Tension, Anger & A Show (13)

Each day on the farm was getting more interesting and at the same time more frustrating. With each passing day, I was more convinced that I was hated and not wanted. Nothing I desired to with my life seemed to matter to anybody in that house.  The family was getting more entangled with the ATIA  church and home school curriculum and it seemed like the adopted parents were getting more brainwashed into believing things that just weren't so.
 For instance, the ATIA group believed that college was never intended for girls and that for them to go to college would tempt them to do things and become people that were rebellious or always into boys. They believed that young girls were supposed to learn how to become homemakers, stay at home moms who always were sewing clothes, or baking bread from scratch all day long. Girls were supposed to taught how to love and respect their husbands and how to not to be rebellious towards them and be submissive.  Everything that was being taught inside this ATIA group was just twisted and it was being taught inside the church, from behind the pulpit. We were always being preached to about always being right with God, and never being out from His umbrella of protection and authority. We were always being taught how to live by the letter of the law from God’s word and rarely were we taught about Grace and Mercy! It was almost like we weren't deserving of His grace and mercy. 

So, with that said, the day that the adopted mom sat my brother and I down to ask us what we wanted to do with our lives, we might as well have not said anything at all. I remember telling her that I wanted to be in the medical field, I think I remember specifically wanting to be a paramedic and or working as a nurse. Well, of course that idea a few weeks later was shot down because, first, she thought since I wanted to be a paramedic that I just wanted to be someone special or important and she thought that was wrong and then second, in order for me to go into the medical field I would have to attend college and since college was evil for girls, that was totally out of the question. I remember her telling me that she and my adopted Dad wanted me to learn how to be a ‘homemaker’, how to take care of a family and one day be a good wife. I remember thinking to myself, I already know how to clean a house, cook what few meals she was willing to teach me to make, I knew how to do laundry, I could teach the other siblings, so what more was there to do?
 I was never allowed to learn how to sew because the adopted mother knew how to do that and any thing that anybody else knows how to do and might have a chance of doing it better than her was not allowed. She was so unbelievably competitive and it would hurt me so much later in life. So, I was never really taught how to prepare a meal, or how to sew, or taught anything really.

Sitting there that day as she told me want she and my adopted Dad wanted for me, I just felt doomed. I was going to be stuck here in this house with her who was so unwilling to teach me anything and I just hated the idea of being stuck in that house until I turned forty.

Every day was becoming harder to get through. Michael and I were never allowed to just go about and do what was expected of us or what needed to be done. We were not even allowed to get out of the bed in the morning until the adopted mother told us to and when we were finally told, we were expected to go straight into the bathroom, change our clothes, brush our teeth and get our hair brushed and ready for the day. If we didn't do it fast enough, we got fussed at, if I didn't brush or put my hair up right, she would yell at me or like she did one day at the Retreat Center, just cut it off. Yes, she did that. We were out there one morning and I was supposed to always wear my hair a certain way, the front from the bangs would get pulled all the way back in a clip and then the rest of it which was rather long would get pulled back into a hair tie. I wore my hair that way every single day. There were days where she would try to get it to fix right or do something different with it but because it was thick and it curled naturally, it would never work ‘perfectly’ the way she wanted. She would always get frustrated with it, she would pull my hair, and or just cut it off. That morning, I had to walk up to the dining hall to help the adopted Dad with breakfast and I was walking up the hill in tears. When I got there, he didn't know what to say. He could only look at me and shake his head. He didn't understand why she had done that, she didn't style it or anything, just took a random pair of scissors and cut it off. I would leave home soon with my hair just past my ears.

So, anyways, back to the daily schedule, we were always being told when and what to do. We would either have to sit on our beds or at our school desks in our rooms and wait for her to either call us to breakfast or tell us what to do. We started to have routinely morning and evening chores and that usually consisted of us going to feed the dogs and clean their kennels.

For our first Christmas at the farm,  each of us kids had been given animals for gifts, animals that would be our own for our own individual stalls in the barn. I was given more cats and a rabbit. Michael was given a pair of pygmy goats and Matthew a cow. So after the animals came there were even more chores to do, well, chores for Michael and I to do. Matthew would be required to come out and ‘feed’ his cow but he didn't really have to clean out it’s stall or anything.

Everyday we had some kind of routine, but just Michael and I. Matthew was allowed to get up from his bed and go and do whatever he pleased, which would usually be to go to the parent’s room and hang out there until they all decided it was actually time to get up and get the day going. Sometimes, the parents would sleep in and we wouldn't get up out of our beds until 10 am or even later. We would be up late most nights working or doing whatever and that would result in a late morning. We were always called to our meals, always handed our plate or directed to go and sit at the table, pray and eat without talking and then dismiss ourselves, put away our dishes and go back to either working or school.
One day the adopted mother decided to throw our lunches at us. She was in one of her bad moods that day, we hadn't gotten a dining room table yet and for some reason, either Michael or I pushed the wrong button and so standing there while we were getting ready to receive our plates of a sandwich and chips, she got all mad and threw our lunches at us. She then left the room and slammed herself into her bedroom while my brothers and I picked up our lunches off the floor and proceeded to sit on the kitchen floor and eat our lovely lunch. 

It was outbursts like this that was starting to increase with each passing day. Something would trigger her outburst of anger and hate and it was always directed at Michael and I. Either we wouldn't do something perfectly or do it right the first time which would indicate we were wanting to do things our way and be rebellious. I never knew from one day to the next what the definition of responsibility or obedience meant because she changed the definition every time to fit her need to be angry. Eventually, the bi-polar mood swings would carry over into any where we went, including church.

Church was always interesting. Because the church was almost an hour away for us, we like most of the families there, would come to church, bring something for the potluck lunch after morning church and we would all stay there on the church property until evening church started and then we would all go home. It was an all day ordeal, there was food to make and pack, our changes of clothes to pack and bring because in the afternoons or after evening church we would play, the boys either playing baseball and us girls playing our instruments in the sanctuary. It was kind of a break for us, or at least that’s what it was supposed to be. I would be allowed to go off with some of the girls my age and do things with them. Then there was children’s choir before evening church to attend and then church. Usually though, I was taking care of Jacob so that the adopted mother could go and socialize with the other moms. I wasn't the only ‘oldest’ daughter/sister taking care of the younger siblings, there were others but the other girls weren't doing it all the time like I was. Their mothers would actually do their job as a mother and take care of the younger siblings.

The adopted mom felt the need to always sit and talk with the other moms, and they did kind of all had something in common I guess so she would always sit and talk. I was never allowed to talk to the adults though, especially to the moms. When I did, I was taken to the van in the parking lot, yelled at and slapped and then made to sit in the van all day long. She hated the fact that I would just say hello to someone, or if the other mom or adult would initiate the conversation, I always got into trouble.  So, the opportunity of going and hanging out with the other girls started to diminish. I was always by her side, always watching Jacob or sitting in the van. Michael and I were never allowed to go to our appropriate Sunday School classes, we couldn't be trusted, I couldn't be trusted to not say anything to the adults about what was going on at home and Michael just couldn't be trusted to behave. We would go to Sunday School with Dad, while the adopted mother went to the ladies Sunday School class or wherever she would go and Matthew got to go to his own class.

Church was such a show though, so full of hypocrisy and I wasn't sure if our family was the only one acting like that or putting on a show. It seemed like the other families there at church were relatively normal, the mothers treated their daughters right, the families acted like they loved each other. So why was ours putting on a show? We would fight on the way to church on Sundays, when we pulled into the parking lot in our 15 passenger van, we would all put a smile on our face, I would brush away tears that were slipping out and we would all march into church smiling and being friendly. I didn't get it. I wasn't fooled though, I knew that the adopted mother was putting on such an act and I wondered how many of the other moms were grasping on to the idea that something with our family was just not right.

Everything was just getting tense, at home, at church, at the Retreat Center. At the Retreat Center, a huge incident would occur between Michael and I that I would later learn about as being borderline molestation. It was quite the ordeal and it would lead to other issues that would start to happen from Michael. He would try to look at me while I was in the shower by looking under the bathroom door at home and other things would happen. I started to hate him. I wasn't fully aware of what a pervert was because that kind of thing was shielded from us kids but I knew that I didn't like Michael because of what he was starting to do and how he was starting to act. I would hate it so much that while the family went to the store or go some where, we were always left in the van to do our school work, or at least that’s what we were supposed to be doing. No, we would fight, He would pull my hair, I would hit him, he would do something else to me and I would go wailing across the seats and hit him and do whatever I could to hurt him. He was being psycho with me, he wouldn't stop touching me and the only thing I knew to do was hurt him. Somehow though, we would always manage to stop the fighting by the time the parents and Matthew returned to the van and we both would act as if nothing happened. I knew I couldn't say anything to the parents about him doing stuff to me, they wouldn't believe me and they probably wouldn't care, so it was pointless and Michael and I would fight until the day I left and yet nobody would know.

Tension between the adopted mother and I was really getting worse. It would get even more worse after we found out that the adopted Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The tumor was causing him to have a certain kind of seizure that would cause him to kind of space out and the doctors said they couldn't remove it because it was right behind his left eye and in front of his left ear. If the doctors tried to remove it they could hit a nerve that would paralyze him. So, they gave him medication to shrink the tumor and it get to a reasonable size to live with but he would always have the seizures and he would lose his drivers license from that day forward and would never get it back as long as he lived.

The day we found out that he had the tumor, we were on our way to the store to pick up groceries for an event out at the retreat center. My adopted dad went into the store, leaving myself, Michael and the adopted mother in the van. She turned around and told me that I was not allowed to talk to my dad at all. If I had a question about something whether we were at home or at the retreat center working, I was to ask her, not ask him. I was strictly instructed to leave him alone, that he didn't need to be stressed or anything else. I was totally blown away when she said that. I didn't  have a clue as to why she would say that, other than that she knew that my Dad and I were pretty close, that we got along and I could talk to him a whole lot easier than I could talk to her.  So, now there was a ban on having a relationship with my adopted Dad. The one day at the Retreat Center when I casually without thinking asked him a question about setting up the dining room, and she heard me, she pulled me aside and slapped me in the face for talking to him. Of course she waited for him to leave the room. Dad wouldn't know until several years later that she had done that, and I was the one to tell him that.

The slapping was getting worse, the yelling, the degrading, the screaming was just getting worse and I couldn't take it. I would lay in bed at night and while I heard Matthew and her eating ice cream in the kitchen, I would just cry. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to escape from that house and I entertained the idea a few times but every time I did, I would remember the belt and the whipping I got last time I had to come back and it just wasn't worth it.

Everybody was just getting frustrated with everybody. She was getting frustrated with me, Dad was getting frustrated me because he didn't know why she was getting frustrated with me and I hated Michael and pretty much hated Matthew. I was angry, deep down inside but I was never allowed to portray that! I was never allowed to scream, or talk back in fear of being slapped. When she would sit on the edge of my bed and preach to me about why I was being independent and why I was always wanting to do what I wanted to do because I wouldn't do something the way she wanted, I could just sit there. In fact, there were times she would get mad at me because I would never say a word, she would force me to say something to prove I was listening but anytime I would try to voice my frustration and why I was struggling, I was told I was being wrong, so it got to the point where it was pointless to say anything to her. She was always right and there would be no point in saying anything.

 I remember clearly one night at the retreat center she was mad me again and we were sitting on the bed and she was talking again, I finally told her I didn't understand why she favored Matthew over me. Now, this wasn't the first time I had brought up this concern, it had been coming up for years but it would always be shoved into the ground some where and there was always an excuse as to why she ‘treated’ us that way. She claimed that she loved us all differently and blah, blah, blah. But this one night, she actually had the nerve to tell me that she couldn't love me the way she loved Matthew because she did not physically give birth to me. There it was. She finally had pretty much summed up what she should have been saying to me all these years.  I was adopted though! She was supposed to love regardless of where I came from! I couldn't believe she had said it but then I felt kind of relieved. I felt like she should have said that the day she screamed at me that she hated me.

Talking to her just proved to be futile and I just didn't care anymore. I would just stand there and wait for her to slap me and yell at me about how I was being rebellious because I wasn't cleaning the darn bathroom the right way. I hated cleaning. I was always cleaning, cleaning bathrooms from top to bottom, making beds all the time.  I was tired of the work all the time. I understood that kids were supposed to have chores and all but I wasn't just doing chores. Between the house work and farm work, the work at the Retreat Center, I was just getting physically tired of it. My back was starting to cause problems and even though I would mention it to her, she wouldn't care. She knew it hurt, she asked me one day after I made 3 sets of bunk beds if my back was hurting and I told her yes. She didn't do anything so I am not sure why she bothered asking. I would deal with back problems until this very day and I truly believe it had to do with the physical labor that I was doing. I was 17 years old, I was a girl and I was just doing too much.

Among the tension though, our family decided to adopt a set of sisters. Yep, I said it. We were actually contemplating adopting three sisters from one family and we would do that. We would go down to Brownsville and meet them, we would get to spend some time with them and get to know them. They were stair steppers, the oldest being six, the next five and the youngest four. Nicole, Ashley and Crystal, those weren't their original names, the adopted mother had them changed for some reason. Nicole’s original name was Alexandria so, we kind of kept it but her name would be Nicole Alexis. Ashley’s name was something other than that but I can’t remember exactly what it was. She would be Ashley Rebecca and then Crystal’s name was changed as well to Crystal Joy.  They were all individually different, but a lot of fun. Our family made the trip to Brownsville to meet them for the first time and it was a very interesting trip. I had never been that close to the border and it was very intimidating and a little nerve racking. To get to the foster  home to see the girls, we would have to drive right along side of the border and we had to do it at night and during the day.
We would visit with the girls and get to know them. We were allowed to bring them to our hotel and let them spend time with us. Nicole and Ashley were very hyper and we would soon find out that they were on Ritalin, in fact too much of the medication. I remember the first night we had them, we all went to Golden Corral for dinner and I got to kind of be like the big sister and help them get their food and all. But, I will never forget sitting there at the table, the three girls across from me and they had been given their medication way before we went to dinner and the poor things looked like zombies. Their eyes were glassy, they were way too calm and they just looked sad. I remember tearing up at the table, afraid to let the tears fall because I didn't want the adopted mother to see and wonder what the tears were for. I was literally heart broken for these girls, I knew they needed a home and someone to love them but I wondered that night if they would be loved or would they get treated like me. I would never really know. The girls got to come home to us a few weeks later and we would kind of be like their foster family until the exact arrangements were made and ready for a final adoption.
It was crazy bringing them home. I moved into Michael’s room, the three girls got mine, and Michael went and bunked with Matthew and Jacob. The girls, all three of them were just wild though, they didn't know how to behave, they didn't have any manners whatsoever. They were still kind of speaking Spanish, even though they spoke English. It was just crazy. The girls would be given some of my special dolls, just because the adopted mother was getting angrier with me and she thought they should have them even though they would destroy them. I remember the day she told me that she might just be able to have the relationship with the girls that she should have had with me all along. Again, I couldn't believe she had said that.

I would get quiet, would do what was expected of me but for some reason, I was just making mistakes, in her eyes they were acts of rebellion. She would tell me that her and Dad were talking about sending me away, they had thought about the Navy for some reason, or somewhere in the military. The bottom line was, that they wanted me to leave the house, that my bad attitude whatever attitude that was, was beginning to effect the family and influence the other kids.

They finally got in touch with someone at the church who knew of a place where I could go and I would go there. But, all hell would literally break loose from the time I found out that I was going there until the time I actually left home.  In the midst of trying to adopt three girls and dealing with Dad’s tumor, I guess they thought the best thing was for me to leave the picture. Maybe that would make things calmer? I had no idea.

I had no idea that I was about to leave home for good, for the rest of my life. I had no idea during the month of May 2000 that my life was about to change forever. I was going to be 18 in June, I didn't know that when you turned 18 that you could be on your own. But, I think the parents knew that, and in order to keep me from running away on my own, they were going to get rid of me, but it would happen a month away from my 18^th birthday.  Little did I know that I was about to be free but little did I know I was about to start a new chapter in my life, a chapter of confusion, of more hate and meanness. But, it was going to be worth it, just to get away from that so called ‘family’ that was just putting on a show for everyone to see.  This new chapter that was about to start was going to start the rest of my life as I know it now and it would take me on a journey that I never dreamed of. That chapter would start very suddenly though and it would get off to a start in a flash.

Until next time, be blessed and be inspired to make a difference!

~The Adopted Child