Mama,
You always hated when I called you that. At this point my only alternative is to refer to you by name, but that would be potentially damaging to you as a person and I have no intention of doing to you what you have done to me. It is important to me to make myself understood after all these years. In some ways, it is not just you I am addressing at this point. This has become a much larger issue. This affects the entire Autism community, not just our mother-daughter relationship.
It's been almost a year now since I was diagnosed with high functioning Autism, formerly known as Asperger's Syndrome. I was living in adult foster care when I sought and received my diagnosis; the answers to my questions were long overdue. I am well aware, now, that the school system made multiple...
Family
My Dearest Baby Girl,
I never planned on becoming a full time step mom. I had this image that I would finish school and run away with prince charming and live in a beautiful home and have nice things. (You know grow up the way we are taught to grow up.) Fortunately, for me your father came along and smacked my daydreaming self-back to the real world. We have had many ups, downs, laughs, and cries throughout your little years, but that’s what love is all about. The best advice I can give you for the future is that when you truly love someone and they treat you right; you never let that person go. You fight, sometimes a long battle, but you do it until the win. Everything takes time, but what’s meant to be will always be. As for now, your father and I still have a long road to walk. Yes...
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You may not have given birth to me so long ago, nor were you greeted by my accomplishments of third place ribbons, awards, and macaroni art.
You missed my younger years, in which some might say is a child’s most rewarding time- one a parent wouldn’t want to miss. However, the lacked memories of my tantrums, my mispronouncing of syllables and words alike, and even the day I first learned how to ride my bike, doesn’t matter to me now and it shouldn’t to you.
Those who were there for my progressing years evidently left, including the one who conceived me. I’ve never told you of all the times sadness filled my days from the yelling, the throwing, and the fighting nor did I mention just how bad the swings stung when they reached me.
There were daily moments I tried to hide from my...
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I am Broken. As in "I", I mean we, because I am writing to myself. We've been through a lot in this 20 years we have called our life. Half of that time you were with our mother, and the other half I was with my father. I say you and I as if we are different people. Well, truth is we are different. You were a child, a scared and very hurt child. You endured a lot in just the first 10 years of your life. But, if you had not been through all of the pain and agony, I would not be the same person that I am. I would not be as wise. It's not all good though. If you hadn't have seen so much, or had such a hard childhood, then I would not have been depressed. I would not have gone through middle school and high school always thinking of ways I could kill myself. I would not have...
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You were supposed to be there for me, supposed to be the one who took care of me. Help me when I was hurt. Make sure nobody could cause me pain. How could a mother not care about her own daughters pain? How can you tell people that I was lying when I so clearly wasn't? I was six years old, and your boyfriend molested me. He raped me. He told me I couldn't tell anyone. I was a child. I didn't understand. I just knew that he had hurt me and told me nobody could know. So I kept his secret for a couple years. Thankfully you weren't together much longer, but one day you saw him out. You brought him home. And wondered why I was afraid of him. You told me to stop acting the way that I was, you didn't find it odd that a child was so terrified of a grown man. Eventually when I spoke up about what...
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There are 2 of you. Two men, who are more of cowards. One of you raped and molested me while the other just molested me. And yet I am equally pained by the memories of you both.
Man number one, you dated my mother. I was six years old. How could you do that to a child when you had a grown woman you slept with every night. How can a child satisfy you and a woman could not. I want you to know that I can not ever forgive you for what you have done. You ruined my out look on life at such a young age. I can't trust men still to this day, and its been 14 years now. You raped me, and you molested me time and time again. You made me touch your penis. I was only six years old. You were a grown man. You didn't care when I cried, you didn't care that I was in pain. Now to this day I have not...
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To my dearest little strop-bucket,
Well, today was one heck of a day, wasn’t it? I think we’re both as exhausted as each other right now.
To be fair, I should have known better than to risk taking you to the supermarket. But there was nothing in the fridge and no online shopping slots available, and besides, I thought a trip round Tesco might be a nice little outing for us both.
Ha!
It was all going well at first. I’d even go as far as to say we were having fun. You were sitting in the toddler seat quite happily, dropping the packets into the trolley as I passed them to you, and practising your new words (‘Narna! Brapes! Abbal!’).
But then, somewhere around the bakery aisle, it all went wrong – and man, did it go wrong!
The signs were there; you started wriggling in the...
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Dear Parents of School-aged Children:
CMS needs your help and support. As you probably know, the Board of Education is in the beginning stages of revising our school district’s pupil assignment plan. This process will be challenging; not just for the school board, but for our entire Charlotte-Mecklenburg community. It will stir up painful memories for some and strong emotion for many.
CMS now operates under a plan that basically assigns students to schools according to where they live. As a result, reflecting neighborhood demographics, our children largely attend schools in which they’re separated according to family income and skin color. We have lots of schools attended by predominantly white, middle class and wealthier kids and many other schools filled largely with children of...
2,075
Dear R,
I'm writing to you because I know how busy you are. I know how sometimes you walk into the kitchen and stand outside the back door and sigh and hold your breath in because the phone is ringing and the dog is barking and the children, my joy-filled nephew and bright inquisitive niece, are crying.
I know how you longed for them all, for the dog who would take away the pain of not conceiving the babies you so longed for, for the beautiful children who would come into your life, but never take away the pain of the babies that didn't make it; The babies that filled you for such a short time with hope and joy before being gone, almost before they had been at all.
I stood by you through those times. I stood by while your world fell away and while I was unable to do anything....
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It took a lot for me to write this all down because I've never had the strength to explain how I felt, but now I do.
First of all I want to say, I have fought heartache after heartache beginning with you. I grew up having my heart broke by you before any boy ever could. I hated you for years and that's something I had to learn on my own. I didn't do anything to you, all this time I was thinking of the father I lost, but it's you who lost a daughter.
You giving me up, gave me the chance to have the best daddy I could ever imagine. You see I've learned that God's plan for me is perfectly imperfect, and though I don't always understand, I've learned to never question Gods plan for my life. I see you're happy with the family you have now, I used to sit as a little girl and wonder why that...
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