At the Grimm's, we had everything we ever needed. We had loving parents, a fluffy white dog, perfect little beds, in a perfect little room, inside a perfect little house. We wore ponytails in our hair and were gifted beautiful clothes with perfectly clean white socks and black buckle shoes. We were given bubble baths, nutritious foods and affection. We were read books. Mom and Dad were so proud, they told everyone who would listen about their adopted girls. That was us! Dad's school even put us in the paper!
Mom and Dad took us to lots of parties with their friends, we were known as "the adopted girls". They were so proud of us sitting quietly at parties as Dad reminded us that "children were to be seen, but not heard." That's how his Mom had raised him and that's how he was going to raise us.
No matter what they gave us, or did for us, I wanted my birth Mom. I cried at night, asking why she left, why hadn't she left her number? "Why?" I screamed "Why?" I couldn't understand.
My Mom recalls a night I had continued on like this for hours. Andi finally popped up and screamed "She's dead! Our mother is dead! Just stop crying about it!"
We processed differently then, and still do today. I couldn't shove it down and swallow it. I needed to process it, to talk about it, and to scream about it if I needed to.
The way I processed drove my new brother, Bruce, absolutely nuts. He became anorexic and threw enormous fits, hitting his head into walls over and over. He became so thin he was no longer able to be placed in a group home.
Mom stayed up day and night cooking, cleaning, tickling our backs at night till we fell asleep. Then stayed up cleaning our socks by hand until they were perfectly white again, sometimes, until her hands bled. She was dealing with work and a new principal she didn't get along with. She didn't know how to get my brother to eat, and his fits were only getting bigger each night as I screamed for my birth mother.
Andi and I were like wild animals in a glass house. I had no manners. I punched and kicked the walls, screaming like a crazy person. If Andi got in trouble, I'd pinch my Mom, still trying to save Andi's life of course, like I had before with the boy in the pool. Andi and I pinched our Mom so hard we left blood blisters that lasted for weeks. We were still in fight or flight mode, even though the situation didn't call for it anymore. Andi and I were obsessed with the Stevensons. It had been easy there, no school, chores or expectations. We used this against our new parents like a weapon.
I remember one night Andi and I were in the bath together. I got out first and was complaining that my finger hurt and I needed a bandaid. Mom said I didn't need one, but I kept on demanding. Screaming for a bandaid. Mom stayed strong and refused. I began kicking, screaming for them to take me back to the Stevensons! After having heard this over and over, Dad had had enough. He called my bluff, grabbed a suitcase and began filling it with my things. Andi, still with shampoo in her hair and unable to manage my erratic behavior from the bathtub, was screaming at the top of her lungs as Dad and I got in the car and began to drive away. I thought I'd never see my sister again. I begged "turn back, turn back! Please!" He did and we went home. I don't remember screaming for the Stevensons again after that.
Dad was trying to keep everyone calm. Everyone in his life was completely freaking out! His life had turned upside down! Dinners were not on-time anymore, the house wasn't perfectly clean, his son was beginning to hurt not only himself in these fits, but others as well. He was living with two little traumatized girls that were bringing his wife to the brink of insanity. Behind closed doors, he tried to soothe his wife, reminding her over and over that we needed them. They were not going to give up on us. He insisted.
We had indeed driven our new Mom to the brink. She was hospitalized for depression, while Dad stayed at home and made us spaghetti dinners. When Mom was getting ready to come back, Dad started having talks with Andi and I about how things needed to change when she came home. He needed us to stop this behavior. He needed to have a calm house. For his son. For his wife. For him. And for us. He told us how our behavior was making our mom sad, and how our behavior was making Bruce unable to eat and thin. If Mom flipped out, Dad would pull us aside and ask what we had done to make her act this way. He told us often over the years that if we kept upsetting her, we would have to go back into foster care.
Yes, we were a mess, but Mom was reacting this way because she was suffering with undiagnosed depression, exhaustion and probably shock at this point.
The weight of feeling responsible for our Mom's emotional well being, as well as my brother's well being, became like a weighted backpack we carried with us. If we flipped out, if we made Mom or Bruce flip out, would we go back into foster care? The worry never left our minds.
My brother, Bruce, was still very much affected by his surroundings. He couldn't handle high highs or low lows. That meant we couldn't get too excited, or too upset. Things needed to be even all the time. I'm sure this is a normal way to live with many families who have special needs kids, but I resented it, him. He was taking my new parents attention, time, energy. He was the person stopping me from being able to express myself. He acted like a toddler sometimes, hitting and throwing things, but as the size of an adult he was capable of really hurting people. Andi had patience and compassion for him, I did not.
Mom was looking for medications that worked for her and I couldn't throw big fits anymore. I became an attention seeker and a liar instead. I couldn't get enough attention. Negative, positive, it didn't matter, I craved it like a drug. I became the funny kid in class, I made friends but didn't keep them long because I was a liar and everyone knew it. I was desperate, and the other kids could smell it on me.
As things at home calmed, Andi and I spent all our time outside of school together. We played outside for hours, wrote songs, made plays, played with dogs, dirt, swings, trees, forts, we had the best time. We believed Mom and Dad were against us. We thought the vitamins they gave us were mind control pills. I tortured my Dad with songs I had written about how he had adopted us just to pull all the weeds around the house. Mom tried to teach me to play the guitar, to cook, sew, you name it, she knew how to do it. Dad took us on ice cream dates, lunches at Burger King and to watch movies at the top of back buildings. He knew everyone and everyone loved him.
Throughout elementary school, I remained a liar. My parents were loving and supportive, but I still lied often. I was funny too. People liked me. I had made some friends that seemed to ignore my lying and awkwardness, but I never got really close to anyone for long. Andi and I remained unusually close, but she hated my lying. When she made friends at school, I felt replaced. I wanted it to be just she and I all the time! Why was she bringing new people in? Why was she laughing with other people?! She was my everything and I was realizing I wasn't always her's. I was going to have to share her with the world and I didn't that idea at all!
In second grade, I wore a leotard to school that my Mom had gotten me. During lunch that day, the boys in 6th grade began screaming and whistling at me. Later, on the bus, they made sexual gestures towards me, much to the dismay of the Principal, who called my parents to tell them. I acted mortified, but I wasn't. I knew then I could easily get male attention. I became the girl who chased boys around the playground, trying to kiss them. The only boys who would are the ones who ate their own boogers, but I didn't care. It was attention.
Music class was my absolute favorite thing in the world. The minute I heard the words to Chicago "You're the Inspiration" I was 100% hooked. We all watched Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers on Sunday nights. I would pretend like Dolly was my birth mother. Music sang to my soul and awakened something in me I didn't even know was there. I could memorize any song I heard almost immediately!
Mom and Dad introduced us to spirituality, we said a prayer every night before dinner and went to what I refer to as a "hippie church". Dad always fell asleep at church which made me laugh. Everyone seemed happy to be there, at peace and of course, there was music, so I enjoyed that.
Mom and Dad wanted us to have a good education, go to college, careers and savings accounts. Andi and I didn't care in the least about academics, we just did enough to get by. We took dance, she was always better at it, she had rhythm I didn't. I excelled at drama class and took summer classes for years. Liars make good actors, I found out.
By middle school, I was an outcast at school. I tried to make friends, but I was desperate and awkward. I was shocked when one of the most popular boys asked me to go steady, but that didn't last long.
In 7th grade I noticed a girl with porcelain white skin, short Auburn hair and dressed in all black. She didn't have any classes with me, but for some reason, I found myself memorizing her schedule! I sat quietly near her at lunch, just happy I'm her presence. she made my heart race but I didn't know why. I never did speak to her and still don't know her name. I realize now she was my first female crush.
I had some friends, but wasn't close to anyone until the day I met a new friend, Kathy, in choir. She had the voice of an angel, yet she was completly humble about it. She didn't gossip about other kids the way everyone else did. Soon, I met her older sister Sarah, who knew Andi well. I began spending a lot of time with their family. The entire family sang like nothing I had ever heard before, they harmonized beautifully and adored each other. They didn't watch regular TV in their house, they watched musicals over and over until they knew every word. We made up dances, movies, wrote silly songs, slept on the trampoline. Their parents were almost always busy, so we spent endless hours having unsupervised fun, car surfing and I began going to their Mormon Church with them.
The church and their members welcomed me with open arms. There was a calmness there that I had felt at the church Mom and Dad had taken us to, but this was different, bigger. The feeling of overwhelming warmth in my heart and tummy was addictive. I had also met a boy in the church who played a guitar so, I was hooked.
Spending time with Mormon families made me fall in love with large families, I decided then I wanted a large family myself one day. I wanted to make roasts on Sunday's and have kids who watched more musicals than movies.
In that time, Andi and I continued to be less connected. She met people I didn't know and I had thrown myself into the church activities, which were many. Things were getting more and more stressful at home between Andi and my parents. They seemed to take it very personally when our focus wasn't on academics. I remember my Dad often saying how we could have everything, if we would just take it. The more our parents pressed us about the school, the more we pushed back.
When I was around 15, Andi ran away. I could not be home without her. I just couldn't, so I asked my parents to be placed in a Mormon home and they agreed. I was baptized into the church so everywhere I went, I was accepted by members. I didn't need to lie for attention, I was surrounded by happy, musical, spiritual people but I was sick over my sister being gone. I made a lot of good friends, we spent our nights blasting country music and driving through the desert.
Once Andi was found, she was put into a residential treatment center, I was 16. I needed to be with her, so I told my therapist I was hearing voices and having visual hallucinations. I guess that was a bit over the top, because I landed myself in a mental hospital for a month while I tried to figure out just how crazy I needed to be to get placed in residential, but not stuck in a padded room. Once in residential, we weren't on the same team, which meant we didn't live in the same house, but I knew where she was and I saw her often. Andi and I lived there for a year.
After being released, I tried to go back to high school, but no one remembered me and everyone was already in a clic. I met a guy who was 21, and with my parents permission, I moved in with him and finished high school before my 18th birthday.
***********************************
After writing this section, I asked my adoptive Mom what she would do differently. She said she wishes our Dad hadn't mentioned sending us back to foster care. She feels terrible guilt about the things that were said.
She also said she had spoken to many therapists when we were little and they had suggested not adopting both of us. My Mom feels like they may have been right, maybe we would have bonded to her better if we hadn't been together. She said Andi was the age they were looking for. I'm so grateful to the bottom of my soul that they decided to keep Andi and I together.
Mom and Dad took us to lots of parties with their friends, we were known as "the adopted girls". They were so proud of us sitting quietly at parties as Dad reminded us that "children were to be seen, but not heard." That's how his Mom had raised him and that's how he was going to raise us.
No matter what they gave us, or did for us, I wanted my birth Mom. I cried at night, asking why she left, why hadn't she left her number? "Why?" I screamed "Why?" I couldn't understand.
My Mom recalls a night I had continued on like this for hours. Andi finally popped up and screamed "She's dead! Our mother is dead! Just stop crying about it!"
We processed differently then, and still do today. I couldn't shove it down and swallow it. I needed to process it, to talk about it, and to scream about it if I needed to.
The way I processed drove my new brother, Bruce, absolutely nuts. He became anorexic and threw enormous fits, hitting his head into walls over and over. He became so thin he was no longer able to be placed in a group home.
Mom stayed up day and night cooking, cleaning, tickling our backs at night till we fell asleep. Then stayed up cleaning our socks by hand until they were perfectly white again, sometimes, until her hands bled. She was dealing with work and a new principal she didn't get along with. She didn't know how to get my brother to eat, and his fits were only getting bigger each night as I screamed for my birth mother.
Andi and I were like wild animals in a glass house. I had no manners. I punched and kicked the walls, screaming like a crazy person. If Andi got in trouble, I'd pinch my Mom, still trying to save Andi's life of course, like I had before with the boy in the pool. Andi and I pinched our Mom so hard we left blood blisters that lasted for weeks. We were still in fight or flight mode, even though the situation didn't call for it anymore. Andi and I were obsessed with the Stevensons. It had been easy there, no school, chores or expectations. We used this against our new parents like a weapon.
I remember one night Andi and I were in the bath together. I got out first and was complaining that my finger hurt and I needed a bandaid. Mom said I didn't need one, but I kept on demanding. Screaming for a bandaid. Mom stayed strong and refused. I began kicking, screaming for them to take me back to the Stevensons! After having heard this over and over, Dad had had enough. He called my bluff, grabbed a suitcase and began filling it with my things. Andi, still with shampoo in her hair and unable to manage my erratic behavior from the bathtub, was screaming at the top of her lungs as Dad and I got in the car and began to drive away. I thought I'd never see my sister again. I begged "turn back, turn back! Please!" He did and we went home. I don't remember screaming for the Stevensons again after that.
Dad was trying to keep everyone calm. Everyone in his life was completely freaking out! His life had turned upside down! Dinners were not on-time anymore, the house wasn't perfectly clean, his son was beginning to hurt not only himself in these fits, but others as well. He was living with two little traumatized girls that were bringing his wife to the brink of insanity. Behind closed doors, he tried to soothe his wife, reminding her over and over that we needed them. They were not going to give up on us. He insisted.
We had indeed driven our new Mom to the brink. She was hospitalized for depression, while Dad stayed at home and made us spaghetti dinners. When Mom was getting ready to come back, Dad started having talks with Andi and I about how things needed to change when she came home. He needed us to stop this behavior. He needed to have a calm house. For his son. For his wife. For him. And for us. He told us how our behavior was making our mom sad, and how our behavior was making Bruce unable to eat and thin. If Mom flipped out, Dad would pull us aside and ask what we had done to make her act this way. He told us often over the years that if we kept upsetting her, we would have to go back into foster care.
Yes, we were a mess, but Mom was reacting this way because she was suffering with undiagnosed depression, exhaustion and probably shock at this point.
The weight of feeling responsible for our Mom's emotional well being, as well as my brother's well being, became like a weighted backpack we carried with us. If we flipped out, if we made Mom or Bruce flip out, would we go back into foster care? The worry never left our minds.
My brother, Bruce, was still very much affected by his surroundings. He couldn't handle high highs or low lows. That meant we couldn't get too excited, or too upset. Things needed to be even all the time. I'm sure this is a normal way to live with many families who have special needs kids, but I resented it, him. He was taking my new parents attention, time, energy. He was the person stopping me from being able to express myself. He acted like a toddler sometimes, hitting and throwing things, but as the size of an adult he was capable of really hurting people. Andi had patience and compassion for him, I did not.
As things at home calmed, Andi and I spent all our time outside of school together. We played outside for hours, wrote songs, made plays, played with dogs, dirt, swings, trees, forts, we had the best time. We believed Mom and Dad were against us. We thought the vitamins they gave us were mind control pills. I tortured my Dad with songs I had written about how he had adopted us just to pull all the weeds around the house. Mom tried to teach me to play the guitar, to cook, sew, you name it, she knew how to do it. Dad took us on ice cream dates, lunches at Burger King and to watch movies at the top of back buildings. He knew everyone and everyone loved him.
Throughout elementary school, I remained a liar. My parents were loving and supportive, but I still lied often. I was funny too. People liked me. I had made some friends that seemed to ignore my lying and awkwardness, but I never got really close to anyone for long. Andi and I remained unusually close, but she hated my lying. When she made friends at school, I felt replaced. I wanted it to be just she and I all the time! Why was she bringing new people in? Why was she laughing with other people?! She was my everything and I was realizing I wasn't always her's. I was going to have to share her with the world and I didn't that idea at all!
In second grade, I wore a leotard to school that my Mom had gotten me. During lunch that day, the boys in 6th grade began screaming and whistling at me. Later, on the bus, they made sexual gestures towards me, much to the dismay of the Principal, who called my parents to tell them. I acted mortified, but I wasn't. I knew then I could easily get male attention. I became the girl who chased boys around the playground, trying to kiss them. The only boys who would are the ones who ate their own boogers, but I didn't care. It was attention.
Music class was my absolute favorite thing in the world. The minute I heard the words to Chicago "You're the Inspiration" I was 100% hooked. We all watched Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers on Sunday nights. I would pretend like Dolly was my birth mother. Music sang to my soul and awakened something in me I didn't even know was there. I could memorize any song I heard almost immediately!
Mom and Dad introduced us to spirituality, we said a prayer every night before dinner and went to what I refer to as a "hippie church". Dad always fell asleep at church which made me laugh. Everyone seemed happy to be there, at peace and of course, there was music, so I enjoyed that.
Mom and Dad wanted us to have a good education, go to college, careers and savings accounts. Andi and I didn't care in the least about academics, we just did enough to get by. We took dance, she was always better at it, she had rhythm I didn't. I excelled at drama class and took summer classes for years. Liars make good actors, I found out.
By middle school, I was an outcast at school. I tried to make friends, but I was desperate and awkward. I was shocked when one of the most popular boys asked me to go steady, but that didn't last long.
In 7th grade I noticed a girl with porcelain white skin, short Auburn hair and dressed in all black. She didn't have any classes with me, but for some reason, I found myself memorizing her schedule! I sat quietly near her at lunch, just happy I'm her presence. she made my heart race but I didn't know why. I never did speak to her and still don't know her name. I realize now she was my first female crush.
I had some friends, but wasn't close to anyone until the day I met a new friend, Kathy, in choir. She had the voice of an angel, yet she was completly humble about it. She didn't gossip about other kids the way everyone else did. Soon, I met her older sister Sarah, who knew Andi well. I began spending a lot of time with their family. The entire family sang like nothing I had ever heard before, they harmonized beautifully and adored each other. They didn't watch regular TV in their house, they watched musicals over and over until they knew every word. We made up dances, movies, wrote silly songs, slept on the trampoline. Their parents were almost always busy, so we spent endless hours having unsupervised fun, car surfing and I began going to their Mormon Church with them.
The church and their members welcomed me with open arms. There was a calmness there that I had felt at the church Mom and Dad had taken us to, but this was different, bigger. The feeling of overwhelming warmth in my heart and tummy was addictive. I had also met a boy in the church who played a guitar so, I was hooked.
Spending time with Mormon families made me fall in love with large families, I decided then I wanted a large family myself one day. I wanted to make roasts on Sunday's and have kids who watched more musicals than movies.
In that time, Andi and I continued to be less connected. She met people I didn't know and I had thrown myself into the church activities, which were many. Things were getting more and more stressful at home between Andi and my parents. They seemed to take it very personally when our focus wasn't on academics. I remember my Dad often saying how we could have everything, if we would just take it. The more our parents pressed us about the school, the more we pushed back.
When I was around 15, Andi ran away. I could not be home without her. I just couldn't, so I asked my parents to be placed in a Mormon home and they agreed. I was baptized into the church so everywhere I went, I was accepted by members. I didn't need to lie for attention, I was surrounded by happy, musical, spiritual people but I was sick over my sister being gone. I made a lot of good friends, we spent our nights blasting country music and driving through the desert.
Once Andi was found, she was put into a residential treatment center, I was 16. I needed to be with her, so I told my therapist I was hearing voices and having visual hallucinations. I guess that was a bit over the top, because I landed myself in a mental hospital for a month while I tried to figure out just how crazy I needed to be to get placed in residential, but not stuck in a padded room. Once in residential, we weren't on the same team, which meant we didn't live in the same house, but I knew where she was and I saw her often. Andi and I lived there for a year.
After being released, I tried to go back to high school, but no one remembered me and everyone was already in a clic. I met a guy who was 21, and with my parents permission, I moved in with him and finished high school before my 18th birthday.
***********************************
After writing this section, I asked my adoptive Mom what she would do differently. She said she wishes our Dad hadn't mentioned sending us back to foster care. She feels terrible guilt about the things that were said.
She also said she had spoken to many therapists when we were little and they had suggested not adopting both of us. My Mom feels like they may have been right, maybe we would have bonded to her better if we hadn't been together. She said Andi was the age they were looking for. I'm so grateful to the bottom of my soul that they decided to keep Andi and I together.
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