Thank you for choosing to come to this page! I have learned so much about life, myself, and human nature during my misadventures that the urge to share it with others sometimes encompasses me. So I chose to share it here.

   The purpose to telling my story is first and foremost for myself. Speaking out and telling my story has been the biggest source of comfort for me for many years. If my story is able to help others along the way, I would definitely feel a sense of the greatest accomplishment. I would NEVER want anyone else to have to go through what I have with no support system. I am always here to talk if you need me.

   I grew up without a father, as so many of us do nowadays it seems. My parents were divorced before I was even a year old. My mother was never around much, always working, but still I always assumed I had her love nestled deep within the pocket of my soul, and my early years were happy ones while I held that knowledge within.

   When I was seven, my mother met someone she said was "special". Very shortly after that, this "special" man moved in, and even more shortly after that, began sexually abusing me. If you want to know more about that dark part of my life, I am more than happy to share it here. PLEASE NOTE, however, that this page is PASSWORD PROTECTED, and you MUST e-mail me for the password. I will gladly give it to anyone seeking to empower themselves through the stories of others, but I chose to protect it, as the subject matter is much too mature for young readers.

   This continued until I was 11 years old. By then I was a completely different person. I was moody, I lied, and I was obsessed with nude pictures (you'd think someone would have noticed something then wouldn't you?). I finally got up the nerve one night to tell my mother what had been happening. My mother's first reaction was to get HIM into the room, and I immediately clammed up in the face of that terrifying confrontation. So, ultimately, my mother assumed I was lying. I hope that this never, ever happens to any other child. My sense of trust and love in my mother was completely destroyed. I felt betrayed, and felt as if she had abused me as surely as HE had. And to make matters worse, the very next year my mother married him. By this time, the sexual abuse had ended, perhaps because he was afraid I would get the guts to tell someone who would really listen, but as that phase ended, the physical abuse started. It was never very bad, I never had any bruising or scarring, but my mother ALWAYS knew that this particular abuse went on. But I know now that the man and the money (my stepfather was very wealthy) had a firm hold on her.

   A year into their marriage, he was cheating. My mother was so mad, she suddenly "remembered" my previous allegation of abuse. Looking back, and knowing my mother now as I did not then, I know she looked at the abuse as an opportunity to get out of the relationship not only with alimony, but other money as well. (Please continue reading to the end before judging me in my opinion of my mother.) So she now "believed" me, and we left. One month later I was in a psychiatric hospital for trying to kill myself. I was there for 5 months. It was a great help to me in beginning the recovery process that had been so delayed. My mother also began to get help, and revealed abuse in her own past that she began to deal with. I think if only she had continued in therapy as I did, things may have turned out differently.

   After the hospital, I continued therapy twice a week until I went to college some 3-odd years later. I was also on anti-depressants for about 2 years. Meanwhile, the court case against my stepfather was slowing pushing onward....without much success. We finally agreed to settle out of court. My stepfather was an extremely influential man in the community we lived in, and had the means to potentially pay off any judge we may have landed. In addition, there were many, many other parents and children who came forward to US to state that he had abused THEM or their children as well in that past, but NOONE was willing to stand with us in court. So we settled shortly before my 16th birthday. I had just been accepted into Boston University, with a major in pre-med, so the settlement was agreed at $21,000 a year for 8 years, until I was done with med school. He also had to come to one of my therapy sessions and apologize to me in person, and pay other various expenses, such as the days of my hospital stay that the insurance didn't cover, and the remaining cost of my car that he had begun payments on. Well, the therpay session was a joke, You know what he told me? That he SEXUALLY abused me because "my mother did not love me". He felt that he was showing me LOVE by doing that. I thought I would throw up, but you know, hearing that sick statement was another milestone in my own road to recovery. I knew then that I could only depend on myself to heal, and that others did not have the answers, or anything that I wanted to hear for that matter.

   Anyway, off I went to college and what I thought would be a new and wonderful life. I had agreed that until I was 18 I would just let my mother handle the expenses and such, then I would set up my own bank account especially for the money that would come every year for my education. Such a chance was never to come, however. During my second year of college, my mother called one day to say that there was no more money. You see, at the court date, my stepfather was given 2 years to set up an annuity fund for the money he owed me. That meant he was supposed to put ALL of the money into an account, to be distributed to me by the annuity company. My mother told me that he had never done it, and that he had sold his company and had no money, AND that the court was no longer making him pay, and there was nothing that could be done. How I WISH I had been older and wiser. But what could I, an 18 year old baby, have possibly guessed about the lies, deceit, and fraud going on around my very life???

   Well, my school career was over. My second year grades had slipped a bit, and I had changed majors, so I was not able to get a scholarship, and there just wasnt enough money in loans to be had to pay the $25,000 that the price of B.U. had then risen to. So I quit school and started working full-time at the place I had up until then been part-time at. I did alright for a while. I had my own studio apartment, 2 cats, enough money for fun, a job that I loved. I had a friend that needed a place to stay, and I let her crash with me. We had a blast in my little tiny room. *G* Then I met a guy. I was absolutely nuts about him. Well, three was DEFINITLY a crowd in that teeny place, so my friend moved out. I met another girl, and we decided to get a 2-bedroom in the same building. Well, 2 months later I found out I was pregnant. The "boy" I was so crazy about got the heebie-jeebies and left three days later. My roommate did NOT want to deal with kids, and 2 weeks after that, she was gone as well. Just little old me making $800 a month with $670 rent. I stayed as long as I was able, then had to quit my job and go into a homeless shelter. Why didn't I move back with my mother? Well, it was my mess, wasn't it? I was trying to fix it as best as I could on my own. And I knew that we had always had trouble in the same house. So I did what I had to do. I asked her for just a little money, but she claimed she had none. Meanwhile she bought a new sportscar and a new house. Pretty good with no extra money, huh?

   So I had my wonderful, beautiful son, and I moved into my own apartment that was still a part of the homeless shelter. I lived there for nearly 18 months, going through application after application for permanent housing, and getting nowhere. Finally, I suppose I had hit my limit. I finally agreed to move back with my mother.

   She came to get me and we drove back in a rent-a-van. When we got there, I found the car she had bought just for me. Little did I realize that such an auspicious homecoming would turn so sour. I had no money, and wanted a job so badly. But I had no babysitter, and my mother would not help me pay for one. My mother told me to go on interviews with him. Needless to say, I did NOT ever get a job. She gave me 5 dollars a week for gas to go on these interviews, and she also required me to enroll in the local community college (again taking my son everywhere I went). I was getting very frustrated, but still, I was grateful that I was allowed to live there, even though I could not receive any phone calls when she was there and every time I made a phone call in my fledgling attempts at making friends, she was on top of me asking who it was. I thought I was 21, not 15???? Anyway, I had been there about 5 weeks when she went on vacation to Europe. Even though she had "no money", she was going. So, she left for 10 days, leaving me with my son and $30.

   During one of those days, I was taking a shower, and my son accidentally got into my mother's room and into some papers. When I came in and began picking up the papers, I saw my name. Of course I read them. What I found shook me to my very core. My own mother's handwriting, signing MY name to checks, legal documents, bank statements and signature cards. I was dumbfounded. Not only had the money from the court settlement been coming in every year in MY name, but my mother had actually forged my name on a BANK signature card and opened an account in both our names so that she could put the checks in there.

   Well, after that is kind of a blur, but I went to the bank and closed the account immediately. I regret now that I never sued the bank, but I think my only thought was getting AWAY from my mother...as far away as I could. I packed up and left her house. I stayed in the area for a few months so that I could give handwriting samples and such to the state's attorney's office. But when they searched her house and found a DETAILED map to where I was now living, I decided it was time for me to move back to Boston. I was not really sure WHAT, if anything, she would do. I didn't seem to know her at all. I also found out she had taken out an insurance policy on my son, which is ILLEGAL in that state without the signature of a parent of legal guardian. I think I knew my own sanity limits, and in order to save myself, I had to get away from the madness. I already knew I was not going to get much help from the criminal court, because they decided not to prosecute, and instead ordered her to pay restitution. I decided not to persue the issue in civil court for my own personal reasons.

   Before I left to go back to Boston, she called me. She told me that she only took the money because she thought if I didn't have money I would have to come home, and she missed me. Why does this ring so untrue? I think a person should KNOW that it is unlawful to use someone else's name, and should KNOW that taking $84,000 out of the mouths of children is WRONG, no matter what the reason. Besides, if she wanted me home that badly, all she had to do was ask. She even had the rest of my family believing that what she had done was OK and normal. I still have a feeling of disbelief when I think of this, even after all these years.

   It was almost 7 years before I again to my mother or anyone else in my family. For me, at that point in my life, that was what I needed to do. I do love my mother, I always will, but I needed to protect myself and my sons from someone who I feel needs help. I wish I had more answers, for myself or anyone else. Now that I am speaking to her again, we never talk about the things that have happened. I think it's easier for both of us. My sons need to know their grandmother, but I also need to keep my distance a bit.

   Take a moment to look at and hold your child and affirm to yourself how truly special a gift they are, and remind yourself to think before you do anything that YOU think is good for them.

  
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