My Life: Compacted

Mine is such the long and complicated story. While never boring, and never without some sort of crisis in my life, the cycle seemingly remains unchanged.

The basics:

My birth mother (H) came to America from Germany with my birth-grandmother (E) when H was about 4. My birth grandfather was polish, and that's all I know about him.

E put H into an orphanage almost immediately, and H remained there until she turned 18. A few years later, she met my birth father, (J), who was married with children.

H is severely mentally ill with schizophrenia and depression, both of which she passed along to me.

J wished nothing to do with H or myself. The last time J saw me, we were all in H's car at her apartment in White Plains, NY. She said he was holding me and they were talking about things. He told her how it was, looked at me for a long moment, said 'cute kid', gave me back to her, and was gone.

Many years later, H admitted to me she tried to kill me at least three times. She never did tell me why.

Finally, when I was this adorable child at 18 months- H chose to put me into foster care.



My first foster family loved me so much they wanted to adopt me, but they could not attain an adoption license. I've yet to figure that out, after all these years. After a year, I went on to my second foster family. They hated me, and I never felt like a part of their family. Not once was I told I was loved, and only once was I held, and that was the result of being accused of something that was later determined I didn't do. That part of the story doesn't matter, though, because what I went through in that home pales much in comparison to the monster I was forced to live with.

After six years, and much heartache, I went to a third foster family. By then, I was so messed up, and I know they got much more than they bargained for. They tried, but I needed a lot more help than they could give.

In 1980, the State of New York decided that my smiling baby face would be better served by being in an environment which caused this:



Just a few months after I was placed with a single lesbian woman, (K) and months before she adopted me, K molested me.

After she quit molesting me, she began with severe emotional abuse, which led to phsyical abuse; abuse so horrible that I prayed countless times for death.

I was never heard, and K was permitted to continue what she was doing, even after I finally summoned the courage to tell my school guidance counselor and CPS was called. They took her side...

Since that 'case' was closed, I no longer had the ability nor the right to stop her, according to the laws of the State of New York.

Emotionally, I finally shut down save for the awful rage which burned deeply in the back burners of my already tortured and frayed mind.

The rage finally overcame my weaknesses and fear, and I began fighting back with K- physically. She was a big woman, and was stronger than some men, so I always lost.

Finally, when I was 16, I knew I had to get out. While I still wanted nothing more than to leave this Earth, I sure didn't want it to be by her hand, and that was coming. She was more than willing to let me go, and I spent the rest of my senior year in high school with a family whom she paid. When I graduated high school at 17, I was completely on my own. However, I was clueless about life on my own, and I took to the streets and the drink. I stayed on the streets for several months, and while it was rough, I have to say it was the most peaceful time mentally of my life.

At 19, I decided to join the Army. But I had one thing to do before I left...

I did about 10 minutes of searching and found my birth mother living in the same apartment I was born in. I wrote her a heartfelt letter and slipped it under her door- never expecting anything- and went back to my rented room to get ready to leave for the military.

The phone was ringing when I got home. H was on the phone and wanted to see me; after 15 years, we were to meet face to face once again.

That meeting went very well. We met once more before I left for the Army, and during my training, she and her husband moved to St. Augustine, FL. I visited a few times, but each visit became more and more rocky. We no longer have contact...

After 3 years and newly married, I left the Army to have my first child. I was so proud! Proud that I had seemingly broken the cycle in my birth genes in that my children would actually have a father!

That elation was very short-lived. I had so many issues that I'd never dealt with, and so much had happened that I was not the woman my husband believed me to be. We'd had two children together, and when they were still babies, he left me for another woman and took the children.

My emotional stability at this time was almost gone, and one of my issues that I still work on is security; I'd never had the foundation of security to help with my feelings of self-worth.

I unconsciously began seeking any man who would pay attention to me. I didn't realize this at the time, but I was setting myself up to fall right back into the cycle of my birth mother, and her mother by having children with men who didn't want to be fathers.

Within two years of my divorce, I'd had two more children by two different men who both are absent fathers, one of whom lives less than one mile from us.

I am now a single parent to two beautiful children, and I'm an absent, but still very caring 'mother'? of my first two children. I haven't had contact with them for several years because I was so afraid of hurting them anymore by not visiting often, and not being able to give them what I, as a parent, wished to.

They have a good father, and while I miss them greatly daily, they are much better where they are. I hope one day they will know my decision to leave their lives was due to love, not my rejection of them as H's decision regarding me was.

I have learned so much and yet- I still have so much to learn. And every day, I have the as yet unanswered questions:

Why me? I was so cute! I know now that we each are born with value and worth, so why, for so long, did I feel otherwise? Why do I still question myself, knowing what I know?

My issues- Lord, every day I struggle. Self-esteem, self-worth, confidence, trust- combined with major depression, schizophrenia, some OCD- you name it, I deal with it.

Perhaps because I was lied to so often during my childhood, I learned to lie myself- by hiding. I hide my pain daily in public. To talk with me in a general conversation, one would never know I struggle as I do.

Yet when I'm alone, the rage, depression, and great waves of sadness and confusion begin their daily and inevitable crests toward the boiling point of roiling emotions gone wild.

As much as I crave aloneness- (I'm never lonely)- I still fear the few instances of complete peace and quiet I'm blessed with because my mind always begins and ends with one soul- K.

Her abuse of me did more damage than all the other pain combined in my 39 years.

But what pains- and angers- me the most is her complete lack of willingness to take responsibility and take back the burden she forced onto my shoulders, and into my heart, so many years ago.

To know that she is active in young teenage girls' lives terrifies me, for there are so many emotionally vulnerable girls out there- just as I was- who are at risk for repeating my own teenage years.

But when all is said and done, I know I am blessed, despite the emotional turmoil.

What I have been through- what I have seen- what I have felt- still, I have learned. Once upon a time, my past all but consumed my mind and my spirit. I was a victim, and I was broken.

I am learning to survive and one day, I hope to be victorious.