Don't forget award winning Journalist, Liz Welch, "The Kids Are All Right" sharing her family memoir based on losing their parents 3 years apart! May 16th 4-6pm Mount Kisco Public Library!
RSVP!!!
free event to the public, (refreshments)
while I am embarrassed to show this picture, I want you to look closely at how thin I was, how my hair had fallen out - I first came into foster care around 5 but I came to the suburbs, (my first "foster home"), around 6 and then to this home around 7. As you can see I was extremely thin the first years, I had came malnourished and SO hungry!! It was due to my birth mothers addiction that we would often be left alone to fend for ourselves, which resulted in eating only what we could find!
Don't be sad for me, I made it through! I wanted anyone who is in a bad situation now and think you can't survive, You can - you are a winner! Sometimes we have to go through bad experiences to become who we are!
If I had not been given away by my mom due to her addiction, I would be less likely to have a need to be an advocate for foster kids!
I am grateful God spared my life and even though I was abused at a young age by two foster brothers in my foster homes, (one went to jail for 7 years for abusing a 15 year old from the school he worked at and " his 4 year old niece, (who he really served no time for because he "told" what he did to her...so much for justice).
You can look at things and be sad or be thankful for how strong it made you. I have to remember that I had a host of other foster brothers - that were great! I also had my brother with me until I was 18 and signed myself back in to girls residence in NYC! I want you to view your "problems and challenges" in a different light from now on - pull out the positive and process, talk about and release the negative effects!!
By speaking of the good that came out of the bad, you minimize the pain and sadness that can come from being abandoned, abused and neglected!!!
God bought me through this for something!! Yes, I was born to a mother with addiction issues - I'm blessed she did not abort me!!
Yes, She went so far into her addiction, she neglected us and chose to not show up, losing her rights" - but she could have left us in our no lights, no food, no interaction with people home, and we could have burned down the house by accident, (that almost happened when my brother took matches to the curtain, thank God my sister was washing my hair and next to water!!)
Yes, I had to move around for my first 7 years and live with mass amount of mean kids who teased me - but I still was able to go to Paris and become a runway model! (I had the last laugh)
and Yes, I faced homelessness, being attacked outside a village park randomly, being hospitalized - left for dead, and becoming a mother at 23! But I could have been dead from the first two and becoming a mother actually helped me get the therapy I needed to heal from being abused and being left in an orphanage at a young age!
The point is: Nothing happens without reason! IF you are lucky to survive, God had a lesson for you to learn and grow from OR teach others!!
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop complaining about negative things in your life FOCUS on the good people, get out and see new places and remember life ain't nothing but a learning experience for us ALL, rich, poor, black, white - everyone must learn or go through something!!
You are blessed and I am thankful today looking at this picture (60 pounds later, lol), that I have food, some of the same friends from that class and grade! and I found people who love me and I am truly happy!! Find your happiness in the pile of life!!! xo
Tanya
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If you are looking for a sibiling that was adopted please leave me a post..maybe we can find our sibilings here..i am looking for baby brother Mark who was adopted to a family of doctors in Elmsford,NY in the 1970's he was born oct 6th 1970/71..reddish hair, freckles..would look like chris brown with age progression..post any thought u may have!!