Evil Stepmother still has control, part 1 of my life

[myownenemy]

When I was 7 i was put on a plane by my mother in Florida to go visit my father in PA. I did not hear from or see my mother again until I was 14. During those years my father was always gone. He was in the navy. He went on alot of cruises and spent alot of time at the bar on base. My stepmother cleaned offices for a living and usually had me sit in the truck, with no heat for an hour or two. PA has really cold winters. She never gave me any kind of freedom. She bought and picked out all of my clothes, picked what I was going to wear everyday, until I was 12, when i was placed in foster care. I asked her for years to let me pick out my stuff and she told me no and made me feel horrible for asking. She made me wear dresses with cats on them and 2 dllr white shoes from walmart with no stockings, just thin socks. If i pulled the socks up I would get in trouble. My underwear always had magic holes appear in them. Needless to say I was always very cold. I was forbidden to ask for food. In the morning she would come into my room, put the clothes on the bed and tell me to get ready, and go downstsirs. She would holler up the stairs for me to come eat. I ate alone evrysingle morning. Once again food was always placed in front of me, rice puffs avery morning or oatmeal. I was never allowed to ask for more, in fact she insrtucted me that if my dad asked me if I wanted ore to tell him no. I was allowed to drink water. she made me a pb sandwich everyday for 5 years with a brown banana or applesauce, sometimes an apple and a cup of water in a purple barbie lunchbox. I hated her lunches and hated that lunchbox. i would ask people for food off their tray at school. when I asked her about my mother, she would tell me she was a whore and drug addict just like my sister. She always made me feel like I was worth nothing, She also did this thing where i was only allowed to have a sheet on my bed ans then she would safety pin it at the end so that it would not come up past my bellybutton. I was not allowed to be in the living room with my parents. I always was forced to go outside until 5. Then i had to do chores, or go with her to clean offices. In the summer she would allow me to come inside with her, and have me help her, we would work all dat with nothing to eat. I can not count the number of times I would eat sugar from the coffee station or eat food out of the trash because I was so hungry. Sometimes I would steal change out of their desks. For punishment she had this thing called sentences. I would be forced to write a sentence 2 or 3 thousand times. My fingers would be sore and bleeding. She also had my father spank me with a belt. When I was 12, there was a blizzard and she made me wear a dress again. Now right before this I had started to get clothes out of the lost and found and also stole some things from a store. I had a hiding place in the woods and would change every morning. well somehow she found it and did not say anything to to my father, but threw the things away. so the morning of the blizzard I went to my friends house and nobody was there so i climbed in through a basement window. I went inside and had breakfast , made a lunch, put some jeans on and stole some change to but a lunch ticket. well a neighbor had seen me and called my parents and my dad threatned to beat me so bad that i would not be able to walk. so i ran away. When the cops found me they took me to juvie and from there I told the counselors what my dad had said and that i was scared, However i dont think i told them to much about my step mom. I never had more than 2 friends when I lived there with them. She took away self worth and the kids made fun of me. She would cut my hair short as a boys, i would be cryin while she cut it, she did this for4 years, and she would ignore me. From there I was placed in foster care. Soon after that she sold all of my stuff. I had a collection of glass dolls, most where from my grandpa and she sold it. He also got me savings bonds that I never saw. My point is this. i always felt like i was a loser and had something i should hide. To do this day, I still feel the same. i know it was her and in order to have some kind of self confidence or any self worth i have to deal with this. I have never had more than two or three friends. In my teens turned to men and sex and drugs for acceptance. I have 6 years off the drugs, but still feel complety guilty for my past. I am scared of talking to decent people, in fear that they will find me out or not like me. Trashy people, it is so easy for me to talk bad about them. I cannt trust my husband, we are constantly in disagreement. I want to go to college and have a good job, but have a fear of people. At the park when my children play with other kkids i am scared to talk to the other moms, most people think i am just stuck up, but really it is the opposite. I am really unhappya nd depressed and told so much because I need help, I nedd to move forward with my life. What do I do from here?

[Jennifer]

Hey
How old are you know? How did you end up in foster care? What kind of therapy have you gotten in the past for this? Do you have anything positive in your life?

[myownenemy]

I will be 26 this month. i tryed suicide by drinking bleach when i was 14 and placed in a mental hospital. They put me on anti depressants but I did not like them and stopped taking them. Since then I have not had any therapy. My mother just recently passed away unexpectely last december. i went and saw my doctor, he gave me something temporary for anxiety and depression. however i do not like taking pills for this. Once I return to the usa I plan on seeing a therapist. I am currently in Mexico, really hard to find a therapist who speaks English. As far as having something positive in my life, I would have to say my children, however I feel as though I am not the parent I could be because of this. When I try to talk to my husband I feel as though he gets angry and attacks me. I have taken so much of my frustration out on him. I feel as if he doesnt love me completly, if it wasnt for the children, there would be no us. I was placed in foster care after i broke in the house and ran away from home. They did some investigating about my father spanking me and decided to place me in care. I was in there for 2 years and then they found my mom and i went to live with her.

[Jennifer]

Okay, have you considered online counseling as an alternative while you are in mexico?

You mentioned part 1, what would you like part 2 to look like what kind of life do you want for you and your children?

You cannot undo the past all you can do is somehow move forward from it and learn to accept that you have been able to make it through and come out stronger on the other side.

[myownenemy]

I mean i want to have a good realtionship with my husband. I am really insecure because of the mental abuse I was put through as a child. It is so easy to just say accept it, but how? i thought I had, but it just keeps coming back. I mostly realize it when I realize I just want to be alone. I want friends but am scared to talk to people, and I think it has to do with my childhood. I want to know the basic steps to moving on and accepting that I can not go back and change things.

[Jennifer]

That is what therapy helps you do, forgive, forget and move forward with the past. If you can afford therapy, then I recommend it for you to start working on everything that you need and move forward to part 2

[myownenemy]

Ok, well thats why I am sharing my life on here. I googled free therapy and this is what i got. Do i need to pay to get some advice?

[Jennifer]

There is a bit of a difference between this and counseling. this is limited and you have years of work to do. You can talk and get all the help you want in here, but it is limited and it is an open forum to anyone to comment that is up to you.

[myownenemy]

omg, you think it will take years of work to get better?

[Jennifer]

not necessarily, but you went through years of bad things that nobody should have to deal with and it seems that you did not have any good role models growing up so everything you learned was from yourself and it is hard to just rely on yourself all the time for the right choices.

did you have any positive role models growing up? where did you learn your coping skills from.

[myownenemy]

Well your right. Once I was placed in foster care I had a good role model. My foster mother was great. I was there for 2 years and then went to live with my mother. That was when things got worse and I learned to cope by using drugs. i did that until I was 20. My husband helped to kick the habit and has been my rock ever since,[/list]

[Jennifer]

what kind of skills did your foster mom teach you that you still use today?

[myownenemy]

Basically she was just laid back. she set rules, but not crazy ones. I never really thought about it, but I always felt like she loved me no matter what. And she had so much love for everybody else also. My foster sister still lives there and she is 27, with 3 kids. The other lives there as well and she is in her30's. The middle one had some health problems and died, buther daughter still lives there and the foster mother has adopted them all. I feel sad at times and wish i could have stayed there, I feel like I would not have made the bad choices I did in Florida. But my father got a transfer to Texas and by law I either was to go back in his care or move with my mom. When they found my mother, she had said she didn"t want to take care of me and they told her they would put her in jail if she didn't. So they made me feel angry but I really did not believe it and just thought everything was going to be great, however it was not.

[Jennifer]

true, somehow, you are going to have move forward from your past so you can start your new life. you cannot undo your mistakes or what has happened to you, all you can do is work in improving your life now and it sounds that you don't know how to be positive without bringing the negative into your life which is very understandable and that is why you need to remove it from your life, any suggestions?