It was at the time that the girl was then residing with the 3rd grown man that she began having emotional issues.
As good looking as the man was, and as nicely as he treated her, she didn't understand her role there. She didn't love him and she felt that he couldn't possibly love her...they didn't know each other.
After so much time of abuse by the people who were supposed to love her she couldn't differentiate between what was normal and right and what wasn't. She became the one who mistreated and acted unrational. And she became very depressed.
She made an attempt on her life but at the last moment she spit the poison out.
She called her father crying and he sent airfare to get to Tennessee where the rest of her family was.
As she flew into Chattanooga the plane was circling low for landing and she looked out the window and could see a big ice cream cone atop a building, people in cars driving down the street....and grass. Lots of grass. She got a big lump in her throat as she fought back tears. It looked like heaven to her. So beautiful compared to what she had just left.
She arrived minus one child. Her beautiful son. When she had left his father two of his paternal aunts took him and wouldn't give him back. With no money, knowledge of what to do, and no family support she had no idea what to do. It tore her up inside that she wasn't able to bring him with her to a better place where her family was where she could get help.
When she got there she told her family that she had to get him. They said no. She told them that she had a tax return check being mailed to her and she needed help getting it. $1,200. They said, forget about it.
As it turned out...no one really wanted her there. Especially her mother it seemed. Soon after her mother left without saying anything to her.
With only completing the 9th grade and not ever being taught to drive or taken to get a driver's license the girl felt very afraid, alone, unwanted and thought that surely she must be the scum of the earth.
Before she left Baltimore she had already began sitting in the back seat of cars if she was taken anywhere. She felt that she wasn't good enough or important enough to sit in the front seat. Now she felt even lower than that. But when her daughter started calling her step-mother mommy and the girl by her first name.....the girl lost it. And she slunk off in the middle of the night to see if there was someone somewhere who was undesirable and unwanted such as herself. Maybe she could find someone who could find something about her that was desirable enough to love her for. Or maybe she could earn love if she was compliant and obedient. Just do whatever they say so she could be loved. Then she would have somewhere to live. She couldn't understand why she was so unwanted and unlovable. It had to be something that she was just born with. She didn't think it was something that she could change about herself. She was just born to be unwanted.
Her shame and feelings of being less than other people led her to not being able to go to restaurants like McDonald's. She felt like when she went in the good people could tell that she wasn't like them and would want her to leave. She kept her head down and avoided making eye contact. Tried to be as invisible as she could.
