Chapter 10

I was now an official ward of the state.  Iowa would now have to pay for me to live.  I’m not sure how it is now, but at the time, the goal of everyone involved was to get me back in the home of my mother.  But my mother chose to stay in the home of my abuser.  My mother chose him.  Him.  With each choice we make in life, we leave another option behind.  I was the other option.  I was left behind.  I was left to fend for myself.  I had a few group therapy sessions with other young girls in my situation.  We would sit in a circle on the carpet in the therapy room.  I remember thinking “I’m not like these girls.”  They seemed beaten, broken.  I was certainly not broken.  I was ready to fight.  Fight anyone and anything that might stand in the way of my one day being normal.  I was going to be normal.  I was going to be happy.  I was going to be successful.  I was going to be rich and have all the Lee jeans and Nikes a girl could have!  One of the counselors always felt it was important that we girls knew the statistics of our situation.  Statistically, I should have become a prostitute, or had a child of my own before my twenties.  At 11, this information infuriated me.  How dare you seal my fate with your statistics!  After group therapy, I had to have individual sessions with Phil.  This was truly beyond belief for me.  I was very uncooperative.  Going back to that life was not an option.  I could not have been more clear with you people.  Now that I had finally found a way out, I was NEVER going back.  And I never did.  But as Dr. Seuss says, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”.  Doctor, what an understatement!