My adoption story

So, I wanted to make a part 2 to my first story. I thought I would touch on my adoption story a little bit.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York to Sherilyn Weisberg and John Rizzo. (Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people in the story.)

I’m not sure how my parents met, but I do know that my father suffered from Schizophrenia. My mother also had a personality disorder, but it was never quite clear what she had. I think anyone who has a kid and can’t fight for them is a few screws less of a toolbox.

My mother and my father didn’t do a very good job taking care of me. My Nana who was my father’s mother was taking care of me. I wasn’t even living with my parents around the age of 2. My mother had left me in a car one time. I think she had gone grocery shopping and she took the shopping bags out before she took me out. The car was then stolen, and I was left on a doorstep. Police later found me with a diaper rash. They cleaned me up and sent me back to my Nana’s home.

My father was also erratic. I wasn’t allowed to be in my father’s possession due to his erratic and strange behaviors. So, one time he kidnapped me from my nana’s and drove out of state with me. I remember one incident when I was 4 because it is so paramount to the rest of my life. I had been at my Nana’s home at the time in Brooklyn, New York. She had been caring for me and we had been watching friends. She had just fed me, but I guess I wanted more food. My dad barged in the door that day and asked me if my Nanna fed me. I replied with “No” and he beat my nana from one side of the apartment to other side. I was only 4. I didn’t know about lying. I’m not mad that I said No. I guess I didn’t expect my father to have the reaction that he did. After this, I was taken from my nana’s possession and put into foster care. Obviously, the combination of two people who couldn’t successfully take care of their child raised the eyebrows of Child protective services I was taken from my Nana and placed in foster care at the age of 4.

When I was put into foster care, I remember being in multiple foster homes. I remember being brought back to ABC variety home In NYC (the one Kathy Lee Gifford started) like I was nothing. Like I was just some used toy that they no longer wanted. One time I had been taken in by this family who just had a new baby. They said I was a threat to their baby. That is a lie. I could have been a little jealous of the baby and the attention the baby was getting. That makes sense since all I ever wanted was the love and adoration of two parents, but harming or being a threat to a baby? I could never. I remember trying on the women’s shoes as a little girl just walking around in her big shoes. I just wanted to fit into a family, but maybe I seemed like too much work. I could have been jealous of the attention the baby was getting, but I would never try to hurt anybody even me as a child. They wound up taking me back. I was also taken by a young couple. They eventually brought me back too. I think they wanted a more ‘normal’ kid. I believe I had been traumatized and it showed through my actions somehow. I can’t remember them all. I don’t believe that people don’t have enough patience nowadays. It’s like when you go to a dog pound looking for a dog to take home. You obviously know that these dogs will require more love and attention than a fresh, new puppy. These dogs have a past. These dogs might have been hurt by their owner. Some have health issues, and some are old, but whatever the issue, you must expect that you’re not looking for perfection at the dog pound. It’s going to be WORK, just like anything worth happen. Many people are not willing to put in the work and that goes for many things in life. It’s never easy in the beginning, but once everyone gets used to one another, that’s when growth happens. That’s when life happens. When love and patience can walk side by side. That is a beautiful thing.

I was finally taken in by a much older couple, John, and Bethany. John was in his 50’s and Bethany was in her 60’s. Because they were so old, I referred to them as ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa’. Everyone else referred to them with these words too because they had kids that were old enough to be my parents. Off the rip, I was in an awkward situation never feeling like I fit in. So, throughout the story I may refer to Bethany and John as ‘Grandma’ and ‘grandpa’.

Bethany and John had a daughter (Helen) who had been doing drugs, so her daughter (Brittany) was taken from her custody and placed with Bethany and John. It was almost like I had another sister until I realized how unwelcoming Brittany would be and how she would never let me forget I was the black sheep as time went on.

When I first came to Bethany and John’s apartment building, John had flowers for me. I remember being cautious, scared, and feeling nervous. At 4 years old, I did not trust anyone. Everyone smiled in my face, but no one was ever able to match their actions with what they would say. Social workers didn’t know how to do their job. I was treated like an object and not like a little girl with feelings. I don’t remember anyone ever asking me how I felt. I never knew when people were being authentic anymore. I quickly learned that people are flimsy, and you can put more trust in an animal or a rock than a human being. Sometimes I wondered why people even became social workers.

After taking the flowers from John, I met Brittany in the backyard space. I remember trying to play with her dolls and wanting to engage with Brittany. I was 4 at the time and Brittany was 2 years older than me so she was 7 at the time if you do the math. I just remember her yanking the dolls away from me and I instantly felt unwelcomed. I just knew that my life moving forward was not going to be all sunshine and rainbows.

Around this time, I was still able to see my mother. It was an open case. My father went to jail for kidnapping me. He went to Rikers Island, so I couldn’t see him. My mother would bring me toys when she would come see me. She once brought me an old school typewriter among other toys as well. If she saw me not playing with the toys she brought me, she would call me dumb and complain that I wasn’t playing with them. I read in my file that she would often “stalk” ABC variety house. At the time, I thought this was strange but now when I think about it coming from her perspective maybe she was just scared about her daughter being taken away. Mental illness is scary. People would always tell me that my mother loved me, but in her own way. I would also refer to my father as ‘bad daddy’. This was all taking a toll on my mental health. I started to threaten to hurt the neighbor’s dog. I also used to defecate outside and rip the heads off barbie dolls.

Eventually, visitation rights were canceled between my mother and I and my behavior quickly got better. That was one demon in my life. The other demon were the foster parents that decided to take me in. Although Bethany and John were quite old when they adopted me, I was still willing and hoping to be loved by them. Deep down, I wanted the normal love that a set of parents give a child. I wanted to be tucked in at night or have a conversation at night in bed before I went to sleep. I wanted my hair brushed with tenderness by a loving mother, instead I got my hair yanked out of my head and thrown into an ugly braid because she didn’t know how to care for my naturally curly hair. I wanted a dad to teach me lessons about life and to tell me stories about when he was younger. Instead, I got a ‘grandpa’ who sat at his desk either playing computer games or watching war movies on TV. My grandfather would have my sister and I pick weeds, but vacation and going out to a restaurant was simply out of the question. My grandmother said she would never take Brittany and I out to a restaurant because of how ‘sloppy we were’. This is something she said to us all the way growing up and becoming teenagers. We never once went to a restaurant just the four of us or went on vacation. The only time we traveled anywhere was when Bethany and John’s grandson became a marine so we drove to North Carolina to see him graduate, but that could hardly be called a vacation.

When social workers would come to the house, my grandmother would often know before they came. She would always make a big fuss by making us clean and get ready. She was like Jekyll and Hyde. She would have an attitude the week before and then suddenly when the social workers would come, she would turn on the charm. She would brag saying, ‘Heather first came to us, her hair was so long and covered in lice! She was so unkempt!’. She was trying to show how much more she was taking care of me. Sure, I had a roof over my head and food to eat, but she was simply doing the bare minimum. There was so much more that she wasn’t doing. There were so many boxes she was not checking even though through her eyes she thought she was.

My sister and I shared a room when we first moved from the city to a small town in upstate New York. At first, we had 2 beds until my grandma decided that instead we downgrade to the kind of bed that has a bed under it. Of course, my sister had the bed that didn’t have to get pushed back underneath every morning. Many nights, my sister would have her boyfriend stay over late when I was in middle school, and she was in high school, and I wasn’t allowed to go in my room because she was obviously in there hanging out with her boyfriend. It seemed like there was so many more restrictions placed on me. I didn’t have a boyfriend and even if I did, I wouldn’t feel comfortable having him over my house. I didn’t quite like our house and our room didn’t even have a door. I don’t know why we couldn’t have just had bunk beds and I don’t know why my grandma let Brittany have her boyfriend over so late and I don’t know why she even wanted to hang out with him that late. I didn’t have the answers to many questions. My grandma always emphasized school grades, equality, and fairness, but she always just seemed more like a hypocrite to me. Brittany would even joke with Bethany sometimes and mess with her. I never felt comfortable enough to do that with her. I was more just fearful of her. She was an old woman who rarely smiled. She gossiped and smoked cigarettes in the dining room with neighbors that she befriended and her daughters who were now mothers. The older I got, I started noticing her character and started liking her less and less. I no longer saw her as my savior that took me out of foster care, but someone with a hidden agenda, someone who adopted me for other reasons than to love and care for a child. I stopped respecting her.

I noticed how Bethany and her two younger sisters all had a mother and called her mom. I was around them all often and I started calling her mom too. I wanted a mother. I loved how easy Helen was to talk apart from her own mother who always came off hard and cold. Helen came off very warm. My cousin and my sister's friends loved her and when she saw all the young kids, they loved her. She was always giving away a smile and a laugh. She drove around in her jeep smoking cigarettes and was in on all the inside jokes. She was known as 'the cool mom'. I remember this girl Melanie talking to me about Helen in the bathroom. It kind of hurt knowing that complete strangers got more love and affection from her than I did. The girl who she used to call 'daughter'. I felt our connection (if we ever had one) slipping. After this, I decided to forget about her and stop trying to make someone my mother who never was my mother to begin with. She would always say she had 4 daughters until one time we were in the street that she bumped into someone, and she said she had 3 daughters. She didn’t even mention me. I was yet again the black sheep and it hurt. After that day, I noticed how she treated the other girls and how I really was the black sheep. Little by little, I stopped calling her mom, but instead started to resent her. My resentment was obvious, and we would get into fights. At one point I loved her and feared her and would never want to fight her, but then I stopped being afraid of her and actually started fighting back. I loved that. I felt so powerful when I took back my power from someone who never deserved it in the beginning. I turned a peasant into a giant. The same way I started noticing things in Bethany’s character is the same way I started noticing discrepancies in Helen’s character. I saw an imperfect person who was unable to give me advice or love me in the way I needed to be loved. I had goals for the future, and I saw a person who had never been to college and instead found some man whom she didn’t even love to impregnate her so she could have his children. She always complained about her husband and about how she just wanted to separate from him and how she didn't want to live with him meanwhile he paid all the bills and always gave her money. The house they shared together was literally falling apart. When you walked in, it literally stunk. The kids would leave bowls of food lying around and all Dan's money would go to buying them toys and gifts all throughout the year. She was not in any position to help me. She didn’t even care about her own future or life, but instead leeched on to other people's lives. Her future was found underneath a man. I knew from a young age that I never wanted to depend on a man the way many women in my family did. I wanted to be a strong, independent woman with a college degree. I always wanted a career first before settling down with a man. I saw with my own mother how much damage is caused when you have a baby before you’re not ready. My own mother was not educated enough to have me. I believe God plans out every birth and I am grateful to be alive, but facts are facts. I believe my mom was working at Denny’s when she gave birth to me. She never had a stable career. Right now, she’s 65 and works as a store associate folding clothes at a Kohl’s store.

If you finished reading, thank you. There will be a part 3 up soon!