Finding my sister

[auban]

So, I have told some of the people here a little bit about how I found my sister, and a lot of them expressed interest in hearing the story... so here goes. Be forwarned, it may be long.

 

Anyway, I guess I should start from the beginning... my mother grew up in an abusive home. Her father used to tell her that she was worthless, stupid, a total failure, etc, all the time. And, as if that wasn't enough, he used to beat the crap out of her whenever he got angry. Which was pretty much nightly. When she was fifteen, he began to regularly kick her out of the house and then call the cops and report her as a runaway when he felt like beating up on her again. The cops would find her, and drag her back home.

 

In order to survive on the streets, she basically started sleeping with guys. Pretty much lived as a prostitute, sleeping with anyone who would feed her and give her a roof over her head. She quickly got pregnant. At the age of sixteen, she gave birth to a healthy little girl, but gave her up for adoption because she was afraid that her father would take her daughter and make her live through the hell that SHE had to go through. A couple years later she met my father, who asked her to marry him at the end of a one night stand. She said yes, and the next day he left for basic training in the airforce. When he got back, he married my mother, who was already pregnant with my older brother.

 

They are still married today.

 

Throughout the years, she would often talk about how she misses Cory lynn, the name she gave to her daughter. She always called her Cory lynn, though she didn't know what name her adoptive parents gave her. She would often wonder how she was doing, did Cory have a good life, did she make the right choice, etc. She probably would have looked harder in those earlier years, but while my father was away on TDY, my grandfather took to harassing my mother. He would show up unannounced, criticize her parenting skills, threaten and sometimes attempt to take me and my brother from her. He called CPS on her constantly. To make matters worse, my father left for a TDY, 12 months away from home. He had been sending his paycheck to my grandfather's residence, a dressed to my mother, since they didn't have a place of their own yet. My grandfather pocketed the cash, even though my mother quickly found a place to live. Back then, with my father bouncing around the world, mail was slow. She was hospitalized a few times for malnutrition while trying to keep us fed before my father found out what was going on, and fixed it. My grandfather would track her down and attempt to tell the hospital staff that she was on drugs, and that my brother and I were in danger, etc. Anything he could do to take her kids away. Needles to say, I don't have fond feelings for my grandfather.

 

I guess I was about twelve when I started searching for my sister. This new thing called the internet... I figured that she might be using it too, so I started looking up websites for reuniting adopted children with their birth parents. At the time, my mother was still terrified of her father, and we had recently managed to disappear, so I never created a profile that could possibly lead him to us. My father had gotten out of the military and vowed to protect her from her father. After he got out he learned just how terrible my grandfather really was. It was his decision to vanish. That was about the time that my mother started to get abusive...

 

While she was finally safe from her father for the first time in her life, she never really was able to face her own demons. As an escape, she would often fantasize about Cory lynn, talking for hours about what it would be like to hold her again, tell her she loved her, etc. I came to envy my sister, since my mother very rarely had much kindness or approval to send my way. As much as she hates herself for it, she started to criticize my brothers and I in very much the same way her father criticized her. Every once in a while, she would get angry enough to have a momentary lapse from reality. Getting physically attacked by mom was a thing my brothers and I learned to cope with growing up...

 

Every time my mother started talking about Cory lynn, I kept thinking that maybe if I found her, my mother would be happy. Eventually I realized that that kind of thinking was naive, but by then, it had become a habit to scour the internet for her on my off time. My mother even hired private investigators to track her down, but none of them were successful.

 

Eventually, I left home, joined the army, and met and married LittleAki. And, as it seems to happen, I married someone who had issues that resembled some of my mothers issues. Being that I had a lot of conflict in my marriage, I often found myself with a lot of time with a wife that was angry with me and wouldn't talk to me, so I went back to my old past time: search for Cory lynn.

 

Then, I suffered an odd episode of nasty luck: I got a concussion from a bad jump(airborne ops), did a crossfit competition, and ended up in the hospital dying from multiple organ failure due to exertional rhabdomyolysis. My heart stopped a few times, while I was conscious, and doctors started to declare time of death... it was the closest thing to hell that I can think of. To know that I have no second chances, and I had wasted my life living in fear and chasing illusions. After that, I started to change. I mean, really change. My whole personality changed.

 

Long story short, that event was enough to wake me up. That's what it took for me to fully accept myself, and in turn to fully accept LittleAki. I stopped searching for Cory lynn.

 

For the first time in my life, I felt like I didn't need to prove my self worth. I didn't need anyone's approval. I just needed to accept myself. And then I deployed to iraq.

 

This was still in the early days of my transformation, and I had not quite gotten aki to accept herself yet, so iraq was kinda tough. Aki was suffering terrible anxiety and depression, and was even hospitalized. I even received a red cross message, with doctors requesting that I come home early. And then, while that was happening, a close friend of mine was killed by an explosively formed projectile, a kind of roadside bomb that shoots out a copper bullet that rides a jet of plasma through pretty much anything. And everything. Including soldiers.

 

With all that going on, I felt kinda numb. When I got a little down time and an MWR with internet, I went back to my old past time. I searched for Cory lynn. I must have browsed thousands of sites. Each time I found a name with a birth date that matched, I searched social media until I found pictures and compared their facial structures with those that my mother and brothers all share. One day, I found a woman who looked a lot like my mother. She had gone by a few different names, and had been arrested several times for meth.

 

By the time I found her, I had already tried to contact the adoption agency that my mother worked with, but all of them were old at the time and had since passed away. The adoption records had all been destroyed in a fire. My mother was the first girl helped by that particular adoption agency.

 

I contacted the woman and we exchanged details. Yep, she knew the name of the adoption agency. Yep, she was the first girl adopted through the adoption agency. Yep, she was Cory lynn. I had found her.

 

And she had a daughter. Now, I guess this is another story, but I'll briefly mention it here: my mother ended up getting custody of my niece because my sister was in and out of jail. My mother treated my niece terribly, I managed to get proof of it, and now my niece lives primarily with LittleAki and I. She is a typical teenager, but we love her to death.

 

My sister put herself through rehab, completed it successfully, and is now in the process of severing the ties that kept her bound to her old life. Her husband left her years ago, her ex boyfriend is back in jail, and for the past year, she has shown that she is fully willing to get her life back on track. And I couldn't be more excited for her.

 

So that's the story(short version, really) of how I found my sister. And my niece.

Edited August 1, 2016 by auban

[Mrbeardman]

Thank you for sharing such a personal and emotional journey.

[omgkate]

Wow. Things happen in thier own time for sure. Beautiful story.

[littlebylittle]

Wow. I hope you and your close ones will break the cycle of violence and live a happy life. Also, thank you for sharing this story with us. This is something very personal, and also meaningful and I appreciate it.

Edited August 1, 2016 by littlebylittle

[Magi]

I hope for the best for you and your family.

[auban]

my brothers and i have worked to avoid making the same mistakes as our mother.  we dont like to get angry, and even when we do, we dont do anything rash.  we go calm down.

 

 each of us managed to find ways to get away from her as much as we could growing up.  i would say the biggest issues that it caused us was self worth issues.  after devoting an entire day doing nothing but furiously trying to make the house spotless, we were never thanked.  our mother just found something wrong(she ALWAYS found something wrong) and then she would use that as justification for her anger.  it could be a stain, a sock i missed that meant i half assed the laundry, the cup i just drank coffee out of that meant i half assed the dishes, etc.  

 

i used to get anxiety from tasks, and felt overwhelmed, and instead would often procrastinate until it was an even more overwhelming task.  nowadays, i just plan out how im going to accomplish whatever it is i need to accomplish and do it.  my parents actually came and lived with us for a while when their business failed.  that was how i got proof of my mothers abusive behavior.  i recorded it, with her knowledge.  i guess my mother decided that she would push my niece to do something rash so that it could be on record.  instead, my mother worked herself up into a frenzy and physically attacked my niece.  when they finally left our house, they left my niece with us.  that girl started to blossom like a flower over night.  grades got better, she started excelling at martial arts, she calmed down and started to actually smile, etc.  

 

fortunately, my mother can no longer deny her abusive behavior.  she had always maintained that she never abused us.  well, when she started to tell family members that my niece hit her first, started the fight, etc. i just pull out the recording and set the story straight.  it hurt when she used to do that to me.  it infuriated me when i saw her doing it to my niece.  

Edited August 1, 2016 by auban