There is a Reason for Everything...

....that I do. Sometimes it only might make sense to me, but eh, I'm usually pretty open, so I explain. I have offered and was accepted most openly to write for an multi author adoption blog. How can I say this most PC like.. it's a bit more happy adoption then one might expect me to want to write for...but.. as I defended my reasoning to actively particiapte on Adoption.com years ago, I can confidenlty stand here now as well and say that my thoughts are sounhd and no.. I have not yet gone loco. Yes, the name is..ehem.."Grown in my Heart" Now SHUT UP! We can blame it on SEO really, but I realize that writing here in my own little world is still essentially preaching to the choir. And the people that should hear the important stuff.. well they might not come to the mountain..so the mountains got to go to Mohammed. So off I go. I'll still be here..and all over the web.. but I'm going to be writing there too. It should be very interesting and I am actually looking forward to it.

Coersion in Adoption Counseling

I just re-read this piece, formerally just titled "Coersion" the other day, and it looked to me like it still had legs.

The truth of the subtle coersion in adoption counceling and accepted adoption practices still needs to be told.

Anti-Adoption Insights

I was combing through my adoption information link list and the list for AAI caught my eye. For many of us, we “began” online on MSN Groups..Adoption, Adoption Insights, Anti-Adoption Insights. The first few years of my online existence were over at those places. They are where I learned to write. It’s where I learned… I clicked it and the site was gone. All MSN Groups closed in October. That means AI and the old private group is gone too. The places where countless hours of my life were spent, where irreplaceable conversations .. is just ..gone. And has been gone since October. Somehow, I had just always assumed, that it would all still be there…waiting. I feel like something has died. I feel horrible really. Such endless wisdom, such eloquent pain, such sadness, such rage.. we hashed it out. There e was vicious name calling, yet the deepest sharings. The stories that were there. Pieces of human souls, the sufferings, the questions,….People who you hate, yet mostly, there were people that I loved, respected, looked up to, learned from.. It’s all gone. I could cry.

In which my Unplanned Pregnancy becomes an Adoption Plan

This story begins here:" How to Begin a BirthMother: Chapter 1

We did keep on seeing each other.

In fact, most of the trysts and dates and sex, happened after I was with child.

Every time I would tell myself that I just had to tell him and I never could though it stuck on the tip of my tongue like a bad sore. Now I am a small person and I was even smaller then. I don't know how I hid that pregnancy as long as I did. It was the end of February when I conceived, and by April I had a pot belly. I know I went to the beach in early summer, wearing a one piece suit that had a huge open cutout for my midriff and kept sucking my stomach in all day until it hurt. I know I wore cardigan sweaters, even in the hot Manhattan summer months, for they would fall straight down from my breasts and just skim my growing belly if I held it tight.

In fact, that is how Jeffery found out I was pregnant.

Jeff was the "message" boy at the firm and I worked closely with him. The fax machine was a new thing then and not everyone had one, so if you needed a document received that very same day, you sent your boy. He was a good guy, hardworking, making his way though law school. A young man from some of the worst projects, he was the first black person that I knew really well. To Jeff I could ask stuff like: "What's all the ads in the subway for ashy skin? What’s that about?" I will never forget how he let me examine in earnest the pink palms of his hands, figuring out where the black stopped and the pink began. He didn't even get mad when I insisted on seeing his feet since he said the soles were the same. Reasons why I see no purpose now in making people live in segregated societies where another race does seem alien. So much for my nice middle class white education; it made me react to a black man like he was a science experiment. He was teasing me one day about getting fat. Or at least he thought he was teasing, for in the process he poked my belly hiding under my baggy sweater. I can still see the look of surprise in his eyes when his finger did not sink down into the void of the sweater, but rather, stopped at my very hard baby belly. He looked at me, straight in the eye, questioning and yet knowing. I must have received his look with the utter panic that I felt, for when I hurriedly shush him and said "Don’t say anything" he never did again. My one chance to come clean and the panic overtook me. I believe that Jeffery knew of the affair. He was smart and missed little, but said even less. He spoke to me a few times of Him. Apparently He also spoke to Jeffery and had asked him something about whether or not I had allot of boyfriends. AID’s was just starting to become a concern for heterosexuals and non drug users, so I think He was thinking about his own protection. No one else ever said anything to me. Not my mom, not my friends. They all admitted later that they thought I was getting fat. There were two other pregnant women at the office and I, as the lowly receptionist, got the errands to run for them. I got their food since they were so tired. I carried their bags since they should not lift. All the while, I knew I was in the same condition they were, but still I obeyed rather than out myself.

I know, in my heart, that he knew I was pregnant.

One night, towards the end, we were in his apartment and he was nosing around my pretty obvious belly. He looked up at me, with a tender questioning look..like "tell me". I think he even kissed my baby bulge. My eyes again, must have spoken of deep panic, for even with this sweet prompt, I was frozen. Again, I said nothing. I can only assume, that my refusal to speak of it, made clear to him that he had no concern regarding the parentage my child. He teased me so about other nonexistent boyfriends, and wondered out loud to Jeffery. I suppose, in his head, it was someone else's child. After all, if it wasn't wouldn't I have told him. That's only logical, right? But logic was not to rule the day. In frustration, probably as much frustration with myself as with him, I stopped seeing him. It was probably June. He asked me to go out and I refused, angrily, meanly. Maybe he asked once again, maybe not, but he never asked me why. Just accepted that I was done with him and didn't seem at all concerned. This, of course, made me all the more angry. I was curt and rude to him every day now, every chance I could get, and still, he never asked even why.

It was probably about this time that Marina confronted me about being pregnant.

Working late one night, she called me into her office and in her lilting accent as she was Columbian; "Cloudia, are you pregnant?" Of course, can you expect it, I denied it completely. Though I can still hear her words, over 20 years later, rattling in my skull. Somehow I managed to convince her that there was no way I was. Sucked my stomach in tighter and bought even baggier clothes. How could she not have known, how could he not have known, how could my mother not have known when people on the buses and trains knew enough to offer me their seats as I waddled about. I protected my secret with a crazed determination, though for what I did not know. Poor little baby, I would feel it swishing about inside me and, despite all, would feel something close to joy and excitement with each movement. It was like having a real, yet imaginary friend, who I would speak to throughout my day. This little life meant that I was not truly alone. About a month later, Marina called me in again.

This time she did not ask, but proclaimed "Cloudia, you are pregnant!"

And finally, the I laid down the burden of lies and admitted it to be so. It was all so obvious, how could I not. Now Marina was one of those folks who thought education to be above all else. So the first thing she said upon my admitted defeat was, "How could you do this? You are ruining your life. What about your education?" Then, "Does your mother know?” No one knew. "And how about the father?" Hide the panic, hide the truth. Let’s not forget the connections here: He was her boss too. She was Sondra’s mother. Sondra was married to my Uncle, but before their marriage; Sondra had had a relationship also with him. It certainly was NOT a relationship I was proud to be in. Plus, I think she might have gone ballistic on him. " No, he's not in the picture. It doesn't matter" Somehow, I managed to skim over the father of this child as though he was not working in the next room. Made it seem like some transient boy toy who was noticeably absent. This, she accepted.

"Tomorrow," she again proclaimed," you will go to the abortion clinic. I will lend you the money. You cannot have this baby"

And so I agreed. I tried not to care that I was going to lose my secret friend. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that someone else was finally taking charge and telling me what to do. Someone actually cared enough to make something happen. Someone was going to take me and my terrible mess and fix it. I was releived to have someone else making decisions. I was releived tht finailly the secret was out. The next day, I left home and went to work like any other day. Marina came in later at 10 to miss the morning rush hour and promptly sent me to some fancy clinic as promised. "Go here and see what they can do"

And so I took a cab to the big fancy 5th Avenue abortion clinic, just like I had feared, and waited my turn.

When my turn came they did a quick physical examine upon me, but upon seeing my huge belly, they referred me to yet another clinic where second trimester abortions could take place. I called Marina and went where I was told. This clinic would cost $700.00 and Marina immediately sent Jeffery over with the envelope full of cash. At clinic number two, I waited again. Jeffery came in and found me in the waiting room. Quietly, but with sympathetic and understanding eyes, he gave me the envelope and then left. I continued to wait until they called my name. Once inside, they examined me and said I needed a sonogram to determine how far along in the pregnancy I was. Granted I knew, but for whatever reason, I seem to recall that I pretended that I didn't. Or maybe I told them and they did not believe me. The sonogram made me out to be at closer to 30 weeks. In NY, abortions were only legal until 24 weeks gestation.

They declared me beyond the abortionist help and sent me away after announcing that I would have the child in September.

I remember being in shock at the thought of September. I was also really hungry. So I stopped on my return journey to the office at a diner for lunch. Over a grilled Swiss and Bacon sandwich, I consulted my handy dandy date book which confirmed why I was confused. Clearly marked were the dates I had had sex with anyone. And during the time period they claimed I conceived, there was no one. In fact, there was no one until Him and the earliest possible date was only 22 weeks earlier. And that was the date I had thought it had happened. For some odd reason, this baby was portraying itself as much bigger than his actual gestational age. It turned out to be survival. I went back to a disappointed Marina with both what they had said and what I knew to be true. She was very unhappy that it was not taken care of, but reassured by my insistence of the babe's true age. So, she called up her personal doctor who was also a friend and sent me over to him. Again, even after I explained the dates in my book, he felt my belly and declared me too far along for the knife. No one in NY was going to touch me.

Just as determined, Marina decided that I should go to Kansas where abortions were legal to the 26th week.

She knew the place, she knew the cost. I was going to owe her money forever at this rate. She was willing to fly me to Kansas, lie to my mother, keep my secret and front out the 2-3 thousand dollars needed to rid myself of this life ruining pregnancy. I did end up calling them and speaking to a woman who explained the procedure to me. It would take three days. They used seaweed sticks to dilate my cervix. They would inject the baby with something and then, when dilated I would give birth to it, dead. I am not a terribly moralistic person about abortions. I believe that late trimester ones are needed in threat to a mother life or if the baby is to be born so malformed that birth and life would equal pain and suffering. I was lost and hopeless, but to go through all that because I was so lame as to not deal all the months and weeks that I could have. No.

Simple as that, it was a no. I resigned myself to having this baby.

I could not hurt my little squishy swimming secret friend. I got off the phone and told Marina. "Then what will you do? This baby will ruin your life!"

"I will have this baby and I will give it up for adoption"

I had no firsthand experience with adoption. No one in my family had adopted. There was talk once, back in the early 70's with the Cambodian refugees on TV being airlifted. I was old enough to remember seeing the news footage. Still and only child, my mother was experiencing what we would now call secondary infertility of an undisclosed nature. I saw the thermometer used to talk her Basel temperature and pin point ovulation. I think that there were a few times when we all yearned for someone else to join us. So my parents spoke briefly of acquiring another daughter, but nothing came of it. I thought it would have been cool, but probably would have tired of it. The need for a sibling passed and when my brother did come, I was 12 and would have preferred a 10 speed bicycle. I knew people who had been adopted, that went to my school. Adoption seemed almost glamorous. They had an air of mystery about them. But that all I knew, the air, I never knew anyone well enough to scratch the surface and speak of what it was really about. I based my knowledge on made for TV movies and novels in the young adult section that were always full of conflict. Reunions sounded terribly exciting and I romanticized the whole event.

Adoption for this baby would be much more noble and dignified.

Besides, it was an answer. I was not going to ruin my life, plus I knew there was no way I could begin to think about taking care of a baby. Win Win. I believed that 100%. I didn't think long and hard about adoption in order to come to my "decision”. It was more as though once that other road was impassable, and then my brain happened upon the next option in line. Not meaning to make it sound flippant, but once it occurred to me as the only viable solution, then that was it. My mind was made up and my fate was sealed. After announcing my plan to Marina and also, practically, to myself, I had to find out how to set it in motion. Still going in blind, but now with a mission, I at least did some research as to where and how. I don't think I had a definitive plan worked out when I told my mother. It was still in the "here's the problem and here's the solution" kind of mode. Once I had Marina behind me, I was able to make myself deal much more. It wasn't just me having to force myself to do the impossible; she was keeping tabs and making sure that I kept moving along. Always the procrastinator, I allowed myself one last Harrah, before I broke the news to Mom. What was a few more days going to hurt anyway. It was July Fourth weekend and a bunch of us crazy kids had planned a camping weekend. Actually, I didn't plan a thing. I was incapable of planning. And as it was discussed and I heard my friends excitement for a great country adventure, I was overcome with the feelings of dread..Knowing that there was no way I would be able to be involved...knowing what I knew and they did not. Somehow though, the timing worked out so that the weekend was before me and still my secret was only out to Marina. Laura, Mary, Christine, Maryanne, Joe Figg and Jason and myself were going up to the country, camping at Camp Gonocotta. Silliness, high jinks and induced laughter was to be on the agenda. I can remember forcing myself to have fun, or seem like I was. Still sucking in my stomach, pretending that the world did not weigh heavy on my mind, it was stressful and forced. For whatever reason, I could not tell my friends in the midst of good times, so all though the weekend my mind whirled.

"This is it, you can't do this again....this is the last time that things will ever be like this...everything is going to change”

We talked about going camping again, late in August, and I knew that I was lying when I tried to agree with enthusiasm. Tired now with the pregnancy, I spent allot of time sitting still. The day was spent at my most favorite place on Earth; Awosting Falls. Sitting by the pool below the great falls, walking and ambling along the creek, I was struck by the grand sense of time and my own insignificance. I imagined Native Americans standing in the same place, their everlasting footprint directly below mine, crossing though time, and connecting, as our parallel thoughts were engrossed in the magnificence and the power of nature. I imagined the child I carried standing in the same shadow, years into the future, and tried to infuse the feelings of love and sorrow into the environment. I wanted this spot to call to him, place dreams of waterfalls in his head, to be able to speak to him though the years. My head and heart were filled with such musings, for now, with a plan in mind, and life for the babe ensured, I could allow myself to begin to really explore my feelings for the small being inside me. Knowing that there was a future, began to allow a connection to the presence. It was that weekend among the beauty of nature that the nature of my body took over.

In my head, in my heart, I became a mother.

Something inside me shifted almost or perhaps I just called upon a reserve of strength hidden away. The next step would be one of the hardest. Returning from fun, I had to confront my mother. After some bland smalltalk about my camping adventure, which I reveled with no enthusiam, I laid with defeat on the couch in the living room. Clear now, the sensations, the picture of the past. I can feel the rough tweed of the plaid couch arm under my cheek and the anxiety rising in my throat. My mother was on the phone and I had to wait for her to complete her conversation. That took a while and I controlled the great urge to have her shut up about such mindless, insignificant chatter. I wept quietly, wiping away my tears on the off white muslin pillow. The phone call finally ended and my mother came in and looked at me: "Are you OK?" "No" "What's wrong? Are you sick?" "Not really, I am going to have a baby in November" Sputter, look of disbelief.." November?" "Yes." "Well what will you do? I can't raise this baby for you!" "You won't have to. I am going to give the baby up for adoption" "oh......how?" "I don't know yet. I am finding out." "Who knows? How long have you known this?" "Only Marina knows. I haven't told anyone at all. She figured it out" "You should have had an abortion. Can't you?"

"No, it's too late. I have no choice. I have to have this baby"

It was very calm. A late Sunday afternoon, rainy, darkness, subdued. A serious discussion, disbelief and shock, but nothing loud nor emotional. My mother seemed content with my line of thought. As long as she was off the hook and no one knew really, then the horrible aspects of it were covered. I knew my mother though, and even though the conversation ended with her promising to support me in this, I knew that she could not be gauged with this as her reaction. She mulled at things, my mother, and caused thoughts to fester in her mind. She would pick at this and make it out into something it was not. No, this was not to be a pattern of calm rationality. She was amazed at my secretness and no doubt, also as her ignorance. Claiming that she just assumed I was getting fat, I think she resented the trickery. How dare I try and succeed to pull the wool over her eyes. Over the next few days, the level of her offence grew until it took a life of its own. What was I thinking, how could I have let this go on so long. How come I didn't tell anyone, how dare I think to tell anyone now. How did I not speak about this in therapy? Was I sure that Jerry did not know? Laura didn't know? Who was the father? What do I mean I am not telling? She should know. That’s isn't right! It became very important to her that no one was to know. Blind to it for so long while under her nose, my condition must have seemed to her extremely obvious once reveled. She lived in fear of anyone else figuring it out. The insanity of this charade only got worse.

I was forbidden to tell my friends of the pregnancy.

They would tell people and then everyone would know. She didn't want people to look at her funny. Not even Laura, my best friend. Laura would tell her mother, she would and then Maureen would look down on my mother even more. It was bad enough she was divorced and Laura’s family was so perfect. No, no way. I was not going to be able to see my friends again. I begged one night. We were planning on going to the movies to see the Lost Boys, an 80's Vampire movie. It must have been days after she was told, but enough time had passed that the plan had become more concret. Just this one more time. No, I promise I won't say anything, but I have to tell them something. I can't just disappear. They will freak out; I have to see them first. After many promises, she gave in. Of course, I lied and once in the car, I announced my plan. Actually, there were other future plans being made, either more camping or a concert, something. I know the poll was being taken to see who could go, I boldly announced that I would not be able to join in on the next great adventure. Why.

Because I will be in Boston. I am moving to Boston to have a baby and place him for adoption.

silence..utter silence...... What really could I have expected my friends to do? There was nothing that they could have done. It was almost an ideal situation. It played out the way these situations do in made for TV movies and the booklets adoption agencies hand out. Everyone said the kind supportive things that they should. I don't know what they wondered aloud when I was out of earshot. And I don't care. It really doesn't matter. I would have done the same. I think there was shock and disbelief, but genuine concern. It was big deal. No one else had had a child before. I am always the first. At least my friends knew. That was a great relief. Of course the added thrill of having to go against my mother’s wishes, but I thought them unreasonable anyway. Most people, in the long run, I told. Maybe my mother told Jerry, my therapist? He was filled in eventually and he knew of a Private adoption attorney in California who I spoke with. I remember sitting his office. He has a practice Uptown in the West 70’s that was very beige, nice, but beige. I sat there and spoke to someone, a paralegal, in California. She asked at one point what I needed. I had to explain that I needed to find a place to live as my mother needed me out. It was not said, nor even implied. It was understood that I would not stay visible to complete this pregnancy. She said something about how my living in an apartment in Manhattan would be very expensive, worrying about how they would sell the need for this expense to their clientele. IE: would an adoptive family pay for it? I immediately had this vision of living alone, in some cold place uptown, hugely pregnant and forgotten. Going into labor and having to call a Taxi. She wanted me to price out some apartments and budget what I would need to get though the next few months. I couldn’t imagine having to do so much of this alone. The private attorney in California was scratched from the list.

I sat in the law office, in that weird little back room, and talked to some Catholic agency in NYC. Pulled the number right out of the phone book. It sounded a little more doable, but still she was mean sounding on the phone. And I felt guilty and bad just talking to her. Plus I was very concerned about staying in NY, my NY. If I was in NY and went downtown, as I knew that I would want to, then people might see me. I didn’t want to hide because I was ashamed, but I didn’t want people to know I was pregnant and accept me as such. I knew that, on some level, being pregnant and visible would mean that it was acceptable..and once I was accepted as being with child in my world, then I would want more to keep my baby. I needed to eliminate that possibility of weakness. I needed to be gone. I don’t know if I just went down the line to the next number in the Manhattan yellow pages, or if I said, “OK, I did one today” and made the next call a day or so later, but eventually I got to the ad for AWL. Why did I pick them? I liked the name:

Adoptions with Love. How’s that for targeting a marketing group.

I remember talking to them and from the very second I got on the phone was a feeling of relief. Compassion came though those phone lines and suddenly I was dealing with someone who understood and was trained to talk to me. Split second approval. She said that they would bring me up to Boston. I would live in a house with a family that had already adopted with them. They would take me to doctor’s appointments. They would make sure I was at a good hospital. I would have counseling. It felt right. Everything I could ask for, taken care of for me, and all I would have to do is be pregnant. Now, it was all about righting the wrong. Broken out of the shell of denial, I sprung into action. Trying to make sense of it all, making all the answers fit. Motivated by my past of doing it all wrong, I was going to move ahead now at lightning speed and with a fierce determination. It was like suddenly I had a direction: Boston. They fed ex’d me their booklets and I spoke to them again a few times, but I had no hesitation anymore. The plan was set. I just had to wait until they got all their ducks in order to get me set up in Boston. It was going to take a few weeks and then they would send me a plane ticket. It couldn’t be quick enough. I had to get out soon. My mother was getting more freakish and the stress level was being elevated by the day. She wanted me to stop working. I needed to hide and not be seen. I fought her on this since at least getting out to work, hard as it was, was something to do every day. She was insisting that I tell her who the baby’s father was. I was steadfast in my refusal. She kept on naming every guy friend, ex or whatever that she could think of. It was almost laughable. I knew that never in a million years would she guess and told her so. I begged her to just stop and let it rest, but she persisted. My one weakness always has been writing. Never a standard journal, but many notebooks in haphazard order, drawings and date books, loose papers saved. Somewhere before going to Boston, I started a new big black bound book. And I wrote enough in there about what was happening that if my mother was to read it, she could figure it out. Suddenly one day, upon returning home from work, she had it figured out. She knew about Him. She was very angry. Not so much at me, I think, but at him. At the age difference, at what happened, at the state that I was in now. She was going to call Marina, she was going to go see him. She was rattling her cage and beating her chest like an injured primate. Now, I see her reactions differently.. as a mother who was protecting me, her child, but then; she was just crazy to me. I remember being completely panic stricken. I begged her not to do anything. I pleaded that it didn’t matter, He didn’t matter. That he knew and didn’t care, that nothing could be done anyway. Reminded her that men suck. I do not know why, but she listened to me. She allowed me this grace of not having to deal with him. At this point, being so far along, I felt that there was no way to ever tell him, I had taken away his choice to have a child, I had made it for him, now ignorance of the loss would be bliss.

I was so afraid of the shame.

It was more than just that he was my boss and so much older. I could not face my family with the truth of this baby and the father. My uncle Mike was still married to Sandy though they were living separate lives. Sandy had gone out with Him before my Uncle and I had the sneaking suspicion that he and Sandy were involved somehow again. Maybe I was just paranoid and maybe it was because she was so sick, but I felt a weird vibe from her when she was in the office. I knew that he was not only seeing me. I would be a fool to think otherwise. He teased me about “all my other boyfriends”, but I am sure it was a way of justifying his own actions. Whether they were other woman or my Aunt, I don’t know, but the whole thought of it all coming to light made me feel so dirty and disgusted. To me, it seemed like something that would be held over my head in my family forever. And my family was good at that. Big Italian grudges never die out. It was an insurmountable ordeal. The hint of incest in the relationship besides the age and the working relationship made it all such taboo. I could not face it. Looking back, I wish she had not listened to me. I wish someone had made me face him and the truth. It was the most cowardly weakest thing that I have ever done. Up to that point there was probably a small shred of hope. When I convinced my mother to hide all of the secret, including that part, there was no hope left. I wasn’t talking to him at all anymore. Mad, scared, involved in something now beyond my control and under Marina’s ever watchful eye, it was decided that I had to stop working. I documented it in my book the day it happened: “A final comment on Him Today was my last day at B&S. A very weird day because I cannot imagine not going back tomorrow. So I type up my resignation memo and spend the day making up tales about my life at Boston University- Ha! 6:30 comes about, time to go. Office is cleaned. Everyone has been good-byed. He knows I am going, yet says nothing. Marina is ushering me out the door. I go to wave good bye to him. He is on the phone. He motions me closer. Tells party on the phone to hold on. Makes a kissy face from his side of the desk. I stand on the other, I look down on him, I do not move closer, I do not smile, I don’t make a kissy face. He places his hand on his lips and then touches my nose and says:

“Bye baby, have fun at school”

I say thanks and leave. I am six months pregnant with this man’s child and he thinks I am going off to school to have fun. Stupid fool doesn’t even know what I am doing for him, doesn’t care. I wish I wasn’t crying. So much for fairy tales from Cosmo.” That is what I had to say about it when it happened. I don’t quite understand now what great favor I really thought I was doing for him. Maybe ridding him of the conflict and responsibilities of an unplanned child? I can’t see the same rational anymore, it is lost to me through time, but somehow I thought I was doing a good thing.

Continued on: The Real Hard Part: Giving Birth and Relinquishment to Adoption

The Downward Spiral to a Birthmother

This story begins here:" How to Begin a BirthMother: Chapter 1

I returned home from New York City, hastily packed, defeated, depressed, and full of fear.

Back to my room, back to the life of which I so wanted to get away from and this time without any dreams of escape. My physical load much lighter, but my heart filed with failure and regrets, now fearful and more doubtful of my abilities. Let's face it, I couldn't pull it off. I failed at school. I failed at living on my own. I failed at keeping myself safe and I still needed my mother to bail me out. All I had left was my job and my social life and so, that's what I did.

But the drama wouldn't stop.

Working for lawyers proved to be very helpful when the 17th precinct called me. Jerry was trying to press charges for breaking into the apartment and getting my stuff. He was, claiming that I had stolen things from the apartment, that furniture and such was missing after my exodus. It was all such a blur. As I said, too many people had keys to that place and then we left it unlocked. I had stuff stolen from me and I have always assumed it was Maryanne or Cat..if nothing else, but for the reason that they things taken were the best in my "cool" wardrobe. Jerry would not have known what to take. He didn't covet my belt and skirt. Whether the roomies helped themselves to more after they left, knowing my schedule and feeling entitled on revenge, whether things were really taken by some outside person or persons, or whether Jerry had stolen from himself to make me look bad and "get me", who knows. More panic, but also some anger on my part. One of the lawyers was kind enough to go to the precinct with me and talk to the police. Once explained of the situation and what he had had done, the police didn't have any interest in me. They were definitely more interested in the illegal sublet part of the story and Jerry being a pervert. He couldn't have been a very smart man to go to the police when his own actions were also clearly illegal. I can't suppose that he would actually think that I would protect him and his money making schemes. He ended up screwing himself over big time, not that I ever found out what had really happened to him. I do know that I was scared of him for a long time. I had visions of him stalking me, now even more crazed since the police were involved, even if it was his own doing. I felt that he wanted to "get" me, that he would hurt me if given the chance. I spent moths looking over my shoulders and always leaned against the walls now when waiting for a train or subway. In my mind's eye, I saw him pushing me onto the tracks. Fear was now also part of my life. Yes, Fear was with me, but also defeat.

A sense of desperation.

I was back home in a place that I had spent years planning to escape from. Not only that, but I had lived up to everyone's expectations that I would fail. I have no concrete evidence that my whole extended family expected me to fail, but it was a feeling I had, a feeling so strong, it permeated my every move. I had embarrassed myself and had not enough confidence to cough it up to a learning experience. Once I had to return due to the apartment fiasco, the truth came out about my involvement in school. Force to still more admit a tired defeat. My reasons sounded hollow. I imagined no one believed me and spoke ill of me when my back was turned. I immediately went to work full time at the firm. Why not, it wasn't like I had classes anymore to go to, might as well make money. Who knew? It seemed like am OK idea. I felt most trapped every morning as my mother drove me to the train station; the daily litany of complaints and grumbles. I slept the hour long train into the city. Squished together like sardines, I recall some awkward moments when body bumps from train movement felt secretive, but dirty and not in a good way. One time, I was sitting across from a man and somehow, he managed to get his knees in between my knees. Then he acted like he was asleep. Because I didn't want to touch him, even on the knee, every time his legs spread apart more, I had to spread my legs farther apart, slowly, over almost an hour. Of course, I was wearing a skirt and of course, there was no way that I could have got up and moved my legs completely without making the situation obvious. And god forbid I call attention to something that held my feelings at stake.

Really, what I felt didn't seem to matter.

No one asked me if I was OK, but that is when I acquired the good Jerry as my shrink.

It seems astounding that no one around me acted as if they were aware I was utterly failing and flailing about in some dramatic spiral. It was assumed that I would be fine and maybe act like I should. No one told me this, but no one said anything really. Nothing was discussed, or maybe I just blocked it all out? Even now it is more appealing to me to find the fault my own rather than live the reality that no one even noticed. It can make me feel dirty and unloved even now. I can't believe that I saw this all as normal. Did they all honestly think that that these kinds of things were something that all girls my age went through? All my friends were successfully working their way through school. Laura was parting just as hard, but making the grades. Everyone else was hacking it and I, I dared to fall flat on my face. There was something wrong with me that I was unable to complete things. It was all me. My mother was right. I was truly self destructive as my mother constantly proclaimed. My mother was an amateur Freudian shrink. She liked to dissect people and find their neurotic defense mechanisms. She did get a degree when I was young in sociology. She was very proud of herself for finishing school. She liked to remind us all that she did it herself whereas her parents paid for her older brother's and younger sister's educations, though the providing free babysitting while she took night classes.. that never did much to remove the grudge. My mother held grudges forever. I remember my grandparents coming over when my mother had classes. My grandfather would sit in the living room and read a book, while my grandma would hang with me. We watched TV together. She hated Carol Burnet, but I would make her watch it. We drew pictures together and she sang me songs. All and all Grandma was pretty excellent. My mother was a good mother too, but like most, she was flawed. Flawed by her own experiences, her own fears, her own angers; she made her mistakes. Some, obviously, I think, in parenting. I don't say this out of anger, but out of desire to be aware and avoid those pitfalls.

The truth be told, some of my family dynamics were plum fucked up.

One of mom's favorite subjects to dissect was my father. I remember when I was about 8, hearing about how he practiced projection and makes the other person seem like they have the issue. Now, we would say that he does not accept responsibility for his actions. She used to tell me that my father had no conscience, too much ego. And I would have to sit there and agree. One did not question my mother at all. To disagree was to gather the wrath upon oneself. Much better to be ripping someone else apart rather than be torn to shreds. All my mother required was someone to be an audience to and that was usually me.

Together, I was made part of their marriage.

We were both mad at Daddy if he broke one of her rules. I had to take her side. It was a matter of my survival. Being scored by my mother was not a place you wanted to be. So I sided with her. On everything. He resented me for being her little parrot. But really, he should have taken that up with her, not blamed and resented me. In turn, he could never stick up for me either. When I was in trouble, it was like the evil dead in that house. You were virtually ignores. You know that sharp silence when everyone is acting like normal, but there is a noticeable scent of something odd in the room. Anger permeating the air and sending ripples out everywhere. In my childlike optimism fed off happy families in chirpy sitcoms, I would try to break the silence only to be shot down again with a curt one word answer. All one could do was hope that she would break the silence and allow life to resume once more. About me, my mother would have her common complaints that "I always did what I wanted" which I always thought was so logical of a statement it was inconceivable that it be stated as a complaint. It was the stupidest thing I had ever heard. Also, anytime I did something displeasurable, I was doing it "to her". Like that was my reason. My clothing had embarrassed her. I shaved my head to make her look bad. What kind of mother will the neighbors think she is seeing me coming home at 6am? How could I have made her look bad by lying? Then there was the big stuff. The self destructive. Not enough drive. Introverted. Unwilling to succeed. Sneaky and manipulative. And I believed it all. I was all those things. Now whether they said I was all those things or I was all those things because they said I was, I will never truly know. I can't go back in time and track the words with the actions. My recollection was the more they complained the worst I fought. The more they try to limit the more I broke out. If, they had noticed me early on and embraced who I said I was, then I do not think that I would have had to go so far. It was like, "Ok, so I will give you reasons for disliking me", but at the same time I was desperate for approval. I was invisible at a young age. I spent allot of my childhood saying "hi" to my father. "Hi, daddy" "Daddy, hi!" "hi!" "hey hi!!" I just wanted him to pay attention to me. He used to get mad at me if I wanted his attention. Always. I always felt like a bother to him. He spent his time either working, or sleeping so he could work. As a cop, he worked the bizarre hours that the job demanded. Four to Twelves. Midnights. Then he read books. Lots and lots of books. Very solitary. He would spend his days off manicuring the yard. Mowing, edging, weed whacking, sweeping, hosing down the driveway and the patio. For some time in my childhood, he made stained glass in the basement for hours. At another times, he thought that he could learn to play guitar. He played for years, again, down in the basement, and always sounded bad. No music gene there. Basically I think he avoided us in every possible way.

When I was 16, I gave up on my father as a human being.

I got tired of hoping that he would not act so despondent to me. I hated asking him for a ride to work. Instead of being pleased that I held down an actual job and paid my own way for movies and lunch, he always acted so imposed on when asked to leave his couch and provide a ride. I was a bother when I talked to him and annoying when I spoke to others. I was a terrible burden when I asked something of him. The last straw was asking him to help me hang a full length mirror on my wall. I had had the darn thing for months and had asked him repeatedly. Finally, I got him cornered and he could provide no other excuse. It was not a warm father daughter project. No Hallmark here. He preformed the task so begrudgingly and then threw a fit when he cracked the mirror slightly. I can see this too, in my mind's eye, looking at the cracked mirror, hearing his cursing, and thinking: "I am done with you. No longer will I expect anything"

I saw some truths at a young age.

I think escaping to NY would prove that I wasn't such a burden and so useless….

as I had been taught to feel. So failing that; the feelings of uselessness began to effect my whole life. Before that, all thought high school, no matter how bad, I was able to isolate my parents and their opinions. I had friends who thought highly of me, I had teachers who were amazed by my brilliance. It was easy to believe that my parents were simply wrong. They just didn't see the real me. After I failed, perhaps they were right. I began to think that everyone could see right through my facade to my failings like my mother. They all knew what my mother said was true. I sank so low in a desperate attempt to get someone to see differently. You know that song? "Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places"? I think about the time frame that was between my return home from NY and the beginning of my great affair and that song is my mantra. Some things were really great about that time. I had lots of money working full time. I was getting paid some ridiculous amount per hour. Maybe it wasn't that crazy being that I was the receptionist in a Manhattan law firm, but it sure was allot of cash at the end of the week for little old me. And I had no expenses suddenly. No school tuition, no car, no insurance, no rent, just some food and my monthly train fare. What's a wild and crazy girl suppose to do with lots of money when she is depressed? Shop. We took cabs everywhere. Why bother with the subway when five bucks will get you door to door. My friends can't go out because they don't have cash, no problem, my treat. Can't go to that cool concert? Don't worry I'll get the tickets. Dinner out, drinks on me, let's go shopping. It was almost like I was manic depressive, but on a really, really, really fast cycle...manic when out, depressed when alone. I once went out with my whole paycheck and spent it all on a shopping spree at Canal Jean. Anything I wanted..everything I wanted. I just piled it onto the guy who was with me. He followed me around like a lost puppy as I heaped more and more clothes and hooked hangers on his belt. Laura and I went to Trash, the coolest store in all of NY, and for some reason I bought her a rubber skirt and a mohair sweater. Maybe it was early Christmas, but I dropped over a hundred bucks. I made it and I spent it as fast as I could. We all know that you can't buy love, or respect, and even friendships seem more hallow when you know you are footing the bill. I couldn't get new and improved self esteem and wear it the same way I could wear a new shirt. I could buy out all of NY and still feel like crude. Now, if a new wardrobe didn't make me feel better, it could at least provide for a more important role...finding me a new boyfriend. Love, would, as always make me worthy.

If someone else saw me as worth dating..then all would be OK, right?

At this time, much of my social life centered around Ana's ultra cool apartment. Laura was very involved with her new best friends at FIT, two roommates named Jenn and Ariana. I had tried to meld my old friend with my new, but Ana was not impressed with Laura, and hence, Laura didn't like Ana much. I felt kind of rejected by Laura, so my attachment to Ana was like Velcro. Plus the 6th Street apartment became my home away from home and the center of my outings. There was a core group of us at Ana's. Ana and Chris who were dating, Joe Truck who was so old at 25 and pretending to go to college so his mom would fork over money, Robert who was a dear sweet man, but still deep in the closet, Keith a friend of Joe's, and me. Other people came and went, visited and hung out, but we were the constants. I decided that I liked Joe. He was nice and cool and most importantly there. One night, as we all crashed after clubbing, he and I were lucky enough to nab Ana's bed. This lead to a conversation about how nice it was to cuddle which lead to cuddling which led to sex. Great, I thought. I have a boyfriend. The very next day was Sunday and I was back at my moms. Laura called me from the city to announce that Joe had called her and asked her out. The day after he slept with me "as friends" he asked out my best friend. And they went out until she cheated on him with the next guy. Great. Keith, around Christmas, started going out with Jenn from FIT. She had gone home for Christmas break and we were all at some party. Keith was obviously not too much into the monogamy of the relationship and was flirting his butt off. I, in all my wisdom, thought that it was o.k. if I slept with him, because I really didn't like him and at least I was safe "for Jenn". I really didn't want him. He was going to cheat anyway and at least I would not try to really "take" him from her. So I did. And then he proceeded to continue to cheat on Jenn with whomever else, and I just felt more like crap. Couldn't even keep a temporary boy for Christmas break for the good of a freind. I think she was pissed at me too. There was another kid who hung out named Guy. I had dated Guy right after the first break up with Bill. It only lasted a few weeks but we remained "friends" since we all had the same group of friends. Somehow, he too, ended up dating Laura. Laura was at this time a nonstop dater who had boys coming out of the woodwork and then she would systematically cheat on them with a new boy. She also had a long term, long distance boyfriend in New Orleans. I just might have been a little jealous. But it does go to prove that desperation is obvious and not an attractive factor. One night, I was arriving at the apartment, walking down 1st Ave and I heard all the guys calling my name and they ran up as I waited. What they said next still stings to this day, " We saw you and we talking..OMG who is that girl, she looks really amazing" "Yeah, we were actually fighting about who gets to talk to you first" "And then you stepped into the light" "And it was only you" "Yeah, we were all like "Shit, it's only Claud" So even if they all thought I was amazing, no one wanted to even think about me "in that way". They knew me and knowing me was to reject me.

One other great low point.

There was this girl Paige who joined the group and everyone fought over who got Paige. Joe, cheated on by Laura, did win her over. Paige had a younger brother who was like 15 or 16 and had visited us all in the city. We all went out and that night the designated crash pad was Guy's parent's apartment as they were out of town. Guy's folks were professors or something at Columbia and they had one of those huge old places with tons of rooms like a house up that way. So that night, we all broke up into beds and bedrooms. Guy put me in his sister's room with Paige's younger brother. OK, I thought..no biggie. I was tired. The boy kept making a move on me until finally I told him he could kiss me all he wanted, but if he thought my underwear was leaving my body then he had another thing coming. He seemed surprised. The next morning Guy actually chastised me for not sleeping with him. Apparently, he had promised this kid a good time and so he had bunked him with me. My own friends were whoring me out. That's what I was good for. I am sure I could remember more, but I think I have mercifully blocked the rest out. It was probably only about 2 months time that this all happened..my return home and the desperate acts. The only thing I achieved was to make myself feel even more pathetic and undesirable, heck, even unlikeable. And this is who I was. This was the place that I was at when I was asked out to the first innocent lunch with him. Like a lamb to the slaughter I went. It's hard to admit how desperate I was. It's hard to think about how awful it all was. It's hard to remember this all. But it's true and what I remember. And I know so much of where my head was at was the reason why things played out the way they did…why I was so ripe for the picking. I was hanging on the tree like a rotten overripe fruit. And when I fell, I smash. So I went to lunch with my boss. And again. And again. And drinks. And then to bed. And then, pregnant I became. It happened so fast. I was only with him a short time, less than a month. I used birth control, and still, I was pregnant. And I never told him. Continued: In Which my Unplanned Pregnancy becomes an Adoption Plan

Life as a Dysfunctional Teen; Precurser to Being a Birthmother

This story begin's here:" How to Begin a BirthMother: Chapter 1"

My parents probably should never have married.

I think that they were not well matched at all. Married at 23, I think my mom did it to escape her own parent’s house. She never did get very far, always living within a few miles of her own parents house, but she at least, had her own home to rule. This is one of those areas where I have now, as an adult, so many real questions to ask but no one to ask them in order to begin to understand the real dynamics of the family I grew up in. From what I gather, my mother felt like the forgotten child in the middle. Her older brother, my Uncle Mike, was the prized son and her younger sister, my Aunt Lynda, the preverbal brat. I think my mother procured her martyr status in life early on. It sounded like she married my father in a bit of a rush though I was not born until a socially acceptable year later, so what that rush was I am not sure. I have found old pictures whose dates on the back, if to believed, make the acquaintance and courtship between them much longer than she seemed to recall. I do remember her speaking about not being allowed to go away with my father and met his family and for that she felt sheltered and denied knowledge that might have helped her make a better life decision. I know she worked a full time job and lived with her parents until she married and then my parents bought a house. She spoke once of wanting to leave the marriage and then found herself to be pregnant with me. So she stayed and at the age of 2 months and two days they bought the house that I grew up in, five blocks from my grandparents. By the time they married, my father was on the police force. Early pictures of him show a very handsome man in uniform with a sparkle in his eye. I know my mother never felt comfortable with her appearance, so maybe she felt lucky to get as fine a man as my dad. I know I was always happy to have inherited his nose rather than her big Italian honker, but I often see her reflection in my face now and it works for me. The genetics on them meshed quite well as both my brother and I are a good blend. We have a great abundance of common sense and will inherited from Mom with intelligence and great testing ability from dear old dad. Maybe that was the whole purpose of their union as it certainly didn’t seem to bring much peace or happiness on any other front. It was not a happy marriage especially towards the end. When my father left my mom the final time he had a lot of practice.

They had separated once when I was beginning ninth grade for about 6 months.

Then yearly, he would attempt to leave again. It was always January and he always left a note which I, home from school first, would end up finding with a feeling of “Oh, here we go again”. By the time I was a senior, I guess even my mom had had enough and away he went. The war that ensued lasted the next five years until they finally were able to legally divorce. Everything was a grudge match and the fighting was dirty. If there had been any love there it was now pure hate. The hate from my father was not just projected to my mom, but I received quite a portion of the residuals.

The thing that effected me most was that my father took all my college money.

Whatever they had saved for me, he had craftily cleaned out of their joint accounts before informing her of his intent. He then stopped all child support and kept all his paychecks for himself. My mom thought he was paying the mortgage on the house and then found out by fluke that he wasn’t right before it went into foreclosure. She ended up having to go from working part time around my brother’s school schedule to working full time to meet the bills. Needless to say that nothing was left for me. After not seeing him for months, my father came over to visit “the children”. I remember hearing my mother tell him,“I’m not going to tell her that. You tell her” It was May. I was about to graduate high school. I was accepted into my choice of schools. My time in suburban purgatory was almost at its end and suddenly here was Dad about to tell me the great news. “Well you see, there isn’t any college money for you” “Why. Where did it go. You knew I was planning on this” “I needed things. I had to buy furniture and rent an apartment.” “You bought a motorcycle” “That doesn’t matter” “What am I suppose to do? This is my life we’re talking about. Most parents are thrilled when their children want to go to college” “You can go to the local community college” “And how am I suppose to get there. I don’t have a car.” “You can take the bus” “I’m not doing that!! They have a shitty art department. I got into Parson’s and SVA!!. What do you want me to do?? Should I become a prostitute or surrogate mother in order to pay for school??” “You do what you have to do” And then he walked out of my room. He went down the stairs and sat on the couch and attempted to read the paper and that complete disregard was just too much. At that moment, seeing how little it affected him, the dam broke and I just lost it. I ran after him and threw myself into the paper, throwing it across the room. I attacked him with nails and screams. I know that I was trying to show him, prove to him how very deeply he hurt me. He did not care and pushed me off. He did not pay any heed to my cries of despair. And then he walked outside to speak to my baby brother. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, trying to regain composure, yet knowing that he had just destroyed all that I had hoped for, all that I had dreamed, my escape. I heard him talking to Matt and grabbing a knife I went outside. It was pure insanity. I held the knife high, not knowing what I intended and screamed at him: “You get away from MY brother!”

I threw the knife at him.

It missed, but it scared him badly. He ran out muttering about how we were all nuts. He was never big on visitation after that. Maybe, come to think of it, my ability to freak out unnerved my mother after that. Honestly, with hindsight, if I was her, I would have just made me deal with the unfortunate reality of our situation. There was no longer money for school and the great Manhattan life I dreamed. Maybe, she just did want to give to me what I so craved or maybe she just wanted to get me out of her hair. In any case, instead of making me understand that I would just have to commute to the city for a year or two until things got better, she actually helped me find an apartment. The plan was that I would get a place in NY with friends from home. Terri, Ashmi, and someone else I forget now were supposed to be my roommates. When it came time to put down the money for the apartment, everyone had changed their plans and I was the only one moving. Did this stop me? Nope. I had about $3,000.00 dollars and the apartment was eight hundred a month with one month’s security. I figured I would move in anyway and find other roommates from the vast quantities of kids I knew in the NYC club scene. They would pay me back and I would have enough money to pay for my first semester’s tuition which was another $3,500.00.

It was a bad plan.

First there was a couple of basically runways from Jersey. They had no money, but were going to sell some stuff to get it to me. It took about a month to find out that that wasn’t going to happen. So they referred, using that word very loosely, me to another couple from Jersey. Somehow, other friends of theirs, two girls also came to live with us. Money was exchanged somehow and I did manage to pay tuition in the zero hour. I was not eligible for any financial aid because, on the books, my father had money. The apartment was a fourth floor walk up in the Upper East Side between York and East end. It was a one bedroom railroad flat with a bathtub in the kitchen. Usually there was anywhere between 4 to 7 people there. It got to be the norm that if you had any food or money, it was the place to crash. I don’t know how many people stayed there. It was insane. All kids, no grown ups and no money. Everything I had in the world was there and it was nothing but a huge party with no one to clean up the mess. If we had any cash, we grouped it together and bought cigarettes. A dollar and change could get you a pack or a loaf of bread so we could eat. We smoked instead. We got crutches from the garbage and took turns going panhandling for change. We dumpster dived in the back of drug stores and either sold or took whatever we found. We hunted though the trash for what we could find and tried to sell that. Friends that still lived at home would steal food from the family fridge. We stole toilet paper for restaurants. We lived on noodles with mayonnaise and garlic salt.

It was horrible.

The landlord was horrible. The apartment was an illegal sublet which meant that he was suppose to be living there. That meant that the bills were all in his name and all his furniture and crap was still there. He was suppose to get it out, but never did. He was suppose to show me the phone bills, but never did. He was suppose to call first, but never did. He was a “photographer” . Along with his lousy nasty furniture, in the apartment he also left a nasty array of porn. Pictures of naked women and magazines that were beyond dirty. The man was, quite obviously, a pig. My mother had met him. My mother saw the apartment. My mother made the deal with him for me, her only daughter, just 18, to live there in NYC and be able to support myself and go to school full time with no real source of income and no screening of any potential roommates. What the hell was she thinking??

So much went on in that time frame, it hardly seems that it was only a few months.

School started in September, so I was in the apartment the last week of August. I had packed up my room at home of all my earthly possessions and clothes. Mom had her pseudo boyfriend, Tom, help me move in with his van. I was given a few old pots and some mismatched silverware that my father had left in the attic from his first apartment when they separated years before. Laura and a bunch of friends came over to spend the first night and somehow we managed to invite the whole world to a huge party. I guess we knew in advance that I was moving in and had planned it. I know lots of people were there. Darrin came, and kids from High School. City friends and club pals, the whole crew was in mass. It was the start of my exciting new life. Well, at least it was a good beginning..or at least a really good party. Laura still has the photos taken from that night. I was in my hey day, finally the queen of my world. To me, it was an ultimate success because the ever so coveted Bill came over.

Bill was the perfect Goth boy that I imagined myself to be in love with.

Long Island was an incestuous little world especially if you were part of the freakish sub culture. Clubs deemed cool enough and that played “our” music were limited, every school only had the token number of punks and Goths, so we all knew who each other was. There was the innate competition to be coolest, and the best accessory was a super cool boyfriend. Bill was the long distance best friend of Christopher. Christopher was the local heartthrob who I could never ethically date, as he had broken Laura’s 15 year old heart. While we did share some common boyfriends due to lack of availability, a true best friend did not smarf on a broken heart. I met Bill for the first time when he and Dave Patti stopped over my house one night in 11th grade. It was late at night and I was already in my PJ’s, but for whatever reason (again..Mom..what were you thinking?) I hung outside on my front porch talking to them for a few hours. Bill was with a girl that night and I thought nothing of him in regards to a possible prospect as I have never been that kind of chick. Unless the guy in question was mine first, I had great respect for previous established relationships. In any case, I was just Bill. I had finally gotten to meet the guy behind the name. I had heard about him for quite some time as Christopher’s friend, but since he lived an hour away in Port Jeff, he was still unknown to me.

In the weird way that life works, the next weekend I ran away from home.

I know that there was some huge family fight preceding my decision to evacuate the premises, but the exact circumstances are in a memory void. I do know that I very calmly made up my mind, packed my bags and snuck them on the bus for school. Once in school, I hid my bags in the auditorium, went to homeroom so I was not marked as absent and prevent the call home to alert the parents to my absence, then called a taxi cab from the payphone, went to the train station and took a train to NYC. Once in NY, I walked over to FIT and announced my uninvited presence to Bari and Stephen in the Dorms. I don’t think they were all too happy to have to deal with me, but I gave them little choice. Besides, it was Friday and I could do no apartment hunting or job seeking until Monday. What to do, but include me in their plans and that meant going to the beloved Danceteria.

During high school, Danceteria was the be all and end all of all clubs in NY.

Within walking distance of Penn Station and FIT, it was 5 floors and, until it closed under controversy, a wonderful rooftop club. The scene in Desperately Seeking Susan, with Madonna dancing around a nonexistent jukebox, was filmed on the third floor. The third floor was the “coolest” floor and where we all wanted to be. My parents heavily stymied my ability to project ultimate coolness by not allowing me to go to Danceteria. I had to construct elaborate plan to “sleep” over Diane’s house in order to go. It was rather a pain since I also had to manage to get picked up in the am at a friend’s house when I had been out all night. It was seen as a great injustice, though now, I know there is no way would have let my daughter go either. But no one was going to tell me what I could or could not do. I was as pleased as punch to be going there. Newly freed, independent. And to add to my satisfaction, who walks in but Chris and Bill. Instantly adding to my coolness, I have been seen by those who could report.

It turned out to be a teenage runaways magical night.

After having to remind Bill who I was, “Do I know you?” “Well, you were on my front steps last weekend” We spent hours sitting on the freezer in the “kitchen” talking until my tickets back to FIT all went home, Bill missed the last train out and the club actually closed. Coupled by this time, we tried to get into FIT, rude as it was. Yes, not only did I arrive unannounced by now I wanted to wake them up at 5 am with a boy in tow. No one answered our buzzing and so we end up spending the wee hours left attempting to sleep 8 feet up on the “Eye of Fashion” statue in front of the dorms. In October. It was cold. Come morning, we did freeload ourselves again on my poor friends. I have pictures of that day still. Bill with his greenish eyes, and bleached blond hair covering his face, Russian fisherman’s cap and the coolest big riding boots that made sparks on the street; I just extremely thrilled to be in NY, free, and found a boy to boot! I think we went out again that night? Eventually he left NY to go home to his fancy prep school due to the coming Monday morning. I didn’t know where I would be next, but I was assured I would see him again. So I didn’t care all too much when the security guard at FIT started asking questions, Bari’s roommates started getting wiggy about harboring a runaway and Uncle Mike and Sandy came to pick me up.

I went to their apartment in NY and essentially held myself hostage.

Apparently my mother was quite distraught over my disappearance, though my father was nonplussed. It didn’t take them too long to figure out that I was at FIT. I held out, refusing to come home until they met my list of demand: I was to be able to dye my hair, pierce my ears and shave my head without repercussions, was to have my own phone line in my room, and I was allowed to go to Danceteria. I think I must have adding something in there about Bill. Needless to say, they conceded and I went home.

Sometimes, I think I was an incorrigible child, but really it was very sad that I had to go to such extremes to get myself accepted.

I think if they had not, at that time, together, fought so hard against me, I would to have pushed back so very much. I can look back and see that the last common bond that they had in their marriage was the persecution of me. So the next few months were blissful. I had a boyfriend and could do whatever I wanted. I was 17, extremely cool, and in love. And then he dumped me and I became very depressed again.

Looking back, Bill was defiantly a player by today’s standards.

He also had a tendency for being enamored with what he perceived as somewhat exotic. At least that’s what he was impressed by and looked for in female companionship. He had an ex of whom he fondly remembered the cat’s paws tattoo over her shoulder. I believe she was older and her name was Jared. I went with him to his Prep School’s Winter formal wearing a dress made out of a black vinyl raincoat and my hair sticking up 9 inches straight up. He was fond of Asian women and had a long time girlfriend whom he cheated on, unbeknowningly, with me named Lily Lin. She and I eventually became friends in the V.I.P. room of the Ritz after he was gone, mostly, from both our lives. I was forgettable as a girl in her pajamas in the night air of Long island, but fascinating as a teen runaway vixen hiding out in a club. When we were dating I was more of a troubled ultra needy girl stuck in the mix of a marriage’s turbulent death.

My thrill was gone and soon was Bill.

I guess I was able to redeem myself by pulling off the amazing super party in my new NY apartment, for Bill stayed the night of my party and I felt that, for a brief time, the world was perfectly alighted.

I have a lot of trouble remembering what happened in the next few months in NY.

There is no time line, no beginning thread, no end; just fleeting images, snapshots of my life.I must have had the job right away as I never recall looking for a job. I worked part time as the receptionist and I went to school at SVA. I was 18 and loose on NY. *** I remember arriving in the apartment one day after classes and being so relieved that there was no one home. By this time there was anywhere between 3 to 6 people living there, so I was shocked to have the apartment empty. I immediately went to take advantage of the situation and have a bath. Remember the bathtub is under the kitchen counter. The door to the apartment is in the kitchen The door faces the tub.I am in the tub. Naked, of course, and in walks not only however many official roommates I had, but a bunch of friends too. With pizza.The only thing I could do was ask for a slice. *** Cigarettes were $1.25 then. So if you are broke, but you have a dollar and change..you could either buy a loaf of bread and eat or buy a pack of ciggs and smoke. We always would opt to smoke.Sitting in the apartment, stomachs growling like nobody’s business, chain smoking like there was no tomorrow. Heaven. *** Tuna and pasta. That was the main dish for months. One can of tuna, room temperature, drained over a bunch of cooked pasta. If you got it, season with garlic salt. On paydays, we splurged for some Mayo. We would just shovel it down, fast and furious. It didn't taste good, but quieted the stomach.Took me years to be able to eat tuna again.Never, ever will I eat anything with both tuna and noodles together. For some ungodly reason, my husband likes Tuna casserole. He doesn't understand why I will not let it even be made in my kitchen. *** If you don't have money then you don't buy necessities like toilet paper. Any good punk rock kid knows that you steal it from public bathrooms, preferably by the roll. My first set of roommates was a couple named Ted and Diana. They were the ones who were going to sell something to get the money to live there, but couldn't, so they set me up with Joe and Maryanne. Maryanne and I would go on the "paper patrol". Normally, as you went about your day you would scope out the public restrooms and grab when you could, but when there was nothing left, then you had to go on a mission. Now NYC is still a place where only customers can use a restroom. If you can't even buy a stupid roll of toilet paper then how can you buy anything else that would establish you as a customer? And if you are two girls in the attention getting garb that was our uniforms, then it was no small feat to sneak into a coveted restroom in order to flinch the wad of paper. Once we went out, her and I, and got into a bathroom on to find that we could not figure out how to get the roll off the holder. It would not open up. So, what's any good punk rock grulz to do? We ripped the whole damn roll out of the sheetrock wall and took it home like a trophy. I can still see it sitting in the toilet closet on the floor...paper and holder and the bits of the wall still clinging on. Even after it was used up, we still hung on to that holder and the wall. It just sat on the floor, empty, under the holder on the wall, usually empty. *** I had a book called "Steal this Book" by Abbie Hoffman. It was borrowed from my friend Bethany and since Bethany was the daughter of Peter, Paul and Mary's Peter, the book was actually inscribed by Abbie Hoffman. It was the bible on how to live, eat and exist for free, hence she thought we needed it. When the apartment went to crap and all my stuff was lost, someone stole the book. I still feel guilty. Sorry Bethany. *** "Steal this Book" got us into Dumpster Diving. Dumpster diving is one step beyond Garbage Picking and Curbside Treasures. We already knew to drag back to the apartment anything that looked remotely useful from the wealthy curbs of the Upper East Side, now we went in search of things. Somehow or another, Joe went in a dumpster behind a pharmacy and got some pills. Don't know what they were, but we took them anyway. They weren’t much fun, but they would zonk us out. Helps if you're too hungry to sleep. Now by this time, other roomies had come. I can't remember their names now, but they were two girls, older than us. One of them had the distinct pleasure of being THE official groupie for the Sex Pistols. Like actually part of their entourage, she really knew them.IE she slept with all of them. She also still received royalties for her character in "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" and because of that, I got to speak to the infamous John "Rotton" Lydon on the phone. Once. He was pretty rude, but at least she was legit. It did make the apartment quite crowed. Remember it was a one bedroom. So, Joe and Maryanne had the pull out couch in the living room. I and whomever else was about had the pull out in the bed room. While the two girls had the "loft" over the closet. I don't think it was really meant to be a bed. Can't remember if it had a mattress even on it, but there was a railing of sorts and I guess a ladder to get up there. What I remember best about it though, was waking up in the middle of the night, after taking these stupid pills and Cat, yes, her name was Cat!, had fallen on us ( who??) in our sleep. We were all doped up and as I recall, perhaps Cat had woken up to pee, but couldn't, didn't get down in time. So she fell on us and peed at the same time. And everyone was too drugged up to do much except to go back to sleep. In the pee. Nice. *** The other definite memory I have with Cat and her friend was all of us going to see "Sid and Nancy" on opening night. Sid and Nancy was a very big deal to Cat as she "loved" Sid Vicious. Now this was '86 and they were both, at that time, long dead, but she was full of memories and anecdotes about her life with the Sex Pistols, so the movie a much featured and anticipated event.We went someplace by 42nd Street. I remember getting out of the theater and taking the subway back. Cat had made all her black eyeliner run from crying and we ended up crying with her. It was the night that the Mets won the World Series and as we got out, all of NY was erupting in joyous celebration. In the middle of it all, a group of sad, nasty and smuggy kids cursed baseball and the death of Punk Rock Icons. *** Then there was the big bags of weed that someone’s friend had found growing in some field and ripped off. Huge stalks of the stuff, stuffed into Duane Reed bags under the kitchen table. We would dry it out in the toasted oven to smoke. Make tea with it. It was too cruddy and mouldy to sell for anything, so we just used marijuana like parsley. *** Crutches were found in the garbage. So we would take turns bundling a foot in many socks and panhandling. The entrance to Central Park was only four blocks away and made a nice place to beg. Got to have the money for the cigarettes and tuna.Though I must have had money. I bought art supplies. I went to endless concerts. I had bus and subway fares. Maybe I hide it from them? *** One time, a friend, whom I think might have been Mike Waste came over with a whole granny cart of food. He still lived at home and his folks made a ton of real beef stew and sent over loaves of bread. God, it was amazing to eat real food again. I wish I could recall who this kid was. I know I had a crush on him at one point, but I'm still not sure if he was Mike Waste or who Mike Waste might have been. I know, according to my date book, that I had lots of fun with Mike Waste. We hung out, drank beers, even went to his birthday party. I can see this kid in my mind’s eye. He had a beautiful Mohawk that he would come over and I would literally iron it "up" for him. Head on ironing board, no joke. Didn't have much food, but we always had lots of Super Extra Hold Aqua Net in the white can. We must have stole it. I still always keep a bottle of the stuff in the house. You never know. *** Visions of taking the 2nd Avenue bus downtown alone at night to find friends and drink beer. Going back, alone at 3, 4 am on the 1st Avenue uptown bus. How I never ended up a statistic, a mugging, a rape, I don't know. I use to carry around a riding crop, of all things, to keep me safe. As if THAT would keep the freaks away from me. Maybe it just made me look like a freak too and it scared everyone away. Maybe they saw me as one of their own and gave me space and respect. I was a tough little thing then, big boots, big black leather jacket, huge mess of black hair, hiding behind tons of makeup, worlds of black eyeliner. I would growl at anyone who looked at me wrong "Don't Fuck with me!" Something worked. I lived to tell the tales. *** Going to FIT at 1 am after a hysterical call form Laura. They had all taken Ecstasy for the first time and then had deemed that Laura was too messed up to club. I guess she was since she kept rolling around in the mud. Anyway, drugged up and alone, I set out to rescue her except that for some reason I took an uptown bus on Lex rather than the downtown. Figured out I was going the wrong way in Harlem and had to wait another hour to get back. Eventually made it there and got her back into a good space, waded out her high with her. What are friends for? *** Somewhere in this all was school. I had classes and assignments. Though it was all that I had wanted in life, the reality of going to SVA was much different than I had imagined. After four years of being touted the "great artist" of my school, I was aching for more. I had exhausted every trick and technique available from my two high school art teachers and was aching to be challenged. In my dream life, I was taught by brilliant professors and told that my work was terrible. I would be mentally stretched and prodded to find the true art in my soul. Reality was that, as freshman, we were grouped together in little clusters and we all had the same classes at the same time. My dear friend from High School, Christine was in my cluster, as well as Ashmi. Why I had worked so hard to get in became a mystery, for Ashmi decided to go to FIT at the very last minute and we all donated materials to her portfolio as she pretty much sucked. Also In my cluster, was Joe Figg, who is actually a real artist now and Khara, still a friend. The most insulting of all was the Mandies. The Mandies were these three girls from Jersey who were not either cool or artists. They were three loud, gum cracking, manicured mall rats who didn't know what to do and "Daddy" sent them to art school. I was insulted to be in the same room as them. I was annoyed beyond belief that there was no one to challenge me. The only person who was better than me was Tristan. Tristan was this small, interesting elf like guy who lived on the Lower East Side with his mom. He was blessed enough to go to Music and Art. If I had known that Music and Art had existed, I would have made my folks let me live with my Uncle Mike in NY so I, too, could have attended Music and Art. M&A was one of NY's specialty public schools. You had to apply to get in, but once you were in, it was Mecca. Four years more, had Tristan, of intense technique. Some schools had math, at Music and Art, he had Shadows techniques. I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven. Tristan, was then, and is now, an amazing illustrationist with incredible detailed, realistic hand and eye. He was exactly what I wanted to be and yet, he too said “I don't have more talent, just more training"

So here I was, living in hell, sleeping in pee, eating nothing but tuna, and for what.

Painting class was not teaching me real oil painting techniques. I had no idea what I was doing, but either did anyone else, except Tristan. But twice a week we sat there and painted the model. So I painted this naked woman with incredible huge nipples, not knowing a thing, and was told "very good". No, not very good!! Correct me, fix me, make me better. The bloom was off the rose and my interest in SVA crumbled. I suppose I should have given it more time. Perhaps if I had done the commute with Christine and Joe and the rest every day, then I would have stayed focused, but add in the insane life of the apartment, the lack of all else normal...I was out all night, easy to skip a class and sleep. I think I only went to the photography class once. Doomed to fail and so, knowing too that I would not have the funds for next semester, I dropped out.

That was pretty much the beginning of the end.

The other part of the end was the end of Bill. As I said, once I was re-made with the apartment he returned. I think it went like this: "I 've been thinking" "About what" "About you" "What about me" "I think I miss you"..or something that was cheesy enough to make me swoon. I let him back into my heart full force. A million years later, it was hardly a relationship of any significance, but I sure didn't know that then. I can't remember the issues, or the fights. I know I frequently felt unloved, but that was my nature, that is what I knew myself to be. I know I once tried to get him jealous and I actually went and slept with Joe Figg, but he didn't seem to notice. When it came to an end and over what, I have no recall, but I do remember where I was and most of what happened next. I was friends with a 16 or 15 year old girl who lived with her folks a few blocks away. Pamala Gross was shorter than me with a prominent tush. She had lovely bleached blond hair and, come to think of it, is probably who bought me many a concert ticket. I was also friends with Ana Noel Rockwell. Ana was entered into the group when she started dating Bill's best friend, Christopher. Ana was also a trust fund baby from California in NY to attend Parsons. The trust fund part had alot of quirks. She had the most amazing apartment on Indian Row / East 6th street. It was a triplex..with three bathrooms, three fireplaces, and a sauna. She had the upper bedroom and whomever was in her good graces got to rent out the basement apartment. I think Pammy genuinely liked me and took care of me. I think Ana only hung out with who was deemed very cool at the time. For a short period of time, I was friends with both. The night Bill broke up with me, they were instrumental. I know Bill and I were on the phone at Pammy's. I know that it was not going too good and I demanded alcohol. Pammy provided me, or maybe I had brought it myself, a big bottle of Khlaua. I drank it all. There was another friend of Pammy's there as we had plans for yet another concert. Had to meet Ana at her apartment at some specified time. I do know we got to Ana's and I was still walking myself. I remember her opening the door and declaring that men are all asshats..and then, I remember nothing for hours.

One of the most vivid and scary memories of my life, is waking up or coming too in Ana's bed.

Ana was sitting on me and Pammy had one hand held down and her friend had the other. I heard a weird noise and realized that it was my own voice and I was screaming. My body was still thrashing about almost of its own accord. I had superhuman strength and could push all three girls off me at once. Immediatly, on being free I was pulling at my own hair, ripping out chunks and scratching my face with my nails. And though it all, screaming at the top of my lungs just guttural sounds of anguish and despair. As I said, I came to..a lucid moment..where I realized what I was doing, and yet, I do recall distantly thinking "This feels so good. I am mad but I like it" And I allowed myself to slip back into insanity again.

Hours later, with more friends in assistance, they began to get really concerned.

Concerned enough that I would not stop, that they called Bellevue and the police. I remember being carried downstairs and listening for the sirens to come. Still mad, still being held away from myself, still slipping back and forth into insanity.Then the police arrived. I don't know why, perhaps since my dad had been on the force for so many years, perhaps it soothed me and comforted me, but on sight of the uniformed cop, I went still. It was over. I asked for a cigarette and stopped all shenanigans. I talked to the cop and assured him that I was OK. I did, however, pick up a potholder that remained by my side all weekend. I didn't need a boyfriend, I would say, I had a potholder. Anna kept me all weekend. Cared for like a sick or unruly child, they brought me food and made me eat. I went to some concert the next night with all them so I could be watched. Sometimes, I felt it come back. Sometimes, I just felt my mind leave me again. A few times at the concert, I had no idea where I was or how I got there. I went out for cigarettes once on Sunday, and I got lost. A search party was sent out to find me. I forgot where I was supposed to be, who I was with. I do believe I descended into some form of madness that night..whether it was alcohol induced or just helped along, I don't know. I do firmly believe that that it was one of the most inhibiting feelings I have ever known and it would be only too easy to sink back there again. I know I do not want to be insane and so I will not be, but I can tell you this.

It really felt so good.

All of my worldly possessions were in that apartment. So trust was a big issue. My life was open to allot of people. People I didn't really know from a hole in the wall despite living and meeking out a survival with them.They say all good things must come to an end, well all bad things ,too, must come to an end. Eventually, the meager existence at the apartment could no longer be sustained. The final catalyst, a locked trunk and a pair of tights. Joe and Maryanne had a trunk that locked. I guess they had all their worldly possessions there too, but the lock inspired some distrust. We all had the habit of sharing and borrowing clothes and such and Maryanne had borrowed, I believe a pair of my green tights. And I couldn't find them. And I wanted to wear them. And I could see them hanging out of the locked trunk. And so, I pulled them out of the trunk, prying it open while I did so. Now, maybe it wasn't the right thing to do, but to me, then, it was my right as they were my tights and I certainly couldn't sit in my underwear patiently waiting all day for them to return home and open the trunk. It's one of these visual memories in life, where you can still see in your mind’s eye what happened. I can remember being so angry and working that trunk, pulling those tights out, bit by bit and, perhaps finding something else of mine in there too. Needless to say, the action did not go over big. Perhaps there were other issues that I, naive as always, was not aware of. Perhaps, there were goings on behind my back, plots and such, tensions high. Perhaps it would have been something else that would prove to be the catalyst, but when I returned home later that day, after my still innocent job at the law firm, it took me a few minutes to register the scene at the apartment. At first I thought that we had been robbed. The place was in total disarray, but, the front door was still locked. Then, slowly, I came to realize that most of my possessions were still intact, but anything that belonged to anyone else was, in fact, noticeably absent.

Maryanne, Joe, Cat and the other girl were gone.

I do recall that it was the end of the week. I had the weekend in front of me and then, come Monday was the first of the month. What month? I think we were looking at November. Needless of when, the loss of the roommates under whatever circumstances was an action that induced panic in me, I would not be able to produce the much needed rent money on my own. I know I called the terrible landlord, Jerry and explained to him that I was not going to be able to continue to live there. That I would move out and clean up the apartment all weekend and he could have it back for the first of the month. He was not pleased. I know he yelled at me, telling me that I could not do such a thing to him, but being that it was a month to month agreement, I really could. Not that I had much choice anyway. I know that my mother became involved and she managed to calm him down. We reached some kind of agreement. I think that I would continue to be there and show the apartment while I cleaned up? It's all muddy now. I know I was now scared of him. Before he had just creeped me out, Asking to take photos, not wanting anyone in the apartment when I had to meet with him to pay rent. Things that made me feel that he was a sexual predator and he would try something. I had had male friends wait on the fire escape when Jerry, the creep, came over and that was bad enough. Now, he was mad too. Somewhere in all this, I was to meet with him and go over the bills that still came in his name being the illegal sublet situation. Because he was a creepy madman, we arranged to have Monica go with me to the apartment. Monica was the youngest sibling of Marina, Sondra's sister. She was a few years older than me, another wild child who hated to brush her hair. I always liked Monica and was grateful that she would stand guard and buffer me from Jerry's wrath.The presence of Monica, instead, inspired more temper from Jerry. Maybe because he, then, could not push me around and intimidate me, but whatever the case, he began to go off on a tirade about who I could and couldn't have in my apartment. I know he gave my mother the business, who, at least did have a backbone. If nothing else you did not try to strong arm my mother for any reason. If she felt violated at all, or unjustly persecuted, she would dig in her heels with the veracity of a bulldog. The battle began.

Whatever the agreement was, all bets were off when Jerry waited for me, unannounced after work one night.

Leaning on the hood of a car parked outside my door, I had no choice but to let him follow me up, alone. Once there, he began to freak out like a mad man. Cursing and screaming, I don't even know anymore what his true issue was, but I know I was terrified. Gone was the pretentious NY wild woman of the world, I was a scared little girl who became to weep at the intensity of his anger. Another vivid memory: Having Jerry force my head and upper body out of the fourth floor window. Staring at the brick courtyard below. His hands rough, his voice screaming in my ear. Tears running down my face, snoot coming out of my nose. "Where is your mother!!! Get your mother on the phone now! I want you OUT! and if you are not out, you will be dead." Being roughly hauled out of the window frame and thrown into the other room towards the phone.My mother was not home, but I tracked her sown at my grandfather’s house, having a nice family dinner. "Mom, Jerry is here now and he's mad and he's frightening me!" breaking into uncontrollable sobbing. She managed to calm him down again. New agreement somehow, I went back to Long Island, returned to the boring, but safe haven of suburbia. I think this is where I ended up returning to my high school for the big Homecoming football game between Berner and Massapequa high school. I remember Laura and I sitting in the cold bleachers, seeing everyone who had returned home for the big game, and feeling so utterly failed. Having to smile and sound like everything was "just great!" but knowing that nothing had worked out like I had dreamed. We returned to NY, maybe Sunday night, with mom's kinda boyfriend Tom and his van to scoop up my things and get away from the insanity of Jerry. And he had changed the locks of the apartment. All my things, all my clothes, all my art was inside, just beyond the locked door. As I said, my mom was in her fighting mode. I gather it was initially for a phone book, but we ended up over Pammy's apartment to use the phone in pre cell phone days and speak to a locksmith. Thank goodness for Pammy's folks who exchanged Mom's personal check for the hundred dollars cash that the locksmith required. Met the man, and got the door opened up. He was rather surprised when we negated to have a new lock put on. My mother's revenge, we were going to leave the apartment open to all of New York. I think this was originally left out of their initial conversation and made the smitty feel his ethics were questioned, but she smoothed that out. My stuff was hurriedly gathered up and shoved into boxes and bags. We had, in better times, constructed a huge mural on the kitchen wall of pictures and clippings that I liked and that was quickly removed leaving a nasty mess of sheetrock, We did not spare any time in the way of cleaning up after ourselves as we wanted to avoid Jerry at all costs. Maybe it was here as we gathered what was left of my life that I noticed certain things were absent or maybe it was right after the roomies all left, but I defiantly left with less than what I had come in with.

Too many people had keys to that place, and some specific articles of clothing: my great black bondage skirt with seven little buckles down the butt, my fabulous chain and conch belt that Laura had bought me, my optical skirt, all my photos from high school..these are the things I still mourn for..were gone forever.

Continued here: Downward Spiral to a BirthMother