When I was about 15 years old, I was grounded, not unusual for a 15-year-old. I’m not even sure I remember what I was grounded for. Well I was pretty rebellious so I decided I was going to try to get out anyway. My mother wasn’t home but my father and sisters were. So I decided with all the common sense a 15-year-old had that I was going to climb out my parents’ bedroom window and hang drop from the front porch. I mean it made more sense to me because the front porch roof was quite a bit lower the back porch one.

So I climbed out on the roof and realized I probably wasn’t getting off the roof without assistance. So I enlisted a guy who was in the parking lot across the street to help me. Once I was finally down I turned to see my father standing there and he tells me to get back inside. Well I did but of course I argued the whole way. I just wanted to go out and do something. The next thing I know The police are being called. The cops come to the house, and then my dad and a cop come into my room and corner me. At this point I’m crying begging them not to take me jail. But all my cries were for nothing and both the cop and my dad held me down, with the cops’ knee in my back and they handcuffed me and then they dragged me out of the house and threw me in the back of the police car. It was off to juvenile for me.

I do not claim to have been the model teenager; in fact, I was a very rebellious kid. Tonight, this memory came flooding back to me and I was in tears. I’m so thankful that I have a husband who was here to hold me and help me walk through this painful memory. One of many I’ve had to deal with through my life.

Juvenile was a fact of life for me as a child. Many times from 13 to 17 I was hauled off to jail. If you were to look at my juvenile record you would see that most every single charge was for incorrigibility, with the exception of being charged by my parents for grand theft auto for taking their car joy riding for a day and a half. I’m going to be 41 this year and I still deal with so much emotional damage from all I went through as a teenager. I was the unwanted child. I was the one they didn’t like because I didn’t immediately conform. Because I misbehaved and did rebellious teenage things, I was a problem to be gotten rid of.

Those things I did weren’t because I was a horrible person. I was a rebellious child making childish choices. I survived my childhood despite the way I was thrown away into the system. I didn’t behave perfectly so it was cause to have me locked away with girls who were murders, who were perpetrators of assault, and armed robbery.

So now that I’m grown you have lost the right to say that you’re proud of me. You don’t get to claim any accomplishment for that. I survived despite you. And if you wanted me to speak better about you, then you should’ve treated me better.

Now I’m just