It was a Monday, same as any other my sister and I running down the long drive way that ran through the woods to catch the bus, backpack and flute case bouncing, till we reached the road out of breath to wait for the bus to pull up to take us to school. It was the last Monday I would ever go home. While at school I spoke with my teacher about something I thought they would fix and shattered my whole world. After school in the DHR office after my mother had arrived one of the workers asked if I would like to spend 3 days in a foster home, I didn't but I knew they wanted a cretin answer and was terrified and unsure I looked to my mom for some sign as to what to say, any sign. She did not give one I didn't know it then but she had been questioned and threatened and they wanted to have any reason to continue with her some more, so she gave no sign and I knowing they wanted me to go agreed and so they took me away.
I was placed in a high risk foster home, one where the location of it was kept secret to protect the kids from their families. I don't remember what time of year or names or faces or even how long I was there, but I do remember that one girl older than me did a lot to help me and I still miss her and hope she is well and happy. She was so strong and kind, you would have had no idea she had lived in a hell like you could never imagine. I will leave the story of her hell out, as it is not mine to tell. I mention her because she held back the void from covering me completely, and gave me some hope. Then my grandmother came to take me to live with her and the void swallowed me whole. The void was a place in my mind, it transformed dream and reality mixing them together till neither was all one or the other. I was not sleepy because I was not exactly in reality but could continue what I was expected to do because I was not exactly out of it. I think of it as sleep walking and memories from this time are shadowed and faded with pieces scattered here and there like a dream that you can almost grasp till it turns to mist and floats away. One thing I do remember is a book. When I was younger I hated to read and avoided it when I could, then my sister read me a book and I loved it so much I started reading it and all the rest of the series, which led to more and more books. I used the stories as a place to hide in my void mostly the first The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks. I was content to stay in my void were life was not as hard and been willing to sleepwalk the rest of my life, but they have people trained to fix that. So the therapist banished my void and returned me to the reality I wanted to escape from, leaving my mind to block from me the things I could not face.
Since that time my mind has had more trouble holding things and I am absent minded and forgetful. This did little to encourage me to stay out of bed and I tended to hide there when I could trying to escape the world and find the rest denied me every night. My weariness increased as I got older and things became harder to remember, and I became "lazier" I found a way to stay awake. I would claw my skin off, which is not a good habit but it was what I had. My fathers family had become a restricted area and having been around only them during my child hood I was hurt and ashamed when told by my mom and sister that they did not want me and would "shoot me on site". This knowledge added to my attempts to stay awake turned in to a self destructive habit that resulted in parts of my body being covered with sores, but at least I was awake. Since it has affected my life in a lot of ways, because it became a habit and to this day I have not concurred it, I was able to hide it for years, but then I started having my face break out when I became stressed and so now I ware it on my face most of the time a reminder of trying to stay awake and wish to rip off my skin to escape my life and find my past that I once had, but had lost because of talking to people who were "there to help" this I think worsend my fear of people and the trick played by DHR that got me to go to that foster home, destroyed my faith in other people. The biggest thing was I lost faith in God as well. It was a long and hard journey back to that faith but maybe it was needed to make me me.
A song by one of my favorite singers Rouge has a line that says "the very thing that empty's you shall surely make you whole" I think this is true, at least I really hope it is, and I hope everyone emptied by life find strength in living that life and the peace they deserve.
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