Entering the system

I feel like telling my story of what landed me in the foster system....

I was about four years old and yet I remember so much. I was abused so much at home both physically and emotional. I had one brother and three sisters. I being the second to youngest was picked on profusely, not only being young I was also different from by family I have always been the odd one out. Even at a young age I was quiet and thoughtful, I was always thinking always. I do think that mentally I was about eight years old.

I remember late nights of being scared and sleeping with my oldest sister. My "mom" worked at nights and when she was home I was scared. Anything that disturbed her sleep was cause for a beating. Her beatings always left you broken and bruised shivering in a darken room. She used whatever instrument she could find to beat us with, most of the time it was a leather belt, always seeming to have perfect aim with the belt buckle as to strike delicate flesh in just the right spot to send you falling to your knees in pain. The beating was worse if you tried to run. During the day we were beat and the night offered no sanctuary for my sisters, my " dad" sexually molested them. I can not say the horrors they went through or the feeling of such for I was never touched but I do feel an immense amount of pain for them. This went on for so long I never knew that it was wrongs. All I knew was that if I stayed quite and kept to my self I would be safe from the spatulas and belts that made you bleed and sting all over.

even with the beatings I never once thought of my parents badly. I loved them and still do despite myself.

I remember the day the police came as if I dreamt it yesterday, their black uniforms showing great contrast to the white sky outside. I remember agonizing screams of maternal pain when my mother found out that we were to be taken that day.tears coursing down her ashen face made her seem so threatless so broken. I looked at her my heart hurting at the sight of her pain. I wanted to go to her and hold her while she cried, defeated sitting on our dingy pink carpet. We were to be taken to polinski's children center. I cried in the white van for the unexpected, I cried for my mom, I cried for myself. I never once said that I did not want to leave but I felt in my heart that if I had stayed I would have been able to help her, I would have been able to console her in her misery. Despite her beatings I loved her, I loved her....And I still do.... And so began a long stream of foster homes, loneliness, social workers, tears and painful learning experiences.


nena