text: When I was 16, I attended my first Rumspringa and met some local boys. I met my my ex-boyfriend of 1 year that night. He was 20 and he had great teeth. We smoked cigarettes and listened to Jimmy Eat World CD's and ultimately he was the reason I left the Amish. He rented a room in a duplex in Cleveland and we struggled, but were stupid and happy. He'd stand up tall with his fingers all stretched out and I'd go in and hug around his waist. It was one of his sweeter gestures. I should also mention that I was adopted at 2. I had been abandoned in a park near a small group of trees. The temperature was so low that the morning a homeless man found me, that the police didn't believe he just *found* me, because I hadn't frozen to death. Luckily he had an alibi at a shelter and was later treated as a hero. When they found my Mother, per a tip of a local (she took me to this park regularly and someone identified her coat) she had a psychotic episode and scratched her eyes out. Well one, she damaged the optic never of the other pretty bad, but it's still there. When they told her I was safe she lashed out and "had a complete disdain for her baby". For my safety, she was institutionalized and I was fostered until I was adopted. My biological father was married and ended up going to prison after his wife found out about his affair which resulted in me. In a fit of rage, his wife lit his suits on fire and out of his own anger, he shot her. Killed her on the front lawn of their home. My ex-boyfriend was protective and always wanted to travel. He always wanted to explore national forests, but we didn't have a car ( I didn't know how to drive and he refused to go to the DMV). He said he grew up near a big wooded area when he was little, so it reminded him of home. "One day babygirl, I'm gonna take you home." I never did meet his parents. He got really clingy and got insanely jealous. He'd never let me leave alone and he kind of instilled the same anxiety living Amish did to me. We drifted apart and I had to break up with him in a crowded grocery store because I was so worried about his freak out. I had a myspace and on my friends was a girl named Hannah who was also ex-Amish. I messaged her and she said her and two of her cousins who are ex-Amish have an apartment. She invited me to stay a week, and when I returned home after the break up all of my belongings were in the the driveway (rather, what was left of them). And he was gone never to be heard from again. I sat with my belongings and cried until my neighbor offered me her phone. My cell phone was shut off but I carried it around for the numbers. Hannah and *her* neighbor came and picked me up. It was a tiny toyota turcel that smelled sour from being smoked in. We couldn't fit my bookcase obviously so I wished it Godspeed and we left. While Hannah was great, she was very into Amish ways still. She didn't like witches, or scary stories. Her cousin wanted to get a Hasbro Ouija Board that's packaging was all faded and cracked at another tenants parking lot sale (garage sale for apartment people) but she flipped out. Aside from chewing gum too loudly or getting too drunk sometimes, she was doing her best for a 19 year-old new in this world. One day she asked me about my birth Mom. I told her I didn't know anything about it and told her the story of how I was found. "Oh yeah, you told me this the last time you were here. That's fucked. Oh shit! sorry. But you know what I mean." She hit her newport and sipped out of a plastic tumbler. I could smell it, apple flavored smirnoff and ginger ale. "Are you gonna find her? Or like, do you wanna???" "Nah" I said. "I actually don't really think about her. I just never *connected* to other people like that. You know? Even my Mom and Dad, I didn't care that they weren't affectionate. I just never needed that kind of stuff. They think my Mom like abused me or something when I was small. Plus she's in that institution and plus I get major umm, whats that called....uhhh..... well you know when you can't breath well and your heart starts pounding in places like that. " "I know what you mean." She slurred a little. Six days later I was crying in a hospital bed having been 51/50'd by my new roommates. I had only remembered standing in the grass in one of those islands in the complex parking lot. Everyone was shouting but it was muffled. I could taste something metallic. And then I woke up as an IV was being inserted in my arm. From what I was informed by a very shaken up cousin of Hannah, I passed out on the patio and when I came to, I began screaming about needing to be in the forests and proceeded to make claws with my finger nails and shove them into my eyebrows. But before I could furiously claw myself, Hannah and some boy she had over held me down but I ran out to the parking lot. It was attributed to me being high and drunk and clearly having a breakdown of some sort. I wasn't allowed to live there anymore and I was really scared and alone. My mind raced because I knew I might've inherited some awful mental illness and this was going to be my life. I was evaluated for two weeks, and without any income, or place to go I had to move back home and atone for what I had done. It was not the warmest welcoming, but upon hearing what happened I was taken in sheerly for my safety. The days that followed made me feel more connected to my birth mother than any other memory I had of her. In fact, I had none. I was two when they found me, but I didn't have any dreams, or repressed memories of her. But something in me was disturbed. A sudden fleeting thought about meeting her hit me. Maybe it was forgiveness, maybe it was closure. I just, I only found solace when I thought of visiting her. Using what knowledge I had, and the passion I had, I decided to get back on my feet. I lied and hid English clothes in a haystack. I got a job at a supermarket (I used my old apartment address) and snuck off when I could. I was confronted about it and ultimately shunned. I had made some friends at my job and a lady named Julie let me stay with her. The nightmares got worse about my birth mother and I finally broke down. Julie helped me understand I was holding on to resentment and encouraged me to try exposure therapy; i.e. meet with my birth mother, forgive her, and make peace with it all. And since Julie had an life coach certificate on her wall that she got online, I trusted her. I first called the institution and was directed to speak with the lead psychiatrist and an 'action liaison' (this person just made sure you knew that you were entering a place for deranged criminals and how to behave etc.) Although I understood I could not have any physical contact with my birth mother, I was instructed what to do had she chosen to lunge at me. I was also told not to be alarmed by their appearance, as it was for everyone's safety that the patients are shackled in medical grade cuffs. I wanted to back out, but Julie had loaned me $100 to get there and back so it wasn't like I couldn't. It started eating at me that she could die, and I'd never meet her. As challenging as it was to want to meet someone who abandoned me, my gut urged me on. I had questions and her doctor verified she had been lucid for several years "on the right combination of medications". She had acknowledged that she had a daughter in sessions, and the doctor determined that meeting could be beneficial to her making a breakthrough. OR she could go completely batshit and lucky me, I'll have the same fate too but at least I know what medications might help me. So for the sake of my health I continued on. When the orderly led her in I stared at her as she shuffled to the table. Her red hair was being replaced with silver ones. It hung down over her mangled eye sockets and hands were soft and plump. As she placed her hands on the table for the guard to lock her shackle to it I saw that her nails had been chewed down revealing pink tips to her freckled hands. "Did you know I was coming" I asked? She didn't lift her head. "No" she said. "Why? Who are you?" she asked me inquisitively. Still, refusing to show me anything but the top of her head. I valued the distance between us and for a moment I felt like I had betrayed My Mom and Dad. I betrayed growing up in green fields and fresh air, and immediately felt sick to my stomach. This was a stranger in front of me and I had no reason to be there. That was my closure. As I consciously made the decision I needed to exit, I chose to blurt out "You, you are my....I am your daughter that you, just like, left. Do you know who I am?" She let out a high picthed whine, that turned into a cry that turned into a sob. And then, then she whipped her head back glaring back at me. She glared at me with her other working eye and as viciously and furiously as she could like a banshee "YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU ARRRRE NOOOOOOT MY BABY!!!!" She shrieked and bounced in her plastic chair. She was highly agitated and spitting. I followed what the liaison said and stepped away, put my back to wall and avoided eye contact. As they restrained her pulled her from the visitation room she once more and very clearly said "I know you. I should have killed you! I left you there. I want *my* baby!" Completely overwhelmed and nauseas I left and chose to get on with my life. I figured I'd see a therapist and ask friends to let me know if my mental states seemed off. She was clearly crazy, should not have had a baby, etc. But this does not have to be my fate. Until one day I received a phone call from her doctor informing me of her death, and being I made contact with her if I had any interest in claiming her body. I passed and before he hung up he asked me about her personal effects. "Well, what did she have?" I asked "Ahhh, let's see ahhh, a Journal and some crafts and stuff we did here with 'em. Sorry if you have no interest, just best policy to ask. My apologies." "Yes. Give me the journal." I said. I didn't know what I was going to find. It was red (probably faux) leather and had remnants of stickers she must of pulled off of it. On it were scribbles, but inside was much darker. It was dated near the time I had been found. Holy shit! Was this it? Her descent into madness before my very eyes? Maybe a confession, but, did I care? Of course I had to care?! I was so engulfed in this insane backstory the universe had dropped in my lap, I *had* to look through it. I found myself getting spooked and opted to stick it into my bag and go down the road to a crowded Starbuck's so as not to freak myself out. Unfortunately no amount of people was going to save me from what I was about to see. In this journal was multiple pages of messy cursive. I saw scribblings of demons and other crazy person stuff. But in one drawing she had drawn these trees and all of these tiny demons standing around the trees. She'd written "MY BABY" over and over again. It was eerie until I reached an entry that I can not unread, "1/16/89 I don't know this baby. I don't know it. I and I know he did it. I turned my back for a second and he took her. I know he did it. And what he brought back was not her. That thing is NOT my baby. My daughter had beautiful brown eyes. This child looks like mine, but her eyes and bright blue. No one! believes me." And then two photos fell out of the next page. One was a small baby. It was me. But it was not me. The nose of this child had a mole and her eyes were big and brown, mine are a distinctive blue/grey. And she was missing a small birth mark I had on my chin. I felt uneasy, and in the middle of starbucks, while trying not to puke and cry in front of these people over the idea of having a twin out there somewhere, I turned the other photo over. It was a photo of my birth mother, at the park by the trees, holding that little girl who is wearing a beanie with MY name embroidered on it . And standing on her left is a young man, the same young man I met at Rumspringa, my ex, the exact same age standing with his arms open, grinning, fingers spread wide staring back at me as if to say "Hug me". I hurried home and hyperventilated. I was sure my mental health was suffering. Say what you want but they were the only family I had and reached out to my Mom and Dad (adopted) who were still very much Amish. I wrote that I was afraid an evil force was coming for me and that I was so sorry I left. I admitted I thought I was being punished by God and begged for them to pray for me. I got a letter 3 weeks later from my Adoptive Mother and all it said was: " You should not have any fear for you have been baptized. You are a creature of God now; not the creature we received you as. Come home.