storage.

He’d wake me at 3:00 a.m. for airport runs. He would unscrew my leg while I sat in the car, pack it full, then reattach it.

“Remember, this leg is mine. You’re just borrowing it”.

I started sleeping in the prosthetic, terrified he’d take it while I slept, but he had none of that. He’d force me to remove it each night. He held it just out of reach while I sat on my bed. He made me promise to be good before giving it back.

Sometimes he’d pretend to forget where he put it. He would leave me crawling around the house searching. As I got older, I started refusing more often. This was especially true after seeing a news report about a teenager caught smuggling who got 15 years.

Dad’s response was always to take the leg for a few hours, leaving me trapped. I started hiding crutches around the house so I had a way to get around after he took my leg. That made him furious.

He found and threw away every pair. Then, he moved my bedroom to the attic. The steep stairs were impossible to navigate without two legs. One day, he demanded I fly to Miami alone with the biggest package yet.

I told him no and refused to get out of the car. Without a word, he drove the car somewhere completely remote. He opened the door and started unscrewing my prosthetic. I fought him, but he was stronger.

He pulled it off, threw it in the trunk, and drove away. I spent 3 hours hopping between cars, soaking wet, before someone found me and called the police. Dad arrived playing the concerned parent.

He told them I’d thrown a tantrum and removed my own leg for attention. The officers lectured me about appreciating my father. He stood behind them, my leg under his arm. In the car, he spelled out the rules.

Any defiance meant losing the leg. Any mention of substances meant losing it permanently. But I’d made a decision that day. I wasn’t going to rely on him for my mobility anymore.

I started building my own leg from YouTube tutorials, stealing supplies from hardware stores. It was ugly, heavy, painful to wear, but it was mine. I hid it in pieces around the house, assembling it only when Dad was at work.

The homemade leg could only handle a few hours before the pain became unbearable. But a few hours might be enough. Dad noticed me moving differently. He started spot-checking my prosthetic at random.

He made me remove it so he could inspect the compartments. He installed cameras in my room. He never found my makeshift leg because he couldn’t imagine I’d be smart enough to build one.

The next time Dad announced a smuggling mission, I pretended to be obedient. But the night before, I executed my plan. Dad had hidden my good leg as usual. However, my homemade one was ready to go.

I put on my homemade leg and left through my window. I made it five blocks before Dad found me. He’d woken up and decided to check my room cameras. On my homemade leg, I was no match for him in speed.

He dragged me home and locked me in the attic, taking my makeshift left away.

“You think you’re clever,” he said. “Let’s see how you like a few days without food”.

I was completely trapped. There was no way of contacting anyone. I was stuck behind a trap door and stairs I couldn’t descend. Given the way Dad drank, I knew there was a good chance he’d forget to let me out once he cooled down.

How long would it take him to remember that his son was up here? I was without legs, no food, and no water. The temperature was already climbing. I knew I wouldn’t survive up here unless I figured out a way out.

I dragged myself across the dusty floorboards, searching for anything I could use. The attic stretched maybe 20 ft x 15, filled with boxes of Christmas decorations and old photo albums. Mom would have hated seeing them covered in cobwebs.

My hands found a broken coat hanger wedged behind a stack of plastic bins. It was not much, but maybe enough. The trap door had a simple latch mechanism on the outside.

I bent the coat hanger into a hook and slid it through the crack. I was fishing blindly for the latch. My fingers cramped from the awkward angle. Sweat dropped into my eyes.

After an hour of trying, the hanger slipped from my grip and clattered down the stairs. I pressed my ear to the floor. Dad’s snoring drifted up from his bedroom below. At least he hadn’t heard.

But now my only tool was gone. The morning sun was already turning the attic into an oven. I examined every inch of my prison. Behind Mom’s old sewing machine, I discovered a small ventilation grate.

It was too small to crawl through, but it overlooked the driveway. If someone came to the house, maybe I could get their attention. I tried shouting through it once, but Dad’s truck was the only vehicle parked outside.

By noon, dehydration was making me dizzy. I found an old coffee can and positioned it under a leak in the roof, hoping for rain that never came. My throat felt like sandpaper.

The homemade prosthetic had left raw spots on my stump that throbbed with each movement. I dozed fitfully through the afternoon heat. When I woke, shadows were lengthening across the floor. Dad’s truck was gone.

He’d left without checking on me. The realization hit hard. He really might forget I was up here. Desperation drove me to try the trap door again.

This time, I used a Christmas ornament hook. However, it was too flimsy and bent immediately. I pounded on the door until my fists were bruised, knowing it was pointless. The solid wood barely made a sound.

Night fell. The attic turned cold. I wrapped myself in musty curtains from a box, shivering as the temperature dropped. My stomach had stopped growling hours ago, replaced by a hollow ache.

But worse than hunger was the thirst. My lips were cracked. My tongue swollen. I must have passed out because suddenly daylight was streaming through the grate.

There was no sound from below. Dad’s truck still wasn’t in the driveway. Had he gone on the smuggling run without me? Had he left me here to teach me a lesson?

I crawled back to the boxes, searching more carefully. Inside Mom’s sewing kit, I found scissors. They were not strong enough to cut through the trap door, but maybe.

I looked at the roof. Old houses like ours had thin insulation and aging wood. If I could cut through the insulation, maybe I could kick through the roof tiles. I started cutting.

The scissors were dull, and the work was exhausting. Fiberglass insulation made my hands itch terribly. But after hours of work, I’d cleared a small section down to the wood. I positioned myself and kicked upward with my good leg.

The wood creaked, but held firm. That’s when I heard Dad’s truck pull into the driveway. My heart hammered as his footsteps climbed the stairs. The trap door opened. His bloodshot eyes found me surrounded by scattered insulation.