As a little girl, about kindergarten age, I learned from family members that my dad, the man who’d been raising me, was not my real father. He and my mother had my brother and then divorced one another by the time I was 6.
My moms side of the family has a LOT of problems and I was not special, their problems became my problems and they were always painful. My mother wanted to wait until I was more socially mature before she broke the news to me that my dad was not my real dad but my crazy family had other plans. (They do rotten things to hurt one another, children are easy pawns I guess…)
A little child like that worships their parents and the sun rises and sets in their eyes. They are like god to you at that age. I was devastated when I was told that my daddy was not the man who brought me into this world. I was hurt and confused and lost. The man that had been raising me, who loved me like his own flesh and blood, and whos family took me right in, was not my real dad?
In an instant, I felt totally alienated. I felt abandoned and lied to. These are big feelings for such a small person to handle! I was very confused and as a child i wondered why my biological father didn’t want me? What had I done to cause him to run away? Was I not worthy of his love? These questions plagued me my entire life. The man raising me, my dad, felt hurt too and our relationship changed drastically. We tried to resume our father daughter relationship the best we could because he would take my brother on the weekends and we loved each other!
He soon remarried and the woman was my previous babysitter and our families were close friends. I knew her almost my whole life and I adored her so much! I’ve always been creative and she would do crafts with me and read to me and give me little trinkets and such. I thought she was so cool 🙂
My dad ended up marrying this woman when I was about 7. Things were great at first but once she moved into my dad’s place, her mask came off. She started off just belittling me and calling me names and slapping me on my butt but it soon escalated. I remember crying myself to sleep in fear while they were on their honeymoon. This woman HATED me. She hated me because of her jealousy of my mother and she hated my brother too. This is where the story takes an interesting turn which I’ll cover in my next blog about her.
Back to the story if my father first. She made life unbearable for me and abused me in some pretty heinous ways. I pleaded for my dad to believe me that my brother and I were being starved and abused, but she had dug her talons into him so deeply that he just thought I was making it up and called me a liar, repeatedly. I reached out for help to do many adults but no one would help me. No one would listen.
I’d sit and cry and pray for my biological father to come in and save me but he never came… Eventually, the stress “i” was causing in my dad’s marriage caused him to send me back with my mother but he kept my brother. I wanted to stay with him but I knew my life was in danger because of his wife. He did ask me where I wanted to go but was forced to say that I wanted to be with my mom.
When my mother found out that my dad was going to keep my brother but send me back with her, she dropped my bother and I off with our dad for our weekend visit and said she was helping friends move and she’d be back to get me. When it was time for her to come back, she never came. My dad took me, packed up my suitcase, and dropped me off on the doorstep to my grandpas house. There was no one home that day so he sat me on my suitcase and told me not to move until someone came home. He pulled out of the drive way and that was that.
A piece of me died that day. My bio dad had left me, my surrogate dad had left me, and my mother was gone without a trace. There I was, about 9 or 10 years old, all alone on my suitcase in front of an empty house with no where to go. I truly felt unwanted. I probably don’t have to tell you what total abandonment does to you mentally but it’s total hell.
A few weeks at my grandpas had passed and I was sleeping in my mother’s bed in her room every single night, (we were staying there at the time) hoping she was still alive and that she’d come back to me someday. In the meantime, my family were trying to figure it what to do with me. Who would take me in? Where should I go? To the state? I guess that’s almost where I ended up… My aunt and uncle decided that they’d let me stay with them. I was delighted because my most favorite cousin lived there. We are only 30 days apart and were always very close.
While I was living there, she told me lots about my bio dad. They were great friends and that he’d loved me very much and wanted to be in my life. I was told that he bought me presents every year for Christmas and kept them all in his closet all wrapped up hoping he’d get to see me and that he even carried my picture in his wallet. I was informed that my mother would not allow us to have a relationship and that’s why he wasn’t there. He wanted it, I wanted it, but it wasn’t in the cards.
Meanwhile, I was told that my mother was probably dead and no one had heard from her. I went on believing that for some time until my pain and curiosity got to me. It got so bad that I was secretly saving my lunch money up so I could try to get my mother’s face put on a milk carton as a missing person! The stress was unbearable and i was going hungry and looked very frail. When my aunt and uncle found out about my plan, they finally came out and told me that my mother was still alive. She was living in Seattle Washington.
After months and months of wanting to die, fear, grief, and pain, I got to hear her voice. I was totally overcome by emotions and remember not being able to even speak to her at first because I was crying and sobbing so hard. She decided to fly me out there to visit and while I was there, she told me that she was going to come back home. I flew across the country and back at 11 years old completely alone! It was crazy!
When my mother eventually came back home she got a house and moved me back in with her. About that time I became very curious as to where my bio dad was. I just went through some major shit and my mom and dad were going through a hellacios custody battle over my brother. He HAD to be living a better lifestyle than I was and I wanted to be with him.
My mother had told me that his parents totally hated and rejected us. She said that the last time she saw them, they called me a little bastard and my mother a whore and she didn’t every want to see them again but I begged her to take me to their home so I could prove that for myself and she actually obliged!
So there we were, we were actually driving to my biological father’s parents tiny little house in the ghetto and actually heard gun shots in the neighborhood! When we pulled up my mom would not let me out of the car, so only she went up. As I watched from the car I saw my “grandmother” slam the door right in her face. She tried to talk to them but they refused to tell him that we’d been there and would not give us his number or any info.
For years and years I searched for him..
When I was 17, I already had a child and I so desperately wanted him to meet my father. I had found out a few things about him throughout the years, like he was a police officer and he still lived in Ohio. I told my mother that I thought that I was close to finding him (thank you interwebz) and she went to the child support agency and used their resources to get in touch with him. They found him!!!!! After 18 long and painful years, I was about to look the man that made me right in the eyes.
When the day finally came, I couldn’t sleep the night before, I was tired and nervous. I had sweaty palms and a constantly turning stomach! When he walked into the room for the first time…. I felt at peace. There was an instant connection and love DID exist.
We went out to eat together, we talked on the phone, I got to meet his wife and his other two children, we talked music and comedy!! He told methat he was still in fact a police officer and he worked and lived in Dublin and was a catholic. He and his family were very well taken care of and life was great for him. He did tell Mr about his relationship with my mother and he did explain why he was never there. He told me the same thing that my aunt had, that my mother was the reason and that she had prevented all contact.
We cried a lot when we saw one another and by just hanging out, we found out just how much we were alike. We were both musicians, listened to a lot of the same music, big jokesters, liked art, etc. I was just like him. I have his eyes and his mannerisms. It was beautiful to finally feel that connection.
I just started to feel like things were actually going to start to become normal when I got the call. It was my dad on the other line telling me he was dying…. He was diagnosed with ALS and I had to watCH him wither away and die not even a year later. I was holding his hand when he took his last breath. I was 20.
There were, and still are, a lot of unanswered questions. I never saw or was invited to his home, never met his friends, we never got to have a beer together… Never one baseball game or a hug on xmas morning. I finally had a chance to be with him and like that- He was gone.
My mother remarried soon after she got back from seattle, I was 12. She married a man that I respect and love very much and they are still together to this day. He is the old school type that doesn’t really do feelings but he provided me with a home and was there to help if I ever needed it. He adores my son and has always been a wonderful father figure to him. (He never had kids off his own) We don’t do much talking but both of us know we love each other and that’s good enough for me.
These days my brothers father and I only really see one another on holidays, (if I show up, sometimes I just don’t want to see his wife, my step-monster) We love each other a lot but life has put some really tricky roadblocks in our path. Things are, to put it nicely, complicated. I have attempted to have heart to heart convos with him but they never get anywhere. Our relationship continues to be rocky and my crazy step-monster and has done every possible thing that she could to keep us apart.
I think my dad has finally learned what type of woman he has married and I can see a lot of regret on that man’s face when I look into it. I hope one day we can be close again. It’s a work in progress for sure but I’m not going to give up.
This was just a small piece of my story. It is a watered down version of the whole story and I’ll be writing more about my step mom next. That is probably going to be a few parts long, lol. Thanks for reading.
Stories about a girl 