Adopted

How can a mother let go of one child with no remorse, seemingly no regret? How can she let the courts take not one but two of her children away from her, one several years after the other?

In the name of forsaking all but god, the god of her cult, that is what my mother did. Rather than change her lifestyle and find a permanent home, she let the courts take me. It's hard for me to understand the brainwashing that it takes to make a mother turn off that part of her brain and in her heart that screams of longing for her child. The part that would make her walk through fire to keep them from harm. There is a chemical connection that bonds a mother to her child as it grows within her womb. How is the influence of a cult so strong that it could sever that bond?

My story in a nut shell.

Born in southern California to two cult members, I quickly became a ward of the courts and was adopted by the time I was three and a half. When the adoption failed due to abuse, I found myself once again in the "system" bouncing from foster home to foster home, in and out of group homes and juvenile hall until the age of sixteen. At that point I was returned to my adoptive parents and abandoned to the streets within the same day. Eventually I became one of Hollywood's many homeless youth. And, as many of the kids in LA, I ended up addicted to meth.

I find myself today, sitting in my home, in a cold state far away. A home I bought with my husband two years ago. A home that shelters the heads of my two beautiful children (one of whom is only two months old this week). I find my self blessed. I graduated college about five years ago and have a great job. In the next few months I plan on staying home with my baby for as long as possible. He's beautiful just like his sister who will turn twelve this year.