Childhood Memories-The Healing

When I started this bit on my childhood memories someone asked me how I got over it, so I thought that would make a good (semi) final post on the subject. I say SEMI because for now I am putting these post to a rest. If something pops in my head I will post it, but I am not going to try to make it a regular part of my blogging.

I can’t say I am healed to be honest. I did see several counselors through the years, and I seem to have baffled each one. They all released me saying I was fine and surprised that I could go on like I do.

What IS healing?

Forgetting?  Nope haven’t done that..

Forgiving? Not too sure if I have or haven’t…

Letting go? That I have mostly done

Stop Crying over it? I never cried over it to begin with

Moving On? How else can one survive?

I have moved on. YES it happened.. It happened to ME..  I couldn’t stop it, I was a child and my life was not my own in anyway.  I don’t hate the abusers. I also am not sad that one killed himself either.

So to answer the question:

How Did I Heal?

I picked myself up and with a step at a time I moved forward and made my own life.

Childhood Memories-The Adoption

6 to 8yrs, Texas

After my adopted parents picked me up in Arkansas they started trying to adopt me. They were not family and the attorney told them they had no chance of being able to adopt me. This was a private adoption against the birth mother’s will. TOTALLY unheard of in Texas.

My bio-mom did sign a paper that signed her rights away. She has told me since then, when I was an adult, that she was told the paper would allow them to take care of me and she didn’t realize it was relinquishing her parental rights.

My adoptive parents had witnesses of the physical and mental state I was in when I came back from Arkansas that stood up in court for my adoptive parents, and against my bio-mom.

The abuse from my adoptive father had already started.

I had my own “advocate” that talked to me for less than 10 minutes to find out my wishes when I was 8 years old and the final day of the adoption hearing process.  The advocate asked me if I wanted my adoptive parents to adopt me. I did say yes and he asked why. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I am sure it had to do with not being left with other people and not being abused. My bio-mom never hit me, but I can’t say I was never abused by the families and people she left me with.  Yes, I knew what my adoptive father was doing was not right. At 8 I knew the difference of the lesser of two evils.

I also had to talk to the judge and ask to be adopted.  The judge was very nice and I remember him giving me a small toy to play with while he talked to me. Basically I told him the same thing, that I wanted to live with my adoptive parents. I was already calling them Mom and Dad.

The adoption was granted that day. I vividly remember turning around in the back seat of the car watching my bio-mom walk from the county court house crying. I was crying a bit too. I knew at 8 that I was better off but I still would always miss my bio-mom knowing I chose a better life.

Now days my adoption would NEVER have happened, at least not with the parents that adopted me. Now there are background checks and counseling as a part of the process. My parents would not have passed the checks. My adopted mother had a history of mental illness and my adopted father had other children and did not pay child support.

I hold no bad feelings for either one of my mother’s. As a mother myself I know we do the best that we can with what we have. I do have contact with both mother’s. Neither one is a major part of my life at this time.

Childhood Memories-Hitchhiker

5 years old, AR

Bio-father drove an old pick-up truck. Bio-father, sister, and I were in the truck driving somewhere. There was a lady hitchhiking on the side of the road. He stopped to give her a lift. I thought she was beautiful. tall, long legs, tanned skin, and with long dark hair.

I never knew where she was going, but she ended up living with us and sleeping in his bed. I don’t remember too much about her. I don’t recall her ever being mean to us either. We were a family.

Childhood Memories- The See-Saw

5 years old, AR

I was always small for my age. Even grown I have never made it past 5 feet tall with out high heels on. Because of my size I was picked on a lot. I was also very afraid of heights. Meaning anything over 2 inches above the ground

I was on a one piece metal see-saw (very similar to this) and several kids sat on one side so that I stayed up in the air. I was crying to for them to let me down. It seemed like ages that I was up there. The teacher didn’t even come to help. She only watched. I was learning at a young age what it was like to be bullied.

Childhood Memories-The Shower

5 years old, AR

I don’t remember details which is probably for the best. I remember having to take a shower with him and laying in bed with him naked.

As a adult I have had contact with his daughter and she doesn’t remember anything.

She is my sister, yes, my bio-half sister. He is my bio father. The one that my mother followed to Alabama.

At the age of 5 I couldn’t understand why he hated me so much, and she could do no wrong. Now I see.  I wasn’t wanted by my biological mother or father as a child.

Childhood Memories – Tiles

5 yrs, AR

I am standing in the small tiled bathroom with my back facing the wall. He is asking me something. I shrugged my shoulders. He yelled at me and told me if I shrugged my shoulders one more time he would throw me through the wall. He asked me the question again. I shrugged my shoulders as I said, “I don’t know”.  He picked me up by the sides of my arms and threw me back first against the wall.

My C3 and C4 vertebrae in my neck is fused together from that. I have a severe pinched nerve that bothers me at times that runs like an electric shock through my mouth, one side of my face, and down my neck.

Bio-mom left me there because he was beating her. What about her little daughter?

Childhood Memories – Carrots

5yr-AR

I have NEVER liked cooked carrots. They make my gag at their texture. I have always had that reaction to them.  HE was determined I would eat cooked carrots.

He sat me and his daughter down at our little plastic table with a plate of mashed potatoes with carrots mashed in them. I told him I couldn’t eat them and they make me sick. He was yelling at me to eat them. Telling me he even gave me less than his daughter and I was older. With tears running down my face I was crying that carrots make me throw up. He told me if I threw them up I would eat that too.

He force fed me the potatoes and carrots.

Yep.. It happened.. I threw them up..

No, he didn’t make me eat it, but he did put my face close to it on the floor before sending me to my room.

Even before that day cooked carrots made me sick. To this day I can eat very few of them no matter how they are cooked. Possible food allergy??

Childhood Memories- The Snowman

5yrs-AR

Growing up in the south the first 5 years of my life I never saw or played in snow before. It snowed good that year. The three of us got out in the snow  and playded, made snow angels, and a rather large to me snowman.
When I came home from school I would see it in our yard a little ways back. At this time I walked to and from school alone since bio-mom had left.

One day I came home and the snowman had started melting. The dad asked me what I had done to the snowman to make it look like that. I was 5 and had never seen snow before. I didn’t understand it melted. I started crying that I didn’t do anything to it. It wasn’t my fault.  I cried tears that day I was so upset.

I don’t recall if he told me how snow worked or not that day. There was no mother there to comfort me.

Childhood Memories- My New Dad

5yrs, AR

We moved into a mans house on a hill. He was raising his daughter who was a couple of years younger than me with raven black hair. I always loved her long black hair. He adored her. We girls shared a room and a bed.

I had to walk to school literally up hill both ways. The school (I was in Kindergarten) was on another hill. bio-mom would walk with me. There was a little corner store where I would get this stuff that you put on the end of a little straw and would you would blow through the straw to make this plastic like bubble/ball. It smelled horrible!! I thought it was the neatest stuff in the world!

Bio-mom did not stay long before she left me there. She left because he was beating her. She later told me that he wanted me to finish the school year so he made me stay.

Any excuse to not have to deal with me. At 5 I was already used to that.

Childhood Memories- The Bus Ride

5yrs old- TX to AR

Within the next few days after Thanksgiving bio-mom and I took a bus to Arkansas.  I remember playing with a Raggedy Andy plastic doll that was held together by elastic cords, You could move the limbs, body and head all around.

It was night. The bus pulled into a lighted place. We stayed in the bus while the other passengers got off. I played quietly with my little doll. The passengers got back on the bus and the bus pulled away.

I looked at my bio-mom and told her I was hungry. She told me I should have said something when the bus had stopped. She never told me that the stop was to get something to eat. How as a 5 year old to know? All I could do was go hungry again in silence…again..