“I had already seen my daughter, at 2 years old, my ‘angel baby,’ be taken over by this ‘STRANGER.’ Now here I am, years later with my son. I began to see this ‘stranger’ steal another one of my baby’s personalities. I had always looked forward to motherhood. BUT THIS?! Why my babies?!”
‘I wouldn’t even let you watch my DOG,’ the attorney said to me. I lost custody of my firstborn, my baby girl. I began sobbing. Then WOW, a miracle happened.’
‘My father secretly recorded videos of me naked. I wanted nothing but my mother’s love and support. ‘Get out of my house,’ she told me.’
“I wouldn’t allow him to have power over me any longer. I stood up and walked out of the house. No one followed, no one cared. I had angels flying over me that night.”
‘The nurse said, ‘She’s going.’ She looked me right in the eyes as I brushed her hair. ‘It’s okay, Grandma. Go see Grandpa and the girls.’
“My dad got the phone call. ‘Get back here….NOW!’ She hugged me and said, ‘I love you, Tootsiebell.’”
‘I was paranoid, always looking out the window to see who was watching. It was an endless, ugly cycle. If I couldn’t beat this and see my kids again, I’d kill myself.’
“I’d be sitting with people, having a nice, quiet drink with them, and in my head I’d be assassinating them – just in my mind. They thought I was a nice guy and I’d have this crazy thinking. It’s mad. I was locked up inside my own head all the time.”
‘I asked to borrow his Walkman. He said, ‘Sure, if you let me touch you.’ I could hear him breathing heavy in my ear, and I was frozen. He told me not to tell.’
“All of a sudden, we heard my uncle’s car pull up. He opened the door quickly. There was a smashed lamp on the floor. He looked at me and asked, ‘What is going on?’”
‘His little voice begged me to wake up. ‘Don’t die, mommy. Don’t die, mommy.’ His hug, his kiss and his tenderness, lying next to me for hours as I sobbed.’
“Another fight left me to sleep in the guest room. My middle child, my baby boy, crawled into bed with me as my head throbbed and I couldn’t’ stop the room from spinning. Again. My loudest rock bottom came like a whisper – It was his touch.”
‘My husband looked at me with tears in his eyes. ‘You have no idea what it’s like watching you slowly die and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ To the outside world, no one knew what was happening to us.’
“After all the years he fought for our country and for his wife, he deserved more than being stuck with a sick wife in a drug coma stuck on the couch. Never in a million years would I have anticipated what would come next.”
‘I found myself obsessing about alcohol and how much was too much while breastfeeding. Doesn’t everyone get so buzzed they can’t drive home from the zoo?’
“I wish I could say that was the first time I woke up after a night of heavy drinking wondering who put the baby to sleep.”
‘I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed covered in my own vomit, dirt and mud caked in my ears and under my perfectly manicured acrylic nails.’
“I made a phone call that no mom ever wants to get. Within an hour, my mom was at my apartment and I will never forget the look of absolute terror on her face.”
‘Years after meeting my now husband, I got a call from my father’s new wife. ‘Mommy, are you crying?’ I think she’s on to me.’
“I didn’t need him in my life. ‘We can make it on our own,’ she would say. And I did, for so many years. Then, in early July, he called.”
