My Story: ****Trigger Warning*****

@hobbes1978

This was hard to read. I'm so sorry that so many of the people who were supposed to nurture you, failed you so horribly.

Nothing I can say will make it better or easier but please ponder on this until it begins to sink in: You deserved none of it. You were a child and powerless. The worthless, dirty people are the ones who abused you, allowed you to be abused, or the ones who turned their backs on you. You were born entitled to love, safety and care. You are still entitled to those things. You may have to love yourself, keep yourself safe and practice self care. It may feel alien but don't stop. Treat yourself as worthy until you begin to believe you're worthy. Because you are. You just have to fight a lifetime of believing you're not and that's hard, hard work.

And you aren't alone. FWIW, a stranger on the internet is here and cares.

My Story:

I was given up for adoption somewhere around 3 yrs old. I was the 4th of 5 children and because my youngest brother J and I were closest in age we were given up together to the B's. The older children went to live with extended birth family members.(my two older sisters to grandma A and my oldest brother B to aunt D and uncle E). I remember feeling not worthy when I found this out at 17 yrs old. I met my birth mother K when I was 18 yrs old along with my aunt D and uncle D. She at first told my youngest brother and I that she didn't have a choice, she was forced to give her children up by her husband, my birth father P. She was packing her house the day J and I went to visit her. She was moving from Fl to Ohio with her boyfriend. She said, 'we can write letters and keep in touch'. I told her I didn't want a pen-pal, I wanted a mother. I didn't talk to her again till I was 23 yrs old. I have gotten several different stories about how and why I was given up for adoption. At this point, I don't think she knows the truth anymore. I was not told by my adoptive parents that I was adopted. I found out when I was 13 yrs old because my brother J found paperwork in their closet that had our birth names on them and our birth-parents names. My adoptive parents had two boys of their own. I grew up as the oldest child and only girl so I was a tomboy climbing trees and as a teen into my early 30s working on cars with my brothers. I didn't tell people about the abuse at home. My earliest memory of abuse is around 7yrs old my adoptive father sitting on the side of my cot and touching me under the covers. Then around 8 yrs old he made me touch him and have oral sex with him. I got sick. This continued until I was 12 yrs old then he started having sexual intercourse with me. At times my adoptive mother was in the room when he was touching me and making me touch him. Sometimes she would send me to their room quoting the bible verse Ephesians 6:1 "children obey your parents". She was a Sunday School teacher at church, A GA leader and in the choir. She quoted scripture a lot to me growing up. It has distorted my view of God to say the least. I went into foster care at 14 yrs old because a lady at church thought something was happening at my home and she reported it to the police. I stayed there until I aged out at 18 yrs old. I started drugs, and drinking and cutting at 15 yrs old. I became a bully to hide the pain in my life and to survive. I didn't realize until I was 30 yrs old I could say no to sex, so I had a lot of sexual partners thru the years. I stayed with my boyfriend a few months after I turned 18 then we got in an argument and he hit me and I walked away. I lived on the streets for almost two years and a lady from a church took me in to stay with she and her husband. The change was too drastic she got me enrolled in college and bought me a lot of dresses and clothes. It was too much to go from sleeping on cardboard boxes in the woods and park benches to a million dollar home in a gated community. She took me to church and expected me to quit drugs and drinking immediately. Life was too hard to just change so much so fast, less than two yrs later she said she couldn't help me anymore and kicked me out. I moved around a lot over the next few yrs. At 22 yrs old I met my older birth siblings. Life was suppose to change, to be great now but it wasn't. They grew up in abusive homes with our birth family. I got involved in a local church and tried to just stay busy to get through life. I moved from Fl to SC in 1995 thinking a big change would help but it hasn't. A few good things have happened, I did finish an Associates degree at a technical college, so I have a decent job. I got my own place at 40 yrs old for the first time in my life. But all these years and the abuse still effects my life. I don't have one close friend, I am not close to my family birth, nor adoptive. I haven't kept a relationship a full year since I was a teen. I feel alone, used, dirty, worthless, like a nobody. I wonder if life will ever be good?

This is my story, I posted december 2016. I was using a different name and left for awhile but am back now-kathy

I copied and reposted my story because when i was on here last year it was under a different name. i deleted my account but have since signed back up. Just wanted to clear up why parts of this show up as Unknown. hobbes1978 was my old username now it is tigerhobbes. thx all :) -k