0 Born with methamphetamine in system. Sent to foster care. 1 Both parents arrested for drug possession.

7 My mother married a man named David Dimick. I was neglected. His children didn't let me play with them. I was so excited because he was going to help me with a science project, the first time I'd ever experienced someone caring enough to he lp. We were in the basement when my mother called for him. She had found drugs i n his trailer parked on the lawn and confronted him. Things got out of control a nd I saw him hit her with a skillet. My sister was next to me crying. I took her hand and we went across the street to an elderly man's house to call the police . He gave us lemon cookies while we waited. David Dimick was arrested and we cou ld not pay bills. We had no electricity. My nose turned black from the soot of t he oil lamps we used. We made top ramen in a coffee pot. My bath water was cold. They boarded up our windows and gave us an eviction notice. My sister and I wer e sent away to live with different grandparents. My sister to Esther Boling, my mother's mother, and me to Gaylen Harris, my father's father. 8 I don't remember the first time it happened. It seems like something I should re member, but for the life of me, I can't. I remember the day I was sent there. He picked me up from my grandmother's apart ment where my sister got to stay behind. I was afraid. It was almost completely dark outside. It seemed like a really long walk to his car and I stared at the s idewalk most of the time. I was feeling defeated, I didn't understand why my gra ndmother did not want me. I remember his car. A Taurus. It was a rusty blue color. I remember how I grew t o avoid looking at that car in the dusty, gravelly driveway. The trips in the ca r never went well for me. I remember the Orion's Belt poster on the wall next to his bed, the one I focuse d on when I tried to imagine myself somewhere far away. I remember the over sexu alized western movies and Walker, Texas Ranger on TV that he forced me to watch while he bounced me in his lap and rubbed my back in a fashion anyone should hav e seen as inappropriate but somehow no one ever did. I remember holding my Snoop y doll with all of the zippers and buttons, and staring at the door and thinking how formidable looking it was. I dreamt of opening it and running out. I feared that if I did, either he would stop me or nobody would care or believe me. I remember the houses to the left and right of his. The people in the house to t he left had kids. They seemed happy. I remember their sliding glass door, their play set outside, their parents calling them in when it was time to eat. I never let myself believe their life was better than mine. Everything was so dark in m y mental imagery that the idea of them having good things was a foreign concept. Everything was shrouded in horror. I pictured their parents hitting them, ignor ing them, abusing them. It didn't matter how rosy the picture they painted to th e outside world was, because mine was depicted wrongly, theirs had to have been too. The house to the right always had me enraptured. I did not understand their life style. It was chaotic. I only ever saw older men, with beers in their hands, car efree, with no children or women to weigh them down. I wondered what their life was like. It was so strange, so enigmatic, so thrilling for me to think about. I t seemed like they were almost never home, which made it even more exciting for me when I caught a glimpse of them. I remember the T-Gel on the side of the bathtub and thinking how strange it was to put something like that in your hair. I remember bath-time all too well. I ha d so many neat toys. I had a sea turtle that wound up and swam across the water. There were always mountains and mountains of bubbles and there was a pad on the bottom of the tub that made it like a jacuzzi. Sometimes, I got lucky and he le ft me alone. But that was a rarity. Once, he was touching me, and my grandmother walked in. I know she saw it. I saw it in her eyes. She knew. And she did nothi ng.

I remember all of the knick knacks on top of the television. The fiber optic lig ht up things and the little plastic cases full of bubbles. He asked me if he cou ld do something. He knew I'd really wanted Silly Putty ever since playing with s ome my cousin had. He told me he would buy me some, if I let him do it. I didn't even know what it was, nor did it really seem to matter what I said. He pulled my underwear off and put his mouth on me. I remember not being strong enough to push him away. I tried so hard. I have never felt weaker in my entire life than I did in that moment. No amount of Silly Putty would ever have been worth it. I remember that my father was there briefly and that I felt a little safer when he was. He took me to the attic and showed me a drug. It was black and square an d wrapped in foil. Nickelodeon was on TV. He told me to stay away from drugs bec ause they mess your life up. I remember seeing him shoot up in the bathroom. I remember when he was staring at a flower I'd given to him because he was cryin g, and I watched as he slowly plucked the petals off one by one. He was going ba ck to prison. I understood. I remember my grandfather opening a safe behind a large picture frame in his bed room. It was full of money and he told me not to tell my grandmother about it. He took the money and me somewhere to bail my father out. They slept in differen t rooms. Hers was bright, pretty, and smelled good. His was dark. Just dark. I d id not understand their relationship. 9 My mother met a man on the internet and we moved across the country to live with him in Ohio. I think this was the only point in my life where I felt like I had a father, at least the kind of father you're supposed to have. This man didn't just agree with all of my mother's decisions. He wasn't afraid she would leave h im if he opposed her. That's how I have always envisioned a father should be. Of course it didn't last. My mother isn't the kind of person who can accept when s he is wrong. She's the kind of person who thinks love is all about control, at l east that's the way it comes off. My sister stayed behind to finish out the school year with my grandmother. When the school year ended, my grandmother stopped contact with my mother. We spent a week driving back to Washington to go get my sister, only to discover the morn ing of our arrival my grandmother had filed for custody on the grounds that we h ad abandoned my sister. There was nothing we could do. We saw her for a moment. She was in an apartment under my grandmother's babysitting some kids. We couldn' t take her back with us. We drove back to Ohio. There was no smiling on the driv e back. 10 My teacher was worried about me and sent me to see the school counselor. I told him what my grandfather had done. He called my mother and my grandfather went in to hiding with the help of his church for several years. I tried so hard to feel something about it. I could feel nothing, as if my emotions had been washed awa y. 12 My back pain started when my body started developing. I fainted from the pain. N obody cared. I was given pain medication and told to lay down for a few days. It didn't stop it from happening again. And again. 14 I was sick of living. My mother left the man in Ohio for the police officer who arrested David Dimick and we moved back to Washington, just when Ohio had starte d feeling like home. Nobody cared about me or noticed me. My mother heated her r oom in the winter while I shivered under five blankets. My drug addict uncle vis its often, bringing all of his troubles with him when he does. My stepdad walked in while I was holding a steak knife, bracing myself to end everything. I was behind in gym class. Behind everyone. My legs wouldn't do what I told them to. Everything hurt. The teacher was failing me. I saw a podiatrist who examine d me and did tests. He said my feet are flat, my tendons short, and parts of my body not fully formed. He recommended surgery after I stopped growing, which als

o happens to be when my medical insurance ended. 17 I started cutting my wrists and my mom found out. She called me a stupid little bitch and tried to strangle me. She called the police who treated me badly. An a mbulance took me to the hospital, to a small room with a metal bed and the sound of someone beating the wall and screaming on the other side. A prostitute told me I was too pretty to be in there. I didn't understand what that had to do with anything. I was taken to foster care for 72 hours. I didn't eat the first day. The other girl there straightened my hair for the first time in my life, and I f elt a little better about myself. I was sad to leave foster care. I went to my f riend's house for a week or two, before my mother denied further cooperation and would not sign the papers to let me stay there permanently. I remember as my fr iend's mother went to get her car keys, my friend told me to run. So I did. I ra n out the door and huddled in some bushes. I must have stayed there for a good f ive hours, scared and paranoid. When it was dark, I came out. I was cold. I foun d a cardboard box and tried to curl up in it. It was still so cold. I called a c risis number on the pay phone and they sent a cop who took me back to my mother. I ran away again the next day, the thought of the cold sounding a much better o ption than staying in that house. 18 My mother no longer had the power to keep me there now that I was legally an adu lt. I left, I couch surfed for months. I got a boyfriend who hit me and verbally abused me. Tried to rape me once. Everywhere I went, madness seemed to ensue. I babysat for $100 a week. My rent at one point was $300. The abusive boyfriend h ad a full time regular job but spent all of his money before he got it because h e worked at a car dealership and spent his check on parts. So I was left paying the $300 rent on my $400 monthly income. We didn't have food stamps at that time . Didn't know I qualified for them. I remember standing in line at food banks an d feeling really out of place. The roommates we had were really bizarre. They wo uld have really disturbing sex parties in the living room. The boyfriend went ba ck to my mother's with me for a short time before she freaked out and tried to h ave his car towed one day while he was at work. I ran all the way to my friend's house. It was ten miles away. I remember every step because it was about 90 deg rees out and I was wearing a sweater. I stayed with her for two months before ge tting kicked out by her grandmother. I was ironically kicked out the day I had h ad a job interview and was offered the job. I moved in with a friend's old roomm ate because the friend was leaving and I had nowhere else to go. Rent was $300 a month there. I worked at Safeway in University Place and I was living in Parkla nd. The bus ride was about four hours each way everyday. I was also working full time, sometimes over time, constantly lifting more than I really could. I didn' t take my breaks. I was too afraid if I sat down I wouldn't be able to get back up and finish my work. The boyfriend was still living with me. He was not workin g. He got fired, go figure. The roommate we lived with would let his cats use th e bathtub as their litter box. He had about 8 cats or more. The place was disgu sting, but it was a place, nonetheless. I finally broke up with the boyfriend, I went back to my mother's. At this point she was in a hotel called Guesthouse In n, which is now known as The Baymont Inn. Anyways, I stayed with her and slept o n her couch in the hotel room for about two weeks before going to a different fr iend's house and sleeping on their floor, which was covered in garbage and pet f eces. Eventually I went back to the hotel with my mother and I met someone new a nd moved in with him and his parents. 19 I lost my virginity to this guy on Valentine's Day. I later found out he cheated on me with his ex girlfriend, technically his wife, and the mother of his 3 yea r old child. They'd been separated for years. Apparently he wasn't over her yet. Our problems went on for about a year or more. We got our own apartment togethe r but he kept lying about her. Not just about her, he lied about everything he p ossibly could. He slapped me, pushed me into doors a few times. Yelled at me in front of his child. I was working at GameStop and wasn't making much so I quit t o babysit his daughter during the day. Then he lost his job and didn't need the

childcare anymore and things got rougher for us. Later on, I got a job at an off ice place in Redmond and just didn't see the point of anything anymore. Some fri ends invited me to move with them in Tennessee. I had known them for 9 years so I decided it was time for a change. I quit my job and left. When I got there, th ey treated me like crap. Two weeks after moving in, I was berated for being a de adbeat and a leech because I hadn't found a job yet, even though I'd already had a job offer at a GameStop in the area. 20 Brendan told me he didn't have any money and so I left most of my belongings in Tennessee. He flew me back to Washington and I stayed with him for awhile. I lat er found a receipt of his bank account and it said his balance was $5,000 in sav ings. I was heartbroken that he lied to me about that, too, and I had to leave b ehind nearly everything I owned. Then I found out he was talking to his ex about getting back together in the short time I was gone. My world came crashing down . The one person I had to talk to was my friend Mikal, who was also a friend of Brendan's and had nothing to say to comfort me because of that fact. I was compl etely alone. With no place to go. So the next morning, I was staring at the wall in the silence of the empty apartment, and the thought occurred to me that if I tried to kill myself right then, I would not convince myself to stop. I would h ave no second thoughts. So I did it, and I didn't have any second thoughts. Bren dan came to the apartment and I was laying on the couch, waiting, I thought, to die. He called an ambulance and asked me a bunch of questions. I just stared. I didn't want help. I wanted out. While I still had the guts to go through with it . Then the ambulance came and gave me valium which paralyzed me instead of putti ng me to sleep. I felt them cut my clothes off. I heard them talking about me. I felt them shove a tube down my throat. I couldn't move, or signal to anyone tha t I was awake. I started moving my fingers as soon as my body would let me, my f eeble attempt at telling someone I was there. They just strapped my arms down. T hat's the last thing I remember before I woke up from a medicated coma two days later. The first word from my mouth was 'bills' followed by 'Mikal.' My mother w as next to me. The phone rang. It was my dad who I had not spoken to in ten plus years. I answered it and talked to him, then my mother got angry at me and left me there alone. Because someone called me and I had no control over it. I remem ber how lost I felt in that moment. How I knew at that moment I would never regr et what I had done. How right I felt my actions were. How justified. How much I wished I had succeeded but knew I didn't have the guts to do it again. Everythin g was hollow, empty, meaningless. If all my life was nothing but bad, how would I ever enjoy the good? I could see no future for myself. Only one full of pain, just like the rest of it had been. Everyone, I mean everyone, I had not heard from called me or visited me in the h ospital. I'd been unhappy for years, why do people only care when you almost die ? I was still unhappy and surviving only made everything worse. I knew these peo ple didn't care. They had shown it over the years, as they abused, or abandoned me when I needed them. My father. My sister. My mother. My aunt. My grandmother. Where were they before? My father, living just a few miles from my Grandfather who sexually abused me, visiting him on weekends for dinner like nothing ever h appened. My sister, who did nothing but bully me for my entire life and make me feel terrible about myself. My mother who lived in a motel and never really play ed her role as a mother. My aunt who I saw maybe twice in my life, and my grandm other who only came because she didn't want to look bad for not coming. These we re my saviors? Supposed to make my life better? I had no other options. They wer e offering me places to stay. None of them were great options, but I'd obviously been in worse. First, my sister's apartment in Wisconsin. She had a newborn bab y and a new husband and invited me to come live with them. I accepted. I was the re for two weeks before being kicked out by them. I found out they were alcoholi cs; my sister going through a fifth of vodka or more every week and her husband going through a 12 to 24 pack of beer daily, as well as a pack or two of cigaret tes. I forgot to turn the kitchen light off one time, that was all it took. You just almost died, but hey, lights have to get turned off, so you're out of here. Then I went to my dad's house in Las Vegas. Stayed for a month. Found a job two

days after being there. Woke up at 4 am, took the bus to work, got there at 8 am , worked for approximately 10 hours, and got home by about 9 pm. Went to sleep. Did it again. It was exhausting. My body couldn't do it. That job ended and I s tarted another the next day. My dad's wife was absolutely nuts and I couldn't ha ndle the fact that he was visiting my grandfather. I couldn't even fathom how he could justify it in his head, to go visit someone casually who had sexually abu sed his daughter and even pled guilty to this fact. I got a roommate there who w as entirely creepy and moved back to Washington a week later, to the motel with my mother. I had my own room, but my mother would leave me these really mean voi cemails if I didn't answer my phone because I was in the shower or something, an d she guilted me because I didn't give her money. Which wasn't even true, I gave her money, I loaned her money, she just never recalled any of it because of her medications and gambling problem. I met a fantastic guy while I was living with her, and he was my savior in many ways. All of my mental problems and issues ev entually drove him away, and that is something I just don't know if I will ever stop regretting. He was the first person I ever truly loved, and to this day he thinks I manipulated him into everything he did for me. Maybe I am so screwed up that I did and didn't even realize it. But even if so, it was never my intent. I truly loved him, I think I always will. 21 He got us an apartment, a nice apartment. He didn't make me feel bad for not hav ing much money to help out. I started feeling trapped because the apartment was surrounded by hills and hills caused me a great deal of pain. I went to physica l therapy for a month or two and it only made everything worse. Eventually he gr ew distant and our relationship became non existent. I moved in with a roommate who turned out to be a total psychopath, she had already put in 30 days notice t o move out and reported me for trespassing after I moved in. Then I went to the motel with my mom for two weeks before we got into a fight and she kicked me out . Then a friend's, who had an old friend of mine living with him that was moving out, and offered me a place to stay for more than a few days.