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 Ginger at 6 years old When I was moved to the group home, it was my hope that I would be understood and listened to in this new environment. However, it made me feel more alone and scared. I think it was at this time I began to feel abandoned. I couldn't put a label on that feeling then, but today I know that this was what I felt. I was so lonely so very very lonely. I wanted a family to love me. WHERE were they? I wanted to be liked, to fit in and be like the other kids. But, I did not have a clue at how to. My parents did not come to see me or write much. I just knew they were happy to have me out of their lives. I don't know but maybe they didn't, but that is how I felt. For me then, that was real. I was so desperate and needy. It was extremly easy for me to get hooked into people's words of affection. What I didn't know then was the difference between words and the behaviors that did not match up to what they were saying. I trusted to easily and I got hurt and used emotionally and physically because of this. All my life I had tried to tell people how I was feeling. No one seemed to listen or care. I felt so alone. The only thing that helped me to stay connected to my feelings and myself was listening to music. The music helped me to feel that others too had emotions. I could not talk about mine, but I could feel them in the music. Music helped save what ever sanity I did have. The system finally moved me to my first foster home. I remember thinking, "wow, here is a family maybe I will be loved and accepted by them." However, my bed wetting and extreme neediness made them want me to be removed from their home. God, I was scared all the time of making people mad at me. Here was another family that did not want me. Rejected again. So, off to another foster home I went. I was so scared of being rejected again that I tried so hard to fit in and be accepted. I knew I talked way too much. I was so full of questions that had never before been answered. Gosh, I wanted someone anyone to hear me. I was smoking by this time. The foster dad would take me to the basement and touch me inappropriately; he would give me a drag of his cigarettes, and tell me he would give me more if I would let him have his way with me. I was so scared. I told my social worker and she called my foster mom. My foster mom said that I was lying. No one ever believed me about anything. I felt these people just wanted me for the money they got for being my foster family and supposedly taking care of me. I went to school everyday empty, scared, lonely and hurt that no one cared or even knew if I was alive. That is how I felt.
 Ginger at 15 years old Yep, you guessed it. A boy came along and said all the right words and hooked me into believing that he liked me because I needed to believe that someone somewhere cared. This boy and I skipped school. He hugged me and he kissed me. We road around in his car. ****(This part of my story is very blurred. I can only remember the feelings I had. I don't remember anything else about him. I didn't even remember his name until my daughter Tina and I opened up all our sealed records.)**** Jerry (the boy) put me in the back of his car and had sex with me. When it was over he said, "where do you wanna go?" I was very afraid of going home, so he dropped me off on the church steps and left me there. The priest listened to me and promised this would be confidential, but then my foster parents soon came unknown to me and got me. My parents, my foster parents, and social worker soon found out that I was pregnant. My mother told them that she was going to make me give away my child. Ohhhhhhh, how I felt. I wanted my baby. I was mad at all of them. I finally had something that was mine and I loved the child growing inside of me. I made up my mind to run away so I could keep my child.
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We would like to know what you are thinking,
how our web site affected you,
what you felt when you read OUR STORY,
and any additional comments you may have.
Thank you, Ginger and Tina