Why?

I have debated with myself all day , if I want to tell this part of the story.......... I'm so ashamed....... but I feel like I need to tell it so that whoever is reading this will understand how life can tumble out of control for a child unloved. How when a child has to run to find peace , sometimes things can go really, really wrong........sometimes ...... because they are a child........ they want to trust and hope that somewhere out there is an adult who is good.

That was my thinking when the man found me in the laundrymat. Wow, he was a grown up and was offering me food and wasn't going to turn me in to the police who would just send me back to 'Mother'.... I got in his car and he told me to lie down in the back floorboard so that the police wouldn't see me.....Another plus for my new found savior...he was wise about the police. How could I go wrong?...We drove for a very long time and it was getting dark. We pulled up into the parking lot of a really dingy looking hamburger beer/joint and went in....The place was full of motorcycle gang members who all seemed to know him......I was twelve, but smart enough to start getting nervous.....He saw my fear so ordered a hamburger for me and said we'd eat outside in the car. While we were sitting there he started bragging about being a member of the motorcycle club and showed me a bush where they had supposedly 'shivved' a guy. Shivved??? I asked???...... and then wished I hadn't.

I was so afraid.

He went back inside for a few minutes ( this place was way out in the middle of nowhere and I couldn't decide whether to take off or not).....He came back and said it's ok....I'll take you somewhere safe now.

Whew good..... I was so afraid....

We drove down the road about a mile....then pulled over into the woods...with him saying he had to use the bathroom.

then the motorcycles came........

I remember being on the hood of the car with one after another raping me...then because I fought like a tiger....one carved BITCH in my stomach......

God how I hated them.

Twelve

Twelve years old~~ I lost count how many times I had run away by then~~ but now the consequences were getting greater when I was caught. Juvenile Hall was the destination when I was picked up now. Then court...then...partly because of who Daddy was.....and the ability to pay for good lawyers....I was sent back home.

I like to think of myself as a fair person ...so in all fairness...by this time I WAS a 'problem child'....I was learning that I could control my surroundings...that when the times got tough....I got going.

It is a vicious cycle with children in this situation....Why hasn't society figured that out yet?? If only one person would take time to reach out to one child or at least don't turn your back when you know in your heart things aren't right...the cycle could be broken.....But my purpose isn't to get on a band wagon.

Twelve....I don't have any trouble remembering how old I was when things got out of control for me... This is when I ran away one too many times and 'fate' caught up with me.....when a motorcycle gang member* found me in an apartment building laundrymat sleeping and offered to take me to get some food......and when it was over...........

life didn't seem worth living anymore.

* this was a notorious, vicious gang not like the ones we hear of today

A Kind smile

I don't know why I remember this so clearly ~~ or why it impacted me so much, but I wish I knew who the police officer was, so that I could find him and let him know how much his kind, knowing smile that day touched my soul.

I remember waiting in the police station, for 'Mother' and Daddy to come pick me up after another failed attempt of running away. I think I must have been around 12 and by then had become a pretty well known 'problem child' to the authorities in our city. I remember 'Mother' giving her 'martyr' speech of how unruly, ungrateful,and incorrigible I was~~~ I remember thinking~~~ what a bad , bad little girl I was ~~~and looking up at the police officer standing behind 'Mother'~~ and seeing him smile, then wink at me. I can't describe nor explain what this meant to me.~~ Did it rescue me??~~no~~was it my salvation or turning point???~~~ no~~~~but it made me feel~~~ for just a moment~~ not so all alone.

Perhaps this kind gentleman spent his entire life wondering if he ever made a difference in someones' life through his police work.
~~~SIR, whoever and wherever you are, you made a difference to at least one little girl who needed to know that someone was on her side.......

Thank you.

'Problem Child'

I think I was around 11 almost 12 when I began running away. From 10 years old until around this time, I was just living life as I knew it. There is no need to chronicle everything that happened on a daily basis as I would lose the whole point of writing this*. There were good days all through the time period that I'm writing of. I don't want anyone to think I was this 'poor tortured little waif' every day of my life.....yes....there were good days as well.
I don't remember the circumstances behind my first run away experience. I think 'Mother' had been away on a trip and was coming home. Maybe I had gotten to the age that I thought I was old enough to fend for myself....I don't know ....but in my childish feeble attempt to escape.......I left....Of course the 'authorities' were called.....and I was found a day later at a friends house .....living, I thought , forever in her tree house.....

Now I had a 'record'......'Mother' got to classify me as a 'problem child'

...Oh.

*the point being HOW WE TREAT OUR CHILDREN...IS THE ADULTS THEY BECOME.....hug a child...tell them they are special

*Footnote

Is there a difference between defending someones' reason for doing things and making excuses? Since the 'Summer of Europe' , I have only had contact with my adopted brother once, and yet I still feel a need to put rhyme to the reason of his actions.
I know that he had his own 'devils' to contend with. He had years with 'Mother' before I was adopted and I don't know what he had to endure. I was probably just a byproduct of his own tortured life. Who knows.

Do I forgive him??....... yes....

I pray everyday that I was the only one.....

and knowing in my heart that I wasn't ....

I pray everyday.