Drifting Away
I'm worried I'm losing myself to mental illness.

Making It Through
After years of sexual abuse, I'm finally safe.

Dreams for My Daughter
I'm trying my best to parent from prison.

No Place to Go

By Miguel Ayala

Nov. 5, 2003: Where Will I Live When I Turn 21?

I live in a group home for teens with mental illness. When I turn 21 in a couple of months, I will have to leave foster care. Because of that, I have a million worries about where I'll live, how I will get money, and how will I eat when I can barely boil an egg.

My old social worker, Sarah, told me I would get "supportive housing" when I leave care, which means I'd live in a group home similar to the one I'm in now, only it will be a home for adults. A year ago Sarah applied for me to get supportive housing when I turned 21. But then I ran away from the group home for 5 months because I couldn't handle the bullying there. I didn't realize it might affect my getting housing after I left care. But my application couldn't go through while I was gone, and when I returned, I learned that my social worker was quitting her job. So my application for supportive housing went on hold.

Last April, my next social worker, Ms. Brown, tried to pick up where my last worker left off, but nothing seemed to come of that. Now I live in fear that I won't have supportive housing by my 21st birthday. I'm afraid I'll end up homeless, or that my group home will commit me to a hospital until I get proper housing. My latest social worker, Mr. Raggi, and everyone else tells me that of course these things won't happen, that they will find me somewhere to live.

Mr. Raggi is very supportive and cool. He's worked in foster care for 18 years so he knows what he's doing. He restarted the process to get me housing in September. He got me an updated letter from the housing department saying I was approved for supportive housing and could be in a home for adults with drug or alcohol issues. Still, I can't help being a little scared.

Nov. 10: A Home Near the Zoo?

Mr. Raggi, and I have been going to lots of appointments to make sure I get my "SSI disability benefits," (monthly money from the government since I have a mental illness and cannot support myself right now). Having these benefits will make it easier for me to find supportive housing since most of that money will go to the residence.

Raggi and I also went to look at a home in the Bronx, near the zoo. Looking at it made me feel optimistic and hopeful about my future. It was very clean and nice and had an elevator and laundry machines. The home had a social worker and psychiatrist on site, which made me feel safe-I'm used to having a lot of support around.

The staff at the home seemed nice. After they interviewed me, I was excited and sure they would take me. But they rejected me. I'm not sure why. Raggi thought it was because I need more treatment than they can give. I felt heartbroken.

Raggi said not to worry, he'd keep looking. Even though he's working hard, I would like him to look a little harder since time is not on my side.

Nov. 17: Gunshots

One day last week I was in a pizzeria near my group home in the Bronx. Halfway through eating my slice, a guy in his teens pulled out a pistol. The next thing I knew I heard a POP! Everyone was in a state of pandemonium. When the smoke cleared I went straight home. I didn't even stay around to see if anyone got hurt. I didn't want to know.

Walking home, I thought, "Whatever, so what, somebody shot a gun near me," but soon I felt really freaked. Three days later I'm still having violent dreams. The dreams seem so real. In them I'm in the park where all is calm and peaceful and the next thing I know I get mad and pull out an automatic weapon and start shooting things.

To make everything worse, the bullying at my group home has started up again. This kid, L, keeps calling me "psycho," "crazy," and "insane." I can't take it anymore. At one point I even packed my bags and was prepared to go to Covenant House, the homeless shelter for teens in Times Square where I stayed for most of those months I'd run away.

I have 59 days left in foster care and I really do feel on the brink of insanity.

Nov. 18: Stress and More Stress

I was in my room patiently waiting for my ex-roommate, Mike, and his friend Antoine to finish their game of S.O.S. They took so long time that when they finally finished I was pissed off. Then my roommate took my radio without asking, to play his corny-ass music. I got up, put on my Timbs, got a couple of cigars, and went to the PJ's (a.k.a. projects). I went to my mans and said, "I'm so f-cking stressed."

He called someone and said to me, "Chill for a few, I got you. I got a girl named 'T' who you can speak to and possibly beat (sex up) to."

But she took her sweet ass time so I left and went home.

Nov. 27 : A Time to Be Thankful…Not!

Thanksgiving is a time when families get together and give thanks for what they have…NOT ME!

Well, that's not completely true, I have to thank Bob Marley for creating the herb marijuana.*

I woke up at exactly 9:07 p.m. after an 8-hour nap of dreams about trying to kill myself. To forget the dreams, I got dressed and copped a bag of weed and did the only thing a stoner would do: "I ate it, I ate it."* I didn't feel much, so I copped another bag. This time "I got high, high, high."*

* Disclaimers:

1. Bob Marley did not create marijuana

2. From "Tales Of a Fourth Grade Nothing," by Judy Blume

3. From the street hit "Goodtimes" by Styles P

Dec. 06: Why Me?

I was sleeping when this new kid named Carl came in my room. I woke to him feeling up on me. I said, "What the f-ck are you doing?"

He said, "I just wanted to borrow CDs."

Ok, granted, but why is he digging in my drawers?

I let it slide thinking that I was just bugging out. Then, the next morning, guess what? Same thing! So I yelled, "GET THE F-CK OUT MY ROOM!" And he did.

This got me thinking about a lot of things:

1. Is this a punishment from God for being gay?

2. Will I ever be comfortable around the issue of sex?

3. Will I ever stop being sexually violated?

I had the urge to smoke due to the stress and my worries about where I'll live when I turn 21, which were "compounding up," as my friend Joe says. So I left the group home and got lit as a Christmas tree. Of course, that meant I got into a big argument when I returned to the group home. I don't know how much longer I can take this.

Jan. 6, 2004: Going Down Memory Lane (And Hating It)

Today was a very hard day. Raggi got me an interview with this young woman named Ms. Foster, from Lifespire, an agency that helps find housing. Ms. Foster asked me questions about my life, my past, even how prematurely my twin brother and I were born. "Two or three months," I said.

She asked if I had drugs in my system when I was born and I said I didn't know. My father died from drug addiction, but I don't know if my mother used.

That interview got me down. It had me thinking for the rest of the day about my past and my mother, who is Korean, and who is no longer really my mother. After all, she gave my twin and me up for adoption at age 3. What the f-ck? Who gives their kids up after they've had them that long?

At 3 I went to live with my father's sister. That's when sh-t really hit the fan. She started beating me and touching me until, years later, someone put two and two together, removed me from her home, and put me in a group home. I was 16. And I've been in care ever since.

There's only 10 days to "crunch time," aka my birthday. I still don't have a place to live. I could be homeless. Or maybe my moms will see where she went wrong and take me back all these years after she gave me up?

If an angel is on my shoulder, I could get my crib yet.

Jan. 7: Lightning Bugs in the Night

The night before last I smoked some greens. They looked like lightning bugs, with the weed rolled in black blunt paper and the tip burning in the night. The weed did something bad to me. I could not sleep at all, so I stayed up all night and dressed, showered and cleaned my side of the room by 6:54 a.m. I felt strange. Later, when the staff handed me $50.00 and asked me to get change at the corner store, I stole it. Hello! They know I've done that before so why wouldn't I do it again?

Jan. 8: Eight Days to Discharge, No Place to Live
Right now my life is really shitty. Eight days to my discharge. Eight days! The director of treatment services at my foster care agency said to me, "On Jan 16th [my birthday] you can't legally stay here whether you have placement or not!"

Where will I go? What will I do?

Jan. 10: If At First You Don't Succeed…

Yet another housing interview. This one was 5 minutes from Yankee Stadium and in a hospital. That made me worried. I thought, "Oh god, if they accept me I'll have to live in a hospital!"

I had a lot of time to worry about that because the interviewer was one and one-half hours late. Then he asked the same regimen of questions I've become so used to: "Why did you come into foster care? Why do you want to move here?"

Afterwards, he rejected me. He said I couldn't live there because of my age. That didn't make sense. If I was too young couldn't he have denied me before even meeting me? Why did they make me come to the site and answer a million questions? Why did they make Raggi and me wait an hour and a half?

Raggi thought I was rejected was because I am too active, too "functioning," he said. I'm in so many programs, like Fountain House and writing for Represent. Raggi said that the residence near the hospital mostly takes men coming out of longterm hospitalization.

Oh my God. Getting housing is like winning the lottery.

Jan. 14: The Greatest Birthday Gift Ever

Due to the blessings of my Lord, who I pray to each night, Ms. Allen, the social worker supervisor at my group home and Mr. Raggi gave me two of the greatest birthday gifts a teen in care bound for homelessness could ever get: A temporary place to stay after I turn 21 and peace of mind.

They said that because they have not found me housing I can stay at my group home after I turn 21. (I think they are doing this purely to be kind-they said they stop getting money from the government to look after me since I am no longer officially in foster care when I turn 21.)

The conditions of me staying on at the group are that I cannot drink (which ruins my b-day plans, as I wanted to be lit that day), and I can't fight or physically harm myself.

I accepted these rules and now feel a sense of security I haven't had in months. Amen.

Later on Jan. 14: Mom Needs Surgery
Just as soon my housing problem seemed to be temporarily taken care of, I get a family problem. My mother-my father's sister who raised me until I went into care-has to have surgery tomorrow on her knee. She is diabetic and anemic and so the doctors say she may have a hard time in surgery. I am scared for her and can't stop worrying about how her surgery will go.

Jan. 15: A Moment of Joy

Tomorrow is my birthday! I will be 21! And I have nothing to fear! I can keep living where I am!

(4:53 p.m.)

After writing the brief diary entry above at the Represent office, I went outside to smoke a cigarette. When I came back, Nora, one of the editors here, said, "Miguel, Kendra is looking for you." Kendra is my editor. I said, "Why? I do something wrong?"

"I don't know," said Nora. "You better find out." As if on cue, Kendra walked out of the conference room and said to me, "We better talk." So thinking I'm in trouble, I followed her into the room and guess what? Smack in the middle of the table is a cake, a gift, and all the staff there to wish me happy b-day!

We ate cake, talked, and I shared a couple of the painful experiences I went through this past year, such as cutting myself, drinking, and wilding out in general.

Jan. 16: Birthday Blessings

Today is my b-day! Yay! I am "legal" to drink, got loot to burn, people to see, and things to do.

I saw my friend Indira and she blessed me with a leather coat. Then I saw my mom at the hospital who recently came out of surgery. Bless her, Lord, in your name, Jesus Christ Amen.

Jan. 20: Mom's Health Deteriorates and It Feels Like My Fault

Right now I am very emotional. I just do not care about anything. My mom's health is deteriorating to the point to where I think I might lose her permanently. And even though I know she abused me and I had to be removed from her home, I feel like it's all my fault. I have so many thoughts running through my head, like, "Maybe if I loved her more, wasn't as bad a kid, showed a little more respect and compassion when I was in her home she would not be sick at all."

Jan. 22: Can We All Start Over Again?

Dear Mom,

I am so sorry for what I ever did to you to make you mad. I am also sorry for putting you down in the worst way. I didn't mean what I said about you not being my real mother. I know you were and will always be my mother. You were the one who raised me. I remember you taking my brother and me to Coney Island, Atlantic City, St. Mary's Park, and to the movies. All I ask is that you can stay alive, forgive me, and let us start all over again.

Jan. 26: Bawling Like a Baby

Last Friday I went to my second housing interview at a place that rejected me once before, a couple of months ago. Lifespire told me to try the place again, because they rejected me the first time because my SSI letter had not come in. (An SSI letter is what tells a residence that you receive money from the government for having a disability. If they take you in they will get that money to look after you.)

This time I brought my SSI letter with me to the home, which was in Brooklyn on Patchen Avenue. It was a white brownstone, with an elevator. A different man interviewed me this time, but like the first person who talked to me, he acted more professional and formal than I like. He sounded like he didn't care if I was comfortable. This made me very nervous and unsure.

In the end, he did not accept me into the program even though I had the SSI letter. The reason he gave is hard for me to understand and accept: I am not mentally ill enough. You see, I am what they call an Axis 2, meaning I suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and borderline personality disorder, which basically means I have very severe mood swings that land me in the hospital. But their program only houses people who are Axis 1, meaning they are not only bipolar, like me, but also have schizophrenia.

So basically, while I have problems, I don't have enough.

After they rejected me, my therapist and a social worker, Mr. Lee, and I climbed back into the car to head home. As the car heated up for the long ride back home to the Bronx, I broke down and began crying like a newborn baby. Mr. Lee tried to tell me something reassuring. "Just cause they didn't accept you here doesn't mean their whole agency has rejected you," he said. "It just means that this one house has closed their doors on you. Your case is going to be sent to other houses in their agency."

Hearing that made my tears subside, but I am still sad. Millions of questions are going through my mind, such as, "Where will I eventually live?" "Is this all my fault?" "Why doesn't anyone want me?" "How would my life be if my dad never died?"

Feb. 2: More Help to Find Housing

I went to Fountain House today. Fountain House is a clubhouse for people who are mentally ill. They have activities like horticulture class, where we learn to make flower arrangements for the building, as well as their own dining room and snack bar. I've been going there on and off for a few years.

My worker at Fountain House, Jessica, asked me how my housing search was going. "I was denied again," I said. I felt down as soon as I said it.

"What's taking them so long?" she asked. She seemed upset. All these people in my life expected me to find a place to live long, long ago. Here it is, months after they've started looking for me, and I'm still without a permanent home. I've been on about 11 or 12 interviews for housing and am beginning to feel it's pointless.

I told Jessica no one wanted me because I am a "liability," with all my attempted suicides and hospitalizations, but even as I said it I didn't know if that was true. Everyone who has rejected me has given a different reason. Some people say that the real reason is simply because a lot of housing programs discriminate against young people.

I am getting tired of living at my group home and not knowing where I will be next. The other kids at my group home are tired of me being there, too. They expected me to be gone when I turned 21, and since I am still there, and anxious all the time about my future, the harassment has gotten worse.

Jessica decided to step in and help out. She called Raggi and had him fax over the official letter saying I am approved for supportive housing. Fountain House has some residences for people like me. She said she would put me on the waiting list.

Sometime in March: The Residents Want me Out

I feel angry a lot of the time. Frustrated. Wondering where do I belong. I spend most of my days going to Fountain House ranting and raving about how I have no housing and how the other kids are picking on me about how I'm 21 and should not be living at my group home. They say that I'm a grown man, should not be living with children, and ask things like, "What if you get in a fight?" They are trying to get me to fight them to find out, saying things like, "your mother," "you psycho," "you nutcase." Since I'm not a minor and they are, they want to know if I'd get arrested for child abuse if I fight them. I wonder about this myself.

I don't know how much longer I can handle this.

The one good thing is that since my social worker said I could stay on in the group home I have stayed pretty sober

April 3: I Ran

A lot has happened since I last wrote.

First, I left my group home.

Here's why: I got into an argument with my roommate and he hit me in the face with a closed fist. Blood started pouring out of my nose and mouth. The next day I went to another housing interview and got rejected again. I just couldn't take another rejection, especially since my head had started throbbing from the blow. So I went to the hospital where they gave me a CAT scan. Under the scan machine, I decided enough was enough. It was taking too long for anyone to find me housing. I couldn't keep living in a group home with a bunch of people who didn't want me there. So I got myself together and left.

I went to Covenant House, which is for teens, but because I am 21, they would not take me. So I went to Bellevue, where adult men go when they first enter the shelter system. They diagnosed me with a mental illness, and told me I would be staying at Bellevue, the shelter for mentally ill adults.

April 5: Welcome to Shelter Living.

The ironic thing about Bellevue is that it's right across the street from the Administration for Children's Services, as if this is a natural place for those of us who grew up in foster care to end up. Next door, is a morgue.

It is bad here. The bathrooms are disgusting, smelling like something I can't describe. We sleep on cots with thin-assed mattresses, but I'd rather sleep on those than in the cold rain on the ground. The clients live up to all the stereotypes about homelessness by not bathing, by stealing, and by begging when they leave the shelter. My navy blue book bag with all my poems and my CD player was stolen when I turned my back for three seconds. Seriously.

But some of the guards working here are mad cool. One guy, who is white as a piece of paper, is mad cool and ghetto. When he found out I wrote for Represent, he said "Oh, sh-t, you're doing your thing. I like that. Keep it up." And some of the guards living here bought copies of the magazine from me even though it's against the shelter's rules. I guess they just wanted to help me out.

One truly positive thing I've done is open a bank account at Fountain House to manage my SSI funds. I also got help finding housing from yet another person-Vivian, at Voices for Youth, a program that teaches foster teens to speak publicly. I've been in the program for a while. I told Vivian about my problems and she is going to help. She says she'll find me a place to live if it's the last thing she does.

Now I have a bunch of people working on my case-Raggi, Jessica at Fountain House, Lifespire, and now Vivian. I have had so many interviews for housing that I can't even count.

April 12: Life's Looking Up

Well the past three days were mostly awesome! I moved in with a friend I know from Represent, and agreed to pay half the rent to live with her. (No more shelters for me!) I also made more than $100 selling copies of Represent on the streets. Then I sent an email to my twin, who is in Iraq, serving in the army. I felt so, so happy to hear from him and to know he's OK.

But I also smoked weed with my new roommate, and I feel guilty about it. I don't feel like I should be smoking if I am going to be guilt-ridden after each time I do it.

May 17: Locked Out

The past four days have been very very hard.

My roommate and I got in a fight so I met up with a friend to chill. When I came back to the apartment, I put the key in the lock but I could not get in. My roommate had locked the second lock that I don't have a key to. I figured she had made a mistake and would be home soon. It was a quarter after 11, so I sat down and fell asleep.

When I woke up hours later in the hallway, my first thought was, "Where the f-ck am I?" Then I started panicking. I felt very scared and disoriented. Not knowing what time it was, I got up and went outside. That's when my panic turned to anger. My "friend" had locked me out! Suddenly I wanted to cut myself again, just to feel the physical pain instead of emotional hurt.

I knew what to do. I went to the hospital to get help, even though I'd been told a million times that each time I go into the hospital feeling suicidal it's less likely I'll find a housing program to accept me. But at that moment I didn't care. I thought that if I didn't go I might really cut myself, or worse.

I called Voices of Youth, from the hospital and spoke to Giselle. She told me what I already knew: I had to stop attempting suicide and stop going to the hospital if I ever want housing. She said I was creating a "medical history" for myself, and that since Medicaid has to pay each time I'm hospitalized, eventually they can just decide to lock me up permanently. She told me she had almost found me housing through a friend of hers who works in a program, but that she's worried that they won't take someone who has just come out of a hospital.

Now, I have been discharged and I feel like I've ruined everything. My roommate has still not let me back in the apartment, even though all my belongings are there. So I have nowhere to live again. I have to go back to the shelter.

Sept. 6: A Year Later and Still No Home

I can't believe it has been almost a year since I started this diary. So much has happened. I turned 21. Left the group home. Lived in a shelter and then with a friend. Went back to the shelter, and met my girlfriend at Fountain House. Misty and I lived on park benches for a while and then she cheated on me. Soon I was with Kenisha, another person from Fountain House, who was much older than me and let me stay with her. But when I missed her birthday, she slapped me in public and then left me. I went through a lot of pain over it. I miss her, and now I am back at the shelter.

I have been rejected by about a million housing programs and I still don't understand why it is so hard to find a home. Will living in shelters be my life? Will I ever have a stable home? How did this happen to me? I was going crazy thinking about it all, so I went and relapsed, cutting, drinking, drugging. I am scared I will end up in a hospital permanently.

After Miguel's last diary entry, Miguel secured a room in one of Fountain House's residences on September 30. However, in only two weeks of living there, Miguel was hospitalized three times for overdosing on over-the-counter medication and was told to leave the residence. With no place to live, Miguel returned to the shelter system. This time, the city required Miguel to go to shelters for men with substance abuse issues. He described this shelter as one of the hardest place imaginable to stay away from drugs. "There were people walking in high, drunk, selling drugs inside the shelter by the shelter anything they can do to make a score, or the next hit," he said.

Eventually Miguel was hospitalized at Kings County hospital for one month. He was and discharged to the shelter. Several weeks later, a social worker at the shelter found Miguel a home in a supportive residence for adults with substance abuse issues. Miguel has been living there for four months. He has been hospitalized for overdosing once during that time, but was allowed to return to his home. Miguel says the residence feels like a place he can stay. For now.

An Angel From Above
My grandma put her life on hold to raise us.

By Jessica Wiggs

As long as I can remember, family members have told me stories about how I got the burns on my hands, and how I was placed in a kinship foster home with my grandma, two little sisters and my older brother.

That Tragic Day

One day when I was around one year old, my mother had to baby-sit my brother and me since my grandma had to work. At that time my mother had her full parental rights and was allowed to take us everywhere even though we lived with my grandmother. She used drugs but it was nothing compared to what she does now, like crack, meth and coke. My grandma sometimes tells me, "Jessica, your mother was a sweet person before drugs overtook her mind."

According to how my grandma tells it, it was around 9:30 p.m. when my mother had a crazy meltdown and took us all the way to East Flatbush to her friend's house to get the supplies she needed.

Around that time, my grandmother got back to the house and cut on the light where my brother and I slept. When she saw that we were gone my grandma panicked. She quickly ran down the stairs (hey, she was only 55) and called the cops. But it was too late. Back at the friend's house, while my mother was getting high, I had somehow climbed up onto the stove where my milk was warming and burned my hands badly.

One Call Away

When my mother called my grandma to explain what had happened, my grandma had a lot of words for her but she held them in because she wanted to focus on my brother and me. She told my mother that she was going to get arrested because of what she had let happen. Soon the cops arrived at my grandmother's house, and she and the cops came to East Flatbush to see how her grandbabies were doing.

When they arrived on the scene, the ambulance was already there. One officer had me in his hands and the other officer had my brother. They handed me and my brother to my grandma who hugged us tight. My mother they put in handcuffs.

My siblings and I love our mother regardless of the things she does. But that night proved that it was my grandma who was going to be there for us like a mother. Soon after, the courts granted my grandma parental rights.

An Angel Above

I was too young to remember all of that. I only know the details from hearing it told. But the older I got, the more I saw what my grandma did for my siblings and me. I look up to her as my guardian angel because she put her life on hold to raise us. She even quit her job to take care of us. From the beginning my grandma taught me how to be independent and she is still teaching me new things each day.

My grandmother and I have a special bond because her mother passed away when she was only 3. My grandmother grew up in Miami, Florida, and after her mother died she was placed with relatives and family friends. Growing up, both of us did not have our mothers in our life the way we should have.

My grandmother and I are similar in other ways too. Both of us are strong and kind-hearted despite what we have been through. I am willing to stay strong because my grandma wants me to make it and become successful. My grandma is always trying to bribe me to do well in school, but that is another story.

I am also willing to be kind-hearted and look after all my siblings because my grandma was kind-hearted enough to take me in. In my household, I clean and do my sisters' hair, and I pick my sisters up from school every day. It makes me mad that my grandma cannot enjoy her golden years with ease because she has her grandkids to raise. I try to do everything my nana asks me to do, so she doesn't have to do it herself.

Avoiding Long Lectures

My grandma and I are friends, and we like to chat about all the drama we go though every day. My nana talks about her friends' drama and I gossip to her about school. But my nana also likes to lecture me, so I try to talk to her late at night when she is too tired to give me a long lecture.

I mean, if I am talking to her about Nelly (who is my future husband, so groupies better back off), she will spend an hour and a half just saying, and I quote, "Lil Jay," (they call me this because I also love and admire Jay Z), "Nelly is too old for you and you are just in a starlight glaze phase." She will always make those comments about him, and she can go on and on. But to be real I find them so funny.

My grandma lectures me about other things, too, like the clothes I wear and why I don't dress and act more feminine. We are from different generations and we do things differently, so sometimes we conflict.

Caught in the Middle

All those things my grandma and I disagree about are little things that don't mean that much to me. But we also argue about my mother, and that's when our conflicts get serious. My nana lets my mother come to the house once in a while to eat and see her children. But she also yells at my mother for begging from people around the neighborhood, and sometimes she can treat my mother like a stranger on the street.

Usually my grandmother and I fight when I give my mother clothes to hide all the shame and disgrace she has in her little body. The clothes I give my mother are clothes my grandma buys me and she does not feel that I should be giving them to nobody.

My grandma always tells me, "Lil Jay, it is always good to help someone, but when it seems that it is never going stop, then it is time to stop helping." This is the point when I feel stuck in the middle. I see that the more I help my mother the more she wants and I think that is wrong. But I also feel like I can't say no to my mother. I can't tell my mother that I have had enough of her coming near me looking like me but in a poor image. Sometimes I want to, but I know I will regret it later in life.

I do not need my mother, but I try to have courage and faith that she will stop doing what she is doing and come and see me blossom. In case she does I am not ready to turn my back on her when she needs me the most.

Thank You, Nana

It also hurts me to watch my grandmother age. As she has grown older, she has developed a swollen throat, and everything she eats seems to get stuck. It is nerve-wracking to watch her choke, because it makes me think about what I would do if my grandmother weren't around to give me the advice I need. I just take it day by day and take the knowledge my grandma taught me-like family comes first and boys come last-and try to have faith that I could do it on my own.

I feel that if something happened to my nana, I would be able to stay strong and independent because of the way she raised me, but at the same time, I would feel lost.

I cherish the times my grandma and I have shared, like trips to the doctor, shopping and just hanging out. I thank her for taking me in and mothering me the way my mother couldn't. I cherish the smiles, the frowns, the arguments and the love we share, with the whole family and especially with each other.

Separated at Birth
I wish all my siblings could be with me.

By Jessica Wiggs

At 12 o'clock on Christmas day, my grandma received a phone call from Kings County Hospital. My mother had just given birth to a baby girl she named Christmas Martha Wiggs. Christmas day is also my grandma's birthday and she wept, saying, "This is the best birthday gift ever."

Before Christmas was born, my mother already had 11 babies, and most of us had drugs in our system when we were born. For 16 years, I've lived with my grandma, two little sisters and my oldest brother. Two of my siblings live with their fathers, and the last four of my siblings (Christmas makes five) are all in different foster homes, or they've been adopted.

I see my mother about twice a month, and I love her, but I can't forgive her. I often wonder what she will choose in the end: her kids or drugs.

A Miracle Baby

Just like with most of her other kids, my mother took drugs and didn't take care of herself when she was pregnant with Christmas. The fact that Christmas was born alive, and on Christmas day, made me think she was a miracle baby. When my grandma cried, I felt like crying with joy too. But I also worried about what would happen to Christmas.

When we arrived at the hospital I saw my mother. She was so frail you could see her bones through her skin. But my focus did not stay on her. My sisters and I pressed our heads to the thick glass that separated us from Christmas and stared at our new sister. Standing there, I felt worried and depressed, but I also felt blessed.

Then they let my grandma go in to see her granddaughter. When she came out she said, "Jessica, you know that I love all of you and I will do anything to help you, but Christmas will not be able to come home with us." I understood that my grandmother already had enough children to raise, and she didn't have the energy to take on another.

"Why did Mommy have to do this once again?" I asked her.

My grandmother just replied, "Love your mother because she loves you."

Taking Care of My Siblings

Over the years, the fact that my mother has had so many kids has affected my life in a big way. Because my grandmother needed help raising all the grandkids in her care, I had to learn at a young age how to handle adult things, like how to manage my money, cook, clean and do hair.

I pick up my two younger sisters (the ones I live with) from school every day and take them to school fairs and trips. I love them and I love doing for them. But taking care of my siblings also takes up about half of my life, and sometimes I feel like I have no freedom.

Then there's all the worrying I do because some of them are in foster care. When my first two siblings went into care, I was only about 6 or 7. At the time, I didn't care that much about them. I saw them only once every two weeks and they felt like strangers to me. But when I was around 11, I began to have a lot more contact with my next two siblings, and that made me feel like we should all be together.

Since then, I have continued to struggle with being separated from my siblings. Sometimes I think it's my responsibility to do everything I can to have them with me. Other times I think that we couldn't handle more kids in our house right now, and my siblings are better off where they are. But thinking that doesn't stop me from feeling guilty.

Living Without Us

The first time I really felt hurt by living apart from a sibling was with my sister Shuntay, my third sibling to go into a foster home with a stranger. When she first went away, I did not really understand what foster care was about, and it took me a few years to realize that Shuntay was never going to live with us.

When she was around 5, we all got a new social worker who allowed Shuntay to come and do house visits. I got to play with her more and I began to feel much closer to her. The more I got to know her, the more upset I got.

I believed that not being with her family made Shuntay act up in school, talk back to adults and just miss out on life period. It hurt that she would never experience the ideal family. It hurt my pride, too, that my family wasn't the way I thought it should be. I wanted to have Shuntay come live with us, but she never did.

Another Sibling in Care

When I was 12, my brother Elijah was born. I went through similar struggles with him. For the first two months of Elijah's life, he was with my mother at Riker's Island prison. It was a sad scene when she got out of prison and left him at a shelter just because she wanted a little hit. When we found out, that was the saddest I ever saw my grandma.

Elijah went into foster care, too. My grandma just didn't feel like she could take on another child. I had a feeling things were not going to be all peachy with him, and sure enough, when my family went to visit him at the agency, to my horror there were a lot of marks on his body.

I asked my social worker what they were from, but the foster parents just said, "He was running and he fell." I was furious. "How can he run if he can't walk?" I thought. "He doesn't deserve this. He's my baby brother." I wanted to take him home and keep him with family. I felt his being in foster care was somehow my fault.

A Little Spoiled

But after about a month, Elijah was placed with a loving family that spoiled him rotten. Elijah's only 4, but every time I see him he has some new Jordan's on or a new Roca Wear outfit. He even has an earring. Sometimes I think his new parents are spoiling him too much. They treat Elijah like a monarch walking on God's world. But I also know how much good they've done for him.

When I saw that Elijah was being taken care of, a piece of me thought he was better off in his new home, and that his being there might be better for me, too.

A Son of my Own

You see, a little while after Elijah was born, when I was 13, I had a son of my own. I felt like I had messed up big time, but unlike my mother I have taken responsibility for my son. I don't plan to have another child until I am much older.

When I am in school, my grandma watches my son. If it was not for my grandma's love and support, I wouldn't be a high school senior now. But when school is done, I have to go home and watch my son, help my grandmother with the house, help my sisters with their homework, and stay focused on my own schoolwork. Sometimes I feel like Cinderella, so a part of me is relieved not to have another sibling to look after.

I Wanted Christmas

Christmas was born about a year after my son. Despite all my responsibilities, during the first year of her life I wanted Christmas to live with me more than I had any of my other siblings. But as she got older, I experienced the same mixed feelings as I'd had with Elijah.

During that first year, my family and I saw Christmas every other Friday. Christmas was placed with the same family as Elijah, so I knew she was in good hands. But when I held her for the first time and looked in her shining black eyes, I still cried. I felt joy being a sister again, and pain that she wasn't with me.

After a few months, she did not want anybody to hold her during visits except me. Sometimes I had her give my sisters and my grandma a hug because I did not want it to seem like I was keeping her all to myself. Every time we had to go, it was hard to say goodbye. It hurt to watch TV shows of happy families, knowing that Christmas wasn't with hers.

My Feelings Change

When Christmas got a little older, my feelings started to change. Christmas is a child with a lot of energy, and when she started to walk and run it seemed that she might run me crazy. Christmas is also a picky eater. It seems like she only eats food that is custom-made for her. Sometimes she throws her food and she talks back if you try to keep her from throwing it. When she's with me, I'm always the one to clean it up.

When she and Elijah visit, I find that keeping up with them, my son, and the rest of my younger siblings can be too much. I've come to realize that Christmas living with us could have been a big mistake. Now I feel overwhelmed with happiness when I see Christmas, but I am also glad to see her go.

Could We Lose Our Connection?

When Christmas was about 2 and Elijah was 3, their foster parents adopted them. They changed Christmas's name to Eliza, though I don't call her that. I do not feel that they should have the right to change her name because she is still our baby. I know that Christmas will always have some Wiggs in her.

Now that they're adopted, I no longer have a legal right to see them. It's hard to see her and Elijah and know that their parents could decide not to bring them next time. It makes me wonder if at some point we might lose our connection.

Sometimes I blame my mother for everything that has happened to my family. I love her, but I don't understand why she keeps having kids that are going to be placed in foster care. Sometimes I blame the drugs that are in her. I no longer call her Mommy but by her given name, Viveyette.

Being There for my Siblings

Other times I feel it's my fault that my siblings are living so distant from me. At times though part of me knows it's not true. I even blame myself for my mother's addiction. I think she doesn't love me enough and that's why she won't quit. I feel ashamed that I cannot make my family the way I think it should be.

Because I do not want to hurt too much, I try not to think about what's happened to my family, but just to let it go. I have learned to block out the thoughts. I have learned to live each day without my siblings. Instead, I keep my head up and let my siblings know they will always have a shoulder to lean on.

Sometimes I wish I were a more normal teen. But I also really enjoy what I do for my family and all the responsibility I have for everybody and everything. I know my siblings will always call me a friend and a big sister, and some of them may even call me Mommy.

Drifting Away
I’m worried I’m losing myself to mental illness.

By Anonymous

My mental illness is part of me. I look at those seven words and I say, “Oh God, how the hell am I going to accept that?”

I go back to last year when it all began. I was 18 and my sister and I had just moved in with our new foster mom, my love, Yolonda.

I realized that I had a problem when I sat in the dark for hours, talked to myself, dissociated (separated from my body) and cut myself. A therapist told me that I was suffering from depersonalization and depression.

Depersonalization means that you can take yourself out of a situation or reality and put yourself, mentally, in a safe place. It sounded like a long word for crazy, but I was glad to have a name for what had been going on for years.

Tracing It Back

The doctor only knew that I’d been in this state of mind since I was 14, which was when I first told someone that my dad sexually abused me. But I’d had some problems with reality since I was a young kid.

When my mom and dad started using drugs, I was crying on the inside while I was calm on the outside. When my dad started to abuse me, I was about 9 years old. My mind went from just imagining basic kid stuff like flying and ice cream to chronic depersonalization. My doctor told me that I felt separate from myself because the abuse overwhelmed my body and mind.

As the years went on, my secret about my dad and about my parents’ drug use stayed inside and it caused a deep separation between the world and my mind. So, to this day, when I sit in school or alone at home, I will drift.

The problem with what I like to call “drift” is that, for a while, I couldn’t seem to stop separating myself. I’d sit in class and all of a sudden I was outside walking with my dad. Meanwhile my other half was saying, “What are you doing?”

Getting Diagnosed

Eventually I went into the hospital. I was depressed, hearing voices and cutting myself. I thought that I would be able to work on my problems for two months and get back to high school and graduate. It was my last year.

But I ended up staying in the hospital for about eight months in all, maybe because I cut myself while I was there and acted out. When I got out I was on medication, but I messed with the dose because it made me feel so sleepy. Also, I wanted to believe that I didn’t need it anymore.

I ended up back in the hospital. I felt that I needed to go back but I also felt that they were patching up a wound that would never heal.

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and then bipolar disorder. I was upset. I thought, “Why is this happening to me? Was it something I did? Or was my mother just passing on a family trait that had my name on it?” My mother has bipolar. I believe that she breathed her illness into my lungs when I was a baby and I became an angel held down by its wings.

There were some good parts to being in the hospital. For the first time, I felt like I was part of a family that wouldn’t give up on me. The staff helped me realize that I can have an illness or I can be an illness, meaning that I can accept it or it can hold me hostage, taking over my body and mind.

Losing Myself in the Hospital

The groups were really hard. I hated when they told me to be assertive. That made me feel like my way of acting wasn’t good enough for them and that I had no privacy and had to tell them everything.

During those months in the hospital I missed my prom, my graduation and lost all of my friends. It was like I just watched them move on while I sat in the dark with a cloud over my head.

I wanted to apologize to my friends for not saying goodbye. I blamed myself and felt ashamed. I felt I was a failure, a freak! When I saw my old friends, they talked to me like this: “Are…you…OK? Did…you…take …your medication?”

Everything about this illness makes me angry. How can I have something inside of me that I don’t even want to be part of me? How can I accept being treated like a lab rat trying medication after medication? How can I look in the mirror and see how the meds have changed my face and body and accept that these changes will never go away? Why should I even try?

When I remember my old ways, I think, “That person died.” I feel like a person who is broken, lost and incomplete.

Out of Control

Once I got out of the hospital, I started a new day treatment program in the Bronx. It’s not bad. But at first I was hearing voices and having hallucinations a lot of the time. I thought that I was out of the woods, but it was like I took one step forward and my illness took me one step back. My everyday life often felt unbearable and out of control.

“I’m going to the agency for a meeting,” Yolanda told me one afternoon.

I got up off the floor. “When will you be back?”

“In an hour or so.”

I didn’t want to be alone but before I could say so Yolonda said, “I’ll be back” and closed the door. Silence. It was peaceful. I was drawing, writing a poem and thinking of my favorite songs. But it was exactly three minutes before something came over me. A voice said, “Do it, why don’t you, but don’t tell.”

I knew what the voice was telling me: it wanted me to cut myself.

I went to my room and picked up the razor. How good it would feel to put it against my skin and cut it. “Do it …you’ll feel better,” the voice said. I broke the blade into little pieces. They were shiny and pointy. I’ll do it just this once. I picked up a piece, closed my eyes and pulled it across my wrist. I was listening to the voice. I was feeling scared, frightened and confused.

The blade wasn’t sharp. I scraped it along my arm again. Still nothing. Maybe God was sending me a message. I stopped myself, said “No!” and threw it in the trash.

The Voices Went Away

I got up to look in Yolanda’s room hoping that she would magically appear, but she was gone. I was alone.

I lay on the floor and cried. I told myself, “You were about to do a stupid thing and you can’t blame the voices. You were the one who was crazy enough to listen to them.”

I stood at the living room window and waited. Just before 4 p.m. a black cab pulled up. Yolonda stepped out floating like an angel. The voices went away.

I wanted to hug her and tell her to never leave me alone again. But I decided not to tell her anything about what happened. What if she put me in the hospital? I fear that everything I do or feel will lead me to the hospital.

One of the worst parts of this illness, or the medications that treat it, is that not only have new bad things become part of me, but some of my good parts seem to have left. Yes, it feels good to let go of some of the pain and self-blame from my abusive past. My sad and upsetting parts seem to be inside of me less. But my funny side, the playful way I interacted with my sister, seems to have disappeared, too.

I get so angry sometimes, thinking, “Just a year ago I was a happy young woman with no marks on her face or arms, who felt she could reach for the stars and bring light to the moon, smile just for the hell of it. She didn’t have to be ashamed of what she was and what she might become. She was pretty and thin, with nice hair. She cried at sad movies and loved her relationship with her sister.”

I know that’s not the whole picture. I was drinking, I was afraid at night, I was cutting myself, I was “drifting,” I was in pain. But at least I could cry at sad movies and laugh! Now I look in the mirror and see my heavy face, my heavy insides, the scars on my arms. It’s too much. Even my thinking is not the same, because of my illness or my meds, I’m not sure which. I feel I’m losing myself.

Often I fear that, because of this illness, I can never dream of finding love. Who’s going to want me now? Who wants a woman who has to take medication just so she doesn’t freak out?

Sometimes I hate this woman I’ve become. I don’t feel I know her. She takes people’s comments without raising her voice when they are hurtful, she cries in the shower, she’s fat, she doesn’t know what’s good for her, and maybe she won’t get to be that artist and writer she wants to be. “You stupid piece of sh-t,” I say when I see her in the mirror. I would pay a million dollars so I wouldn’t have to see her every day.

I am trying to accept the fact that I have a mental illness, but it doesn’t seem fair. When I fell apart I thought it was a normal response to my painful past, but then the doctors said that it was also a problem within me, caused by my own brain. I lost my hope of a normal future.

I had already lost my childhood, my innocence, my control over my sexuality and my body, and my family, especially my mother. I felt inadequate, confused, lonely, anxious, uncertain, angry and burdened.

Right now, I’m doing a little better. I haven’t heard voices or seen things in a good two months. That makes me feel I can triumph over this illness. I still can’t accept that it might not go away.

A Little Hope

Recently I took a trip to Atlantic City with Yolonda, my sister and my foster family. I did things on that trip that I shouldn’t have. I isolated myself and wouldn’t leave the hotel room.

But this time, I was also more collected. When everyone was arguing, I didn’t jump in, just sat and watched. I felt like I didn’t have to be part of something I didn’t want to be a part of. I felt proud of myself for that.

I even had fun. I went to the boardwalk, went swimming , took pictures, had a cheese omelet with bacon and slept in a nice warm bed.

I’m trying to keep up some of the techniques I’ve learned. I don’t yell at my foster sister because she’s not my responsibility. I try not to let people or things get me upset, because my reaction is under my power. I separate myself from negative attention. I try to spend time with myself and clear my mind.

In the shower, where others can’t hear me, I talk to myself because it makes me feel good. It makes me realize that I have a lot to say. For so long I didn’t let myself say things I needed to get out.

Of course, I’m not saying that I’m cured. I’m still on medication. I’m still in treatment. I’m still struggling with wanting to hurt myself. I still find myself lying on the floor, crying. I think the voices and visions will probably come back. My hopelessness is still there, but a little bit of me—the real me—is still there, too. I have the tiniest bit of hope right now that I’m not entirely lost.

Making It Through
After years of sexual abuse, I'm finally safe.

By Anonymous

As a little child growing up in southwest Belize I was so happy, even though our family was really poor. My mother had five kids in the house. She struggled with us, clinging from one man to another, looking for care. I always felt safe, though. Every day I would wake up in the morning and go outside and play with my friends.

It was calm and breezy the day everything changed. I was six years old and I went up to my neighbor's to play with his kids like always.

I was waiting in the living room, playing with a little toy car when the dad literally dragged me into his room, pulled down his pants and said, "Now pleasure me." I was shocked, because I did not understand why he was doing this. His wife was right in the kitchen cooking, only a couple feet away.

When he was finished with me, I was put outside as if nothing ever happened. After that day, whenever I went up to play with his kids he would sneak a touch between my legs or slide his hand under my shirt when no one was looking.

At 6 years old, you don't know about sex and what is wrong or right. Every time he touched me I was confused and didn't understand what was happening, but I thought it was okay for him to do that.

Since I didn't know it was wrong, I never told anyone. Besides, I was not someone who spoke up for myself. I was the spitting image of my mother.

Just Like Mom

My mom was shy and quiet, and she was always in another world. She never left our house, not even for some fresh breeze when it was hot. She would stay in her small bed and watch TV all day, or just stare into space.

Still, I knew she loved me. When I had nightmares, she would let me climb into her bed and assure me that no ghost or monster would get me. Then she would sway me back to sleep right in her arms.

Today, I think my own shyness was a weakness that other people saw in me very strongly. When I started school, getting jumped by my peers and going home with one or two missing teeth became a routine. I thought people bullied me because I was weak. I would cry to my mother and all she could do was wash my mouth out with salt-n-water to stop the bleeding.

I thought the sexual abuse was just another phase I had to go through, like being bullied. I figured sexual predators would only target people who couldn't defend themselves.

It Happened Again

About a year after my neighbor started molesting me, a friend of his raped me. This man was a regular fan of the yard where we always hung out. He came there to smoke weed and cause mischief. One day he was watching me and my friend play and joke around. As usual, we didn't pay him any attention.

I was on my way home when this man came out of nowhere and put his arms around me and was rubbing my back, as if we were more than strangers.

I knew that this was not supposed to happen so I tried to move away. But just like the first time with my neighbor, I was so caught up into fright that he overpowered me. He pulled me far back near trees that could cover him from anyone seeing what he was about to do to me.

When he finished, he had the damn nerve to say goodnight and ride off on his bike.

A Bomb Inside Me

Afterwards, I couldn't understand why I had just stood there while he eagerly unbuttoned my shirt and unzipped my pants, without trying to escape or fight back in any way.

I went home and said, "Mommy I think I just got raped." She just looked at me in a horrified way and laid me out on the bed, looking to see if this pervert had left any semen in me. She didn't see any and spanked me because she thought I was lying and why would I have worried her like that. I didn't mention it again because I felt bad that I scared her and made her worry. I thought I had just made things worse.

But I could not stop thinking about it because the man kept coming back to the yard as if nothing ever happened. When I saw him he would give me a smile like he had just finished enjoying something.

I would feel my blood crawling through me and then I would quietly flee. I would not go home sometimes when he was sitting out on the steps because my heart would just start pounding, and I'd feel as if a bomb would soon explode inside me.

Truth and Consequences

One day my principal pulled me out of class for being absent and late a few times. Her office was pretty intimidating. I was feeling guilty when she asked me what was going on at home and somehow told her what had happened and how I wasn't sure if that kind of thing was supposed to be happening to me. I started shivering because I thought I was in trouble. Even though it wasn't my fault I was raped, I felt as if I had just committed a crime.

My principal called social services. I was relieved that she believed me but I still wasn't sure if what was happening to me was wrong. I didn't know if I wanted the men to get punished. All I knew was that I needed someone to talk to.

But instead of anything happening to those men, I was put in foster care. I was taken away from my family without even getting to say goodbye. And instead of being safer, I only found more abuse. Looking back, it felt like that was the day I threw away my whole life in the trash can.

I moved in with an aunt, and I thought I was special because she wanted to take care of me. But in her eyes I was just a housemaid. I didn't get to see my brother and sisters who were trapped back in the group home, and my aunt wouldn't let me see my mother, either. My aunt said she was "loco." After two years, we moved to New York and I haven't seen them since.

An Easy Target

I felt sad and zoned out, and the only thing I could do was mope around. I think now that my vulnerability soon made me an easy target for my cousins and other men.

My cousin started sexually abusing me when I was about 7, not too long after they took me in, and kept on until I was 14. At first I didn't know how to react to all the rubbing up against me and sneak touching behind doors. But when it kept happening, I knew it was getting out of hand. I had to do something, fast.

"Auntie, I don't like what your son is doing to me," I remember saying one day. She asked what I meant and I explained, but Auntie insisted I didn't know what I was talking about.

"You're only 7, how do you know what sex is?" she said. "Shame on you. You shouldn't accuse people of things that are not true. What did I tell you about lying to me? Get out of my face before I beat you."

I got that defeated, helpless feeling again, like when I told my mom about being raped and she didn't believe me. The blood in my body was crawling all through me.

I Couldn't Stop It

I didn't know what to do anymore so I let my cousin keep molesting me over and over again. There were times I told him to stop and that I was not comfortable with it. I thought that because he was family I could reason with him and try to make him see what he was doing was wrong. But he never listened. Once he saw that his mom didn't see him as the pervert he was, he had the upper hand.

Then I tried to fight him off. Every night I would be up waiting. I knew if I was awake, I could be more focused on fighting him. But when I tried to resist he would punch or choke me. I hated that I was weak and helpless. I wanted to not be so easy to handle, but I was.

When I would wake up in the morning with un-dried tears and new bruises, my cousin would tell his mom that I had provoked him and she'd believe him and shrug it off. There was nothing I could do about it. I didn't have the right to fight back.

A Cycle of Incest

One day I made the mistake of telling my cousin, "I'd rather be back home in foster care than here with you guys." He told my aunt what I said and she said, "Oh really, you want me to send your ass back to Belize? Because I could pack you up and send you on that plane right now without an ounce of pity."

Then she told me, "Your goddamn mother, you're ungrateful just like her. You know she had your brother at 15. Her father raped her and the woman didn't say a thing. She confessed when her belly started showing. You're going to be just like her, undependable and nothing."

I stood there without saying a thing. How could my mother be raped by her father? But then, if my own cousin has no conscience about raping me, I could see how that could happen. I shivered and stared at the floor without looking up. I wanted to die because it felt as if the whole house just crumbled down on me without any warning. I thought, When is this cycle of family incest going to stop?

A World of Wrong

I kept feeling that I was only in the world for other people's satisfaction and happiness. I felt like I couldn't fight my cousin anymore and he was winning. My body was like sugar and my cousin couldn't get enough.

On TV, I would watch movies on Lifetime about rape and sexual abuse. I saw how women would be brave and stand up for themselves. I realized that I couldn't be trapped all my life in this world where everything was all wrong.

But going to an authority like the cops felt like an eternity distance. In my mind I wanted so much help but my body couldn't seem to find the strength to get up and walk to a precinct. It felt like a million-ton weight was tied to my feet and I just couldn't get anywhere. I was afraid and I didn't know who to trust to talk to and get help.

Finally my friends noticed my cuts and bruises and asked me what was happening, and I was so desperate that I told them the truth. At first, they were shocked. They didn't know how to react. I was scared about my aunt finding out, so I told them not to tell anyone.

Hurt and Heartbroken

But soon after that, my cousin Rachel's husband raped me when I was over at their house. I was frozen, in shock that this was happening again with a different guy. Afterwards I was put aside as if I was nothing. He told me not to tell anyone about our "encounter" and left.

I freaked out. Was he going to keep coming back and make me his mistress? I wanted to cry but something told me I must be strong and not to give up yet. I decided I should try telling my family about it. I didn't want to believe that they didn't care what happened to me. Maybe this time they would help.

When I told Rachel that her husband had raped me, she looked at me for a long time, turned around, and got my aunt. They both stood in front of me with thunderous glares that could melt the skin off you in seconds.

"What are you trying to do? Are you trying to ruin my marriage? You know what I think; You're the one who is coming on to him! You slut!" They went on like that for about an hour and then my aunt whipped me. I felt horrible, hurt and heartbroken.

I Told Her Everything

Two months later, my dean pulled me out of class. She said, "I've heard some disturbing things about you that I want to hear from your mouth, not others. Is there something you want to talk about?"

She told me that the day before, when I was absent, she had questioned my friends and they panicked and told her my secrets and all the things I was going through at home. I stood there in shock. I couldn't believe they had done that. "OK, don't panic," I thought.

The dean was one of my favorite teachers and I couldn't deny that she cared, so finally I told her everything. I told her about my uncle, and the molestation I had to endure every night with my boy cousin. I spilled out about my aunt's criticism and abuse and what an outsider I felt like. After I told her everything, I felt relief as if a whole ton of metal was just lifted off my shoulders.

My dean stayed quiet for a moment and then said, "I'm sorry you had to go through all that." Then she said she had to report this to someone.

Bringing in the Cops

I knew that meant the cops, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I was terrified. But she assured me that everything was going to be okay and no one would harm me anymore.

At the precinct, they brought in my aunt and my cousin. My cousin tried to deny everything and my aunt pretended she didn't know what was going on. But the detectives had heard my story first and they believed me.

It was like parachuting into the sky, when the detectives believed me over my cousin. I felt free. For once I could hold my head up high and not be ashamed. I chose to be humble and reserved, but in my heart I couldn't stop smiling.

A Safe Place

After that long, dreaded night, I was put into foster care and since then nothing has been the same. I am no longer being sexually abused and put down like a mangy dog.

It's only been about a year, but now that I'm in a safe place I've been trying to recover and make sure it never happens again. It's not easy. Many nights I can't sleep. When my mind is not occupied, my past seems to jump out of nowhere to give me a kiss, and the things that have happened seem to spin all around me again, mockingly.

I try to keep my mind busy by reading or listening to music. I fish for adventures and hobbies so my head won't drift off to things in my past.

I'm in therapy, but I haven't felt ready to talk about what happened. I think I am still recovering from everything. I don't feel comfortable enough to spill my heart out there so easily. Talking about my past makes it seem so real and alive again. All the memories just keep flashing back, and, sadly, I can't handle it.

Thinking About My Future

I figure, if it is hard for me to talk about my past, then maybe my writing can do the talking for me. I wanted to write this story because I wanted readers to understand where I'm coming from. I also wanted to show other victims like me that they should never give up on themselves, no matter how tough things may be.

I still feel vulnerable, but I am getting through slowly. Even though I have been through the cycle of my mother's life and some of the things she went through, I am not like her. My mother couldn't find a way to escape. She gave up on herself and the world, never coming back.

When I think about my future, I get scared because I don't know what is in store for me. But at least now I can make my own choices, which is important. I don't stay in the house crunched up in a corner because I am afraid of men. I go out and explore the city. I travel and I am not afraid. I'm starting to take control of my life, and that helps me to feel stronger.

Dreams for My Daughter
I’m trying my best to parent from prison.

By Roger Griffin

Being a parent is probably the most difficult job in the world. You’re almost always second guessing yourself, wondering if you’re doing this and that right. Being a parent in prison is even more confusing. You rarely get to see your child, so it’s hard to build a relationship, and you feel a heavy burden of guilt.

Missing Those ‘First Times’

I was incarcerated when my daughter was born, so I didn’t get to witness the joy on my girlfriend’s face after the delivery. I didn’t cut the umbilical cord and I wasn’t there the first day they brought Aliyah home. It’s hard to appreciate fatherhood, not being able to witness Aliyah’s “first times.” I especially wish I’d heard her first words and seen her first steps.

I’m more fortunate than other prisoners, though, because I see my daughter about once a month, talk to her several times a month and get a letter once a week. I know people in prison with me who haven’t seen their kids since they got locked up, and some of them have been in prison for 15 to 20 years.

Visits Are Bittersweet

Visits are tough. I’m in a prison in upstate New York. They start letting visitors in at 9 a.m. Family members who live in New York City have to get on the bus or start driving at about 11:00 the night before to get here that early.

The prisoners don’t start getting called down to the visit floor until about 10 a.m. The anticipation I feel walking to the visit floor is indescribable. Visits are the only time I really get to let my guard down in here.

The visit floor is large. There’s an area for the vending machines, where you order food, snacks and drinks. There’s an area where you can take pictures with your family, and there’s even a back yard type area where you can go outside in good weather.

The playroom for the children has various toys, games and movies. This area is rarely crowded, though, because most of the kids haven’t seen their fathers, brother or uncles in so long that they just want to spend the few hours they have sitting by them.

‘Why Can’t You Come Home?’

My visits with my girlfriend and my daughter are bittersweet. I’m happy to see my family, and our visits are good, but it hurts when they leave. Time flies because there’s so much to talk about in so little time.

Our best visits were Aliyah’s first birthday, when I was able to see her walk and talk for the first time, and Father’s Day in 2004, when Aliyah was able to talk clearly and we had a small conversation.

Our most recent was the most painful. When she was leaving, Aliyah turned around, ran back to me and started crying, finally asking, “Why can’t you come home with me?” It’s hard explaining to a 3 year old that you made a mistake before she was born and are still paying for that mistake. So all I told her was, “Don’t worry. I’ll be home soon.”

My nieces and nephews also ask me to come home constantly. I tell them the truth about what I did, because they’re older. They were already in school when I got locked up, and they understand what prison is and why some people come here.

Hoping to Stay Positive

At the end of each visit, all of the prisoners get strip searched and then wait to go back to our housing unit. While we’re waiting we talk to each other about our families and the problems we’re going through. Some are stressed after a visit because those couple of hours feel like a tease. I’ve seen fathers break down mentally and emotionally because they’ve been separated from their families for so long.

The hardest times in prison are holidays and birthdays. Because of the limited resources we have, we have to be creative with the cards we make and the poems and letters we write. Some don’t get a visit on the holiday, so the closest we get to home is a phone call.

I associate with the prisoners who stay positive about their situations, hoping to keep a positive attitude about the situation I’m going through.

Tension and Pressure

Being locked up going on four years, I’ve learned a lot about prison and its effects on prisoners and everyone in their lives. The saying is, “We don’t do prison bids by ourselves.” (“Bids” are our sentences.)

Mothers become single parents, and because we’re in here their responsibilities increase. Plus a lot of men in prison expect their wives or girlfriends to take care of them. I’ve noticed that when a prisoner is stressed, his family is also. Relationships become filled with tension and families break up. Children have no father figure to look up to and to help their mothers. How can we really expect our children to look up to us when we are caged like animals?

Sometimes I sit in my cell and thank God that I will make it home and be part of my daughter’s life someday soon. A lot of the prisoners around me will never go home. I respect them because they still move forward mentally when they are forced to stand still physically.

Dreams for My Daughter

Like any other parent, I have a lot of hopes and dreams for my daughter. I plan on spending as much time as possible with my daughter when I get out, so I can instill in her the characteristics of a leader and righteous person. I plan to spend time with my girlfriend, too, so we can get to know the new us.

I hope to witness my daughter growing into a mature and successful adult. I will tell her about the mistake I made to end up here, and stay close by her side so she doesn’t grow up feeling angry and alone like I did after my mother died and I entered the foster care system.

I’m in prison but I don’t expect my daughter to grow up to be a prisoner. My hopes and dreams for my daughter and for my own life remain high.