Represent-Feature Story

Writing My Own Script
I had to leave my family to find myself

By Tenaja J.

For as long as I have been in care, I’ve longed to be part of a family that accepts me. There was a long period of time when my own family and I couldn’t be civil unless I hid my real thoughts and feelings. To this day, we still don’t see eye to eye over the fact that I am queer and not of their faith. But now I have the ability to talk to them without compromising myself, and that’s something I learned in care.

My parents raised my siblings and me as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we weren’t allowed to hang out with the other kids we went to school with. I remember sometimes I used to sneak phone calls to some of my classmates, pretending we were talking about homework, just so that I could have others to talk to.

But for most of my youth, I only hung out with kids within our faith that my parents approved of (not many), and only involved myself in activities my parents deemed acceptable (usually pertaining to God, Jesus, or Disney characters).

As I got older, my life began to feel routine. I would go to school, come home, do my homework and study the Bible. I felt like I was living my life according to my parents’ expectations, with little of my own input.

I understood then, and still understand, that it is natural and appropriate for parents to impose certain controls over their children and have certain expectations (like going to school or having a curfew). But I had always been an honor student, and a role model in our congregation. I just hated to feel like my life was scripted and I hadn’t done any of the writing. I felt so hidden, and like no one knew me.

Burying the Real Me

I’ve always known I was queer. When I think of myself, I see being queer as a fact of my existence, like how I’m female and black. There were always girls that I liked; I knew they liked me too. I never thought that the way they liked me was different from the way I liked them.

It wasn’t until my early teens that I realized that most people regarded being queer as taboo. I heard a lot of stereotypes. People said that gay men had AIDS and preyed on little boys, and that transgender people were perverts. The one that bothered me most was that God hated “faggots” and “dykes.”

Because of their religion, I knew my parents would have a problem with their oldest daughter being queer. It seemed like my only safe option was to keep my sexual orientation a secret. Keeping up this appearance all day, every day, began to hurt me. I kept the real me buried so far inside, and I felt depressed all the time.

When I was 16, I started talking to my guidance counselor about how I was feeling. It was a relief to have a place to talk in secret. But one day I came to her office and my parents were there.

I felt caught off guard. It was clear that they had been talking, and my guidance counselor tried to get me to disclose the things that had been bothering me. I felt violated. I managed to get out of the encounter by blaming the changes in my mood on something else, but I knew my parents didn’t fall for it.

I felt guilty that I wasn’t able to talk to my parents about my sexual orientation. It’s hard to need your parents’ guidance while knowing that they will be at odds with you. When we went home, there was an uncomfortable distance between us. When I finally told them the truth, that I was queer, their discomfort became a more pronounced hostility.

I Had to Get Out

From that first time I told my parents about myself, they began to act like I wasn’t their daughter anymore. My mother told me that it was just a phase, and that I clearly needed to study the example of Jesus more, to better understand the role of men in our lives. My father told me that I had no right to believe anything other than what I was taught.

With every fight, I knew that I had to get out of their house. I didn’t know where to go. I just knew that if I stayed, I would continue to be punished for things about myself that I couldn’t control.

I ran away about three times. I went to friends’ houses, or places where I knew other queer youth hung out, like the Village. Once, I even went to Dobbs Ferry, a town about 25 miles away, to meet a girl I liked. I would sometimes stay away for days at a time.

Running away made me feel like I was in control—it felt good to make my own decisions. But I knew running away was a temporary solution. I needed to get myself out of the house and into my own setting.

Coming Into Care

The last time I ran away from home I was 17. My siblings thought I had gone out to check the mail. I didn’t want them to know what I was doing. But I was sure that this would be the last time I locked that door with my own key. I didn’t know where I was going to go, or what I was going to do. I just knew that I couldn’t go home.

I bounced around between friends’ houses for two weeks, until my parents took out a PINS (Person In Need of Supervision) petition on me, which meant they admitted they couldn’t handle me anymore, and I was put into the system. At first, all I felt was relief.

The departure from my parents’ home was abrupt—I left behind three younger siblings that I had mentored, nurtured and loved. But with housing as my most pressing concern, I had no time to worry about what was going on back at home.

I was 17 and moving from my strict parents’ home to a Supervised Independent Living (SILP) apartment where there wasn’t much staff contact. In a new borough, and away from everything I was used to, I felt alone. It was now my task to create new relationships with others my age, something I’d never really done before.

On My Own, but Lonely

I didn’t realize how alone I was, and how much I missed my family, until I was alone in my bedroom at the SILP apartment. My two sisters and I had shared a room for as long as I could remember. My youngest sister used to climb into my bed at night, and the three of us would laugh and talk ourselves to sleep. That night, I couldn’t sleep until the sun came up.

Everything began to remind me of my old life in Staten Island. I was still going to school out there, and the trip took two hours—plenty of time to travel through my old neighborhood and see people who wouldn’t talk to me anymore because I was no longer a Jehovah’s Witness, and places I could never go without crying.

I started skipping school in my senior year, when I was so close to graduation. And I still wasn’t sleeping at night. I would wait till the sun came up, and when I finally slept there was no waking me.

Adults Who Listen?

My school had to alert the agency about the number of days I was missing. When my caseworker pulled me in for a meeting with my team, I was sure I was in for a world-class screaming match. I expected them to act like my parents. To my surprise, everyone was more interested in hearing what I had to say than in telling me how disappointed they were.

I had never been able to talk to any adult without fighting for their attention or feeling like they missed the point. But this time, things were different. I told them about not being able to sleep, and about how it felt to go back and forth to Staten Island every day. We brainstormed some possible solutions, like going to see a psychiatrist and getting into therapy. My caseworker at the time, Ali, even went with me to the psychiatrist and took me out to lunch.

Getting Help

I don’t think my team ever realized how much that first meeting meant to me. Because of their help, I recovered some of the energy I had lost after leaving my parents’ home. I began to realize that I am the greatest advocate for myself, and that people will listen if I talk. I learned that it is my responsibility to create my own safe spaces, and engage the help of those ready and available to assist me.

I started taking medication to help me sleep more regularly, so that I could go to school. I transferred to a smaller school in Manhattan, so that I wouldn’t have to travel to Staten Island. I attended regularly, and graduated in June of 2003.

I also started having regular therapy sessions to talk about my family and how to change my relationship with them. I saw my therapist, Geoff, for four years.

He and my social workers helped me when I felt depressed or stuck between loving myself as queer and having the love of my family. And over the years, I celebrated my birthdays and the holidays with my team and roommates, who became the family I needed to get through the other challenges I faced down the road.

Stepping Toward Each Other

My family and I didn’t really speak much during my first year in care. But now we’ve begun taking slow, gradual steps toward each other. We went from speaking briefly once a year to a phone call or an email at least once a month. I don’t get to see them often, because I work full-time during the week and go to school full-time on the weekends.

But I did get the chance to see them over the summer. My mom and I took my 10-year-old sister and my baby nephew to the movies. We had fun. My sister and I got to giggle together and share popcorn. It felt like I was really a big sister. That was something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

It feels good to be in touch with my family, but at the same time tense. I see that we have become strangers to each other, and are unsure of each other’s boundaries. But my time in care has given me the ability to set ground rules with them, so I can be an involved daughter, sister and aunt, but still stay safe.

When I talk to my family, I stay away from topics like religion, politics or relationships. If my parents bring those things up, I say something like, “You have your beliefs and I have mine,” or, “That’s not something I want to discuss.” In general, we’ve learned to stay away from the hard topics.

Keeping Myself Safe

My ground rules are more like mantras. Whenever I talk to them or go out to visit, I always begin by reminding myself of how far I have come on my own, and that I’m my own person now. I remember that although they are my family, I don’t live with them anymore.

The home I retreat to is the home I’ve created. When I lived with them, I felt that my home was hostile, and not a place where I felt safe. The one thing I always remind myself of is that I have worked hard to build my own safe place. That safe place extends from my current home and into myself. Whenever I’m visiting Staten Island, or just on the phone with my parents, I’m always conscious of the safe place I have created, and that keeps me confident.