To my guardian angel—Emily
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the following people:
My loving husband, who paved the way to heaven for me.
Red Rocks Church, for baptizing me and showing me how to grow closer to Christ and teaching me that God doesn’t make bad art.
My absolutely wonderful family, who has never turned their back on me no matter what I’ve done and always welcome me home with open arms like the prodigal child.
To my mother, who took me in my darkest days and never lost faith in me.
To my dear friend, Kati, who reached out her hand and changed my life.
To my very best friend, Jana, for never losing faith in me all the years she watched me struggling.
And to my wonderful surgeon who graciously gave his time to make me feel better about myself for no financial gain.
Thanks most of all to the priest from St. Theresa’s Catholic Church for anointing me with a prayer for the suffering right before I went home to make my last attempt to end my life, he is the reason this whole journey began.
Part 1
The Struggle
“Don’t judge my past, Jesus dropped the charges.”
Chapter 1
I have suffered from depression all my life. In order to cope, I self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. I was a very troubled child and acted out in the most inappropriate ways.
I have always sabotaged everything good that has happened to me. When I was on the verge of succeeding and trying to do the right thing, I was never able to finish anything I started.
I was very rebellious. I contributed a lot of it to being adopted; feeling abandoned even though I was blessed with the best family one could hope for, loving me always unconditionally; and feeling I didn’t deserve it would push them away, hurting them, worrying them. They were so good to me and I had a very normal childhood despite the way I treated my family. They were so undeserving of the way I treated them but never gave up on me. They spent a lot of money and time trying to get me help, which I am forever grateful even though feeling so unworthy of their love.
I punished them for loving me, constantly feeling that negative attention was the best I deserved. But they always tried to give me positive attention.
I truly disappointed them constantly. I always did believe in God but also was very angry with Him and blaming Him for my circumstances, in a way maybe punishing Him for being born with my mental illness.
People were always drawn to me. I had no problem finding love, as I put on a good face always in the beginning. And I don’t believe I was faking it. But like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as soon as I gained the love and friendship, I would treat them so bad, eventually pushing them away before they could abandon me.
I was never able to treat them well for very long and had my heart broken every time, not realizing I had broken theirs first.
Now I’ll start from the beginning.
Chapter 2
I had to buy people’s friendships and love from the time I was in grade school and bullied a lot because I couldn’t control my emotions. That’s where it all started: first grade. We were asked to stand up in front of the class and introduce ourselves and say a little about our families. I had never been embarrassed to be adopted, my adoptive mother was polish; I was proud of this, and my great-grandmother we called Busha used to try to teach me polish.
I shared this with the class and immediately got the nickname “adopted pollack.” I was a very sensitive child and would cry all the time, and that just fueled the fire. They started telling me if I stole something at the store for them and brought it to school, they would be my friends. That day, I went to Safeway after school and stole a plastic lemon, the ones that have the lemon juice in them. That was their first request.
They would pat me on the head and say, “Good, little pollack.” then give me a list of more stuff to bring. It was always stupid stuff like that. Just to see if I would do it, I was too afraid to tell my mom and dad and then be called a snitch on top of it. I just continued to do what they said so they wouldn’t make me cry.
This continued until I left that grade school and entered junior high at a different Catholic school. We didn’t have to wear the plaid skirt uniforms like we did at the other school and my mom would make my clothes. I loved them; she always let me choose the pattern, but as soon as the kids found out at my new school, a whole different dynamic of bullying started. Mainly, I was called ugly a lot. This lasted the whole year, another year with no friends, no invites to parties. Soon, I started acting out.
Chapter 3
Summer of 1977
It was the end of seventh grade, I was twelve years old and discovered sex and alcohol that summer. My grandparents were visiting, and my whole family went up to the mountains to go fishing for the day. I had met this really pretty girl who lived up the street; she was sixteen. She came over that June day and brought a bunch of her dad’s Playboy magazines. We got into my dad’s liquor cabinet and took a shot out of every bottle while staring at the beautiful naked women in the magazine.
Before long, she and I were naked on my bed together, making out and touching and kissing each other everywhere. It was my first experience with sex, except the innocent kissing games when I was seven and eight with the girls next door. We didn’t hear much about homosexuality then, but it was about much of a no-no to talk about as masturbating.
I returned to eighth grade a completely different girl, even joined the cheerleading squad and all the sudden was included into the popular crowd. That’s when I started meeting boys and ditching school. At that time, I was sleeping with one of the sophomores at our school. He would pick me up in his truck, and we would go to my house while my mom and dad were still at work. We’d smoke pot, drink my dad’s beer, and have sex. When my dad would notice his beer missing, I would tell him I washed my hair with it. I said in one of my magazines, I read beer was good for your hair.
My parents noticed the change in me; they knew it wasn’t good, but they didn’t know what I was doing. I had just become disrespectful and started having a bad temper if I didn’t get what I wanted. I did a complete 180 from the pitiful unpopular ugly duckling to the disobedient rebellious party girl.
I was still shoplifting, but now it was for me: cigarettes, makeup, and sexy thong underwear. We had a smoking area at our school we dubbed Cancer Corner. We could smoke with a permission slip from our parents. Of course, my mother would never permit it. I forged a note saying I was her and gave my daughter permission to smoke. I guess my eighth-grade handwriting gave it away because they called her at work to ask her if this was her note. That was the first time I got busted doing something wrong and was grounded, of course, but that didn’t stop me from doing what I wanted. I didn’t respect them or take them seriously. I was 13 years old, my parents went to a new years eve party; leaving my brother and I alone.