After about 5 years D was released. Since his grandmother is an enabler and doesn’t believe a large portion of what happens in his life and what others have said and accused him of…she welcomed him back into her home again. This will continue for many years to come..and currently…if he needed a place to stay.

He mainly stayed away from me… whenever in passing he sees me, he’ll give me dirty looks.. sometimes nowadays he’ll wave hello. I personally think it’s a trap in order to get my guard lowered..

Throughout the rest of my schooling and teen years, life was very overwhelming for me. I couldn’t cope nor function.

Foster mom still was verbally abusive and put me down a lot. Her family was as well… I was on punishment a lot for things that foster mom didn’t tolerate.

Mainly she was upset over the fact that i was overwhelmed and couldn’t do all that was ordered of me…in a prompt fashion.

I felt like she was picking on me because of her own frustrations. During this time foster mom in her 60’s …she was an in home beautician, and had a client or multiple sometimes daily .. During this time her two of her children took advantage of her generosity, and the fact that she rarely denies her children due to feeling like she failed them all as children (by staying too long in an abusive marriage, working a lot, finally getting out of that marriage but was ordered by the courts custody of all of her children during a 2 year timespan. She had to choose what child to take while fighting to regain all of them. )

One of her sons would ask her to babysit his 2 children quite frequently on the weekends..while he and his wife (now ex) went away. At the time his two daughters were 5 and 3 years old. Most weekends they would be here, and foster mom left it up to mainly me to entertain and watch them.

I really disliked that. I didn’t want them over at all. I wanted to be by myself.

The day that they were scheduled to pick them up, they wouldn’t until 8-9pm without foster mom’s permission. Foster mom would be angry, tired, and upset. She always expected early pickup in the am on Sunday mornings. She would call several times ..only to be ignored mostly.

Then she would have to get her other children involved to finally be grandchild free. She would tell them all that she was too old for that, and that she didn’t want to be watching children and she wanted to do other things in her spare time.

They would apologize and repeat things the next time. It took almost another 2 years for foster mom to completely stop.

During this time, I wasn’t able to keep up with the housework and upkeep of the room….I was failing every school subject and had a lot of daily homework that would keep me up late hours to complete (only for the teachers to barely glance at it and just give marker checks
in notebooks for alleged homework completetion). The room would be clean and tidy except for the unmade bed or sometimes for me not putting clothes away right away. I would explain to foster mom that I simply didn’t have the time.

My life long insomnia and school work kept me up often, and I often slept for an hour…and left for school at 6:42am every morning…traveling by public transportation.

I would deal with the stress of school, only to return home to a note from foster mom on the bed telling me that I was on punishment until further notice.

I wasn’t allowed to watch TV. Cellphones and the Internet weren’t as popular back then, and I didn’t own many books. I relied on the TV for the noise..it was how I could concentrate on completing assignments and eventually falling asleep.

I didn’t like those times. I would find many notes left on a weekly basis. Sometimes it was because my shoes weren’t lined up correctly, sometimes it was because since patience isn’t something I have very much of….and I was just living in the “here” and was use to moving from place to place…I would find Christmas gifts and open them months before hand.

A lot of times it was because everything became too much for me, that I started skipping school quite often .and stealing ..again… finding myself sitting in a park most of the time..or waiting for a then very active foster mom to resume her daily activities outdoors..I would sneak home… Then I just started begging foster mom to let me stay home because of tiredness, exhaustion, feeling genuinely unwell, etc..

I was put on a pedestal by teachers in school and their expectations of me were high. The majority of students never did any work, slept, ate, talked a lot during class, never paid much attention…but yet they received good grades and were promoted. Teachers would fail me, and get cross at me for incomplete assignments and tests.

I often was very frustrated then because I did a lot of work only for the teachers to give out answers and have open booked tests, and allowed students to use cheat and answer sheets given. Most of the time spent at school was spent watching movies because teachers had given up on themselves and the students. The students were uncooperative and uninterested…so they no longer tried.

When I failed a few math subjects. I was made to attend Saturday school, in one classroom for three hours. The teacher there never taught anything. He would give worksheets and textbooks. I was the only one who completed them. After the class ended he would allow the other students to copy my work. Which my answers were always wrong because I am not any good in math.

During Saturday class I was extremely uncomfortable and anxious because of the confinement and saw no need for it. When not doing work ..I was forced to listen to the teacher flirt and act inappropriate towards a student. He would talk about his marital problems, his personal health problems (how his hemorrhoids negatively impacted his life). He would tell the student that he would love to marry and get a hold of her… because he could tell she knew how to treat a man. He would repeatedly tell her how beautiful and very attractive he found her. She was a new parent and was allowed to bring her toddler daughter into the class..who was very busy getting into things and noisy.. he would tell her that he would be a stepdad.

He would tell her that he no longer loved his wife, nor was she intimate with him anymore. He would tell of her alleged laziness and shopping addiction. He would tell of her alleged obesity constantly.

I felt really terrible for the wife. Wheter accepted by her or not ..it probably saddened her to know or be unbeknownst to such things.

Unfortunately, no one but me found these conversations and interactions highly inappropriate. The student didn’t mind, and the both of them would just sit near one another, stare at one another, and converse almost all of the 3 hours. He would ignore everyone else.

He was a favorite amongst teachers and students. He would tell a lot of personal things to numerous students.

I just tolerated this lead behavior. No one had a leg to stand on if they ever told ..and they would face the consequences from others. I just left it alone.

During that time foster mom was very active and went to visit friends, family, Grand children’s school events, etc…

I would beg and plead to stay at home but foster mom would get angry, berate me a lot, give me the silent treatment, threaten to have her children force me along if I didn’t stop complaining and get dressed.

I would tell foster mom that I didn’t understand why I was forced to attend when all of them knew I never had a good time, nor could be around people or in some sort of confinement..that I had panic, PTSD, and anxiety attacks, etc .. that all i did when out was find a corner of place to be alone and sit there, constantly thinking about being at home. Foster mom would get angry with me, because I would ask while there when we were going home .. sometimes if someone could just take me home.

She would tell me no one would do that, and to stop bugging her or else I would be put on punishment.

She would then be questioned by her family because her mood had change and her anger would be apparent. She would tell them what happened…and I would be scolded and told not to upset her.

During this time foster mom went away to visit family often and I would do the same. .Each time she went away meant I would have to be placed in another foster home untill she returned. I was always nervous and had anxiety attacks prior. I never knew where I was going, nor the dynamics. Same feelings from being shuffled from place to place again.

Sometimes I was placed for a weekend, sometimes almost a month in the summer when foster mom went away.

Sometimes the weekend placements were due according to foster mom saying that she needed a break because I was getting on her nerves and stressing her out.

A lot of the people I were placed with neglected me. They would give me a room, and never really interacted with me. Most would forget or didn’t want to be bothered with feeding me. Sometimes it was many hours, sometimes almost a day or two before they did so. I didn’t want to make myself a bother, nor did I know the temperament of the temporary foster people…so I didn’t bring it to their attention…just went hungry.

One had 4 small children and 2 teenagers, that they kept away from me..and the kids resented me because I probably had their rooms and had to be okay with the accommodations.

In addition to them not really feeding me ..they spent most of their day in church…which I was made to go. Church was 4 times a day. Everytime I thought it was over for the day …I was told they were returning in a few hours.

It was very hot in the room, and cramped in the van.

Another also went to church a lot, in addition went to a lot of different neighborhoods, knocking on doors trying to convince people to come. Alot of times they were met with unpleasantness, verbal threats, weapons drawn, people wanting to fight, etc … I had to be a part of that.

One gave me her toddler daughters room, and neglected me. Stayed in her room with the door closed and locked, didn’t feed me often, would go out often with her child, for many hours, come back with food from restaurants, never bringing me anything. She wasn’t supposed to leave me unchaperoned anyways. It was hot in the room, and no form of entertainment…so I stared at walls and listened to any sound of life… until I had fallen asleep

That place upset me the most. It upset me because it was only 10-15 minutes away from home, and I fought the urge not to return home….the few times I was there during school days.

This lasted almost for 5 more years before she allowed me to stay home alone. .and to remain upstairs when company came. She told me she was only allowing it because she was tired of my mouth and she was tired of her good time being ruined by me.

I was responsible, never went out anywhere on my own anyways, wasn’t social, didn’t have a social life, and I was use to being alone.

Foster mom and the program talking to me about it, would just threaten me with removal and/or punishment. No one would show concern and inquire.

One day foster mom had to remain in the hospital for a day or two. When I spoke to her on the phone ..she blamed me for being there. Told me it was my fault that she had to be hospitalized because I had been stressed her out and she started having chest pains. She told me it was because I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to do and wasn’t behaving. That she wasn’t going to tell her family about me doing “this” to her.

I was then told to make sure that I got ready and went to school.

I wanted to tell her that maybe it was because she was taking on too much. . But I didn’t..

I couldn’t fathom what more wrong I had done. I had resumed going to school, improved my grades, wasn’t arguing about going to events with foster mom anymore because it was pointless. I wasn’t running the streets, being rowdy, Ior anything. I was quiet, stayed to myself, had no friends, stayed indoors. I had even began getting up even earlier to tidy my room the way foster mom wanted before school. I came home, ate, did homework, watched TV, didn’t bother foster mom most of the time.

I was soo upset and sad that I didn’t go to school that day. I began blaming myself.

That amongst other things, began to mess with my psyche….I began to decline and stopped trying …

It really upset and depressed me.

In 11th grade I was hospitalized for two weeks …..

To be continued…

Thank you all for everything