The Adoption Saga

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Read this article in context:

Am I Adopted?

Open adoption is the best. Sadly I was not born in an open adoption state. The one I live in now I could just call up the court and get whatever information I want since I am over 18. Sadly this is not where I was born, and I am stuck with a place where a court petition is required to unseal adoption records.

After some weeks, I figured out the right court, and place to call. No one will tell me even if I AM adopted or not and I have to pay 80 bucks, and fill out the forms. I talked to the senior court clerk yesterday who told me, they can't even tell me if my birth certificate is amended and I have to do the paperwork for the petition to unseal adoption records to find out if there are ANY adoption records. If I am not adopted whatsoever, I may be eligible to get a refund. This is what happens when you have a family that does nothing but keep secrets and the mistress of lies and withholding for a "mother".

At least I have a claim to have them opened with medical reasons being the top reason. There are still medical problems such as with my kidneys, the doctors have not figured out. Even with the Lipedema being so severe, I need answers.

It could go either way, I will find out I am not adopted, and will feel utter disgust or I will find out I am adopted and will go seeking more answers. Then there could be the decision of seeking DNA tests, but if you have relatives all owned and controlled by narcissists, that is a very difficult thing to obtain. I suppose you can tell which way I hope things turn out. I hope I am adopted and I can find more answers.  Of course if a parent cheated or something else more insidious happened, then I may hit yet another dead end.

It was always weird to be super-fat in the land of the skinny-minnies. There's a few fat mid-sized level relatives but no one who ever reached my size or state of poor health. In all my research of the severely obese on this blog, the majority always had some sort of family history of severe obesity. However in my family, the majority were extraordinarily thin even for average people. Imagine a fat Aspie in the land of skinny model types.

There is no way I share any DNA with size zero first cousins. I look at a friend I have who is 400lbs, and two sisters are near her weight and two other sisters are in the high 200s and 300s. Her cousins are large too as show in family photos. One can tell she came out of that family genetically. Her face looks like theirs. I always have felt this feeling of not belonging like I was an add on.

I won't forget that my mother even refused to answer when I confronted her with the lipedema diagnosis. You know you are dealing with one sick individual when you ask a basic question about your origins and they say nothing or play turn the tables. Two cousins were shocked to hear about her response. It made no sense.

 One friend is worried I will find out I am her biological daughter and about my emotional reaction. I'm ready for anything but I am praying for answers and the truth.

My Adoption Petition is Being Mailed in Two Days

[picture source, adoption.com]

See "Am I Adopted?"

My adoption petition to unseal records will be mailed in two days. I have the papers notarized and ready. I am sending the court a letter from a health professional with my Lipedema diagnosis and other medical papers. I just want answers. In this case I had to admit to the court I do not know for sure if I am adopted, but highly suspect it due to my health problems. No one in the family has Lipedema or Lymphedema. No one in the entire family is a diabetic either--even some of the more midsized ones. No one has PCOS. All these conditions have genetic components. I am sending the court a paper that has Lipedema marked as autosomal dominant. I am a severe Lipedemic, too, this is not just minor swelling. I need to even figure out if I have Dercums, there is one lipoma on my thinner leg that is hurting from time to time and seems to be growing larger. My petition is based on needing medical information.

I am currently in my forties and married. I now ask the court to allow me access to gain my records, including any identifying information on whether if my certificate was amended, details of any would-be adoption, any relevant medical data, and records of my birth family.

Sadly I was supposedly born in a non-open adoption state. I hope I finally get answers. It took me time to scrape together the fee for the unsealing petition. My husband says I should prepare myself for whatever answers I get. It shows you how pathetic my family is that I have to ask a court if I am adopted. They just lie to me. I know for sure they are hiding something big from me the way they have acted and my husband concurs. I talked to a therapist about this and she said, "Maybe someone had an affair." I know it could go either way. I could not afford a lawyer to help me with this. I had to use templates online and other websites, I may be checking some things today to make sure I got all my ducks in a row. The papers had to be notarized and I had that done.

The DNA Saga

Years ago, I asked if I was adopted on this blog.

There's a lot of paths that led me there, it was hinted at all the time, I wasn't like my family nor did I looked like them. There was also the issue of the extreme DNA, leading to the 1 in 5 million body that took me to 700lbs and diseases like Lipedema and near deafness. Of course epigenetics would be a part of this too.

I always thought my name was "wrong", this may surprise you but I was RIGHT and I'll explain why.......

Intuition for me has always been a funny thing, in me it is strong, whatever foundation it has. The Christians taught me it was evil, and knowing things before they happened or dreaming about things, was from Satan so I shut some of that stuff done. I don't consider myself psychic but friends have witnessed weird things, like me telling them I dreamed about something and then it would happen that day or I guessed at things I wasn't supposed to know.

I got an Ancestry account and DNA test, a generous kind friend helped with this, and since I was no contact, there was no asking narcissists, minions or flying monkeys what the truth of my origins was. I used second and third cousins to deduce my genetic ties. There was even a few obscure and distant relatives whose name's I recognized. I built a family tree up to 1300 people, it definitely was going to give me answers and did.

Sadly I ended up having the narcissists be my egg and sperm donors. I was saddened by this. My disappointment took some time to process and get over. My childhood was odd, I realize it is not usual for a child to be sent to relatives to live for a periods of months. This happened with two different set of relatives in two different states. Of course this only advanced my theory I was adopted or something else was funny about my origins. I lived away from home around age 5-6 with the loving aunt, and around age 4 with the adoptive/step-grandfather I believed to be my real grandfather, grandmother and their household.

Ancestry is good for finding out family secrets. I found out my father was the product of an affair or other happening [rape?] where my grandmother who had been married for 10 years gave birth to my father, but he was not that man's son. I don't even know if my father knew. Sometimes I think Aunt Confused knew, just the funny way she treated me. Maybe she always knew I was not a full niece. This is explains why I never saw any relative outside my father's immediate family growing up.

If some relatives find my public family tree they may be in shock, but I don't care. Most narcissists don't care about the past and have no interest in delving into it so I consider the risks low.

I wrote in the notes that this information is backed up via DNA. I had multiple cousins pop up from this 'new" side of the family based on my Ancestry DNA test. I could not figure out who the exact biological grandfather was. I narrowed it down to three brothers and made notes to that fact.

I was related to several of their descendants including one person who grew up in foster homes and never knew who their father was. She was labeled as a first to second cousin.

My adoptive/step-grandfather's family did know the real grandfather's family and all attended the same church. There was even one news article from the 1930s where brothers from both families all got arrested together. I did find some strains of criminality that backed up the talk from one aunt about how several relatives were most likely "mob involved". One odd thing was noticing that Aunt Confused's son followed in the same exact vocational footsteps of many of the biological family's footsteps. I don't know if he knows either.

There was always this feeling that there were so many lies. My father told me tales of his grandfather being a multimillionaire and his father [the adoptive one] being disinherited. I found no evidence of either of the families being that wealthy, one would move up in a certain career field, but that was a generation later. My father even sent me an email in 1997 telling me these tales. I still have a paper copy. That email was so off the ranch, I spent months trying to build the family tree off misinformation. He was wrong about his adoptive father and his real father.  Most were hard working people and far more economically stable then myself, but they were far from millionaires.

My name was not the "correct" one but it's my legal name so maybe those odd feelings had reason to exist. Did intuition tell me, I did not have a "legitimate" last name nor did I look like the ethnic group it strongly hinted at?  I found out I am not half of one ethnic group, I thought I was life long. I did learn I am half German and took those family lines back to the 1400s--a few second cousins were really into genealogy too, and half Hungarian.

Some may consider it odd, that someone childless is so into geneaology, but I was into it beyond trying to dig up facts about my own life. I know a man in my community who is the last of his family line who has complied his family history. Maybe it's a way to connect with and preserve the past. Maybe it's the history or trying to figure out where I came from. I did look for fat people. One great grandfather in 1911 was very fat, and upwards of 400lbs. I found his picture. There was information that he had very bad legs. The biological paternal family of my father had some very large members, I found some pictures. The pictures backed up what the DNA told me. One descendant looked just like my brother. I did get cut off from one member of the "new family" who I think got freaked out that "great-grandfather" had other children. It's funny, I was looking 3 generations back and people still got upset, but I didn't impose or make announcements about affairs, I guess they just figured it out.  So genetically I got it from more then just one line.

There were other family secret discoveries too, I was told one uncle was murdered viciously my entire life and told he died at the hands of a jealous husband of another race. I found newspaper articles about what happened to him, he was found dead and they didn't know the cause of death, but no murder was investigated. The first thought I had was that he had committed suicide [the second would be suicide in my mother's immediate family besides the aunt that drove into a tree at a high rate of speed] and they just wrote it as inconclusive to spare the family feelings, and having someone denied burial in the Catholic graveyard like my aunt almost was. This uncle died only 3 weeks before I was born, and I have considered that this is one way I became a family wide scapegoat. The timing of my birth simply meant I was never welcomed.  Genetics proved he was not my father, as I was related to the known maternal line of my father and of course the new paternal line from the same distant community.

In other religions, people try to contact their ancestors. This is important to a variety of world religions. There were harsh faced relatives like my grandfather's grandmother or my second great grandmother and others who looked nicer.  I had some weird moments such as finding one ancestor that looked like me so much that when I put her picture up on Facebook, friends were shocked. She was like a thin version of me. Funny thing was this particular daughter of my great-grandfather, never married or had children. She was a life-long school teacher who lived independently.  As a child I saw her one room school house, she taught at in the fields on the way to my grandmother's house. If there is an after world at all, I can picture myself going to find some of these other relatives, asking what was it like and what happened? I was reaching so far into the past. Maybe outcast status in one's own family worsened as time modernized.

One thing I noticed is families lived far closer knit in the same communities, on both sides I was doing research in a particular town they lived in for the majority of relatives. Yes there was the line where people left the old country, but even in America, families stayed close by. This ended with the boomers and the new economic nomadism that took over the country. I got the feeling that others grew up with a wide variety of relatives as the norm until my mother's generation changed this. It also occurred to me on one side of the family, I was the first to leave the family church, it's hold remained over generations and generations. That was a strange idea to think about.

I was glad to find out if I was adopted or not even if the results were disappointing. Maybe I had hope for more explanations, but some of us must face sometimes we were birthed to people who were not real parents to us. I also realized there was a lot of weirdness in my childhood where there was little bonding and ambivalence and wonder how much appearances meant I never got to grow up in a relatives home where I may have blossomed. Life in the adoptive/step-father's, grandmother's home was not pleasant either but life certainly was with my aunt.

Some may get angry thinking how dare someone go and dig through family secrets, there's people out there who hate places like Ancestry because they are exposing a lot of family lies. Some people are finding out they were adopted. It is better to know the truth either way things go.



No more Family Secrets



Update: I did figure out which of the brothers was my grandfather from new DNA contacts being found.

Am I Adopted? The Questions of My Origins

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What if you looked like no one in your family? or just partially like a few?

I ran this by a few friends, some online ones so they could be objective showing pictures of relatives. All said, I did not look like my family members.

I come from the land of skinny legs and even skinnier people. I am not talking average weight people either who may have a little belly or anything like that but ultra-thin folks who match model thinness.  There are a few overweight people but they never reached my extreme weight or health problems. They are healthy for larger people and can work. No one has anything resembling lymphedema. There were no thinner people with bigger legs and hips.  No one ever reached my extreme size.  One thing I figured out doing this blog is that there was serious genetic origins of weight and especially for the super-duper sized. In other words, every ultra obese person I encountered had some severe family history regarding obesity.

What if no one had your same personality or same intellectual interests? What if you were born into a family where your desire for the arts, book reading, and intellectual pursuits were decried? What if you were tested as having a higher IQ as a child and realized most of those around you were not just average but far below it? What if you were a sensitive Aspie among mostly Neanderthals? [some cousins, and their families exempted]

What if you realized you were shut out in endless subtle ways? My maternal grandmother left my photo off her family wall of pictures, leaving me off. One day I gave her a painted frame and wedding photo, it was still left off.  Every cousin, grandchild, and child was on this wall. What if you were uninvited from family events?--this in the days before you left the family church?

What if you felt rejected and like you were not a "fit" whatsoever, you were co complete and utterly different from all your relatives [even the few nice ones]? What if you noticed gifts being given by other relatives to siblings but not to you? What if you noticed some relatives not coming to your wedding or not inviting you to theirs, as if you really are not related to them? What if you felt that something simply didn't add up? One thing, people called me crazy for 17 years for knowing something was more wrong with me then just being fat and the already few discovered hormonal disorders. Same here, inside I know and feel like something is wrong even if I can't put my finger on it.

What if you got diagnosed [and it's a sure diagnosis] with a rare disorder [lipedema] which is genetic and autosomal dominant like Huntingtons? What if you join boards for support for this disorder, and they discuss how they know which side of the family it came from and how at least a few relatives were shaped like them and all of them know which and what relatives had it or what side of the family it came from?

What if you felt something was wrong from childhood? Where you remember crying that you were adopted and getting in trouble for it? Yes I know this can be a fantasy of abused children, but this lasted for me for years and years. My brother remembers me musing aloud constantly if I was adopted or if they had lied about where I had come from. He also remembers the time I came home from living with the Aunt that Loved me for some months, and not wanting to come home though I said I missed him. I didn't look like her and her children though they were all very kind.

I know it's odd to be this old wondering about my origins. These were things I was too scared to give voice or thought too before I went NC. The lipedema stuff really triggered this. I asked even a medical professional if Lipedema is genetic and they said YES. The severe obesity to the extreme made me wonder for YEARS, no one else was infertile either, but this one made me really wonder.

The fact of the matter is I felt completely alone in my family system to the point I always felt like I never belonged. Everything was about the narcs. I even find myself wondering if I was so medically neglected because they did fear some genetic disorder being found. What information was I denied? I paid a huge huge price for not having early medical intervention even from the PCOS alone! With lipedema, puberty brought it on, I gained 100lbs right when I hit puberty, and went from near normal to midsized which is where I sat until the giant weight gain hit.

One thing discussed on lipedema boards is how trauma will trigger a worsening of the condition and the year my second weight gain began, that was available in spades. One thing I considered is if I had gotten help, I never would have ended up at stage IV, and may have been a more manageable stage 1 or II, but with the narcissists no one was paying attention and no one cared. Much of the reason I had to go NC, was the medical neglect alone and protecting myself.

I almost made a fatal NC mistake,  the desire to know the truth about my origins, almost had me very stupidly take narc mother bait. I don't know what I was thinking to think that woman may admit anymore or admit the truth and it led me to almost make a huge mistake.  I've had to cut things off at the pass.

The constant hoovering I am facing is shocking me. I never expected it. I was so ostracized I thought my narc mother and sister would be glad I was gone, and would wash their hands of me for good, but it didn't happen.  Remember in my case, they were ignorers not engulfers. There seems to be an extreme desire to regain control, and "keeping track" of me that is extreme. I have to draw the boundaries tighter. They both despise me and avoided me as much as possible for years so why is keeping contact with me so utterly important?

I could be wrong and know there is the possibility I am biologically related too. Plenty of people had narcissistic egg and sperm donors who treated them like trash, but there are a lot of things not adding up in my mind too.

Late Discovery Adoptees

My Husband's Cousin

Sometimes it seems some people die and just disappear. My husband's cousin died. I trust the person who told me she had recently died, and I had heard she was in and out of the hospital. Later I did see a death notice, but no one wrote an obituary anywhere.

My husband's family was estranged from hers even though they lived in the same town, the cousin's mother [my husband's aunt]did not get along with his father. Everyone had emigrated from Germany to the same small town back in the 1950s and 60s before the economic miracle in Germany took hold.

I once said to my husband, "You probably would have ended up better off growing up in Germany then the USA",but he said "Things were still pretty wretched then." His father almost went to Australia, so it is weird how people meet based on certain circumstances lining up. He was born here and has full USA citizenship, otherwise we might have already fled the country. His parents never became citizens but stayed here until they both died around 14 years ago. I can't speak any German anyhow and culturally some aspects of Germany would not be for me. He was only allowed to claim German citizenship up to age 23 and of course was perfectly happy growing up American.

Anyhow he had this cousin,she was around my age. She had a very tragic life. I didn't know her very well. She was a drug addict, and sometimes we would run into her at the beach,and at the gas station. I tried to invite her over a couple times when we first lived here, but she would turn me down. Once we made plans for Thanksgiving and she was a no show. So I knew she probably was too severely addicted to maintain normal social interactions,and well I only knew her very little. People in full blown addiction kind of scare me, but with her, I thought we could at least have some contact.

I suspect highly that she was an ACON scapegoat from the little I do know. I know families will have hard times with drug addicts and drug addicts will burn a lot of bridges but from what she told me, about her life, I got the feeling she felt unloved and abused growing up. I talked to her enough to share some of my experiences though I didn't lay it on too thick because she had enough problems of her own. I remember trying to give her some encouragement to tell her bad childhoods can be overcome,but then who knows if I am the posterchild for that hunched over my walker and with my own angst.

One time we ran into her, and I have some face blindness Aspies get and it's weird how people can look so different to me when they are not all there.  I barely recognized her but my husband said hello, and I was able to hide the fact I had failed to recognize her. Well I had only met her 4 or 5 times around town over 10 years. One time we gave her a ride, seeing her walking down this busy road,and another time talked to her while we were sitting on the beach.

I met my husband's aunt once who was her adoptive mother. In this case, the cousin knew she was adopted. The aunt was in her early 80s. This was around 4-5 years ago. I had not gone no contact yet but was reading a lot about narcissistic personality disorder and family dynamics but was considering all these things. I sought out my husband's aunt. We had lived here 5 years, he had little contact with her, and I said, "Since we live here now, shouldn't we meet?" So we did ONCE.

She walked into the restaurant we were meeting at and had a face of disgust for me. I am not sure if it was for my weight or what. I do remember being severely disappointed. She made me feel scared and on edge. She didn't smile very much.

The first question she walked in the room and asked me was, "Are you Lutheran?" I was honest and told her, "No, but I am a Christian, I have gone to baptist churches in the past." The question flustered me. Telling her I was a Christian did not appease her. She didn't seem too happy with this and like she was really angry. My husband had grown up in a German Lutheran family.  This town is predominantly Lutheran. We went on to converse. One thing I noticed around her, is I felt like she was very cold. She reminded me of my mother, upper middle class, and smug, so I was not upset with no more visits with her after that. Obviously she did not like me much, and didn't care about continued contact with her nephew [my husband]  she never contacted us again.

I know the other son, is a well-off doctor, he seems nice enough. I met him once in passing when he saw my husband at an art fair when he came back "home" from out of state where he lives.  He seems like a nice fellow and spoke of having loving visits with his mother.  I wondered how life really was for his adopted sister?

I know the adoptive sister was disinherited upon the aunt's death. The Aunt died a few years after I met her. I did not go to the funeral, we had no contact at that point.

It's sad to me, when someone gets such a hard life. I do believe many drug addicts and alcoholics come out of abusive families. Not every ACON struggles with substance abuse problems but some do. It really bothered me, that we found out this cousin died three months after the fact.  Her family obviously did not care. Some would judge and say, her drug addiction cost her the family, but I would say in this case I wondered if the family in the first place was part of the underlying trauma that led her to become addicted to drugs.

I think of how that "aunt" treated me, and how she wanted nothing to do with me, for not having the "right status" or "look" and I think about what happened to her. It really hurt at the time. It's like the Tiffany Sedaris story, and Aunt Scapegoat. People do become "throw-aways" in families, it is sad to see. 

Peep Fiction #1

I tried my hand at some fiction to describe my life earlier on. With the graphic zines, I figured this was a redundant enterprise and focused on expressing things in drawn form,  but kept the writing and decided I would share it here. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and GUILTY.

 
Budgie is born with a giant smile on her face and is happy to be alive. Things got worse as she has to deal with Queen spider and her minions later than early days she is very happy The origins of Five Hundred Pound Peep are dubious so thus Budge is shown popping out of the egg in “The Budge is born”. Also called Peep, Budge or Budgie, Budgie is eager to see the world, and is happy enough in that early time. 

Then things get a bit more dicey, as Peep deals with Queen Spider [Mrs.Spyder and Mr. Spyder, who aren't very nice to little children]. Midge and John had children believing they were supposed to in those pre-child free movement days, and definitely were overwhelmed and annoyed by the whole ordeal. Only weirdos didn't procreate. Children cost money, children made noise! Such was the outcome of wanton breeding with little thought behind it. Their female middle child was an unwanted extra. Mr. Spyder already had his son who looked just like him and Queen Spider, her obedient Mini-Me [Mimi] who hung on her every minute. Why were they having to take care of this burden, the child who embarrassed them by being afraid of everything and hiding and for being too smart and asking too many questions? For some reason, some people who should never have had children, have too many, and the extras are thrown away. This is something inexplicable in our world.

Supposedly Midge laying back and thinking of England, fertilized the egg that brought the yapping little presence who stared down two dark triad black souls with her shiny big eyes.  Budgie annoyed Midge. She would observe Budgie looking at her, why does that little girl always have to nose into everything? Why does she always want to find things out?  She was mad because she could read by the age of 3. The little girl seemed to condemn her. Midge thought inside, “How I hate her”. 

One day Budgie was watching the tv talk show Donahue, and laughing, and Midge got angry, that's not a show suitable for little children, how can she even understand what is going on? As Mini-Me Mimi laid on the couch, Midge grabbed Budge by the scruff of her neck and dragged her upstairs to her bedroom, and opened the door and shoved her in, slamming the door and locking it.  It was time to lock the little brat up yet again! John had said “Don't let the neighbors find out, that you are keeping Budgie locked up in there!” “I won't!” said Midge. “I will threaten her upon pain of death, so she doesn't scream out the window like she did last time! I had to tell Mrs. Humperdink and Mrs Dooray she was playing a game with her sister, to cover up why she was screaming like a banshee! Wow she pisses me off. Can we give her back? Ah that won't look good. “

Budgie cried and cried, she was tired of being locked in her room. It was hot and boring. She wanted to go outside, she looked at the rooms pink walls and a few books scattered about and started to worry about when she'd get to eat next. “Mommy” had failed to feed her lunch and she knew it was already late afternoon. Would she be able to get a glass of water? Would they hit her if she peed in trashcan again? Budgie noticed a hair pin that had fallen out of Midge's hair, when she had been in her room last, and she started to pick at the lock, it held the door fast but it was a cheap bedroom lock. She picked and picked, and then all of a sudden she heard a click, and she was able to creak the door open but was too afraid to leave, she knew that would earn her a definite smacking if not an out right beating. She closed the door shut again but felt happy knowing she could get out if there was a fire. Getting out meant freedom.

On a later day, Budge sat in her favorite place on the front stoop of the house, she could hear planes flying by overhead and would imagine herself flying to get away. The drone of the airplane engines above spoke of escape. The Spyder's didn't understand a little girl that just wanted to sit and think and it made them angry. Thinking was a waste of time, doing and making money and having a perfect house and yard is what mattered!  Budge pondered her escape, “These people hate me, I do not belong here, there's gotta be somewhere I can go!” 

A few weeks earlier, her and Mr. Spyder had gone to the hardware store, and she realized that this man who called himself her “father” did not love her, so she probably wasn't even his child. She started screaming to be rescued. “This man has kidnapped me! Save me!” Mr. Spyder scooped her up as she struggled and squirmed to run away. “He is not my real father!” Worried strangers gathered around. John's face grew red, and he grew hot with anger, he wanted to unleash his wrath on the bratty hellcat putting him at risk of being dragged off to prison. The store manager approached, “Sir, you will have to step aside so we can see what is going on!” He followed him to his office, yanking screaming and crying Budgie, who still cried for rescue. He wanted to beat her right then and there, but knew that would not look good to others. He'd rip her hair out or hold her head under the water in the pool a minute too long later.

For now he had a jam to get out of which meant telling these strangers, that Budgie was really his daughter. He sat down in the Formica chair across from the manager's desk, “She really is my daughter, my name is John Spyder. “ Here I will let you call her mother, to vouch for me.” The manager called Mrs. Spyder who answered with a sweet smiling hiding her rage at that troublesome Budge. For years Mr. Spyder would tell this story to his friends, “That ungrateful brat, she almost got me arrested!” The friends would nod and smile but no one ever asked why Budgie wanted to escape so badly. 

Budgie had gotten a beating when she got home that night, not enough to put her in the hospital, the Spyders knew good government jobs vanished if you had to drag a beaten child to the hospital with black eyes, bruises and broken bones but enough to make their message clear, “You better be quiet in front of others”. They smacked her, and pulled her hair until she cried. 

Budgie knew she wanted to run away, she wanted to find a new place to go and be. Daddy was in the back yard busy hitting Johnny for leaving toys in the lawn while he tried to mow. Mommy was upstairs, cleaning with Mimi. Peep grabbed her brother's red wagon. She snuck quietly into the house hoping Mommy would not hear her grabbing the cheese slices out of the fridge or the box of Vanilla wafers out of one of the bottom cupboards. She grabbed Raggedy Ann out of her bed, knowing she could not leave her behind, and ran down to put her things in the wagon and leave. 

The Spyders lived in a suburban housing complex in the middle of nowhere. It was soul-less suburbia that was out beyond the reaches of the moon. The area offered one pool and community center, an elementary and high school and one IGA and not much else among the dairy farms. Mr. Spyder drove 40 miles one way to his big city computer government job. He was gone a lot, and also taught at one college and took classes.

Budgie remembered one school trip to do tie-dyes where she cried over not having a white t-shirt to dye like everyone else and Mommy buying corn from the farmers, and also the spicy garlic bologna made at the IGA but most of her world encompassed endless streets of bi-levels and ranchers that all looked the same. She often got lost, trying to find friend's houses knocking on the wrong doors but she could find her house easily since it was on the corner and Daddy had put a giant white fence around their yard. 

Budgie walked slowly, she didn't want the rattling of the wagon to get Daddy's attention, he was still yelling now something about tools at her brother. He hadn't noticed her in a long time. She walked away down the street, past the house across the street on the corner, down the way from the Dooray's the farthest Mommy ever allowed her to go. She kept walking, the houses seemed to go on forever at the Flowery Seasons housing complex. There seemed to be no end to them. She got tired and rubbed her feet sitting on one curb. The sun beat down. 

She started to cry, the roads of suburban houses stretched as far as she could see. There was no stores, or place to sit down except the curb, and no restrooms either. Budgie thought, “I better go back, because I don't see me making it anywhere”. She ran and walked back. It took some time. Daddy was still mowing the lawn and her brother had disappeared, maybe down the street himself or next door to Chipper's house. She went inside. Mommy was watching TV. No one had noticed she had left. 

Sometime later, Mommy came and said “I am sending you to your aunts for the summer” The rest of us are going to take a vacation. My best friend Sister Jude is going to take you on an airplane, and drop you off at your aunt's house". Budge found it weird her family planned to take a trip without her, but did not protest, she wanted to escape after all. Maybe she would get to have another family. She had met her aunt a few times, and thought things may be fun. Her aunt had come to visit before with other relatives, and they had seen fire works and area museums. Her aunt Janet was always interested in everything and smiled a lot. She enjoyed life, unlike Midge who spent hours cleaning the kitchen. Budgie was excited about leaving. It was a dream to finally get away when she had run away.

Mommy seemed fed up and had gotten angrier and angrier with her. One day Budgie had gone into the bathroom to show her, a book she was reading. Mommy was cleaning off the sink, and Budgie said, “Look I can read this Dr. Seuss book, A Cat in the Hat”, isn't this funny?”, and Mommy took one look at her and said, “Leave me alone!” and then shoved her hard. Budge ran crying into her bedroom. 

Mommy hated her, of this she was sure. Sometimes Budgie wondered if she was adopted. Mommy had three covered baby books covered in white satin, one for her, her brother and sister. She noticed while her sisters and brother's had a lock of hair tape into the front page and multiple pictures including ones of them as very little babies, her baby book was nearly empty. There was one picture of her at around 7-9 months old but nothing earlier. Budgie would say to her brother, who was a year older, “I think they adopted me!” Budgie called her “mother” Mommy but the word felt funny. 

Mommy was always angry and didn't treat her like other girls in the neighborhood mothers who seemed happy with them and bought them pretty dresses. Normal mothers sometimes got irritated or told Budge or her friend to go play upstairs or outside, and sometimes drank wine and got overly attached to their soap operas, but didn't shove them, or pull their hair and they sometimes smiled and looked happy and talked to them instead of yelling at them. Mrs Spyder did a lot of housework and watched soap operas all day but was angry and pissed off all the time. There was never any kisses, hugs or nice pats on the head. Mrs. Spyder considered her an annoyance and a burden. Budgie learned to hide out as much as possible but Mrs. Spyder never left her alone enough either.

One day Budgie was outside in the backyard playing when she went by the fence and she overheard her mother talking to a neighbor lady down the street. “That little bitch is too smart for her own good!”. Budgie realized with horror, Mommy was talking about her. She felt scared inside, and a pit started forming in her stomach. “She is too weird!” Mrs. Spider spat out. The friend while looking shocked nodded and pretended to agreed, “Your daughter is not normal.” “I don't know what to do”, Mrs Spider said, “she is impossible”. Budgie sat back and felt even more afraid. Her mother hated her so much! 

Budgie wasn't sure why Mommy hated her so much.  She didn't like Mommy that much either. She scared her. Her friend Teresa's mother always seemed to like her and told her she was very smart. Mrs. Dooray too. Another neighborhood lady said it was great Peep could read already and made a joke about little pitchers having big ears and this pitcher knowing way too much. 

Budgie's visit to her aunt was not the first time she'd been sent away from home. Budgie had been sent to live in her cousin's bright pink bedroom when she was even younger. Her memories were vague but she remembered one grandparent, her aunt, and her weird balding husband, and hiding a lot in the upstairs. Her time there didn't seem very pleasant either.  They seemed drunk all the time. One grandfather always seemed to grabbing her. He put a wig on her head.  Her Aunt Maybelline cackled and giggled and seemed fake. The adults scared her. Her brother was there too but seemed to ignore her a lot. She remembered her sister on the couch saying “I can't walk”, and her parents being frantic and then suitcases were packed and there they were after her sister was put in the hospital.

Mrs. Spyder's best friend was a nun, she was one of those modern nuns who did not wear habits, but Budgie had to call her “sister”. She wore sensible sweaters and lots of black skirts. Later she would leave the convent but back then she was SISTER. Mommy said she worked with bishops and Cardinals and was very important and had multiple advanced degrees. She seemed nice enough to Budgie.

One day Budgie told Sister Jude that her parents were mean to her, hit her, and locked her in her room. Sister Jude, just laughed, “Oh you little kids make up stories, your parents love you very much”. Budgie liked it when Sister was there, because Mommy and Daddy would act nicer, they wouldn't yell so much and wouldn't slap her. Budgie realized Sister was kind of like Mommy when she burst out crying on the plane because her ears hurt and she could not hear. She was irritated with her. Otherwise, Sister Jude was nice, but she was never going to rescue Budgie. 

Budgie's aunt lived in a rented white bungalow out in a rural area. Across the street were farms and endless cornfields, same as Budgie's grandmother's house which wasn't far away. Aunt J was young and hip, and had long black hair she wore like an Indian and wore beads and moccasins. Mrs. Spider wore her hair in a helmet hairdo and mannish clothing and polyester pants, but Aunt Janet looked like a model and sometimes wore dresses and long leather boots and belt buckles. Aunt Jane had a baby 6 months before. Her husband who was Budgie's uncle who'd go to New Mexico years later to “find himself” and write a book on New Age Affirmations.They had married straight out of high school. 

Their house was straight out of the 1970s with orange counters and in one corner a Indian rattan chair with a huge round disc-like back. Aunt Janet stayed home to take care of her baby while her husband worked. The living room held her newly purchased black leather couch. She made a tidy welcoming comfortable home. Budgie and Aunt Janet spent a lot of time outdoors. There was a circle driveway in front of the house, and a  broken down shed that had a very large garden next to it.  Aunt Janet. loved plants and they blossomed under her care. She had huge broccoli and cauliflower plants, Budgie loved their huge green and white roundness, big flat leaves and crisp smell.

Mr. Spyder hated Budgie's aunt and uncle and would yell about “the Hippies”. Mr. Spyder looked just like brunette Archie Bunker and yelled like him too except he wasn't married to a simpering Edith but a tough as nails Midge. Mr. Spyder was into computers, cars and repairs and dressing like the actors on the show the Madmen. Aunt Janet was into art, health foods and Native American pottery, crafts and culture. She loved camping and buying dream catchers. Budgie bonded with her. At times she would tell Budgie, “Be quiet the baby is sleeping” and other reminders but she made Budgie nice meals and gave her fun things to do while helping in the garden. The days passed by pleasantly. Budge loved her new life. 

The summer proceeded. Mrs.Spyder had been vague about how long Budgie was going to stay but months passed. Budgie went on trips with her aunt and baby to visit the dam, the woods, some museums and other relatives. They visited the neighbors across the street who owned Great Danes, as tall as Budgie. She would play with her baby cousin, and would read her Peanuts comic strips and started her sketchbook where she drew herself as “Lucy” and the other Peanuts kids, Linus, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Pig Pen. Aunt Janet encouraged her reading and drawing talents. 

One day, Budgie had Aunt Janet say she may have to go back home. Budgie said directly, “I want to stay here and live with you!” Tears sprung to her eyes as she begged her aunt, “Please let me stay, I won't be too much trouble!” “Don't send me back there.” Budgie didn't know why she couldn't stay. Mrs. Spyder was happier most likely. Budgie was happier. Aunt Janet and Uncle Rickie and baby cousin Arnie seemed happy to have her as a member of the family, “Why did she have to leave?” Years later her brother would tell her, “You made Mom really mad, when you told everyone you wanted to live with Aunt Janet for good!” Budgie responded, “Why didn't she let me?” 

When Budgie returned “home” she could tell Mrs. Spyder was really mad. Mommy was more livid and gave her mean looks. She knew she was going to be made to pay for choosing her aunt and letting other family members know about it. At 5 years old she was already screwed. When Mommy wanted revenge, the smirks were gone, and her green eyes got colder and harder. Budgie hoped she would live through the week. 

Mommy had cleaned out her bedroom and gotten rid of all her old things, there was new white furniture with pretty flowers on it. Mommy took her suitcases into her and her sister's bedroom, “Look I got you both a new bedroom set, don't you like it?” Budgie responded, “It's nice but I wanted to stay with Aunt Janet!” Mommy got really mad and slapped her hard, “What's wrong with you?” and stormed out of the room locking the door as Budgie cried. The furniture was nice, and Mommy had bought her sister new little glass animals that looked interesting and she wanted some, but she missed her other life. 

Mrs. Rice was a teacher that was kind to Budgie. When young Budgie could read very early and she did well in school, it was a source of some comfort in an other wide harsh world. Books from the time of Dr. Seuss and Charles Schultz had become Budgie's escape. That year, she had an open class room and did her lessons on blue SAT cards. Her teacher was encouraging her to study at her own pace and she believed in creativity. This is when Budgie started sharing her drawings with her classmates too.

Mrs. Spyder put Budge and her shorter and thinner sister into ballet class, every week on Saturday morning, they would go and practice. Budgie was the biggest girl in the class, and a head taller then all the other girls her age. Ballet was the last activity a fat clumsy child on the autistic spectrum should have been placed in. Their teacher was thin, and young. and a lot of the activities seemed to include spinning around and putting legs up on bars. Mimi enjoyed the activities while Budgie found some of it fun, the teacher seemed frustrated with her a lot telling her, that she needed to “follow directions” and “only bad girls didn't listen””. Mrs. Spyder said all the time girls are supposed to be pretty, petite and slender and Budgie was none of the above, and should have been born a boy. 

Budgie was not a thin gazelle,who could kick lithe legs several feet into the air, there was no appearing to float, or giant jumps into the air. She got dizzy just turning around once. She would trip and sprained her ankle almost every week.

Once there, the Spiders told her it was time for rehearsal and she had to get dressed in this white lacy ballet dress, and go with her class on stage. Budgie was not happy about this. She got nervous and cried,  “I don't know my lines.” She knew this stage was not a pleasant place for girl like her. Her parents tossed her into the back seat of their midnight blue 1967 Chevy Bel Air station wagon and drove to the community center for the show. Budge ran out of her mother's grip and found a bunch of boxes to hide in. Mrs. Spyder was lived and muttered “How dare this girl embarrass me in front of my community”

Mimi  had already done her dance show with her age group the week before, and it had been a success. Mrs. Spider like a stage mother from hell threw Budgie out onto the stage. Terrified and frozen, she forgot her props-the flowers that each dancer held. She remember her dance steps but forgot to smile. The Spyders turned to each other, in disgust and decided any investment in Budgie was a waste of time. She didn't make them look good.

The Spyders moved to a new town, it was a rich suburb next to a huge metro city known for lawyers and corrupt politicians. The bicentennial colonial style was in full swing and 1776 was in the air. It was the year when the Spyders moved from the oddly isolated housing development in the middle of nowhere with just an IGA a few miles away to a more established town with a library, malls, and things to do. Budgie found some friends, but remained an outcast shy and quiet, and went for public school kids in her neighborhood and Vietnamese refugee kids, who were more understanding to those to outsiders to American culture. Budgie would eat spicy meat and rice out of bowls at their houses, and listen to their parents speak Vietnamese. For some reason her Vietnamese friends loved Jerry Lewis, something she never understood or got.

The favoritism for her sister had increased ten fold. Mimi could do nothing wrong. She was the little angel, always neat and perfectly dressed. Mommy didn't care that she got Cs and Ds in school after all Mimi had been sick and got behind. Mommy criticized Budgie for sleeves that were never in the right place.

Budge and Mimi got up for school. Budgie wished she could sleep all day. Mommy was always calling her lazy and yelling at her. “Why are your legs and butt so much fatter then other girls?” Budge felt confused as to why she was so fat. The other girls ate candy, cookies, Frito's, and drank chocolate milk and orange Fay-go soda.  Unlike other girls, she had to deliver newspapers for an hour and half every afternoon and Saturday and Sunday morning on her bicycle, so when teachers told her exercise was supposed to make you lose weight, Budgie couldn't believe it!

Mrs. Spyder ruled the refrigerator with an iron fist, not one morsel passed out of there without her notice. Mrs. Spyder would bellow through the house if a chicken leg went missing out out of a whole bucket or if Budge somehow managed to snatch one slice out of a 100 piece box of Kraft cheese. While meat and potato dinner portions were generous enough Budgie's house was not a place of any free snacking. Mrs. Spider even bought padlocks to snap on the front of the freezers, because Budge's brother Johnny Jr. loved ice cream and would sneak eat it with a spoon right out-of-the-box. 

The Spyder children were given the same nutritionally void food daily. So for breakfast, they had some insulin resistance creating sugary cereal. Budgie's choice was Life cereal and Mimi would stick by Honey nut Cheerios for the next 40 years. Lunch was three Chips Ahoy cookies in a plastic bag, a garlic bologna sandwich with iceberg lettuce, later switched to leafy green lettuce as the family fortunes rose, and and a stack of 30 or so Pringles, and/or  Lays potato chips. Carrots and celery sticks would make an occasional appearance but whenever Mrs. Spyder was upset over Budgie's weight, she'd cut her sandwich in half.

At times, weird foods would appear in the house for Daddy to eat, when heart problems forced on the Pritikin diet. The low fat craze was just getting started and weights would skyrocket in America. During Friday's during Lent, the baloney sandwich would be swapped out for tuna fish mixed with mayonnaise and celery. Back then Budgie was not allergic to potatoes and fish. 

Budgie got up and was running late, today was a carrot sticks and celery and half a sandwich day. Budge went into the kitchen, her sister  Mimi already being up for some time was busy scarfing down her gleefully smiling yellow goldfish crackers. No one else in the house was allowed to touch them.

Mrs. Spyder told Budgie, “You are getting so fat, it's horrible, you can live without breakfast since you are so late and would not get out of bed.” Budgie cried, “I'm hungry”, her stomach was growling full force. Budge was hungry all the time. She hated how skinny kids could eat three squares a day with maybe one snack thrown in and not be punished all the time. Their bodies were nice to them, they weren't the ENEMY. They could be who they were. They could do cartwheels and climb on jungle gyms and be happy. Their mommies didn't hate them. 

Budgie and Mimi made their way to school. St. Anne's Catholic school was right across the street. The kids already were laughing when Peep came by, it made her nervous ever since she hit the third grade, the kids had gotten meaner. She used to be more normal and was pretty much ignored back then. She missed those days. Teasing went up and down with body weight. Third grade brought more curves, a bigger stomach and thighs, Budgie was sunk. 

Budgie felt angry, why didn't they ever leave her alone, it sucked they were always picking at her, and even if she cussed them out or threw a fit or ignored them nothing worked to stop them. The adults seemed to agree with the bullying and never stopped it. She would beg teachers after school but Budge would be told, “You need to ignore it, they look for a reaction, you know.” Budgie would remain silent and totally block out the mocking, she would pretend she was someone else and not their target, but it never ever stopped them. It made it worse. Being a robot didn't work and fighting back didn't either. What was she supposed to do?

One girl as she crossed the front parking lot sneered “Tub o' Lard!”.The boys always talked about her big butt and legs which made Budgie very self conscious. She hated boys, who always seemed to be even skinnier, while being the biggest pigs eating whatever they wanted. A few girls joined the “lard” girl, and started laughing and pointing. Budgie ran behind the school building, and hid and the bell rang and she didn't line up with her stupid class. “Why did they always make you line up at school like you were a stupid puppet?“ she thought. 

Softly Budge sang the lyrics of Pink Floyd's “Another Brick in the Wall” “We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control”......She sat on the bench and leaned her head back. All the kids were gone, she enjoyed the silence. Ten minutes later she walked into class, Sister Cornelia was angry that she was so late as Billy the bully went on about earthquakes, saying “Boom” with every step she took. She wished she was really an earthquake and could put him under a giant pile of rubble. 

Sister Cornelia assigned problems in math. Budge hated math, which was not like reading or history where she excelled. Instead of doing her math problems, she got out her latest Stephen King novel and hid it behind her math text book. “Screw this class”, Budge thought. She thought Carrie was a wimp to get beaten up in the gym shower and what was a tampon? At the end of the book all hell broke loose. Carrie would have her day.

Budgie closed her eyes and imagined lighting the classroom on fire with her mind. She didn't want to take anyone out like Carrie, but wanted her classmates to finally show some respect. They would run screaming as their desks burned in shock at her newly gained powers. Sister Cornelia interrupted her day dream. The nuns didn't like her choice of horror novels and weird fascination with Charles Addams comic books, she checked out old ones from the 1950s from the public library. They were always confiscating her books, even once swooping up a copy of “Late Great Planet Earth” , and lecturing her parents about Budgie's choices in books. The only freedom Budgie had was in reading so she was sick of the penguins and their endless rules. 

Budgie was sent to the corner, like always. Mary Ann in the row in front of her starting to have a nose bleed. Sister Cornelia had to take her to the nurse. This gave her a 5 minute reprieve from being watched by her teacher. As the obedient class continued with their math problems, Budge ran into the cloakroom. It was dark in there but not too dark to see. Her classmates gym shoes, coats and lunch bags were all lined up. The smell of gym socks and bologna sandwiches free of refrigeration let out an interesting aroma. Budgie's stomach growled even harder from that morning, and she had the thought, “I bet there's some tasty sandwiches in here, maybe even some with cheese!” Budgie grabbed Billy the bully's lunch first, it was time for some pay back. He had a ham and cheese sandwich and his Mom had packed a giant dill pickle too. 

Budgie thought of all the kids who were always making fun of her, it was time for some sweet revenge. Budgie took a bite of his sandwich and wolfed down half of it. Crossing this line, Budgie started going through lunch bags for the most interesting food. Anna had a hard-boiled egg, Yum! She took a few sips of Martin's thermos with a tasty tomato soup in it. With her hunger abated, she kept thinking about all those skinny kids abusing her and thought, “If I can't eat in peace, neither can they!”

She tossed down the rest Billy's lunch and squished it. Food and lunch items poured out of the cloakroom, classmates came running. Sister Celia had only been gone for a five minutes, the class was in a giant uproar. Budgie was fed up and ready to fight and start punching and so she did. She was beyond pissed. She grabbed her classmate's hair, she saw red and fought 10 kids at once. Sister Celia came back and was in shock. Budgie had destroyed her classroom. Sister Celia ran down the hall crying for other teachers and they came and dragged Budgie away kicking and screaming. She almost got expelled, if the Spyders didn't pay tuition and donated lots of money to the church, Budgie would have been in public school the next day.

 Mrs Spyder never defended Budge, if anyone was going to pick on Budgie, it was going to be her and the others were just adjuncts to the big tear-down. Budge became a budding atheist as Sister Helen told her that God was unhappy with her and on the side of her mocking classmates. What could be done? The nun recoiled as Budgie shouted, “There is no God!” and the shocked nun muttered about possessed children under her breath.

Summer finally began and Budgie escaped her babysitter. The Spiders kept her penned up as tight as a lab rat except when she was put to work delivering newspapers for 2-3 hours every afternoon and every weekend morning. Babysitters meant blessed freedom. Peep able to go for miles on her bike from all the newspaper delivering wanted to see the world away from her school and route. She escaped into the giant city park with big woods, and a stream, it was almost like being in the wilderness with no one around. She was glad. She dreamed of the day, she could escape for good.

Outcast from her family

I don't want to label everyone a narcissist which can be a danger for those in recovery, but I watched this show today and thought this was a classic narcissistic family. The father seemed more quiet and was more on the sidelines but it was disturbing to watch this show.  The mother gaslighted and kept calling her a liar even as Marissa admitted her wicked deeds as a teen and that she was in prostitution.

The sisters gave me the willies to the point, while watching, I thought that they had the same negative "energy" as my sister with the same obtuse faces, and the looks of disdain. I am clean living, never drank, or drugged but mine gave me the same exact look. I was told I was an "embarrassment" as well. They looked to me like the two sisters from Cinderella. Their helmet hairdos triggered me back to the last time I saw my sister. Their dark eyes was reliving moments in my life with her.

Sadly some scapegoats like Marissa can rebel, and end up in a life of drugs, prostitution and worse.  Some run to the drugs and drink to kill the pain, while the rest of us turn things more inward.  I tend to think because this young girl was adopted into her aunt's family because her mother was incarcerated, that they laid those things on her heavy, otherwise why did a girl who grew up in a middle class or upper middle class and was a straight A student go directly into prostitution?

My Aunt Scapegoat went the "rebel" route and the same dynamics played here that I saw in my family, the outraged narcissists all saying "How dare she!" and using her to play off of.  One aspect of narcissists is they are secretly happy when someone has gone down perdition highway because then they can use the alcoholic, drug addict, prostitute, street person relatives to make themselves look superior and to play martyr off of. Here within lies extensive nuggets of narcissistic supply. Those false looks of disgust and head shaking I am so familiar with. One would think both sisters saw themselves as Prim Hester or the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live in comparison to their wayward sister [actually cousin].

Being Aspie, I didn't rebel or go into the party lifestyle or sex industry, so my family had to make up sins for me. However in Marissa's case I felt like they were all ready to brand a "W" into her forehead and be done with her for good. The tears in my opinion on the part of the mother and one sister were fake. This was a family that cared most about appearances.

One of my friends who I have complained to Dr. Phil about says he is missing the narcissism because he is a narcissist himself. I am not sure, but I have to admit watching Dr. Phil tell this young woman that her "mom" [actually biological aunt] loved her when she said she did not triggered me back to those times too, I was told by various relatives and others that my mother loved me when I was being abused. Someone needs to do a seminar on narcissism with some of these psychologists. I think that is one of worse things he could have said. I believe in the crucible of that narcissistic family she was told she was "lesser", would end up like her mother in jail, could have faced some racial discrimination and definitely there is a reason she ended up having severe problems with her self esteem.

By the way throwing a 17 year old into the streets without any support is almost a guaranteed way to have them end up in the sex industry. Even if she was sexually active, or smoked pot or did other things that were bad teen behavior, they seemed ready to toss her into the streets and did not care if she starved or died. I know so many know crow on about tough love, but I think tough love makes things worse, maybe that is a subject for another post. By the way if a young woman is poor enough, the sexual predators and traffickers will find them. Being overweight doesn't protect you either.  That is how this world works.

Dr. Phil acted like this family could be a foundation for her healing and I was thinking she needs to get far far away. He did offer her a restart in her life which is I think the main reason she went on the show and willingly got put through it. Marissa needs to stay away from the people who brought her down and have no mercy for her even if they call themselves her family.

It looks like other commenters agreed with me who watched this Dr. Phil Show:

No wonder poor Marissa feels like she belongs nowhere. The woman who raised her(And in no way is that woman her "mother") doesn't seem to think Marissa is worth a darn. She says Marissa is a liar who BELIEVES her own lies? Excuse me, as human beings we KNOW when we lie and when we don't, so to accuse Marissa of being "nuts" (my word)  in front of the millions who are watching had to be incredibly painful for the young woman. And I'm willing to bet that Marissa's many issues started about the time her female caretaker blew her off when she spoke of being raped.

  People treat children who aren't their biological children differently than they do blood. This pretend "mother" says she gave Marissa "everything"-but where is the unconditional love Marissa should have received?  THAT means more than all of the material things she could have ever received. I think Marissa was a mere "duty" to the woman. She only got attention if she was the PERFECT child, & very few children are perfect. There's not a kind word out of that woman's mouth. This entire family has rejected poor Marissa, despite protestations of the IMAGINARY "love" they have for her.

  Some people AND families are just plain toxic & the only thing a person can do to remain sane is to separate herself from them. Marissa needs to let her dreams of a loving helpful family go cos THESE people don't fit the bill.  That woman makes me cringe every time she opens her mouth to say she "loves" Marissa and then goes on to talk about her like she's trash to be dumped. 

  Dr Phil needed to stand UP for this young woman instead of allowing her female caretaker to put her down so mercilessly. And to separate Marissa from the black half of her blood cos the CARETAKER didn't want to subject herself to "those people"-well, now I see why Marissa feels so lost and alone. It starts in the home.

The Aunt That Loved Me

                                          [picture source]
When I was five, I already knew I had been I had been born [or adopted?] into the wrong family. My Aspergers was not welcomed in a family full of personalities where anything "deep" was to be dismissed and being a book worm and having feelings was seen as "weaknesses". As detailed enough on this blog, I did not grow up in a happy household. Beyond the narcissistic abuse, there was never-ending screaming, and yelling. One could never even sit down and rest for a moment as one of the narcissists would go ranting and railing about everything from a shirt hanging over a chair to the wrong number of ice cubes in their drink. Anger was the default emotion with the two emotional Neanderthals I grew up with. So lets just say by age 5, I knew something was seriously wrong with my parents and even one day peering out through a friend's fence, overheard my mother telling a friend how weird I was and how I was "too smart" for my own good. My mother did not love me like other children were loved by their mothers and I knew it this young.

However out of this giant mess, Aunt J. would show me some love, acceptance and memories that I was able to lean on as life proceeded. This may have saved me in that I had someone tell me I was a decent human being among the chaos.

At times, us kids would get sent away to other relatives homes for extended periods of time. I usually looked upon these trips with anticipation and happiness. At age 3 and half, I and my brother lived in New Jersey a short time with other relatives while my sister fought to survive an extremely rare autoimmune disease. She would be one of the few that survived but this took my many months. By the time I was 5, my sister had survived, life continued on, but it was decided I would be sent to a relative's house for the summer while my family vacationed elsewhere. My memories are vague as to why I was sent away for so long but let's just say why I was not unhappy about it!

I took my first plane ride with my mother's best friend on the way back to their hometown. She was a nun who I looked up to at the time and who later left the convent 23 years later. Flying was exciting and being too young to be afraid of air travel, my ears popped and hurt and caused me some pain, so the trip was a tough one.

My aunt lived in a rented white bungalow out in a rural area. Across the street were farms and endless corn fields same as my grandmother's house which wasn't far away. Aunt J. was young then, 22 years of age but to me she was a grown up. Even my own mother was a mere 28 years of age. She was tall and thin with long brown straight hair and dark brown eyes and very intelligent. She had just had her first child, who was 6 months old. My uncle, who years later would write New Age books on Affirmations and go to New Mexico to "find himself" was her husband of a few years who she had married straight out of high school.

She showed me around the house as I got there, and this being the early 70s, I recall the pillows, comfortable chairs, and in one corner the Indian rattan chair with a huge round disc-like back. The living room held her newly purchased leather black couch. She made a tidy welcoming comfortable home.

We would spend much time outdoors, while in front of the house there was a circle driveway and a broken down shed in the backyard which a very large garden was next to. Unlike my parents who yelled at every weed and treated gardening as an exercise in self inflicted misery. Aunt J. loved plants and they blossomed under her care. She had huge broccoli and cauliflower plants, I remember to this day with their huge green and white roundness, big flat leaves and crisp smell.

My father would meanly grouse about my aunt and uncle, "the hippies", to me,  they were just more laid back, fun and nicer. My aunt was into art and alternative interests from health foods to later in life anything Native American including a collection of pottery and dream catchers and camping. We seemed to bond immediately. Sure at times she would tell me, "Be quiet the baby is sleeping!" and other reminders but I felt much more relaxed around her. I felt she understood me more and cared about me. I was so young but remember talking to her about so many things and actually being listened to instead of dismissed.

The summer proceeded, we went on trips to the dam, the woods where I explored natures and visited other relatives and even the neighbors across the street who owned Great Danes as tall as me. I would play with my cousin and he was a happy baby. Learning to draw that summer, copying the comic strip Peanuts into my sketchbook, my aunt's support of my new art talents would impact me for the rest of my life.

This was a period of life that was calm and collected, even though I missed my brother and sister, I wanted to stay living with my Aunt J. and remembered asking her. I was very sad upon leaving. Sometimes I think my wanting to stay increased the problems between me and my mother. I came back to a redecorated bedroom but felt like I had just left "home". Of course I was only 5 going on 6, an adult of good intentions may have asked "Why was my daughter so much happier away from home?"

Over the years my family would visit Aunt J and her family, she would have more children in 1980-two fraternal twins. She loved her children very much, and seemed to share a special bond with them that I ached for myself. She took them camping, read books to them, and shared her love of photography and art with them. Her husband would later leave her for another woman,[around 1982 very soon after the birth of the twins] and this was very hard for her to go through. She continued to provide a decent life for her children, luckily managing to hold on to another house her and her husband had build down the street from my grandmother's house.

We would continue visits, at times when I was over 18, I would drive down to visit. I would talk to her in her kitchen of sailboat glass hangings and bright orange counters. I could share things that weren't as easy to share with other family members. She knew something wasn't right with my mother but of course neither of us knew anything about narcissistic personality disorder or people who operated outside of a conscience and feelings.  I would continue these visits into college. There were a few differences as I aged, but I knew my mother was complaining [smear campaigns] about me all the time to others, and I worked hard to hold those lies back, and I mostly succeeded with her though I did not with my other aunt.

She could continue to work hard and her last job was working with juvenile delinquents at the youth home as a child care worker, a job I would just some years later would replicate as an art teacher in a juvenile home. She faced some economic struggles but kept plugging along.

One of the last conversations I had with Aunt J haunts me to this day, when her son seemed to have a premonition of her death to come only weeks later. I, Aunt J, and her son [the baby of my first and extended stay] were all sitting in her living room. I had driven down from college to visit them. It was 1987 and I was 19 years old. Sleeping on her couch and visiting all the relatives houses that included aunts and uncles and my grandmother's house in a row in rural Midwestern area, we were reminiscing.

[ By the way this is something narcissists will not do, the only person I could share memories with in more recent times has been my brother, the past never existed to my mother and sister, and was wiped away clean where attachment to people and places does not exist.]

 Aunt J brought up the death of her brothers in the late 1960s, one drowned trying to heroically save a friend on a fishing trip when that friend fell into into the river and one died being shot by a jealous lover. The latter uncle, I would find out was murdered within three weeks of my birth just recently. I knew it was the same year [1968] but never knew the timing was so close. How did I find out you might ask? I found a geneaology page last year that a distant cousin had done of my mother's family starting in Germany in 1823. Birth dates and dates of deaths for the deceased were on it. That was strange and I found myself wondering if my mother's dislike of me was tied to this event, but then my mother never seemed to be one to grieve for very long over anyone. I used to tell understanding relatives, that I was disturbed by the fact that when people died in my family they disappeared and never were mentioned again.

My aunt told me more details of these deaths and about these relatives, I had not known. We went on to talk about others who had died including my grandfather and memories about him.  Anyway midway through my then 13 year old cousin started crying, "Why do people have to die, Mom?" and then said "I hope you never die Mom!." He started crying and was almost inconsolable. We were surprised by his outburst but his mother consoled him, hugged him and calmed him down. I distracted him later and we watched David Letterman, one of his favorite shows to watch on non-school nights at the time.

Two weeks later after I returned home, she would be dead. The death was mysterious, a high impact car crash into a tree on the day after Christmas night. Others said she drove too fast for the road, that she had ended up curving on a road into a driveway and a tree she didn't know. This didn't make sense to me because she was in the area she had lived life long. A relative told me she had gotten in an argument with her then boyfriend and gone out to her car emotional. I don't know, the details were and remain fuzzy. The only fact was the crash was high speed, horrific and she was only 36 years old leaving her sons behind. The funeral was horrific, a week of crying. I took the death very hard. I missed my aunt very much. She was the aunt I loved and the aunt that loved me.

The Aunt Never Sent The Pictures and More

                                          [picture source]

The Aunt Never Sent the Pictures.

Why should I be surprised?

I am not so bothered by the refusal to send the pictures, but the lie of, "I have the box right here on my lap ready to send out" from weeks ago. She kept putting me off and off.

I have more to write on her later, she affected my childhood quite a bit.

Today she hung up on me after I told her, "I am done."

She won herself having her story told on this blog, anonymously of course.

Fellow scapegoats can understand this destruction of the soul that cuts through the entire family via narcissists. Dismissed, ignored, some do it double-faced like this aunt and Aunt Denial, and others do it more direct.

As I said it could be NC with almost the entire family the way this is going. The me of today can't tolerate their disrespect, lies and wickedness.

What gets me is none of them seem to have any attachment. I have noted that having any attachment, feeling of nostalgia or feelings in general makes you an outliner in their crowd.

I got two more "corporate" birthday cards from Spider and Mini-Me. One said on it, "Whatever Makes You Happy" on the front. She used to say that to me in a sarcastic fashion so I knew what the card meant. The keeping up of appearances counts for everything. She can tell everyone,  "I sent her a card!"

They are just bad people, that's all.

Post script: The cousin called me up yelling at me, for leaving message on the answering machine--"Don't talk to my Mom that way anymore, you need to stay buddies and pals", and wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise and hanging up on me. "You can keep in touch or not." That sounds rather flippant. She sounds like another defender of narcs. Well I am not. I just let her hang up on me and let it go. I said my piece. I never cussed her mother out or even said one insult word, just "Why?" and "I do not like being treated like trash". What kind of "buddy" treats you this way or makes excuses for your abusers?

I do think they are keeping a huge secret from me. It is either the adoption thing or something else. I am treated so oddly. Even my husband has told me he is deeply concerned over the strangeness of the treatment. He says "None of it makes sense" and the way they treat me is absolutely horrible. He says one thing he has noticed is how none of them ever can admit a mistake and they always say they are right no matter what. What you feel and say doesn't even reach them. They treat me like I am absolutely nothing.

I know everyone in any contact with my mother has been poisoned against me. The depths of the poisoning are extreme beyond what I even have discussed on this board. My suspicions I am adopted are even stronger. They are hiding something else if not that from me. I have known something has been hidden for years. I used to tell therapists "Something is wrong, I can't lay my finger on".

She labeled me the throwaway and tossed me over board. She convinced others, that I was not worthy of even the most basic attention, notice, love, or decent treatment. For years I lapped up the crumbs of whatever I could get. I owe nothing to these people anymore. No loyalty, nothing.

I feel in a strange place lately. I find myself thinking "Can I get a new improved life?" "Can I be happy where I wake up smiling?" I have brief glimpses of light on the horizon. Sometimes I smile and think of what things could be. I pray to God for financial security, and to survive and for one day to belong somewhere. My days are more peaceful being NC, but I have to admit, none of this easy, you overthrow the old order. I have left Jim Jones narc land, and the brainwashed cult members are pissed. You take out the trash and see the empty can sitting there and think "Now what?"

Thank God I have my husband and my friends.  So many years in narc darkness, so old now coming out into the light. So many years being told and shown by these people I was nothing. Closed doors, closed minds from hell, where one could scream and shout and nothing new could enter in. The days of cast down eyes, and listening to their self-elevating babble and excuses are over. The prisons they tried to lock me in were so extreme.

I have to be done with them. I'm walking away from MORE of them. My mother took my father's family away too.

Update on this one: I believe chances are very high that this aunt knew family secrets, and most likely knew my grandfather on that side was not my real grandfather.  I believe my mother could have known but my father showed no signs of knowing.  This was why this aunt/half-aunt got upset at me delving into the past. She was still toxic and more loyal to my mother. I found out my grandfather on that side was not my real grandfather via DNA testing on ancestry. She could be my father's half sister, and half aunt to me. That would make the cousins on that side half cousins. She betrayed me multiple times and do not regret going no contact with her or her daughter.