My parents returned and everyone scattered out the back door as my dad was walking in, at this time I had just had knee surgery; I was wearing a cast from my ankle to my thigh and my dad chased me out to the backyard. Some how I scaled our chainlink fence and ran up the street away from him. He was the most angry I had seen him thus far.
A week later there was a for sale sign in our front yard. My parents wanted to move me away from the “bad influences” in our neighborhood. (little did they know I would turn out to be the bad influence.)
The first time I got busted drinking, I was at a party the night before drinking Everclear and Kool-Aid. I must have blacked out. All I remember was waking up with different sheets on my bed. My mom started screaming at me that I was throwing up all over the night before and she had to basically carry me to the couch to change my sheets and pajamas and clean me up. I don’t remember it ever being talked about after that, but there was so much I did, in just one year, my stories looking back would seem like five years of trouble.
I stole the extra set of car keys out of my mom’s purse one day when she was home for lunch. Of course, I didn’t have a license at the time, but my best friend and I took it joyriding. We hit a dip really hard but kept driving it around; I’m surprised we made it back into the driveway. I had cracked the oil pan and blew the engine. Needless to say, I was not getting a car when I turned sixteen.
Chapter 4
1979
It was the end of eighth grade, and my best friend was transferring to a public school closer to our house. I begged my mom to go. She gave me and my brother the option to stay at the Catholic school or go to the public.
My brother chose to stay with his friends at the Catholic school; I went with my friend to the public.
From my old school where disco was popular to this new school divided into jocks and freaks, my friend and I fell quickly into the freak category. I traded in my candy’s shoes and straight-legged jeans for bell-bottom jeans and clutter boots, flannel shirts and bandannas. We smoked weed and went to keggers every weekend. There would be the occasional jock there, those we called frocks. They dressed like a jock but smoked pot like the freaks. (Freak wasn’t a bad word in those days, it meant you were cool.)
On one occasion, a few of my friends and I were hanging out in our basement and decided to give me a marijuana tattoo with a razor blade. We all did a few shots. My dad’s bar was in the basement. So it was easy access. Then she put some ice on my arm to numb it, and she carved a perfect pot leaf in my arm. When it scabbed over, it looked so cool. I got sent to the principal’s office the next day for wearing a T-shirt to show it off. I was told to cover it or go home and would always have to cover it after that.
I had an eighteen-year-old boyfriend then. I was always getting grounded for not coming home but would just call him to pick me up and honk when he was out front. So my dad would be watching TV in the living room when my boyfriend pulled up, and I would just run out the door before he could even hear the door slam shut.
I went to my first concert that summer at age fourteen. We had three huge concerts every summer on the football stadium field. With big bands, they called them Sunday #1, #2, and #3. So my friend’s mom got us tickets for Sunday #1 that summer. It was Ted Nugent headlining the cars, heart, and UFO. We had field tickets, so it was first come first serve. Her mom was super cool, and I told my mom I was staying with her the night before and her mom would take us to the concert the next day because it was an all-day event. Her mom dropped us off at 3:00 a.m. The gates opened at 8:00 a.m., and tons of people were camped out front to get in and get good seats. We had blankets and coolers with food and drinks for the day. At this time I had an eighteen-year-old boyfriend. People were walking around and selling acid. My boyfriend and I had done it several times before.
It started getting to the point where I would stay out the whole weekend and even a few days into the school week. I was completely out of control. I had my parents scared to death. I called my dad one day at work and said he had to call me in sick from school so I didn’t get detention. I said if he didn’t do it, I wouldn’t come home. He said if I agreed to see a psychiatrist, he would do it. And me being a smart-ass said sure. I thought, What the heck could they do to me? Lock me up? I was fourteen then and hadn’t been in any trouble with the law. I went and treated it like a game.
I had zero respect for my elders, and my parents did not raise me that way. We had everything we needed and more. We had a wonderful normal childhood. My parents took us on tons of vacations, camping all over the place, beautiful places I have fond memories of to this day. My dad had season tickets to our NFL football team and took turns taking me and my brother. We were never treated differently or any better or worse than the other. I almost feel bad for my brother now looking back. He was such a good obedient son. I’m just guessing, but my parents had their hands so full with me it must have took a toll on him, I don’t think he ever felt neglected, but they defiantly had to do more for me. This was all before I started public school.
Chapter 5
1980
I went to see the shrink like I promised. She was this fat German lady with a thick accent. And I went in alone while my parents waited in the waiting room. I was such a smart-ass and didn’t think she could tell my parents anything I told her. (I didn’t know client patient confidentiality doesn’t pertain to minors.)
I answered every question she asked me honestly, and I was proud of it at the time.
Q: Have you had sex?
A: Of course, lots of times.
Q: Have you done drugs?
A: Tons.
Q: Shoplifted?
A: Every day.
And so on.
I was mortified when she called my parents in and divulged all my secrets. My dad called me a whore and walked out. That was the first time I felt bad for what I had been doing to them. I loved them so much, I didn’t show it, but I did, and I broke my dad’s heart. I know I broke it several times before that, but hearing that lady tell him his little girl wasn’t a virgin and the look on his face, it kills me today just writing about it forty years later.
Then she asked me to leave the room to talk with my parents.
They were in there for a while then asked me to come back in. At this point, I was super angry, not scared but so upset, she would disclose that stuff to my parents that would break them even more.
They talked about a short stay at a place for adolescence—a psychiatric ward. It didn’t scare me, I said okay. It sounded like an adventure and was only supposed to be a couple months.
We went home and talked about it. I know my parents were very sad, and already assuming a lot of my acting out could be attributed to feeling abandoned by being put up for adoption. They didn’t want me to feel like they were abandoning me either.
I assured them I didn’t and would try for them to get help. So they pulled me out of school, and I packed a couple bags. They said they would be there every week. On the way there, I asked my dad if we could stop and get me some cigarettes. They had already known for a long time now that I had been smoking. My mom even started buying me cigarettes at home because I just kept stealing money from her purse to buy them. My dad stopped and bought me a carton.
Chapter 6
They went in with me to check me in and meet the staff. My mom came to my room and helped me put my stuff away, and then we sat in the sunroom to talk a while. While we were in there, I lit up a cigarette. Other kids were smoking around me, so I didn’t think anything of it. Halfway through my cigarette, a nurse came up and informed me I had to turn over my cigarettes or have my dad take them home. Of course, I lost it, and my