Since others are bearing out their lives and souls, I could do my own little therapy. This bears the question: why bother reading this one when there are so many others to eat your time away?

I'll give a light preview of what is coming up: I am very lucky to be alive, very lucky that I only did jail and no prison time. I've lived a life of hard knocks, outright stupidity, and failures. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a woah-is-me blog: this is a blog of mostly facts. Like many before me and many after me, I will withold information and I will take liberties with certain truths. There are things that are simply too damn embarrassing and too screwed up to ever put into writing.

This blog is semi-linear. I will reveal things as I will. I have a memory disorder of some sorts. My memories are fragmented and I'll talk about this as well, because this ended up having a major impact on my story.

I'll start by telling you about my parents. The state of their minds and decisions always haunted me. I always wondered if I would be total **** ups like they are. I'm not quite as bad...

Let me fast-forward a bit: I never really knew my parents. My only knowledge of my parents is from something called a "Life Book." This is a book that is began on the day you enter foster care. It starts up at page one on day one and this book is passed around from group home to foster home to group home until the day of your emancipation at age 18. Somewhere in some dingy basement in Cleveland, Ohio is a record of 11 years of my life, all painfully written and documented. I wouldn't ever want to read it now. There are simply too many painful memories that I think I forgot. I'm not sure, but I can die perfectly happy not knowing the difference.

Back to my parents.

According to the Life Book, my parents were not utter **** ups. In fact, they were both college educated and they both graduated with high marks. My mother was a high school Valedictorian and a college summa cum laude. They were both martial artists. I guess they were both black belts. My dad was a biochemist or something pretty advanced, especially for the 1970s.

The Life Book doesn't go into details about what happened and how it all went down, but apparently my parents got into trouble. Turned out that my mom was a psychological basket case, diagnosed with every mental ailment that was known about at that time, spanning bipolar depression and schizophrenia. She was always sick and she spent a large portion of her life in mental hospitals. In fact, many of my memories of my mother are seeing her in the mental hospital.

Mix in the high-flying 70s, drugs, and alcohol, and you poop out a little daveT.

One would wonder what came of my father? One would wonder how it was possible that my father met my mother? I don't really know. I know that he fell into drug and alcohol use, and somehow lost his job and was banned from working in field anymore. I was once told that they met while my dad was working in a psychiatric hospital and apparently crazy women was a turn on for him. This story probably isn't true, but I'll hold off on the details of this in another section.

I do know for certain that my dad was an amazing artist, and he was a "roadside decorations painter." He was a petty thief and apparently he went to jail for breaking into homes.

My earliest memories of my childhood are my parents fighting. My mom standing at the top of the stairs throwing high heels at my father. My dad was constantly drinking beer. Alcohol took him over and was too far gone to take care of me and my mother. Divorce followed, and for those who has seen their parents divorce, I'm sure you can fill in some of the details yourself. I guess the next step is figuring out how I went from the choice of mom or dad to no choice at all.

Ayayay. That's really tough. I think you specially have to watch out to not overdo it with drinking or whatever you are on, since parts of addictive behaviour are genetic, afaik.
Where did you spend most of your youth (11-18yo)?

This is probably the most difficult part for me when I tell people anything about my past: the armchair psychologists all come out with notions of who I am and why I am dangerous to myself, to them, or to society in general. Turns out that I am a well-adjusted individual and quite the statistical anomaly. I'll dig up those stats at a later time.

I don't do drugs and I seldom drink, although I am an on-and-off smoker.

As for where I spent most of my youth: that is what this blog is about.

you are a lisp fan though

all those parentheses are the product of a warped mind

I had Gonorrhea when I was 6 or 7. I don't remember my exact age, but I still remember getting two shots in my ass. I don't remember if it hurt, but I do remember the feeling of lightening shooting up my spine.

This was the Great Mystery of my childhood. No one could figure out how it happened, and it was the one thing the psychologists (weekly sessions were mandatory, regardless of who you were) and foster parents latched on to once they came to that part of the Life Book.

It raised a ton of questions; everyone wanted to point a finger at some person and figure out how it happened. I find this fascinating. Other kids surely had rougher households than I did. Some were beaten, stabbed, starved, chained, fed bugs, and pretty much any other atrocity you can think of, and these were the lucky ones: they survived their original homes. Despite this, there would be no bigger Boogie Man than the pedo. In this sense, the real world is no different than your local prison. Everyone wanted the molester's head on a stick, to rot in prison. All other animals can be forgiven, but the parent who touched up the child? Fry him.

I grew up moving around a lot, and this was before entering foster care officially. I began my life living with some of my parent's families, or rather, I lived with the few that weren't utterly ****ed up. Both of my parent's families were broken families, and, as far as I understand it, mostly alcoholics, drug addicts, and the few that weren't involved in the underbelly of the world disowned everyone else. This is the one pattern I have not been able to break in my life. To date, all of my possessions fit in one bag. I don't think I've lived anywhere for more than a year and I dramatically rearrange my furniture every few months.

I was staying with my mother's brother, who had his own happy family of a wife, a son, and two daughters. I still remember their names and I still remember that I had a decent crush on one of the daughters, or much of a crush as a 7 year old can have on a girl: the innocent non-sexual kind, not the creepy stalker kind.

They seemed more than happy to have me in their home at the time. I guess, to them, it was better than me staying with my father and his cat he named after his favorite alcoholic drink. I was in school one day and I was called to the principal's office. My mom was there. This was the first time I had seen her in a year. She had other people with her and I was told that I was to go with her. She took me to her brother's home. I would only see my father a few more times after this, but only under very close supervision.

So, this Gonorrhea thing. As I said, I was staying with this family at the time. Once the disease was discovered, I was taken in for psychological evaluation. I was given the first of many Rorschach Tests that I would be given in my life:



What do you see? A butterfly? That's not inspired enough. Try to really look at it and tell me what else you see.

I was taken in once a week, every week for several months. I was put in a room with a psychologist and given toys. Apparently, I had some suppressed memories, but we had to solve the Great Mystery.

There is an old saying about children: "Children never lie." I can tell you for a fact that this is not true. Children are highly impressionable and they will eventually regurgitate whatever it is that you want them to say. They don't have to know exactly what a penis or vagina is and what it can be used for. There is a thin line between coaxing and coaching. Feed them words and they'll miraculously create a story to go along with it, even if the story is generally impossible.

I saw this coaxing used to devastating effect later on in life. One of my foster brothers was sent to child prison for pedophilia. It was a sham trial and anyone observing the situation knew it, except for the judge who said "I knew he was guilty once I saw him." The girl didn't even speak at the trial. She whispered her testimony into the prosecutor's ear because it was too embarrassing for her. Her story changed a million times beforehand and changed multiple times during the trial. She was coached to say this or that. At that age, we really have no sense of what we are doing. You are more about trying to do what you are told is right, even if "right" doesn't mean "truth."

Something similar happened to me when I was a kid. I guess the psychologists were sick of having me around and making no progress. They eventually took away all the toys I would play with and sat me in a real office. I was handed a sheet of paper and a pencil, and told that I have to write and draw out Exactly What Happened (TM) before I could have my toys back. I drew a picture of myself and my dad sleeping in the same bed (this was the truth, but there was only one bed in the apartment). I then drew anatomically impossible positions of him forcing me to give him fellatio. There was no rhyme or reason for this lie. I didn't realize what I was doing at the time. I was simply told that I was going to "help" my father and help my case. I was told I could go back home to my mother. These *******s didn't care about the truth. The truth was so easy to find: a host must have the virus to pass it on. He didn't have the virus, so it couldn't have been him.

For my entire childhood I was marked as the kid who was sexually molested by my father. I redacted my story a million times but no one ever believed me. Remember that "Children Never Lie" slogan?

This lie ate into me for several years but I found respite once the internet came along. I never tried to make contact with my parents, but I had to know if I sent my father to prison. If he was rotting away, I had to make the situation right. I searched through the prison records and found that my father was never in prison for my lie. I was relieved, and that is perhaps the first real monster I managed to slay in my life.

So, one would wonder: do I actually know and was I hiding the truth all along? I don't know. As far as I know, I was never drugged into blackout by my parents. I was never molested or even hit by my parents. They may have been screwed up, but they weren't anti-moral monsters.

In the end, I wasn't sent back to my mother. Her brother committed me to a mental hospital, describing me as unfit for life. It was a pretty nice place all things considered. My mom finally figured out where I was and took me home.

But do I know where the disease came from? Or do I have an idea? I do... I once told a bit of truth about this, but I was called a liar and that was the end of it. I am not comfortable talking about this yet, and I don't think I ever will be. Perhaps if I wasn't using my real handle, I would write it out, but there are some things that are too messed up to say.

But don't worry, there will be much more sex, abuse, and other crazy stories coming up. I've only given you a taster.

"But I don't see the parenthesis." :/

The House of Blogs forum was a stroke of genius

Hey Dave, the way you handled getting ripped off as a developer intern indicates to me how well adjusted you are. A lot of folks would have gone non linear.

Putting this on my resume.

can you explain why your taste in music is so bad?

I didn't expect so many memories to come rushing back at me last night. I didn't get to sleep until 4am and I woke up late for work. Regardless, some of the threads in my life make considerably more sense now. I've barely scratched the surface and the stories progressively get more ****ed up long before they get any better. Oddly, this has already given me a bit of insight into who I was and who I am. I'm not in the mood to reflect on all of that today. I simply want to lay out the facts and let you draw your own conclusions.

By all outside images, I was probably living in a perfectly normal household before my parents divorce. My father was a tinkerer of sorts. We had a Commodore 64 and he used to program games. He taught me how to play chess, checkers, and other games of strategy. He had tools and wood in the garage. He let me drill holes into the wood. To a six year old, seeing a drill spin into wood as the chips fell away then seeing a perfect hole form was hours of endless fascination.

We also had a train in the basement. There was something wrong with the conductor box, and if you put your finger into the wrong place, you got a nice little jolt. To normal kids, I guess seeing the train run on its journey to infinity would be endless hours of fascination. Not me: I sat in the basement and shocked myself constantly. I loved the way the electricity felt zooming through my body; I loved the way the electricity made my hairs stand on end and my heart flutter. One day, it really did hurt and I may have stopped. Probably not, though.

I had a grand idea as a kid that I would grow up to be a stuntman. I would ride my bike and crash into whatever I could find. I would jump off ramps and end them in spectacular wrecks. I would jump off anything that I could find. I would charge full speed toward the stairs and let the momentum push me into amazing falls. I then began jumping down the stairs. It's kind of amazing that I never hurt myself, but I guess kids have softer bones so it is no big deal. I learned how to deal with pain and I got to the point that I could barely feel pain. I didn't fear pain at all. When it was time for any one of the four surgeries on my ears, I took the needles in stride. The doctors were duly impressed with my bravery. Before I had surgery on my left eye, the aestheticism let me pull the trigger on myself.

If you carry on with me for a bit, you'll see how this pain training ended up serving me well in life, but for now, I'll just start up where I left off the last time.

My mother picked me up at the mental hospital, and we moved to East Cleveland. I have bread-white skin and had fire-red hair at that time. This isn't a really good area to be living in regardless of race, but I'm guessing she got Section 8, so this was perhaps better than homelessness. Back in the 1980s, the welfare department would deliver the Brown Box (Welfare Cheese) to your door along with some milk and eggs. The recipients had it made in those days: they didn't have to walk outside to get some food.

Anyways, my mother was married to some new guy and was pregnant with my little brother. I guess the goal was to figure out where the hell I was and get me home before he was born. I don't remember the day she picked me up, but I do recall something about how she had no clue where I was for the half a year I was there. At least I was safe and I was going home to people who actually loved me and together, we were going to be a happy family. I wasn't home long before mother went into the hospital and delivered my little brother via Cesarian.

When I got home, it was time to start school. I went to the school in the straight up ghetto. I was one of, oh I don't know, 3 or 4 white kids in the entire school. In the morning, I would walk to school with on of my neighbors, a sweet blonde girl who, had I been knowledgeable about beauty at that time, I may have called pretty. To say the least, I didn't have many friends during that year. The other white boy in the neighborhood was straight up trouble and there wasn't anyone to really talk to in the end. I guess that girl was my best and only friend. Perhaps my fondest memories of that year involve us talking and tromping through the heavy snow, watching our footprints trail off behind us. I hated my teacher. She was a big black woman with a funny accent, and I didn't want to learn to talk like her.

The step father was in a band. He was a bassist and he owned a keyboard as well. I was told that I could take music lessons. We went to the music store and I had my choice of playing piano or guitar. I chose the piano because I would play the piano at psych ward. In fact, I even learned to read just enough music to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Once you learn how to read music, you never forget. Sure, you get rusty, but the logic of reading never really leaves you. I only took a few lessons. I wasn't a student that messed around. The teacher said I should study for 30 minutes a night, and come hell or high noon, I was studying 30 minutes a day every night after school. I guess I progressed quickly, or as quickly as a child my age could progress. I can still read music to this day.

I guess this wonderful life only lasted a few months. The dad ran off and I was left in my mother's care. The piano lessons stoped, the piano was gone, and the welfare money came rolling in. I don't know how quickly this honeymoon ran off the rails, but I don't think he was around for Christmas.

I guess that aside from living in the hood, having no friends, not being allowed to go out past dark, and sharing a room with my crying brother, life wasn't so bad. My mother played violin during the day. She refused to teach me, but that's okay. I mostly rotted my brain in front of the TV, and if I wasn't rotting away, I was up in the attic with my toys. I didn't play with my toys too much because I found a better and more mysterious toy in numbers. I was obsessed with math at that time. I was not good at school during that time, but this wasn't so much because I was stupid: I was, in the words of my Life Book: "too precise." I simply took too long to write so I could never finish my school work. But there was some serious release in math for me at that age. I was obsessed, and adding single digit numbers didn't do it for me. I had a math text from the library and I taught myself how to add 2 digit numbers, then 3, then 4! What awesomeness, there are numbers larger than I could ever count.

Then I saw "x" and I had to unravel what that thing meant. I began learning that if you take 4 or something and do it again 3 times, you get 12. Then the numbers got bigger and bigger. then I started learning how to divide and then I started learning about fractional arithmatic. School would not pose a challenge in maths until I reached 7th grade. Man, I loved math and I taught myself more at every opportunity when I was growing up. I stopped short of teaching myself higher math.

Perhaps if I was older, I would would have seen my mother unraveling before my eyes, but I was too young to note anything unusual. One day, I came home with a card I made at school. It said "Happy Martin Luther King Day." I guess I remember this because this was perhaps the only time I can remember her really screaming at me. What was to be expected when you go to an all-black school? I bet all the other kids got a good hug and a choice of their favorite ice cream.

I don't remember what she looks like at all, but in my mind I think that she must have been a woman with a permanentaly haunted stare. I do recall she had brown hair, but apparently she had reddish hair. I don't remember many conversations with her. I can't call the MLK incident a conversation because I don't recall what she said to me, though I can use my imagination to fill in the details and I'll leave you to do the same.

No, I only remember one conversation with her, and it is a conversation that, perhaps burned me more than any conversation that I ever had in my life. This was more of a longer conversation, one that spanned for months. I'll never forget the subjects and the ideas, although the words will always be lost on me.

One day, she told me how much she wanted me to be a girl. She said that she used to dress me up in a dress, pig tails, and hair clips when I was a baby and she say that I was the most gorgeous little thing. I guess she never took pictures of me, so I don't know if this was the truth or not, but it definitely had a strong emotional toll on me for many years. In no uncertain terms, the only person I loved was telling me that she hated me because of my gender. I used to wonder if my brother was a second chance for her to have her dream of a beautiful daughter. I wonder how crushing it was for her to not have a daughter afterall, and since she couldn't have children anymore, how much she resented me and my brother. I don't know, maybe this is normal conversation for other people, or maybe it is something that is said once and is said in jest. Not here. This was the only way I could get through to her: talking about what it is like to feel like a woman, what it would be like if I was a girl, and the fun we would have otherwise. I remember watching her sitting at her stand, naked, combing her hair, and wondering why I couldn't be like her.

Over the years, I've realized that it would not matter if I was the next Angelina Jolie, there is nothing that would have stopped my destiny, and at least, in that area, I may have won the genetic coinflip. I'll relate some stories of my foster sisters and brothers during this blog, and I'll leave this question for you to answer. I lost the genetic lottery with terrible parents, and I lost it in the sense that I had no extended family that gave a two hoots about me. My brother won that lottery, but I was much smarter and more mentally prepared to deal with the life I was handed. He turned out to be sort of slow and probably fit for the short bus.

I never finished second grade. I got into a pretty major fight with a bunch of other students. I got knocked down and my head scraped against a vent on the door. I was bleeding profusely. I was taken to the hospital and given stitches on the top of my head. I still have a friar's bald spot from that day.

I guess my mother, despite winning the custody battle with my father the "molester," wasn't fit to raise me and my brother on her own. Maybe she ran out of money or she was simply thinking of running away, Maybe after my visit to the hospital, she finally accepted that white people living the ghetto wasn't a good life strategy. We moved into a hotel and stayed there for about one month. One day, she sat my brother and me on the step in front of the hotel door. A car pulled up and asked, "Are you daveT and {brother}? Where is your mother?"

We were taken into the car. These people could have been anyone, but I just went along with them. My mother was gone as far as I knew and she may not be coming back. Right before the car pulled away, my mother walked past and I saw her. I begged her for a map of Ohio. To me, that was the entire world, and I wanted one so bad at that time. She told me No and No and No, but I kept on pushing until she relented. She said that I would come back for me and walked away.

I wonder if she had cried once she stepped around that corner. I wonder if she simply walked to the nearest mental hospital. I was 8 years old. My brother less than a year old. I thought he and I would be facing a life journey together and we would always be brothers and I would take care of him, but that was not to happen. He ended up moving in with his paternal grandparents, and due to state law, I was not allowed to stay with them because I was not a blood relative. I was taken to an office and told that I was going to move in with a relative or another nice family. I waited for many hours, but this did not happen. I was sent to a group home instead.

I'm relatively drug-free, so I have no nostalgia dragons to chase when I listen to crap.

Does this compliment feel better than winning your 8th Emmy?

Damn Dave,

I'm hooked on your story.

Interesting read, you are very brave for posting this.

I've never told anyone some of the things I've written so far. I've never been one to discuss my past. Few of the friends I've had over the years ever knew that I grew up like this. Of course, those that have known me for years know I was a foster child, but no one, and I mean no one has ever gotten more than the superficial details. I guess this place is anonymous enough, and it has been over 15 years since all of this happened.

Quite a few of my exes knew, since after meeting their parents, I had no one to introduce them to. It is hard to describe, but people connect via their histories, and talking about how you grew up is an important bonding moment between people. In all cases, I never filled them with details. I'm reminded of that scene from "A Walk in the Clouds:" When Paul tells Victoria's father that he was an orphan, the father responds: "He who has no past has no future." Hell, it may or may not be from that movie. I just recall that quote stung me pretty good when I heard it.

Among foster kids, we would relate tales of how screwed up our parents were as if that was a badge of honor. It was an odd world in a way. There wasn't that many of us and many of us knew each other. We knew about other foster families and quite a few became infamous for their antics. It wouldn't be uncommon to hear said family may be a good fit and we would politely decline with a "**** no."

There was only one place we all didn't want to go, and there was only one place that we never discussed: the group home. There was a certain mystique surrounding the group home, and a certain feeling of horror that we never wanted to articulate and situations that we could never amply describe. Those of us that were in the group homes knew what they were like. Those that never went never needed to know. To be in a group home was to be the lowest rung of the latter. Children that stayed in group homes were the feral low class, denied by everyone around them. Oddly, the kids that went seemed to go back all the time and the ones who never went to one seemed to simply bounce around. I have a feeling that there was a systematic purpose to this. The government knew damn well these places were ****ed up, and the goal was to keep kids out, but if they were already in, then it was no big deal to send them back. This is probably my imagination running amok with conspiracies.

In any case, groups homes aren't anything like Boy's Town. At least the one I went to wasn't.

My memory is poor surrounding the day I arrived. I do recall sitting in the office after I was picked up from the hotel. I recall sitting down and talking to the guys in the office. I suppose my imagination wants to make me out to be a jocular movie star, loved by everyone in the office, who were pinching my cheeks and telling me how adorable I was and if they could only take me home with them... Honestly, the only thing I recall was staying there for several days, but this isn't the truth. I probably stayed there for an evening, and if I was there until midnight, I'd be surprised. I do recall that one of the guys was an amateur artist and he had a ton of pictures he drew of Superman. I was in awe. I can't really relate to you anyone that is too young how large Superman was during the 80s, but to say the least, I'd be less impressed if he drew God himself.

One part of my memory tells me that I arrived to the group home late at night. The other part of me recalls a building shaped like a star, with wings pointing out from the center and orange paint under the windows. I don't think either of these are true. I know that the building was, in fact, shaped like a star with long corridors pointing out from the center, or rather, that is what the inside of the building was shaped like. No matter how much I try, I don't recall ever seeing the outside of this building from the distance. It mattered little, I never left that building and the surrounding yard the whole time I was there.

There was probably about 50 kids there my age. Once again, my memory wants to say 100. The real number doesn't matter much. There was just too many of us there even if there was one.

I vividly remember the inside of that building. We stayed along side a Mezzanine with metal rails keeping us from falling into the pit. Sort of looked like this, but imagine spending $400 instead of whatever this cost:




There were 2 hallways radiating out from each side, which were the sections each group of children lived: The younger boys, the older boys, the younger girls, and the older girls. The two corridors where the boys lived was on one side, and the corridor were the girls lived was on the other side. The boys and girls were restricted from interacting with each other, but we could see them across pit every day. Brothers and sisters were cleanly separated from each other. The big kids and little kids were restricted from seeing each other as well. We were all cleanly separated into our little mobs. Perhaps we were easier to control like this. Perhaps there was just stuff that could happen...

As you may have guessed by now, there were no private bedrooms. We all slept in dorms in bunker beds. The rules were simple: when the lights go out, you are to go to bed. There is no talking aloud. You can ring the buzzer if and only if there is an emergency, and no, going the bathroom was not an emergency. Obviously, using the bathroom really was an emergency at times. If you were unfortunate enough to be in said emergency, may the good lord have mercy on your soul. I can honestly say the wardens never beat us, but there would be a massive curse-inspired tongue lashing and there would be punishment the next day. Sometimes the warden didn't come around when the bell was buzzed. Children pissed and **** their pants while crying at the buzzer that never responded to their begging.

One time, the door was left unlocked and I had to go to the bathroom. I opened the door and walked down the corridor. The watcher saw me and I got into quite a bit of trouble for that one.

Children came and children went, and time went along. Many of them cried to sleep every night, begging for their mommies. Others got sick of it and beat the hell out of the crying saps. The most inspired ones took this opportunity to join them in bed for a little extra... let's just call it "comfort." No sirree. In this place, crying was expressly forbidden.

We were all hoodlums, and if we weren't ones when we entered, we were within a month. Although it probably wasn't a matter of life or death, it surely felt like it. I learned to skate while I was there. If we fell, all the other kids would skate up to us and power stomp us. We learned really quick how to stand back up if we fell because we were weren't quick enough, we were going to get knocked back down again and power stomped by whoever came up next. I saw my "bestest" friend fall down one time, and instead of passing him by or helping him up, I charged up, jumped as high as I could, and power stomped him in his back with all of my might. The watcher got really angry at me, asking what kind of ******* power stomps his best friend, and look at how much I hurt him. Surely, I couldn't take this opportunity to punk out. This was just the rules of the game, what was there to say?

I learned how to swim in much the same way. If we floundered, we were getting pulled under water by our brethren. Trust me, if you believe in all of your heart that you can't swim, try simulating life and death. Have someone land on top of you and push you down into the water. I guarantee you will learn how to swim in 4 seconds flat and be pretty damn good at it.

In a strange way, the kids all seemed to know that the world was going to do us in, and unless we fought back with full insanity, we would get stomped, smothered, and kicked to death. The world doesn't care about you if you lose, and when you do lose, you begin to die, and the world attempts to strangle you until you have no fight left. No one was out to pick us up when we were bleeding and crying.

(This is the first part of the story of the group home. Part 2 coming tomorrow or the next.)

Description of the building reminded me of a panopticon.

no more? =)