RiddleGirl's Rants and More: 2008

What you are about to read is, my true life story as best I can recall. Please know that some of the things that happened to me are not for the faint of heart, and so please take caution that this is NOT for children to read.

The Beginning

I was born as many other female babies are via cesarean section. I was born on May 28, 1979. Weight 8lbs, 1 oz, 21 inches long. My father was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany at the time, so I was born on an Army base. Witnesses confirm that my mother, upon seeing me for the first time, burst into tears, and screamed for them to take me away and bring her the real baby. You see, ultrasound was not as reliable back then as it is, and the obstetrician had told my parents that I was to be a boy. No matter how hard they tried, or how many explanations they gave as to how I was REALLY her child, she did not want to see me. The doctors diagnosed her with PPD (Post Part um Depression) and they prescribed her some medication. After my parents brought me home, my mother finally accepted that I was her child, but she was not happy about it. She was loathe to caring for my infantile needs, and it soon came to the point that my father had to make arrangements to send me to the United States to live with my grandparents.

My father was granted a short leave of absence to transport me to his parents home in Indiana. (My mother's parents were not alive even then, They died in a terrible double homicide/suicide in 1977. My mother's father, shot and killed my grandmother, my oldest uncle and then himself. This might have also contributed to the mental state of my mother.) My mother was hospitalized, and my father returned to his station. I stayed with my grandparents for 1 year. When my parents returned from Germany, their marriage was in shambles. My mother's condition had not really improved, although she had learned to tell the doctors what they wanted to hear in order to get out of the mental hospital.

My father was then stationed in Denver, Colorado. Their marriage was getting worse by the day. My father told me that he just couldn't take it. He ended up being discharged from the Army for psychological reasons. Now, I was 18 months old, my parents had no home, no income and we were living in a Motel 6. My mother and father had a huge fight. I've heard both sides of it and it's so confusing, I really still cannot figure out why it started or what was said, but it was the last one they would have. My mother told my father to get out, and he did. He caught a bus to Indiana and that would be the last time I would see him until I was 10 years old. My mother and I went from shelter to shelter for the next 4 years. Sometimes the shelters were full and they would turn us away, It was sometimes scary, and sometimes an adventure for me as a child sleeping in different, interesting places every night. Public restrooms were our sanctuary. We would use them to wash up, and sometimes for sleeping. If we could not find a bathroom to sleep in, sometimes we would utilize alleyways, park benches and even the local catholic church which kept it's doors open 24/7 for those who felt the need to worship or confess their sins in the wee hours of the night. We utilized soup kitchens and bread lines whenever we could. There were always lots of interesting people there. One of the shelters that we frequented offered my mother a job. She would have to serve the food to the people staying at the shelter during meal time. I tried to help, but usually found myself being yelled at or smacked upside the head for getting in the way. This job allowed my mother to get us a small apartment to live in.

My how happy she was when me moved in there! She took pictures of me in every room of the apartment. Every time she took pictures, she would write a letter and send the pictures to my father. Back then I never questioned why he wasn't around, and I don't think I really even cared. Looking back on it, I don't remember ever missing him, but he did make good cannon fodder for pushing my mother's buttons. If I wanted to do something and she would tell me no, I would smart off and say "If my daddy was here, he'd let me do ______." It always set her off. She didn't take smart mouthing from me though, and soon enough I learned to keep my mouth shut.

A few months after moving in, the landlord came to the door. They were asking for the rent. My mother got very mad and started yelling. There was a fight and my mother found herself tumbling down the stairs. She broke her ankle. After breaking her ankle, she was unable to serve food at the shelter, so she didn't get paid money to pay the rent. Before long, we found ourselves living at the shelter again. When my mother's ankle was better, she started serving food again. There was a man there named Paul. He served the food too. My mother and Paul started spending a lot of time together. At the shelter, all the women and children slept in a gigantic room with bunk beds and all the men slept in a different gigantic room with bunk beds. Paul was different, though. He had a small room all to himself right next to the kitchen. My mother would send me in there after lunch to take a nap so she and Paul could talk about grown up stuff. One day, Paul came in the room. He was looking for something. I acted like I was sleeping because I always got a spanking if I got up from my naps before my mother came in to get me. He found what he was looking for, then stopped right by the bed where I was "sleeping". He touched my hand lightly. I made sure not to move. He moved my whole hand gently. I still didn't move. He leaned in close and smelled my hair. I thought that was strange, but I didn't move. I thought he would tell my mother if I woke up. I didn't want a spanking. I was laying on my stomach. He pulled my pants down, very slowly exposing my buttocks, and leaned in a took a deep breath! Then he left. I was very confused by this and when my mother came to wake me, I told her what happened. She laughed it off and told me that it was a dream. I insisted that it wasn't, but she told me to stop making things up and then I got a spanking. I continued having these strange experiences that my mother called "dreams" for a while. Then one day my mother told me that she and Paul her "in love" and that we were going to be moving in with him. I really didn't know what to think about it. In a way I was excited, it had been a very long time since we had lived in a place that was not a shelter. It had been even longer since we had eaten food cooked in our own kitchen. Paul made me nervous, though. He was unlike anyone I had ever met before and he made me feel strange. Not to mention the "dreams". I never had things like that happen before he came around. Now we were going to be living in his house. I told my mother that I was excited, but I wondered where we would sleep. She told me that I would have my own room and that she and Paul would sleep in the other room. I was okay with that.

We packed up what little we had and left for Paul's house. It was a small two bedroom house, but he didn't share it with anyone else. So that was nice. My room had a bed and my own TV with cable!!! (That was a big deal because it was the 80's and only "rich people" had cable back then. He bought me a whole bunch of new clothes and toys that I spent a few hours opening and playing with. For a while, I thought that I had finally found heaven. Paul really wanted to see if the new clothes that he bought fit me. I tried on frilly dress after frilly dress. He just beamed, and so did my mother. I thought they were happy to see me dressed so nicely.

After a couple of days of "settling in", my mother asked Paul to watch me while she went out to apply for work. He said that he had lots of games planned for us and things to do. I was excited at the prospect of playing games and watching cartoons. He had already set himself up to be someone who would not say no if I asked for something. As soon as my mom left, he brought out a big carton of icecream and two spoons. We sat on the couch and chowed down while watching the Smurfs. We played a game during the commercial, hiding a quarter in different parts of our clothes and the other person would have to find it. Four year olds are very messy, so when we were done eating, he took me in the bathroom to wash up. I had icecream all over my clothes, hands and face. He told me that I would need a bath. He ran warm bathwater, poured in tons of Mister Bubble and while the tub was filling, undressed me and gently lifted me into the tub. He brought little plastic toy boats and rubber ducks for me to play with, and we had a great time splashing around and playing with the boats. He got a wash cloth and gently removed all of the ice cream from my body. He was very careful and not rough like when my mother bathed me. He was always very careful with me. When it was time to get out, he wrapped me in a large fluffy bath towel and carried me to my room. He placed me on the bed and dried me off, just as he had seen my mother do. He got out the baby powder and the baby oil, just like he saw my mother do. He applied the baby oil just and gently as ever and powdered my behind. When he was done with that, he laid down beside me on the bed. I felt weird just laying there with no clothes on. He told me that it was nap time, and he would massage me to help me relax. I asked about my clothes, and he told me, "You don't need them, you'll be more comfortable this way, it's hot today." He then got up just long enough to undress himself and then lay back down beside me. He started rubbing my back, then my legs and moved on to every single square inch of my body. This included my private parts. I was very uncomfortable and asked him to stop because it made me feel weird. He then proceeded to tell me that this is what fathers and daughters do together, and since I didn't have a father in my life that he would do it. I didn't really understand, but I also knew that if he told my mother that I didn't behave, I would surely get a beating, so I complied. The first day it was just him touching me. The next day, he touched and kissed me. The next day he wanted me to touch and kiss him. It stayed at massaging, touching, kissing and licking until the next week. The next week, he introduced me to performing oral sex on him. Then one day he introduced me to intercourse. I felt very strangely afterward and I had pain. I felt like everyone would know just by looking at me. When my mother got home that night, she noticed that I was acting strangely. I told her everything was fine. That night was bath night, when she got me undressed to get my bath, she noticed that there was some blood in my underwear and an odor that I had never smelled before. She asked me what happened. I told her that Paul told me that he was just doing what all fathers do for their daughters and since I didn't have a father in my life, he did it. She seemed confused by that and asked me some questions. When she finally found out that he had molested me, she didn't react like you might expect. She flew into a rage, and beat me. She called me a little whore and accused me of trying to steal her boyfriend. She then ran a bath of nothing but straight hot water from the tap. She told me that I was dirty and would have to be "disinfected". She got a bottle of bleach and poured the whole thing into the tub, then threw me in. I remember screaming out in pain as the hot water burned my flesh and the bleach caused even more buring and pain to my already painful private areas. She left the bathroom briefly with a stern warning to stay in the tub or else, then returned a minute later with Comet and a Brillo pad. She poured the comet on my body and scrubbed me with the brillo pad until my skin bled. It burned and hurt so badly that finally, I remember it just didn't hurt anymore. My brain shut off the pain signals. When the bath was done, she threw me in the closet, naked, locked the door and left me there for the night.

As memories usually do, I don't remember everything in as sharp a detail as I do that particular day. What I do recall is that the abuse continued. It went from touching to intercourse. Then, one day, Paul went to church and didn't come back. (He was Luthern and we were Catholic so we went to different churches on Sunday.) My mother explained to me that he had been arrested and was going to jail for a while. She didn't tell me what he was arrested for. She wanted to be able to stay in the house, so she told the police that she was his wife and that I was his daughter. We kept up this facade for a while. She would dress me in my prettiest, frilliest dress and parade me through security to the visitation room at the prison. There we would sit across a divider and visit with Paul. The divider was chest high to an adult, she would whisper in my ear "Give him a hug and kiss and say 'I love you, Daddy'" I remember telling her that I didn't want to, but she looked at me sternly and told me that I would be sorry later if I didn't. She then picked me up and put me on top of the divider. I did as I was told, and he slyly reached his hand under my large puffy dress and fingered my privates. I squirmed away and jumped down. My mother took me there about 3 or 4 times, but his reputation at the prison was his demise. I later found out that he had been arrested for sexually assaulting a 7 year old boy at the church and then when the other prisoners found out about what he did, they killed him by a combination of brutalities including shoving a broom handle up his butt until it exited his mouth (literally). After Paul's death my mother had to prove she was his wife and that I was his daughter, which she could not prove either. We were back on the street. Things were harder this time. The shelter where we had been staying where we met Paul, had decided that we were no longer welcome there. I still don't know why to this day. In any case, it was fall, the nights were downright chilly. Food was hard to come by. My mother taught me how to dumpster dive. There were certain times of day that the restaurants would throw out their old unsold food. We would wait for them to throw it out, and then go get it. One night an employee at the KFC saw my mother lifting me into the dumpster to get the food, and felt sorry for me. She gave me some fresh food from inside. After that, my mother got an idea that she could use me in order to get what we needed.

This picture was taken after dumpster diving behind a Long John Silver's Restaurant. I got the hat out of the dumpster too! See how proud I was?

She went over what I had to say each time and then would send me into a restaurant. I would walk in, and say something to the effect of, I'm so very hungry and all alone. I haven't eaten in days, can you help me? Most of the time, they would sit me down at a table and bring me as much food as I wanted. I would eat some, and pocket some. Then, as soon as I heard them on the phone with the police telling them that there was a child in the restaurant all alone, I would run out. My mom would get any food that I had been able to hide. This worked for a while, but soon, they were on the lookout for me, and wouldn't give me any food, they would just call the police right away. Sometimes they would tell me that they would give me food "in a little while" they just needed to wait on some customers first. This was always a bad sign and I would leave right away.

When that stopped working, we started stealing from stores. I questiioned my mother about it once. God teaches us that stealing is wrong. She told me that it didn't apply because we didn't have money to buy food, and no one would give it to us. I got very good at stealing. Still to my suprise, adults never pay attention to children. So when I would go into a store to take something, I would find someone else in the store that had at least one other child. I would stay near them, but not too close. People in the store would assume I was with them, but the people I was near, would not think I was with them. I would walk through the store, tagging along behind, pick up what I needed and if it was small enough, I would put it in my coat. If it was too large for my coat, I would just carry it with me through the store behind the family like I was being helpful, then, when they got to the checkout, I would make me way out of the store with the item via an unoccupied checkout lane. It worked every time. I never got caught. Since I never got caught, it also built my confidence that maybe my mother was right. God didn't mind me stealing since I needed it and I only took what I needed.

Also, in that day and time, there was somthing called pay toilets. At the Montgomery Ward's Five and Dime store, they had pay toilets. They were normal public restrooms, but the stall doors were locked. You had to pay a dime to get in. I would sit and wait in the bathroom and when someone would come in, I would offer to crawl under the door and open it for them if they would give me the dime instead. It worked like a charm, and many times the ladies would chat with me while they did their business. When they were done washing their hands, a lot of times they would give me a buck or two. I made $25 a day easy doing that, sometimes more.

Winter had decended upon us and we could no longer sleep outside. Using the money that I made from the ladie's room at Monkey Ward's, my mother rented us a room at the YMCA.

My mother worked fast. We hadn't been there very long when my mother started talking to all of the guys who would go there to work out. One of them was named Dean. He was young, in his early twenties (my mom was in her mid 30's). He was built, handsome, had long red hair, blue eyes, and was as sweet as could be. He was an acrobat/gymnast. He and his crew would practice on the trapese and other equipment at the Y. He treated me very nicely. He taught me how to do tumbles, sommersaults, cart wheels, and even took me on the trapeze a couple of times. He and my mother seemed to be getting on famously. Christmas was nearing, and he bought me a Rainbow Bright doll, something I had been wanting so very much. Christmas Eve I went to bed snuggling with Rainbow Bright. I woke in the middle of the night and spied my mother wrapping presents and writing "To: Heidi From: Santa" on them. That was the night the magic died. Santa wasn't real. I never mentioned what I saw to my mother. She was in such a good mood after meeting Dean, that I didn't want to make her mad. We spent Christmas day with Dean. He lived in a trailer that looked like a shiny metal twinkie. I thought he was rich. He had a color tv with cable! (We had a black and white tv with rabbit ears that I would have to hold on to get the station to come in to watch MASH.) I wanted my mom and Dean to get married. There were so many things that I liked about him. He had a cat, who just had a litter of kittens. Their eyes were not even open yet, and he let me hold them. He played the guitar, and taught me the song, "Puff the Magic Dragon" (he also taught me "The Yellow Bird witht he Yellow Bill") :) That one got me in trouble because I sang it at the post office once. We started going to his trailer a lot. Sometimes we even spent the night. One night, there was a big fight, I'm not sure over what, but we never saw Dean again. I was very sad, every time I would ask my mom about him, she would slap me and tell me to never mention his name again.

Still living at the YMCA, I had started going to school. My mother got a scholarship for me and I began kindergarten at St. Joseph's Catholic School.

I liked my teacher very much. Her name was Mrs. Connery. She was beautiful, sweet, undertanding and very patient. She took extra time with each student at their own learning level. I was very adept at reading, so she allowed me to read first and second grade books so that I would not be bored in class. The kid who liked to eat glue, paint and play dough got special treatment too. She put Mr. Yuk stickers on everything in the glassroom that he was not supposed to eat. :)

This was where I began my love for school. I loved everything about school, and even when I had my encounter with my first bully, I still loved school more than anything else in my life.

My First Bully

My first bully's name was Porsha. She was a girl in my Kindergarten class. To this day, I still don't know why, but she made me the object of all of her anger. She would pull my hair, hit me, and call me names. I always turned the other cheek, but one day I just couldn't take it anymore. We were sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch, and she had finished what she was going to eat. She got up to put away her tray, and she took a glob of left over mashed potatoes in her hand and smashed it on top of my head as she passed me. She did this just as I was getting ready to take a drink of my chocolate milk. I stopped mid-drink, got up and poured the whole carton right on top of her head! Everyone started yelling. The principal, Sister Alice Szwiffelhoffer, started making her way to us from the other side of the room. Porsha scratched me from the top of my face to the bottom with her long nails, drawing blood. I screamed at her and pushed her to the floor, and along with her, her tray of half eaten food went flying into the air. Soon after the tray clattered to the floor, the principal grabbed us each by the arm and marched us to the office. She had seen the entire exchange. Porsha was suspended from school for a week, and I was forced to clean the entire cafeteria that day.

When my mother came to pick me up, she was furious that I had to stay after school and finish cleaning the cafeteria. As I mentioned before, we didn't have a car, so everywhere we went, we either had to walk or ride the bus. Needless to say, we missed the bus, and so we had a long walk home. She yelled and cussed at me the entire way home, and then when we got home, I was given a beating. I was unable to go to school for a week because of the severe bruises and cuts.

From then on Porsha didn't bother me anymore. However, I had already made up my mind, that should she do something again, I would not retaliate.

It was around this time that my mom and I lost our home yet again. We were staying anywhere we could, public restrooms, parks, shelters (when there was room), and then, eventually in a storage unit. My teacher felt sorry for me (she didn't know we were homeless) but I always had torn, holy socks, my shoes were in disrepair. When it came time for first communion, she bought me a beautiful dress to take first communion in. My mother was outraged. She yelled at my teacher, principal, anyone who would listen that she was insulted, and that "we didn't take charity from people", she promptly removed me from school. I started going to public school from then on out.

When we had the initial meeting with the principal of the public school, it was mid-year, I had to take a test to see if I could be put in the right class with my peers. I tested well and everything was fine, so I thought. However, they were getting ready to do a school play. I thought it was cool, but didn't care if I was in it or not. My teacher decided that since I had joined so late into rehersals that I should not participate in the play. I was fine with it, but my mother was not. She went on a tyrade. She started yelling and screaming at my teacher and principal. They asked me to leave and go out for recess. Before I knew what was happening, I hear a kid yell, "Hey, new kid, is that your mom?" I turn to look and see my mother being hauled to a police car in handcuffs. I was mortified. My mother spent the night in jail, and I spent the night at the principal's house, who had a daughter my age, named Meleesa. They had a beautiful home and were very kind to me.

The next day, when my mother showed up at school to see me, they found out where we were living. The principal helped us get into a subsidised housing complex. The neighborhood was bad, lots of gangs and drugs, but at least we weren't on the street anymore.

We moved in on my 7th birthday. My mom made me a chocolate cake and let me eat the whole thing. She also got me a Care Bear transistor radio and a few other toys. I loved them all so much, but was afraid to play with them because I didn't want to break them or get them dirty. (I was afraid that I would never get any more toys.) So I would set them up next to the wall, nice and neat and talk to them. Every once in a while, I might cradle one or two of them gently in my arms. The only toys that I really actually played with, were some pull-back cars that someone gave me from McDonald's they were sturdy and I knew my mother wouldn't be upset if I broke them.

Two weeks before Christmas, I got very sick with the flu. My mother wanted to take my temperature, but all she had was one of those rectal thermometers. Of course, I was not cooperating. She ended up swearing and cussing and beating me to make me comply. Our neighbor next door, having already rescued me from the freezing cold when my mother sent me outside in the snow in nothing but my underwear as a punishment, called the police.

The police responded quickly, but my mother made me hide in the closet and told me not to make any noise. The police left, and then returned a little while later. This time, they had the landlord with them, who opened the door.

I held my breath as the police searched the apartment. I could hear their footsteps in my room, and see the flashlight under the closet door. All of a sudden the closet door opened. I was found, and very very scared. My mother told me how bad police were and that I should fear them. I began to cry out in terror. The male police officer looked down at me in bewilderment and called for a female officer.

She told me that her name was Officer Becky and she picked me up kicking and screaming. She carried me downstairs and outside past my mother who was screaming and yelling, cursing and crying. My mother managed to grasp my arm briefly as the officers surrounded me and took me out to a waiting squad car.

It felt like a dream. The red and blue flashing lights of multiple squad cars reflecting off the brick buildings and street signs. The sounds of police radios and whispers of onlookers. Officer Becky plopped me in the back seat of her squad car, asked me to be a good girl and sit still. She said that she would be right back. I silently nodded my head at her as she closed the door.

I quickly discovered that the door wouldn't open from the inside. I turned around in the seat, sitting on my knees, I watched as my mother was handcuffed and led to another squad car a few feet away. I could hear her yelling and cursing, although I really couldn't make sense of any of it.

When the squad car with my mother in it disappeared from sight, Officer Becky and her partner, Officer Bob (a portly, bald man with extra strong cologne returned to the car I was in. Officer Becky opened the door and introduced Officer Bob. He was nice enough, but I didn't feel like talking to anyone. Especially, a cop.

Officer Becky seemed to think that I might need company, so she sat in the back seat with me, while Officer Bob drove. She started asking me all kinds of questions. I answered the ones that my mom always told me were "okay" to answer, like my name, address, phone number (we didn't have one) my mother's name, my father's name. Then she started asking me other questions. Questions that were not okay to answer. I didn't answer them. When she asked me what happened that night, I didn't say anything. She told me that the neighbor heard my mom yelling and heard me crying. She asked what that was all about. I still didn't say anything. She tried to coerse me, just like my mother warned, she said, "It's ok, you can tell me, nothing bad will happen, I promise." I remembered that my mother told me they would say stuff like that. I didn't break.

She asked me what I ate for dinner that night. I didn't say anything, but I shook my head to indicate that I had not had dinner. She asked me if I was hungry. I shook my head "no". I was long past the "hunger" stage at this point. She gave me hug, but it was more of a ploy. I could feel her poking my back with her fingers. She was checking to see how thin I was. (I was very thin, under weight and under height for my age.)

She told Officer Bob to stop by McDonald's on the way to the station. They asked me what I liked to eat from McDonald's. I didn't answer. My mom had told me that they would offer me poisoned food and not to eat it.

They picked up food for themselves and a Happy Meal for me. Inside, my spirits were slowly rising as I saw the happy clown and his friends on the cardboard box smiling at me. I had never had a real happy meal before this night. The ones I had gotten before were left overs dug out of the trash cans inside the restaurant, or from the dumpster out back.

When we got to the station, Officer Becky offered to carry me, but I told her I would walk. They led me inside to where all the officers have their desks. The captain said that I could sit at his desk, and he put his hat on my head. All of the officers in the building congretated to have a peek at their new rescuee. His hat was huge, and flopped down over my eyes. The officers all chuckled or awwed. I took the hat off and laid it on the desk.

Officer Becky handed me my happy meal. When I didn't even offer to open it, she opened it for me, unwrapped the burger, laid the fries out on a napkin and set the soda down beside it. I still didn't budge.

"It's okay, honey, it's yours, go ahead and eat." I looked at the food and then up at the crowd of officers staring at me. I was frozen. Officer Becky shooed everyone away and then asked me what was wrong.

I finally mustered up a voice. "My mom said you'd ask me those questions and that you'd give me poisoned food."

Officer Becky laughed and said "Oh honey, it's not poisoned, I promise. Here look..." she picked up a fry and ate it. "See, I'm ok."

There was a battle of wills going on in my head, but finally my stomach won. I devoured the entire thing, and my hunger pains kicked in. I was still ravenous. Officer Bob ran and got me chips, ice cream and another soda. Officer Becky offered to color with me for a while. I wasn't sure what we were waiting on, but apparently, it was too late at night and they couldn't take me where I needed to go yet for a while.

I ended up falling asleep in the captain's chair. Before I knew what was going on, Officer Becky woke me and told me it was time to go. They were going to take me someplace "safe". She wouldn't tell me where it was, but I heard her tell the other officers it was called CPS.

When we got to CPS, a large woman with grey hair and a mustache introduced herself as Diane. She told me that there were "procedures" that had to be done, and they might make me uncomfortable, but she had to do it.

I was then whisked away to a bathroom, where she undressed me, gave me a shower herself and then photographed me with a poloroid camera from every angle. I was totally embarrased. I cried. She then called for another woman. I don't remember her name, but she was younger and did not have a moustache. She took me to a closet full of clothes of all sizes and colors. She found a pair of pajamas with a trap door in the back, and helped me get them on. She then led me to a room with 12 beds and 4 cribs. There were two babies asleep in the cribs and a couple of other children asleep in some of the other beds. She led me to a bed and tucked me in. She didn't say goodnight or anything.

I was so tired I didn't even care anymore.

The next day when I woke up, the room was empty. I smelled food. I followed the smell to a small dining area where the other children were already seating and eating their breakfast.

A new woman greeted me with "Good morning, sleepy head." I squinted trying to make out her face, but I couldn't. I asked her where my glasses were. She said that it's "procedure" to take things like that away for safe keeping. I told her that the safest place for them was on my face because I can't see without them. She said that she would have to check with her boss. In the mean time, she led me to a chair and served me a plate of pancakes, and powdered eggs. I ate the pancakes, but passed on the powdered eggs.

When she left the room, one of the other kids asked me for my eggs. I let him have them. "Can I have your milk, too?" I picked up the milk and smelled it. It was powdered. Can't stand the stuff, I let him have that too.

The unknown woman returned with my glasses in hand. She asked me if I knew how to take care of them. I told her that I've been wearing glasses since I was 4. I could handle it. She attempted to put them on for me...#1 pet peeve. I took them out of her hands and put them on myself.

This was the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

Life in Foster Care

I was in the CPS building for about a week when a lady who appeared to be very nice came to browse the children to pick up a stray. She thought that she was doing some kind of civic duty, but was not prepared, nor did she really want to do it. I need to let you know that I later found out the only reason this woman decided to take me in in the first place is because she thought that it would help her in her divorce case.

Anyway, we'll call her Mrs. Green. Mrs. Green was the typical "soccer mom" type, she drove an SUV, had a nice house and a spoiled brat daughter named Laura. She parused all of the little kids, first considering a two year old, and then deciding against it because the younger ones are so needy.

She then talked to a couple of us older children, and then finally decided on me. Why? I have no clue. In any case, she took me home with her, introduced me to her daughter, Laura, who was one year my junior. Laura proudly showed off her bedroom, playroom and her own personal pinball machine and kid's craft area. I looked around excitedly and asked permission to play the pinball machine. Mrs. Green told me that it was ok and left the room hoping that we would make friends.

Unfortunately for me, as soon as Mrs. Green left the room, Laura started sqwaking and crying telling me that she didn't want me to touch her stuff. Mrs. Green returned, comforted her daughter and then told me to respect Laura's wishes and not touch her stuff. I went upstairs and sat on the couch in the living room bored until Mrs. Green told us it was time for bed.

Laura had a beautiful bedroom with two twin bed clad in Barbie comforters. I assumed that I would be sleeping in one of them, and so did Mrs. Green at first. However, when finally glad in the only nightgown that Laura could bare to part with for a night, I started to climb into the other bed. She quickly started squalling again, this time claiming that I had squished Sarah, her imaginary friend. Mrs. Green tried to convince her that imaginary Sarah and I could share the bed, but it would do. Mrs. Green ended up giving in and got a sleeping bag out of the closet for me to sleep in.

After we were all settled in, Laura said she wanted to watch her night, night show, Mighty Mouse on her little color TV in her room. However, this time she made sure to tell her mother that I was not allowed to watch.

I cried myself to sleep that night.

The next morning was Christmas Day. Mrs. Green, Laura and I went to Mrs. Green's parent's house. Everyone was happy to see me, and we ate and had a decent time until it was time to open presents. Oops, no one knew they would be having an extra child for Christmas, and there were no presents for me. Mrs. Green told me, it's ok, you can help Laura open her presents.... Yeah, like that's going to be a fun thing for a 7 year old who didn't get any presents herself....

Mrs. Green's mother felt really bad, she snuck a present out from under the tree that had Laura's name on it, and put a new tag on it with my name. I saw her do it, though.

When she handed me the large package, I opened it, and my eyes became big as saucers as I saw the beautiful bride doll inside the wrappings. As soon as Laura spotted it, she started wailing "That's my doll! Gramma, you promised you would get that doll for me!!!" Then she grabbed it out of my hands. Grandma Green tried to reason with her, and took the doll away. She handed it back to me and told me that it was mine. Laura continued to flail around and scream and cry.

I sat quietly and played with my new doll all day, ignoring Laura as much as possible. Later, when we got back to the Green's home, Mrs. Green took me into the bathroom to give me my bath. When we were done, I was grief stricken as I saw that Laura had completely demolished my new doll. She tore all of her clothes, cut her hair, tore her arms and legs off and poked out her eyes. Laura's mother didn't comfort me or discipline her daughter. Instead, she waited for Laura to turn on the water works and then cradled her and told her how horrible it was that Gramma had done that to her.

That night I had to sleep on the floor in the living room. The next morning, Laura's mother made us bacon, eggs, toast and jam. I ate it grateful to have a meal, and thanked her for it. Laura told her mother that she wanted McDonald's and then threw another tantrum. Mrs. Green gave in, of course, and told me to stay there (alone) and they would be right back.

That was the last straw. I went down to the basement where Laura's prescious playroom was. I took a piece of construction paper, lit it on fire with the pilot light from the furnace and set the flaming piece of paper on top of her arts and craft supplies. I then walked out of the house and sat on the opposite curb hoping to watch the house burn to the ground.

Luckily they had a great fire detection system that automatically called the fire department. They had the fire out in less than 5 minutes and there was little damage.

Mrs. Green sent me back to CPS right away, which was just fine with me.

(Now, I'm not saying that what I did was right, or justified or anything else, it was just all that I could come up with as a 7 year old with no say as to what happened to me.)

After that little incident, when the foster parents would come to pick up a child, they would ask about me, and then when told that I set a fire, they would move right along without a second glance.

One day, a man named Chuck came to talk to me. He and his wife had been foster parents for over 20 years. He said that he and his wife would be happy to have me come stay with them and the 12 other children that lived in their home. I only had to promise that I would never set another fire. I promised I would as he was very nice.

The next day my social worker picked me up and took me to my new foster home.

I remember thinking how huge and beautiful the house was when we pulled into the drive-way. Little did I know how cramped it would feel at times with 13 children and 2 adults living there (later 3 adults and 14 children).

My social worker rang the doorbell and a kindly looking woman with gray hair and glasses answered the door. She led us inside to the dining area. I remember looking around eagerly as if I had just discovered the lost city of gold. Everything was new and wonderful.

The other children were all in the living room watching Pippi Longstocking on their huge projection tv. I had never seen such a thing in all my life. My social worker became annoyed with me because I kept looking over at the other kids and the movie playing on the tv instead of paying attention to what I was supposed to be.

Of course, all of the other kids were turned around in their seats staring at me, and wanting to know more about me as well. The gray haired lady very nicely asked them all to turn around and watch their movie and when it was time for introductions she would let them know.

All of the children complied very obediently and stayed quiet while my socialworker, the gray haired lady and I all talked. The gray haired lady introduced herself as "Dee", and offered me an Oreo Big Stuff cookie. I had never had such a large Oreo in all my life and I savored every bite of it.

I thought to myself "I'm gonna like this place!" Dee took the time to explain that they didn't dole out spankings or any kind of corporal punishments in their house. Everything worked on a point system. If you did good, you got points, if you did bad, points were taken away. Each point was worth 10 cents that you could use to purchase anything that you want. I thought that was very cool. She also informed me that she was aware of the fire that I set and that I had to promise that I wouldn't do anything like that at her house or else I would have to go back to CPS. I told her that I knew what I did was wrong,and apologized. She asked me why I did it. I explained the whole thing about how I was treated and the Christmas presents and all of that, and to my suprise, she said "Oh, well I can certainly understand how upset you could become about that." I promised her that as long as I was not treated badly I would behave. My social worker thumped my shoulder for saying that and gave me a dirty look. However, Dee, said "Well, it's settled then" She told my social worker that she was free to leave.

After my social worker left, I was introduced to the other children. They ranged in age from 6 to 10 years old. Crystal was my age and Dee told us that we would be roomates. Crystal was very excited and wanted to show me our room. We had bunk beds, which I found very exciting. Crystal insisted that she sleep on the top bunk, and I was fine with that, because I tend to get up several times in the night to go to the bathroom. The reason behind that is because I would hold my bladder all day so I would have an acceptable urine stream for my mother when it was time for bed. If I did not have an acceptable urine stream, I would have to sleep naked by the front door with no blankets. Dee seemed to already know about this, I guess from my social worker, and told me that I would need to take a pill before bed to make sure that I didn't wet the bed. I told her that I never wet the bed, I always wake up and go to the rest room. She then explained that there were alarms on our bedroom doors and we could not leave our rooms during the night. I didn't understand why at the time, but I do now.

Most of the children in that group home had been abused in some way. Unfortunately, some of them act out on other children during the night and it was more for our own safety. Dee would soon learn that regardless of if I took the pill or not, regardless of how much I had to drink, I still woke up during the night needing the restroom.

After a week of me waking the entire house by setting off my alarm to go to the bathroom, she removed the alarm from the door of the room that I shared with Crystal. All of the others remained in place, though, and we were sternly warned to not tamper with the other alarms.

Crystal and I became fast friends. We had a lot in common and were in the same grade. It was fun having a sister. For a while... after a while she started getting on my nerves. She was not respectful of her toys, or mine. (Remember that I told you before that I set my toys up nice and neat and didn't disturb them for fear of breaking them and not getting new ones) Well, she tore up everything. One time she tore up one of my toys and I got so mad at her. I demanded that Dee move her to another room. Dee wouldn't do it, but Crystal did lose a bunch of points, got extra chores and had to use what was left of her points to replace the toy that she broke. However, that made Crystal mad at me and even though we shared the same room, she didn't talk to me for more than a week.

Eventually, we did make up and things went back to normal. After about a month, Dee allowed the girls and boys to start playing together in the back yard. (When ever a new child arrives, the girls and boys are separated for play until they get used to everything.) This was when I finally started to get to know the boys. Jeff was 2 years older than Crystal and I. He thought that he was really cool and that he knew everything. He talked like a big shot, he bragged about fighting and sex.

I wasn't really sure what to think of him, but Crystal had talked about him a lot and told me that she liked him, so I decided that I would like him too. Jeff talked about sex a lot. For the most part he was all talk. However, as time passed, Jeff, Crystal and I all became very very close. Closer than best friends, closer than siblings, it was something much more mature than we should have had for children our ages. After about a year we were just inseperable. We were so comfortable around eachother that we talked about EVERYTHING including masturbation, sex, peeing, anything at all. We began to experiment sexually with eachother...

It started out innocently enough with Jeff and I. A simple kiss under the wooden bench on the back porch when we tried to get out of the rain.

That simple thing opened up a whole new realm for me. New feelings that I never had before coupled with the normal curiosity of a 9 year old, led to experimenting. We started talking about things like masturbation. This was where I learned that it is normal for kids who have been sexually abused to masturbate. I learned that Jeff and Crystal both did it and had been doing it for a long time.

Our experimentations went further and further, enough to where we were sneaking around a lot. (Remember they took the alarm off of my door because of my nightly bathroom needs.) So, Crystal and I would often sneak out of our room, down the stairs and disarm the alarm on Jeff's bedroom door. (We did eventually get found out, but I'll tell you how that turned out later.)

At the same time that all of this was going on, I was having counselling 3 times a week with a state funded child psychologist. I detested her. She was condesending, and always spoke to me like I was a baby and didn't understand what was going on. She would make assumptions, instead of just asking me questions. I refused to talk to her. Because of that, my foster mother came up with the idea that I should write letters. That was great for me. My psychologist told me that I could write anything that I wanted and I would not get in trouble, no matter what. I took adantage of it and let off a lot of steam...about her.

My foster mother decided that all of the kids in the house could benefit frm theraputic writing, so she got us all spiral notebooks and told us that we would need to take 10 minutes every night after our homework was done, to journal about anything we wanted. She made the same rule, that we could write anything that we wanted, we could even use cuss words and we would not get in trouble. She did tell us that she would be reading them and writing back to us.

Writing letters in therapy was one thing, doctors have that whole doctor patient confidentiality thing, but at home...that was scary...

I think we all had the same fears that maybe we would get in trouble if we wrote something bad in our journal. So, Jeff, Crystal and I talked about it and we agreed that each of us would write a cuss word in our next journal entries. We all did it, and to our suprise, no one got in trouble. I thought I would for sure too, because I wrote "My psycologist is a stupid bitch!" Dee wrote back to me, "Why do you think she is a stupid bitch?"

This opened up a dialogue where I explaind that she talked down to me and made assumptions. She never asked my opinion about anything. Dee wrote back and asked if I would like a different psycologist. I wrote back telling her that I didn't want a psycologist at all. We went back and forth for a few days, she telling me that I needed one, and me telling her that I didn't want one if they were all like the one I had. She finally agreed that she would take me to a different psycologist for a few tests and if I did well, then I wouldn't have to go to counselling any more.

The day of the tests was the last day that I went to counselling as a child.

I really got into the writing, however, I wrote in my journal about everything. I didn't want to go to the supervised visits with my mother anymore because she was always making such a scene, and got arrested nearly every time for attacking the armed guards. I was finally relieved of that duty.

All kids that are wards of the court are assigned a Guardian et Lietum to protect the child's interests. My GAL's name was Rebeccah. She came to meet with me once a month. She would ask me questions that had yes or no answers, would talk to my foster mom and then would leave. One day, I overheard her telling my foster mom that she wanted to "reunite" me with my mother. I did not want to go back to live with my mother. That night, I asked if I could get a new GAL in my journal. Dee told me that was one thing that she couldn't do. I told her that I didn't want to go back to live with my mother. Dee told me that was also out of her control.

Later that week, I was playing with some kids at school, we were all sliding down the slide on our feet. On my second trip down the slide, I fell. I didn't feel any pain, but my wrist had swollen to the size of a large grapefruit. My teacher called my foster mother and off we went to the hospital. My wrist was xrayed and it seemed like we waited forever to find out if it was broken or not. It may be weird, but I remember hoping that it WAS broken. I wanted a cast! (That's me as a kid...) The emergency room doctor came back and confirmed it was broken. I got my cast, and boy did I feel great! I got lots of attention. Everyone wanted to sign it. I loved feeling like a big shot for once.

I continued to journal questions about how I could have some say about what was going to happen to me. "It's my life! Why am I the only one who doesn't get a say?" Dee responded... "I wish I knew..." That was it! The last straw!
I became frustrated. She couldn't do anything. Sending me back to live with my mother, was a death sentence. The next day, I conspired with Crystal to run away. (Crystal was up for adoption and had been for a while, older children rarely get adopted.) We both figured we had nothing to lose. We packed our backpacks with extra clothes, food and such. We went to school and instead of coming home from school that night, we walked the opposite direction of home and into the city.

We walked for a long time and were starting to get hungry. We stopped an ate the food that we brought with us on a bus stop bench. After satisfying our hunger we continued walking until we happened upon a gas station. We walked into he gas station, no one was there, but on the counter was a large display of Virginia Slims cigarettes and right next to it a display of lighters. We helped ourselves to a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and went on our way. At the next street corner, Crystal and I opened the pack of cigarettes. We didn't know the difference between regular and menthol, so when we light our cigarettes and took the first puff, we felt like we were enjoying a type of adult candy. The menthol tasted like mint and gave us a cooling feeling as we inhaled the smoke. After my 3rd puff from my cigarette, a woman in a Cadillac stopped at the light and yelled at us... "Do you think you look cool smoking? Do you? Well, you don't! Put those cigarettes out before I call your parents." Crystal and I freaked out...we threw the cigarettes in the gutter and took cover in a nearby Walgreens.

Inside the Walgreens, we decided to browse around for a little while. We found all kinds of goodies. Crystal found a cigarette case for our new smokes. I discovered some make up and hair dye. We agreed that if we were going to be able to continue to be out on our own, we'd have to change the way that we looked so people wouldn't be able to recognize us.

I decided that I would put on make up to disguise myself and Crystal would change her hair color. We easily took all of the items that we wanted, and walked right out of the store with them. No one was the wiser. We walked a few blocks to a college where we found an empty locker room. Crystal dyed her hair and took a shower. I put on make up and changed my clothes. Crystal said that I looked older and that no one would recognize me for sure. Crystal looked pretty much the same, but just different hair, so I told her she would need make up to look older too.

When we left the college, I'm sure that we looked like some kind of cross between a clown and a $2 hooker, but we thought we looked great! We continued along moving further and further into town. Soon, it was night fall and we realized that we didn't know where we were. It looked like a bad part of town, and we were getting scared. We decided that we needed to find a place to stay, only we didn't have any money. We decided that we would make up a story about being kidnapped and say that we were on our way home and just needed a place to stay for the night. (Yes, we were very stupid.) We knocked on the manager's door of a nearby motel. It was a little old lady and a little old man. They were horrified by our story and called the police. We tried to leave with any excuse we could think of, but they wouldn't let us leave.

When the police arrived, they separated us and asked us questions about the kidnappers. Of course our stories didn't match. They drove around and asked us to point out where we were kept at. We pointed out different places...we were caught. Finally, we both just confessed that we were runaways. The police fingerprinted and booked us. They went through our backpacks and asked us where we got the stuff from. We were honest about stealing from Wal-greens. Apparently that store had not even noticed the theft. The police returned everything that was unopened, and the rest, we had to pay back later our of our own money. Our foster parents were very angry. Unfortunately, I don't remember the punishments that we were given, but I'm sure they were fair.

Now, back at the foster home, my foster mother told me that my GAL was coming to talk to me again. She came the next day and talked to me about running away. She asked me why I would do that. I told her that I didn't want to go back to live with my mother and that I would rather take my chances on my own than go back to live with her because I was certain that she would kill me. My GAL said that it wasn't my choice and if the judge decided that I would go back to live with her, then that is what would happen.

I was not happy with that answer. I wouldn't let it go and became very very depressed. I begged to write a letter to the judge on my own behalf since I knew that my GAL didn't care if I went back to my mother's home or not. I was told that was not allowed. I decided that life was not worth living. I found a razor blade and slit my wrists like I had seen in a book. The blood came quickly and I passed out. When I woke up, I found myself in the hospital bandages on my arms. A nurse was standing over me. She looked at me sternly and said "You gave us quite a scare, young lady."

I asked her why they would save me when I was just going to die if they sent me back to live with my mother. I didn't see her there, but Dee was sitting in the corner of the room the whole time. She stood up and came to the side of the bed. "I'll let you write your letter, Heidi. Just promise me that you will try to live from now on."

I promised that I would always try to live as long as they gave me a chance to try to speak for myself to the judge. I started out writing a letter. I told the judge a little about myself. I told him why I didn't want to live with my mother and that I felt that since it was my life, that I should have a say.

Later, I found out that my judge was blind. He had a hard time believing that a child my age could write with such clarity and wisdom. He also found it disturbing that I would rather take my own life than to go back and live with my mother. He asked that I come in to testify and face my mother on the witness stand.

I agreed. That was the very last time I would ever see my mother again.

The day of the court hearing I was marched into the courtroom and sat at the witness stand. My mother waved at me, made faces, and blew kisses at me. It made me want to be sick. The judge asked me if I knew the difference between the truth and a lie, I explained and then I was asked to swear on a Bible. I did as I was asked. I'm not sure exactly how long the interrogation lasted, but it seemed forever. Talking about all of the things my mother and her boyfriends did to me, made me cry. (There were others that I didn't write about in this story, unfortunately it became too difficult to write about all of them. I barely got out the ones that I did.) On this occasion, however, I spilled everything. It took a long time and was extremely painful. My mother became angry and belligerant. She called me an ungrateful little bitch and a few other choice words before she was removed from the court room. I finished my testimony and then my foster mother took me home.

Dee told me what a good job I did and that she was sorry for the way that my mother acted. I was confused as to why she would be sorry for something that my mother did. I told Dee that she shouldn't apologize for other people's actions. She said that sometimes she feels like she needs to. Especially when it's a child that has been hurt. I told her that the only person who should apologise for my mother is my mother. She gave me a hug and took me out for McDonalds. A special, rare and very much appreciated treat for a hard day in court.

Fun Times

A couple of weeks later was my 10th birthday. Two other kids in the house had birthdays within a few days of mine, so our foster parents took us to Casa Bonita. It's a Giant Pink Mexican Restaurant in Colorado. The food's okay, but you don't go to Casa Bonita for the food, you go there for the experience. There are fire eaters, cliff divers, fire dancers and a live mariache band. Their sopapias are the best in all of Colorado. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. It is something that I will never forget!

I absolutely loved this foster home. We always did lots of fun things that I will always remember for the rest of my life. One summer we went on vacation and toured the original 13 colonies and Washington, DC. We saw Arlington cemetary, met some Amish people, pet some farm animals, had a picnic on a grave, watched the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. We saw John F. Kennedy's eternal flame, and even got to see some antique homes and learned about Ben Franklin's inventions. That was very cool.

Another summer, they took us to Florida to the D"Happiest Place on Earth" yes, they took us to Disney World, Epcot Center and Universal Studios! My favorite part at the time was having breakfast with Micky Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Chip and Dale. Dale kept playing around and pushing me off my chair. It was a great time. We didn't get to stay in a fancy hotel. As a matter of fact, all 13 kids and 2 adults camped out in a single room at a Red Roof Inn! Yeah, that was interesting. The girls slept on one bed sideways and the boys slept on the floor. I got stuck on the end of the bed and kept getting rolled off so I ended up sleeping in the bathtub. :)

In the winter we would go skiing, and I got to go to Keystone Science School. We went cross country skiing and learned about nature along the way. It was very educational and fun.

In the fall we would go Alpine sledding. Tons of fun. And in the spring we would go to Praying Hands Ranch where we would get to ride horses, collect eggs from the chickens and experience farm life.

These were the best days of my life and I will treasure them until the day I die. Thank you Dee and Chuck for giving me something wonderful in my life.

If it weren't for Dee and Chuck, I would have never had those wonderful opportunities to be able to see those places and do all of those awesome things, because after 2 years of living in foster care, the state of Colorado located my biological father.

He was living in a little town in Texas. I had never met him before, but I soon learned that this is where I was going to live, like it or not. Even though the judge listened to me, he still felt that the best place for me was with my biological father, even if I had never known him.

Texas (Living with Daddy)

After only a couple of supervised visits, the judge decided that I was to go live with my father. I wrote back to the judge and told him that I didn't think that was fair to just send me to live with a stranger. So, the judge decided that they would send me to Texas to stay at my father's home for 2 weeks and if everything turned out ok, then I would go there to stay.

Everything went well as planned. My father put his best foot forward. They spoiled me rotten, I got to ride their horses, and was even told that I could pick one to be mine, they showed me my room and I felt very special, just like they had always wanted me to live with them. So, when the judge asked me to tell him what I thought about my stay, I told him it went well and that I wouldn't mind staying with them, but I wanted to make sure that I still had contact with my foster parents. Everyone agreed that would be okay and off I went.

I had been staying with my father, step mother and step brother for about a year and everything was going well. I was into riding horses, I got a new ten speed bike for my birthday and things were just going very well. I had even made a new friend at school, named Megan.

Megan and I became best friends quickly. We shared a love of New Kids on the Block and neither of us were very popular at the time. We were both kind of nerdy, wore glasses and didn't have the designer clothes. We were definitely birds of a feather. I became a part of her family along with her mom and her young twin siblings Monica and Eric. She became a part of my family. We were always over at eachother's houses. It was nice having and ally.

One day during the summer, my dad and his friend from down the street decided that they wanted to have a father-daughter camping trip in Arkansas. The neighbor, John would bring his daughter, Julie (who was a year younger than me) and we would stay at their cabin in the hot springs and go swimming and fishing. I had a tearful goodbye with Megan since she couldn't come and off we went. I got along with Julie okay, but I felt that she was a spoiled brat.

Everything went pretty well. We did the swimming thing and the fishing thing...Julie and I found things to do to amuse ourselves when our dads were talking. Until the second night. It got really cold in the upper room that Julie and I were sharing. The dads told us to come downstairs and sleep with them since there were heaters downstairs. I don't know what happened with Julie that night, but I know that my life changed that night. My father molested me for the first time, and after that every night for years to come.

When we got back home from the trip, the first thing that I did was call Megan. She could tell right away that something was wrong, but I didn't want to tell her on the phone because I was afraid that my father would be listening and that he would follow through on his threats. Instead, I asked my father and step mother if I could spend the night at Megan's house because it had been two weeks since I had seen her and I missed her so much.

They agreed. That night I totally unloaded everything that happened on the trip with Megan. She was shocked. Then she told me that sometimes when she was at my house that when my dad would tickle her, he would grab her breasts, but she always just thought that it was an accident. It was now that she realized it was not an accident. We contemplated telling someone, but at this point I realized that if I reported my father, I would have no one. I would go back into the system and I would probably never see Megan again. I couldn't bare the thought.

Life went on. My father continued to do things to me every day. He would wait for my step-mother to leave for work and then would come in my room. I tried to live out the rest of my life as normally as I could. In Jr High I was in athletics. We trained hard and I was on the volley ball and basket ball teams. I actually made jr varsity and was very proud of myself for that accomplishment. However, I started packing on weight. By the end of the year, I gained so much weight that I could no longer participate in practices for athletics. I was eating all the time, anything I could get my hands on, it didn't matter. Eating was my way. I wanted to make myself ugly. I thought that if I was ugly that maybe my father would stop what he was doing to me.

It didn't work, though. The more weight I gained, the more he just made fun of me. The abuse didn't stop, however. I was beginning to feel hopeless. The only solace I had was in listening to the New Kids on the Block. Hearing them sing about love always got Megan and I swooning over the boy dance crew. She liked Jordan Knight. I liked Donny Wahlberg. I never had the nerve to talk to any boys in my class. I knew I was fat and that if I did ask one of them out they would probably laugh at me, so I just saved myself the heartache. I already had my fair share of tormentors. There was this one guy in school who would come up to me every day and make fun of my weight. Sometimes he was so mean about it that I would cry, but I never cried in front of him. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

My freshman year in high school, I got a part time job at Subway. I was getting good grades in school, and working kept me from having to be at home as much so I could stay away from my father. It was there that I met Shawn. Shawn was a "dorky" "geeky" guy. I never really saw him as dating material, so later on when he asked me out...I was floored! I didn't know what to say. Part of me was like "This guy is sooooo not your type...." and another part of me was like "You've never had a date, how do you know what your type is?" So, I finally said yes. We went to Pizza Hut and then to the movie "The Truth About Cats and Dogs". He was very sweet and gentlemanly, although he seemed to have a problem matching his clothes, I really couldn't find any reason to say no to a second date. When I told my parents that I had agreed to a second date, they wanted to meet him. They thought that it must be getting serious.

I called Shawn and told him that he was going to have to come over and meet my parents if they were going to allow me to go on another date with him. He said that was fine and showed up right on time. He was on his best behavior, he handled my father with ease and before I knew it, we were sitting his is old white Ford Station wagon with the avacado apholstry and on our way to First Monday (a very very large flea market held the first Monday of every month in Canton, TX if you are ever in the area, you should check it out). Anyways, the day went well and when he dropped me off at my house, he asked me for a hug in a very cute, shy manner. This got to me. So, I gave him a hug and got out of the car.

Shawn continued to court me never going farther than asking for a kiss on the cheek for 3 months. On my 16th birthday, he took me out for a wonderful night on the town and asked me for a kiss on the lips. He got the kiss...

He stayed gentlemanly the whole time. We continued to date for another year and by his 21st bithday, things had gotten pretty serious between us. That was when we finally did the deed. Directly after that, though, he started talking marriage. That whole idea scared me to death. He asked me to marry him on a weekly basis, then on a monthly basis. I kept telling him no. Megan suggested that we should live together when I turned 18. So we decided to do that. After moving in together, the proposals became a daily occurance. I'll have to give it to him. He came up with a creative way to ask every single day for 9 months before I finally said "yes".

We got married on June 6, 1998 and all went well for about a month, then he got served. He was subpeonaed to show up for a paternity test. What? He promised me that there was no way that child was his and not to worry, the test would show it wasn't his and we would be done with it. I wanted to believe him. However, when the DNA test came back showing that there was a 99.999997 % chance that he was the father, I was devistated...

I thought about my situation and decided that I should try to do the right thing and give him a chance and I forgave him and got to know his son. We spent a lot of time together. I grew to love the little boy. He was autistic and did not speak until he was 4 years old. He was not potty trained until he was 4 either. I learned that his problems were not disabilities. He was very smart, and soon, after working with him quite a bit, he was able to be enrolled in main stream school, instead of special ed.

My husband and I thought that we were having a good life together. We were both working really good, well-paying jobs. We had 2 cars, a nice apartment and just about anything we wanted. Things were going so well, and then one day the carpet was ripped right out from underneath us. We never saved a penny, so when we both lost our jobs due to Microsoft's Anti-trust case, we lost everything. The cars were reposessed. We were evicted from our apartment. We went to live with his mother. His step-father didn't want us to live with them. There was an old trailer that had suffered fire damage at the back of the property. There was no plumbing, no electricity, and only one room had all 4 walls, a ceiling and a floor. That is the room that we used for our bed room. Things looked bleak. We started fighting quite a bit, about money mostly.

One day, my husband's uncle came to visit. He told us that he was from Wisconsin and that he and his wife would be willing to take us in and give us a place to stay until we could find jobs and get on our feet. We weren't too excited about moving to Wisconsin. I only knew about cheese and bratwurst. I have never been a football fan, so I didn't even know or care about the Packers. We had no other choice. My mother-in-law told us that if we didn't go stay with his uncle that we wouldn't have a place to live at all because she couldn't let us stay in the burnt out trailer any more.

I didn't want to go, my husband and I had a huge argument over it, but it ended with him saying "If you love me, you'll do this." So, we moved in with his aunt and uncle in a far away place known for football and cheese. I was scared, I didn't know what would happen. Raymond and Ann were nice at first. They gave us rides to job interviews, paid for all of the groceries and took us out around town to show us around. However, Raymond was an alchoholic. It wasn't long before his true colors were revealed. It started out with him coming home late at night, drunk and trying to get frisky with his wife, who wanted nothing to do with him when he was drunk. This always led to a fight. It eventually got to the point where he was stumbling in and trying to hit on me. I wasn't having that at all. I kicked him in the stomach after his busy hands got a little too busy. I didn't know he also had a heart condition and that blow to the stomach triggered a heart attack.

After Raymond was released from the hospital he was angry at me. He and his wife had a huge fight over kicking us out of their home. His wife told him that she had enough of him and wanted him to get out. Before the week was out, they were getting a divorce and we had to find a place to live. Somehow, someway I had just landed a job at the local cable company and made a new friend named Jennifer. She was kind enough to offer me rides to work, and we were able to use my first paycheck to get ourselves into a one bedroom apartment.

It was very weird and uncomfortable for us for a while. We had absolutely no furniture at all, what so ever! Shawn had brought his computer from Texas with us, so that was our only form of entertainment. No tables, chairs or even a bed. Each weeks paycheck would get a little something. The first week we bought an air mattress, a couple of cheap pots and pans, and continued to work our way up. The whole time I was able to rely on my new friend Jennifer for moral support. She kept encouraging me that we would finally have enough money to get furniture and that things would get better. We had the whole summer to get everything together and save up enough money for a car before the winter hit.

We did finally get some furniture and a tv from Rent a center, and things continued to go well for us. Shawn found a job driving people around for a local temp agency. We were able to use the company van to do our grocery shopping and such.

Before long we found a beater for $500, it was ugly and old and rusted, so we named it Shanaynay.

Jennifer and I were great chums. She and I would talk about just about anything. Since she was single, her main goal was to find a man. I took her shopping for a computer, and over the next couple weeks, she started surfing the net for her next "true love". She found someone on the internet that she really liked. They spent a lot of time on the phone talking and on the internet chatting. I got to hear all of the gory details of their sexy chats on the phone and on the internet.

As a good friend, naturally I worried about her when she said that she wanted to buy a bus ticket for him to come move here!!!! She lived with her grandmother at the time, and she had the same reaction I did. "Are you crazy? He could be an axe murder!" Her grandma said that he could not live at her house, no how, no way!

After Jennifer and I talked to my husband, we finally agreed that he could stay with us. His name was Russell and he turned out to not be an axe murderer after all. He was actually a nice guy. He moved in right before my 21st birthday. The four of us went out for a few drinks. It was a good time.

Over time, four adults living in a one bedroom apartment becomes complicated. It let to disagreements, arguments and fights. Eventually, I kicked them out. I just couldn't take that stuff on top of the discorse between my husband and myself. Our marriage was starting to fail.

Starting to fail...hmmmm...that's an understatement. We seemed to be fighting over everything. Even small things resulted in fights. Eventually, he found that just ignoring me made me more angry than if he argued back, so that is just what he did. He would just act like I wasn't there. After Russ and Jennifer moved out, the couch was free. Shawn started sleeping on the couch. At first, he said that it was because he was staying up late watching TV and falling asleep out there. (I've never been able to stay up all night, so I always went to bed before him anyway.) It got to the point where he would only come visit the bed for marital relations and then would leave again. At that point, I knew that things were really bad. Eventually, he got fired from his job. Shortly thereafter, I was diagnosed with a type of reproductive cancer. I had to recieve treatment. He didn't want to have to deal with it. (That was always his answer "I don't want to deal with this." ) I kept calling him and telling him that I needed his support and to visit me at the hospital. He came once. He then called his mom who came up from Texas to take care of me. Now keep in mind, his mother didn't like me at all, she hated my guts, but she told me that even as much as she didn't like me, she couldn't believe her son was callous enough to abandon me during my time of need. She told him what she thought of his actions many times. One day, he finally had enough, and told her to go home. She did. Three days later, I recieved a box of my belongings from my job. They told me that I was fired. How nice of them. Two months passed by. We were unable to pay our rent. We were evicted.

We were now, jobless, homeless, and in a loveless marriage. What now?

We were either fortunate or unfortunate enough to find a slum lord in the area that was willing to rent a really cheap apartment to us. It was in the less savory part of town, but it would do. I found a job working for a local bank, and my husband got one shortly thereafter. We started replenishing the material possessions that we had to sell in order to move into the craptacular apartment. Our marriage was not improving. I made a new friend at our new apartment building. She lived in the first floor apartment with her granddaughter, boyfriend and foster son. I would go down to her apartment to escape my own life. We would chat, play cards, and I would watch the kids when she needed to go out.

My husband was spending longer and longer hours at work. We were making more money and were able to get a better car, and better furniture. We were eventually able to move upstairs to a larger apartment that was nicer. The only thing that wasn't better about that apartment was that it was on the 3rd floor and there was no elevator. Other than that, you would think that our lives were improving because we had money once again. That is not true. My husband would spend money on whatever he wanted and didn't pay any mind to paying the bills. As a matter of fact, he once spent his entire week's paycheck (over $500) on pokemon cards because he was trying to beat a friend's deck. It was all for nothing because he still lost to the guy. I really don't understand what the heck he was thinking most of the time. He is definitely a person who lives to satisfy himself on the basis of material possessions and entertainment only. He doesn't care about other people's feelings, paying bills or being responsible.

When the Texas government started garnishing his wages for child support for his son, he would just quit his job and get another one. When the government would catch up with him again, he would skip out again. It finally got to the point where it didn't matter that I was unhappy with what he was doing, but he found it inconvienent that he was having to switch jobs and it was putting a damper on him being able to purchase things to entertain himself. The big screen tv, the video game systems, the computers, they were never enough. He always had to buy more things and have someone to brag about them to. His friend, Russell was always having to be shown off to. If Shawn got a new "toy" he had to show it off. I could tell that Russell didn't like it. As a matter of fact, Shawn had lost many a friend because of his boastful nature. He didn't have the social skills to understand why they would stop inviting him over, stop calling and eventually just stop talking to him altogether.

All of Shawn's faults were adding up. After Russell, Jennifer, Shawn and I decided to become friends again. I just couldn't get along with Jennifer. She had asked me to go to the emergency room and make up a story in order to get some Vicodin for her. When I told her that I wouldn't do it, she was upset with me. Then she told me that if I was a real friend that I would do it. I told her that we couldn't be friends, then. Shawn and Russell continued to be friends despite the fact that Shawn was too boastful.

Shawn would tell Russell and Jennifer how awful I was, and they wanted to help Shawn. They wanted to hook him up with someone else. I was unhappy too.

I really didn't know what to do or which way to turn. Let's just say that I ended up doing some things that I'm not proud of. I am not regretful for Shawn's sake, let me make myself perfectly clear. I later found out that he had been cheating on me the entire time that we were together, so I don't feel bad for his sake at all. What I do feel bad about is the friend that I lost because of my betrayal of her trust and friendship and because of what it said about my mental state and character at the time. I don't like that part of myself or my life at all. I regret that I made that poor choice.

When Shawn found out, he became suspicious. He raped me that night and said, "I'll show you who you belong to." It may sound silly, but that was really when the light went on in my head and I made up my mind that I had to leave. However, that became quite a task. Since I wasn't working, Shawn basically had control of the finances. He would wait for his direct deposit to go in, and then immediately withdraw it before I could get my hands on any of it.

He kept a tight reign on everything at that point. Next thing I knew, we were moving to Appleton so we would be closer to his work and farther away from the person that I had betrayed him with.

His brother, Brian was just let out on parole. He came up to Wisconsin from Texas to live with us. Brian was supposed to get a job and save up some money so he could get on his feet. That didn't work out so well. Brian and Shawn didn't get along. Shawn was also suspicious that Brian and I were up to no good. Here's the thing, though. Shawn was from one end of the gene pool in that family, and Brian was from what appeared to be a whole different ocean than his brother. Brian looked like a model that you might see in GQ magazine, while Shawn was more like someone you might see in Nerd's Weekly.

Brian was not interested in me at all. Shawn was not convinced because when we were in high school, Brian had asked me out over and over only to be turned down by me every time. Why? Back then, he was a skinny little stoner with nothing going for him, not even looks.

To Be Continued...

RiddleGirl's Rants and More

Friday, September 12, 2008

Psychic Vampires

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Big Brother 10 = Big Excitement!

Friday, August 29, 2008

Ollie and Michelle on HouseCalls today...

Sunday, August 24, 2008

What's the Parents Job?

Saturday, July 19, 2008

My Life Story (An ongoing project)