She Wakes Up With Scratches

I asked my daughter if she was okay with me sharing this story, since it's her story.

October 2002 I rented a trailer from a family member. One morning my daughter, Jerrica, who was 10 when we moved there, came to me and said "Mom, look at my back. It hurts." When I raised her shirt, I saw three thin scratches in the center of her back. They were raised, but not bleeding. They were just deep enough that they caused the blood to come to her skin. The scratches appeared to be pretty fresh, because the droplets of blood were still a bright red, not dark and the scratches weren't scabbed. I asked Jerrica what happened, and she said she didn't know. She just woke up and realized her back was burning.

I realize a lot of people are going to question whether or not Jerrica was into self-mutilation or if she had been sexually abused. Neither of these are the case. Jerrica and I actually had a pretty good relationship, so I don't think it was a malicious spirit brought about by negative emotions. So on with her story.

Jerrica was and still is a nail biter. So even if she could have reached the center of her back, she didn't have any nails to have made the scratches. I asked her if there was anything in her bed and she said just the TV remote. I didn't think too much about it that time. I just let it go figuring there had to be a logical explanation for it. The second time she woke up with scratches, again in the middle of her back, I checked out her bed, bedding, her nightclothes, bra, everything that could have been in contact with her skin. I took the sheets off her bed; felt every inch of the mattress expecting to find a staple or maybe a piece of that clear, hard "thread" they use to sew the mattresses. I couldn't find anything that could make scratches on her. I told my mom and dad about the scratches, so my mom checked Jerrica's mattress and she couldn't find anything either.

I'm not sure how many times she woke up with scratches, but it was often enough that she'd come to me and say "I have scratches again, Mom." The scratches weren't always in the middle of her back. Sometimes on her arms, legs, thighs; sometimes more than one place. They weren't human fingernail scratches either. They were thin and closer together than a scratch human nails would create. To me they looked exactly like a cat scratch.

I don't want to create any misunderstanding here; this didn't happen every night. I don't think it happened more than a couple dozen times while we lived there. It was just enough times that it seemed like it happened all the time.

We did have a cat, but Jerrica absolutely refused to let him in her room. Dobby irritated her, and she wouldn't let him sit on her lap, let alone sleep in her bed. Even if Dobby had been allowed to sleep with her, he would have had to have reached under Jerrica's nightclothes and scratched her without her being aware of it. Jerrica said she never felt anything scratch her. She only felt the scratches when she woke up.

The entire time we lived in the trailer, this would happen. Jerrica continued to wake up with scratches. They were never very deep, and they never bled. They were just raised scratches. She never seemed to be afraid; just more like "what the heck."

In the fall of 2005, we moved from that trailer into a house. When we moved into the house, Jerrica continued to wake with these scratches. Naturally I believed it had to be her mattress; apparently I just couldn't find what was causing the scratches. This turned out not to be the case.

We moved again 5 months after moving into the house. I don't want to bore you with details not related to this, but the guy I rented from decided he wanted to move in the house. Anyway, we moved into another trailer and I bought Jerrica a new bed. I did this for 2 reasons: her bed was pretty old and because of the scratches. I honestly believed it was her bed and thought this would solve that problem, but the scratches continued for the 2 years we lived there. We moved again in 2008 (another landlord decided she wanted to move back in) and the scratches haven't happened since then.

The reason I mentioned moving so many times is because I want to make sure everyone understands these scratches weren't related to where we lived, or the bed Jerrica slept it. She still has the same bed I bought her new, and the scratches haven't happened in over a year.

I don't have any idea what caused them to stop. All I know is one day my daughter mentioned the fact that she hadn't been scratched in a long time.