#astoryofagirl

Okay where to start. The names Katie and I guess I'll start off by telling everyone my backstory. I am 23 years old and a mother. And oh I was born in Russia! I know that's pretty exotic and cool but to me it was just where my life all started. I was a young girl with a little sister that was just trying to make it by. My parents were alcoholics and weren't around that much. I took care of my sister most of the time , until one day we got separated. I honestly couldn't tell you how long we were separated for. I was young and what is a life time to a child isn't so much for an adult. I'm sure everyone is wondering whether my sister and I got reunited.... We sure did. It was a little while later that these two people who could not have kids of their own decided to adopt my little sister. But while they were in the process of adopting her, they found out she had an older sister, me! So they decided to adopt us both. Very touching!! And until this very day I will thank them for that because if it wasn't for them I would not know my little sister Daria. So story goes on, we ended up flying back to the United States in which the culture and people were very different. Not only that but the language we spoke when we came here was Russian so anything anyone else said sounded like a strange alien language. All I knew is I had my sister with me and finally after being in an orphanage there were these people that wanted us and that made me feel good. The younger years being with our new parents were GREAT. Lots of fun and vacations and love and everything we wanted. But that all changed as soon as we got older and became teenagers. We soon went from being fun loving kids to kids that were burdens and not so important and not so perfect. We were forced to go to church and of course there was the catholic schools. We did "family" therapy and that didn't work one bit because we just got yelled at and punished for everything we said in the sessions. My brother who was the closest person I was to at the time was kicked out of the house and thrown into a group home with people that never really cared about him. So not only had I lost the person I was closest to but I was also forced to still live in that house where I felt no love from the people who once showed me love. I felt no comfort when I needed it. I couldn't confide in them without being judged. I was always at fault for every little thing I ever did. I was never good enough. And if that wasn't enough to deal with I now had to deal with my brother, the only person I could confide in and trust was suddenly ripped away from me. I was hurt. Broken in fact. I had gone into a deep depression and felt like I had no way out. I somehow felt like my only way out was to cut myself. Somehow harming myself made me feel better. It gave me some sense of release from everything going on in my life. The one thing that I felt like I had control of. I kept it away from everyone. I kept it away from my parents, my siblings even my closest friends. No one knew. I was that girl in school wearing long sleeve shirts in summer time. I was embarrassed of my scars. The harm I had done to myself. But every single time I had a fight with my parents or somehow they made me feel like I wasn't good enough. Like I wasn't the daughter they wanted me to be I took all that anger and frustration out on myself. Things only went downhill from that point. I began running away. I finally couldn't take it anymore and ran away one Thanksgiving. On days like Thanksgiving, where people were thankful for everything they had. Their home. Their friends. The food they had on their tables but most of all they were thankful for their families. I was thankful for not being with my family. For not being that disappointment and once again having to pretend that we were all a happy family. Because all of that was a lie. A big fat lie. Every time I saw myself in the mirror I hated the person I saw staring back at me. I dyed my hair a drastic dark. I wore black because that's all I felt inside. My make up was dark so noone could see the real me. The real pain in my eyes. The pain I went thru each and every day. I always thought about that ultimate escape. The escape of not feeling hurt. Not feeling pain. Not feeling anything. But I honestly felt like there was always something more to life. Like it had to get better. But it really didn't for a long time. After years of feeling unwanted something happened that made me feel more that way than anything they had done or said before. They locked me out and wouldn't let me in. The people who swore to protect me. To love me. To care for me just threw me out like I was trash. Like I didn't matter. I had nowhere to go. I had no one I could trust. I had no one. Finally the police were called and went back to my "parents" house. They refused to open. The only thing I had was the clothes on my back and the shoes on my feet. The only thing they said to me was "you don't live here anymore" thru a glass window. I wasn't even important enough for them to open a door. To talk to me. To try and work things out. So I was taken to our local police who had no choice but to call social services. After hours and hours of sitting at the station a social worker came and picked me up and told me they had found me a temporary home. What had been a temporary home had shortly turned into a permanent home with people that actually seemed to care for me. But I was a troubled child. After my whole life of being left and abandoned and unloved I treated these kind people like dirt and took them for granted. After about a year of my defiant and horrible behavior they were forced to put me into another home. I was mad. Angry. I once again felt thrown away. This time was of my doing but it never got easier. After the years of what my adoptive parents put me thru my bad behavior was my way of dealing with my hurt and pain. It was my way of protecting myself. After years of going from foster home to foster home I ended up back with original foster home. I had just moved out of an exes house and had no place to go. I had at that point realized that they had been there for me all along. They wanted me to succeed and wanted the best for me they wanted to be that family I never had and I threw all of that away. If only I had one more chance. And then one day I did. Things started looking up for me. They took me back in on a 3 month trial run to see how it would be. If I had changed. If I was the same person or if I was different. In those years and years of being gone and going from foster home to foster home. Of not being wanted I finally figured something out. Family. I wanted a family. I wanted my own family. Parents that would love me. That would never get rid of me. Parents that would guide me and make me feel like I was everything they ever wanted in a child and I have found that. I feel that love every day. I feel that guidance and support every day. And that's all a person like me needed. I needed love and I needed support and I needed to know I was good enough for someone, anyone and to them I am. And things from that point started to look up because I am now their own daughter. I have been adopted by them and don't regret that decision for anything. I finally have found that love that I had been searching for all those years and it feels good to finally have it and feel it.

So there it is - me right now in a nutshell. Samantha xo.

For her.