As a little girl, my biological father was constantly going back and forth about whether or not he wanted me. He would write me letters, saying that he was sorry and was ready to be a family. He would tell me that I had three sisters whom I had never met, but wanted to meet me. I would read their names over and over again, wondering if they looked like me, if they liked me, if we would ever get to really be sisters. “Your grandparents can’t wait to be in your life,” he would say, striking promise into the heart of a child who was barely 9, and who didn’t know better than to trust him.

My earliest memory of suicidality and self-harm (which would become chronic and follow me into my late twenties) was in response to him completely ghosting me. It wasn’t until adulthood that I learned that he essentially expected that I would be too young to feel the impact of his behavior. And, yet, I began to tell my Mother….as a child….that I could not be alive anymore. It was too painful. I was not getting better, and was taken to see therapists and psychiatrists. Soon after, I was medicated. I stayed medicated for my entire childhood and into adulthood.

In 2015, he reached out to me again, apologizing and attempting to make amends. I sobbed on my bathroom floor, feeling levels of rage that I only knew how to direct at myself. Reluctantly, I gave him another chance…only for him to eventually tell me he “couldn’t do it,” and that he felt a connection with my sisters, but felt no responsibility toward me.

The constant whiplash of his presence and absence, and so many broken promises, impacted me very deeply. Despite being legally adopted by my “step” Father (pictured below 💗) I was already too damaged to trust that love enough to receive it. I saw myself inherently as a burden, and my existence as something loathsome.

When my Mother and (step) Father (I don’t view him this way, but am simply using that term to differentiate) had my two brothers, I went into a deep depression. By that point, my nervous system had already “learned” that they would be chosen, and I would be abandoned again. No one had time for me anymore, and I spent most of my time alone in my room, reading or talking to myself in the mirror to makeup for the loss of connection.

My abandonment wounds ran so deep that I chose not to seek help when a family friend began to touch me inappropriately. From my perspective, if I told, I would upset everyone and risk being abandoned again. I did not tell my parents until I was 19.

The relationship between my (step) Dad and I had many rocky points. He spent much of my childhood in the navy, or in college, or working. There were times when I felt like I did not have a Father at all, and also times when I felt as if I didn’t have a Mother.

Looking back from an adult perspective has been very healing. I see my Mother and (step) Father, so young and doing the best that they knew how. I see how much they had on their plate. I see my Dads Mother, my Grandmother, passing away in his early 30s. I see my Mother giving birth to my brothers less than 12 months apart, and how this impacted her physically, emotionally, and financially.

I see them struggling to help their daughter who, in early childhood, had already suffered abandonment, poverty, sexual abuse, health issues, a TBI, moving several times, and having many high support needs that were not yet understood. I found out later that they did not want to medicate me, but they were told that was the best option for me.

After I left the cult (in adulthood) my family and I had been in, I was estranged from my family for years. I did not get to see my little brothers grow up. It was incredibly painful. Every day felt like this excruciating emptiness. At the same time, our extreme circumstances eventually made us all closer than ever.