Chapter 1: What challenges do children face when adopted by a family member?
My name's Ari and I was adopted by my uncle's ex-wife because at the time when I was born, my mother was incarcerated and my father was strung out. This led to a lot of abuse, but ultimately at four on Mother's Day, my uncle's ex-wife... For this, we're just going to call her mom. I've always called her mom and my biological mom, I've always referred to her by name as Victoria.
So when I first came into the home, I had a lot of trauma.
Chapter 2: How does living in an image-obsessed household affect a child's self-worth?
I had a lot of abandonment issues, a lot of starving issues. I had problems with eating due to being homeless when I was a kid. So there was a lot of things she had to deal with, but her biggest thing in life was image. So I came in already ruining that image and I came in already stunting what she had going on.
Chapter 3: What impact does parental control have on LGBTQ relationships?
She had two kids with me coming in and a baby on the way. My eldest brother did not live in the home and I never knew him living in the home, but he always existed. He was always around because he lived with my godmom, but he just did not live with us. He was like a weekend sibling, if anything.
Chapter 4: How are abandonment issues formed in adopted children?
Is she still with your uncle at this time?
No. So when I was born, they were in the process of getting a divorce.
Chapter 5: What happens when a teen is forced to come out to their family?
But she had his daughter.
Okay.
And that was his only kid. So she had her on the weekends.
Chapter 6: How does emotional abandonment manifest after coming out?
Okay. Okay.
And so my mother would come and visit and see me just in different homes or not eating or not having a lot. And on the weekends that she would come pick her up, she'd bring me things, you know, different clothes, a meal, things like that. So I saw her as almost a mother figure. Cause like I said, my mother was in jail.
Chapter 7: What does it mean when a parent uses violence over minor issues?
So for the first four years of my life, it was jumping different places. Excuse me. And she eventually decided to take custody when my father was incarcerated. And so by then she was, like I said, pregnant with my youngest sister and was dating a dude that we'll get into once we get into that. But she was dating probably the most impactful man of my childhood, I guess you could say.
Not in a positive way. Yeah. Yeah, so when I first got there, there was intensive therapies, mental institutions, different things to try to regulate my emotions and figure out what was wrong with me. But at the end of the day, for me, I went from trauma to a household that was built on image. But when you peek through, she was getting beat by her husband. I was sleeping on the floor.
There were not things that were... They didn't coincide. It didn't make sense. So right around middle school, that's when her ex-husband went to jail. And so she had my little sister and we moved in with my grandfather and he was no better, but that's not my story to tell. My older siblings have A lot they could say, but like I said, that's not my story to tell.
I didn't experience that from him. However, the downfall, I was there for. We had to move out very abruptly. We had to go to police stations and get interrogated and have multiple questions get asked. And then she dropped us off right back at school. Everything was normal. Everything was okay. We couldn't say anything. At the time when we moved out, he was paying all our bills.
We just could not live with him. She was working for him. and doing all of that and justifying his actions for making sure that we were okay. He provides for us. And from then on, I learned that money and providing for us financially was what mattered. Nothing else mattered. When we lived with my grandfather, like I said, I was young. So I was oblivious to a lot going on.
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Chapter 8: How do survivors heal from toxic family dynamics?
So post living with him, that's when I hit about the fourth grade. Mind you, when I lived in his house, we also went to private school. So everything was very much so, for me, different. I feel like private school and public school was a drastic change, especially when it came to my image. It was easier to hold it together and easier to go about everything when it was like everybody was great.
Everything was fine. And then I hit... Fourth grade. Any friend I had, she didn't like. Anything I tried to wear, she hated. Because ever since I was little, I've always been a tomboy. That's always been me. I liked the plaid shorts. I liked the t-shirts. Basic clothes. But for her... My older sisters were in pageants. They danced growing up. They do the modeling. They love all of that.
And my mother doted on that. And like I said, my brother never lived with us. But me and my brother, I feel like we're very much so the same. So whenever he came around, it felt like I had somebody who was like me. And I feel like that caused us to have our own...
Till this day, I don't want to say trauma bond, but we connect on a level that I feel like me and my sisters don't connect on because I can still call him and he gets it. He'll always get it. But my sisters, I feel like she groomed them for the appearance. She groomed them to fit her image so that regardless, she had her two perfect kids. And I love my sisters. I love my sisters to death.
But I feel like they have their own journey with my mother and I have my own journey with my mother. So like I said, fifth grade comes around, middle school comes around and that's when I get more friends. That's when my best friend tells me her moms are moms. Her moms are lesbians. And for my whole life, I have been in therapy.
So I tell my mom in therapy one day, like, hey, my best friend has two moms. I want to go to her house because it was always the thing. She never liked my friends, never wanted me to go to anybody's houses or do anything.
Was there a reason behind that?
When I was younger, my father told her I was gonna be a lesbian. And I honestly think that that stuck with her. And she wanted to prove my biological parents wrong. That's my only assumption.
Yeah.
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