"HI, my name is Shawn and I'm an addict." and I fucking hate everybody in this room I thought to myself.
I don't know what it was, but something inside me burst. All of a sudden the urge to do things differently and ask for help overcame all my fear and I began to spill words I had never spilled before.
"Hmmmm..... where do I begin? How about the beginning....
I am the youngest of four to a single mom. All of my siblings and myself were awarded to the state at some point in our childhood and we all had DSS in our lives throughout our youth. Only my sister was lucky enough to get out when she was put up for adoption.
I am ten years younger than my brothers at least but eleven years difference from my oldest. They were my male role models whenever we were lucky (or depending on how you see it unlucky) enough to be home at the same time from whatever foster home or institution we happened to be in at any given time.
Our mother suffered from alcoholism during her early years before I was born, and then suffered a severe life threatening brain injury that left her with severe frontal lobe damage and an inability to control her emotions. Especially unable to control her anger. She spent a long while in a coma where her parents and her siblings all thought she would never come out. The family received a cash settlement while she was in her coma and bought a house in Hyde Park that had to be deeded with my mom's name included since the money they used to purchase was legally hers if she were to ever come out of coma. She did, and the family never told her about the money.
I don't know why she never pursued legal actions herself, but my guess is the family kept her from doing so for fear she would find out about their sudden good fortune.
When I was born I was a miracle baby! Both my brothers and my sister were born before her accident and during her coma my sister had been put up for adoption. Sadly I never got to meet her and I still don't know why the family couldn't take her in as well as my two brothers. Something that will always allude me because my aunt Nancy took my older brother and my uncle Georgie took my other brother.( I am excluding their names because this is an anonymous program, right?)
My mom wasn't supposed to be able to have anymore children. In fact; she was pregnant with another boy five years before me who died due to extreme birth defects caused by my mom's still healing body and ever medicated pregnancy. There was probably a malpractice suit there, but we'll never know.
Since to my mother I was a special gift, something changed. My mom was actually trying, where before my mom seemed to be very dismissive of my siblings whenever DSS would take them away. She cleaned up. Quit drinking and tried to be a mother. Failing miserably because of her temper and lack of help, but my brothers noticed the difference and it caused jealousy. I never noticed.
My mom still had her moments though with her alcohol struggle and would go out once in a while trying to find love. God knows I needed a dad, but shopping for one at Walmart would been better than the bars she frequented. (They're Rolling Back the Prices...😀)
I was removed several times and put in foster homes for neglect and physical abuse. My brothers were never really there always foster homes but with me my mom actually fought to get me back completing all the requirements only to fuck up again.Then came the trauma that changed things forever.
My mom started leaving me with a teenage boy from the neighborhood to babysit while she went to her serving holes to find that week's favorite dishes. I was maybe four years old. This boy would play GI Joe's with me and things were cool. I trusted him. He would even let me watch all the rated R movies my mom wouldn't let me see as long as I didn't tell.
One night he showed me a couple magic tricks and card tricks that I was blown away by. We had watched some movie about a girl who could move things with her mind. The movie had a scary tragic ending but the abilities this girl had were incredible.
After the movie I asked the boy if there were really people who could do that and that's when he started telling me that I could do it with his teachings. As long as I never tell anyone, he would show me how. I was hooked! I wanted the powers and I believed he could teach me because I saw his magic tricks and he definitely had the powers too.
Every weekend he would make me concentrate on things while he did something to me that I want to kill him for now. He would say "Oh my god! you did it you made it move I saw it move."
I would say, " no I didn't" But he would swear i had moved things. He started to make me believe I had the ability to move things with my mind.
Everything changed and my mom noticed. Nightlights of my favorite superheros that i would not go to bed without, now frightened me. I started begging her to stay on the nights when she went out, and that wasn't normal for me. I was usually excited to see my babysitter, but now I was crying when she left.
So one morning when she came home and the boy left, my mom pulled me aside and asked me what was bothering me. at first I was afraid but after a few minutes of telling me and convincing me she would protect me I told her about everything. She was furious! She called the police and they came and questioned me.
That boy was clever and his parents were upstanding citizens of the city, so when the cops questioned him, he had his story perfect and his grooming tactics worked wonders on me.
A few days later my mom was asked to take me back to the station for more questions. When we got there there was a phycologist, a detective, a DSS worker and a child trauma specialist there to greet me.
I went through a series of interviews starting with the detective then ending with the child psychologist. All the interviews were conducted with my mom in attendance except for this one, this one was private.
I told him everything. When I finished he asked me a few questions. One of which was, "do you believe in ESP and psychic abilities?"
I answered yes, I mean; I witnessed magic right in front of my own eyes.
He went through a few more seemingly harmless unimportant questions and then came the attack.
"Do you believe you can move things with your mind?"
I fell right in the trap. "yes! I can but only when I really focus my mind."
"So, son, if there were a truck bearing down on you, could you stop the truck with your mind if you, of course; if you concentrated and really focused?"
"If I really really focused, yes."
"OK, we are done, thank you"
Well, I wound up in a mental hospital and the boy..... well he got away with it all because according to the child psychologist, I was delusional, suicidal, and I make up things to cover for my mom's neglectfulness.
I did 7 days in a mental hospital, then to foster homes everywhere. Until I finally was placed in a special residential school when I was eight and remained there until I became a teenager......"
"I'm so sorry, Shawn. Wow! Your story is very very powerful, but I am afraid we've run out of time today. But please, please don't stop sharing. Will you mind telling us more tomorrow?"The facilitator furrowed her brow and her voice hit a weird octave too high at the end of her question. The word tomorrow sounded like tomorraA! with a squeeze at the A.
" Fuck yourself, " I thought to myself. "Yeah, I guess."I said aloud.
Or perhaps you would feel better in your one on one session with me in the morning?" She paused " up to you".
Then before I could reply, she yelled, "OK everyone Smoke break!"
Everyone rose so fast chair's almost fell over.
"Gather up in a circle and let's end this meeting with the lords prayer....."

(To Be Continued.....)
© Kinga77