Florida Nightmare Part 2

This blog has been removed.

If you're interested in reading the original first hand account of the kidnapping, please check out the published book.  All proceeds from the book go toward helping to fight human trafficking.

Find the book here:
Detailed Pieces of a Shattered Dream

Thank you.

Florida Nightmare Part 1

This blog has been removed.

If you're interested in reading the original first hand account of the kidnapping, please check out the published book.  All proceeds from the book go toward helping to fight human trafficking.

Find the book here:
Detailed Pieces of a Shattered Dream

Thank you.

5 Saltine Crackers

Dinner tonight:

1 half sized can of Bushes baked beans, heated for 1 minute

- cost: .89

1 can of Spinach, slightly salted and heated for 1 minute 30 seconds

- cost: .39

1 glass of Skim Milk with an expiration date of 4-26-10

- cost: too long ago to remember.

Total cost: $1.38

Taste: simple, not at all complex.

Nutritional value: Better than my average meals of junk food and hot dogs.

Thing Most Appreciated: No Saltine Crackers in sight.

Why:

As I sit here drinking the rest of my milk before it goes bad, I think back on other times when food was such a rare commodity that I was lucky to get one meal a day that included anything green or that contained protein. Tonight, though I didn't have much to accompany my milk, I had both of those things.

It's no secret, I'm broke. Since I was robbed last year when my uhaul was stolen while I slept in a cosy hotel room, I've been fighting an uphill battle. I had to put gas in my car this morning, and that left me with a total of about $2 in the bank. It will actually get me by until I get paid again in another two weeks, but things are tight for now. I'm saving the freezer burned Lean Pockets and two Lean Cuisines for a special occasion at this point. I've challenged myself to see how long I can make my household items last.

I have plenty of soups, I have a couple of pita breads, a quarter loaf of stale wheat bread in the freezer, a can of chili, some frozen hot dogs, powdered creamer for my coffee (I just polished off the expired milk) and a box of unopened granola. I have plenty here to live off of for the next two weeks, no problem!

I know my cupboards sound a little bare to most of you out there, but at one time I was FAR worse off than I am now. At one time in my life, I lived off of a handful of Saltine crackers at every meal coupled with a glass of water, (if I was lucky) three times a day. That was living the good life!

I was 18 and had just escaped an abusive relationship with a 21 year old alcoholic man who never remembered the night before.

Things got bad... He made me give him every cent I made from work, or so he thought. He wanted me to just sign my checks over to him, but I told him that I could just get them cashed at work. My job actually did that for us. I would get them cashed each week and then take a single $20 out of my pocket. I trudged the stairs in the back hallway to the ladies room on the second floor of the Safeway on Bell Avenue in Scottsdale, AZ, and locked the door behind me when I went in. Then I would take the fake plant off of the top of the hand drier and set it on the bathroom counter. I had one particular spot in the plant I would pull on and Pop! the whole plant came out, attached to a square Styrofoam base. Then I would slide out the stick in the side that held the little trap door on the bottom in place. I stuck the $20 safely up inside the sticks of the fake plants, tucked safely into the hollowed out Styrofoam, placed the trap door back in place with the wicker sticks, put the Styrofoam base back in the pot, and placed the pot back on the hand drier. It took me a total of 4 weeks to find somewhere else to live. Since I got paid weekly, that was a whole $80 I had saved up!

The day I left, I went to work just as I always did, as though nothing in the world was wrong. I had been doing a good job at work and had even earned the right to move into the bakery from the bagging stations while they needed temporary help. I went to the ladies room at the top of the stairs, made a little withdrawal, and went back down to work. About a half an hour later I went on my lunch - and never returned.

They wondered where I had gone. I was always such a loyal and dependable employee. I had done so well, everyone liked me. I was eager to learn, willing to work hard and ready to take on the world. Then, POOF! I vanished. Nobody knew about the $80 I had saved up, even Phillip. It was guessed that I had just decided to quit, so nobody at work bothered to call anyone to ask where I was. When Phillip went to pick me up from work that night, I had a good 4 hour head start on him. There was no way he was ever going to find me... or so I thought. He was eventually my first stalker.

I searched and searched for work and couldn't find anything. I spent most of my money on interview clothes instead of wearing my shabby t-shirt and wranglers. The rest of it went towards food and my roommate for giving me a place to crash. I was staying with a Cerebral Palsy girl who needed help taking care of her companion dog, Scooter. I got to know the neighbors around us in the Superstition Apartments there in Tempe Arizona, and one of the guys in particular was a Supervisor at a place called QSM. Another neighbor who was looking for work decided that he would give me a ride down there as long as we could interview together. Away we went. My roommate had gone to visit her ailing father and there was no food left in the house. I needed money!

I didn't know what to think of Dan at first, but quickly grew to love him dearly. He and I were both hired right away, we didn't even care what the job was. We turned out to be telemarketers. What's the one thing people hate more than telemarketers? How about Door-to-door salesmen? I did that for a while a few years ago - but I digress.

I was young and eager, not yet jaded to the world. I attacked everything I did with fervor; a sense of urgency and purpose, constantly eager to do more. It just so happened that QSM didn't care how many hours an employee worked, just so long as they worked a minimum of 40 a week. I would OFTEN work 16 hour days, 7 days a week. At QSM we got paid twice a month, and when I was hired, a pay period had ended the day before. I was going to have a long wait for my first check.

Dan had borrowed the car from his girlfriend the day we went to interview. It wouldn't have done us any good to show up at the interview covered in sweat and red faced from heat exhaustion. QSM was only about 6 miles from the apartments, but in the Arizona summertime, that might as well have been 100 miles if a person were on foot. There were days it felt like that exact thing. Other than the interview, any time we traveled to QSM it was always on foot.

Dan, knowing how broke I was, sold plasma one day in order to buy me a box of Saltine crackers for the apartment and a bottle of Iced Tea to drink on the long, hot walk home. The sun was blazing overhead like a lighted torch, burning and scorching my flesh until each step would jar my skin into feeling like it would split open as a ripe melon would when struck with a hammer. I nursed that tea the entire 6 miles. By the time we got to the apartments, the tiny bit left was so hot I couldn't drink it anymore. I put the bottle in the fridge, waited for it to cool just enough, and finished the last 17 drops, one at a time.

I filled the glass bottle with horrible Phoenix tap water and popped that in the fridge. Then I opened my box of Saltines, took out about 10, and wolfed them down like I hadn't eaten in weeks. I grabbed 10 more and did the same with those. I picked the crumbs off of my shirt and licked them from my fingers. Anyone watching from the outside would have thought me to be a starved prisoner of war. Truly I had never known such hunger before that period of time in my life or since.

Smartly, I folded the cracker package and slid them back into the box. I stored the box in an empty desk drawer where I knew nobody would look. I resisted the temptation to eat more. I knew I had to make these last for another 3 weeks before I got paid. It wasn't going to be easy, but I knew I could do it.

I took a small sandwich bag of 10 crackers with me to work each day, tucked safely in my pocket. I ate 5 when I got there to keep up my strength and another 5 for lunch. Then I would walk home the 6 miles and eat the last 5 of the day. All day long I would drink water to give myself the false feeling of being full. Most of the time it worked, but sometimes I could feel the water slide all the way down my heated neck and make a massive knot when reaching my stomach. I learned in those few weeks not to drink cold water. Even now I'll ask for my water with no ice. The cold water not only hurts my teeth, but reminds me of the starvation I had to endure and the hard lumps that would take far too long to go away in the pit of my intestines.

Each day I walked that 6 miles to work, and each day I walked the 6 miles home. Each day I ate a total of 15 crackers (with a couple of exceptions on the days I would eat 20 or more) and drank close to two gallons of water. I went from being an already skinny 115 lbs to being a mere 88 lbs. Undressed, my ribs poked out, my knees wouldn't touch, my face looked tight and hollow, my fingers looked long and bony and my hair started to fall out in small putrid chunks. Sores began to develop on my scalp from malnourishment. My skin dried up, my freckles grew dark in contrast to my sunburned, scorched skin. Still I made that daily trek. Sometimes I would work 18 hour shifts just so I wouldn't have to walk home while the sun was still up. It didn't leave me much time to sleep, but back then I could survive on a little less than an hour, and often I did. Once in a while, on my days off, I would resist the driving force to walk to work anyway. I took two days off for that entire month.

At the end of three weeks, on the day the checks were supposed to arrive, I was a hollow shell of the person I had been when I arrived there a month before. They passed out the paychecks to everyone at work - except for me.

I welled up in tears. I had run out of Saltines the day before. I had nothing left to eat. I had carelessly dropped my iced tea bottle on my way to work, smashing the glass all over the road and loosing the precious water into the street. Without a check, there would be no replacement! There would be no rent or food. My roommate still wasn't back and Scooter was almost out of dog food. I went to the supervisors office and asked what had happened to my money.

"Are you on drugs," he asked me.

"What?! No!"

"I couldn't help but notice you've lost a lot of weight and you haven't been working here for very long. Are you in trouble?"

"No," I replied, "but I will be if I don't get paid!"

"Oh?" He asked, arching an eyebrow at me. "What kind of trouble are you in? Do you owe someone money?"

"I'm broke and I have no food. Please, I just need to get paid."

Seeing the desperation in my eyes, he pulled one last paycheck out of his desk drawer and held it across his desk, smiling with yellow jags that reminded me of a dirty picket fence. I reached for it and he yanked it back over his shoulder.

"How about this," he smiled a sinister grin, "I'll take you out for a good dinner and then I'll give you your paycheck."

"That's illegal" I said without hesitation. I knew exactly what he was doing, this 56 year old man... I wasn't going to have anything to do with it. I wasn't about to sacrifice my morals and my dignity for a quick meal and a one night stand. Instantly panic set in, though. What if he didn't care that it was illegal? What if my check 'accidentally' fell out of his hand and directly into the paper shredder behind him? What if I couldn't eat for another 3 weeks? I knew I would survive somehow, so I didn't bend. I took a breath and let my patience and clear mind kick in. I settled back in my chair, calling his bluff.

"I was just kiddin' Honey," he said in a snide, sarcastic manner. He held out the check again, I snatched it from his hand and walked out of his office.

"Hey," he called from behind me, "can I at least give you a lift?"

I liked him even less than I liked Saltines after that. Both had a way of leaving me with a dry mouth.

Stalkers, Killers and Scars

Occasionally as I sit at my desk at work, I'll hear a quiet, almost hushed tapping on the door at the end of the hall. I close my eyes and dread each tap, not knowing who it is or what they want. It could easily be James or Ricky, my two most current stalkers. I call them stalkers, but they aren't really. They're just overly obsessed grown up little boys with egos bigger than their IQ's. To develop into true 'stalker status' they would have to watch me continuously, threaten harm, try to cause harm and follow me home. Well, by my own definition, at least James isn't a true stalker. Ricky most certainly is. Ricky actually has gone out of his way to cause harm.

James (48 and married) one day last October decided it was a good

idea to corner me in an elevator and confess that he was in love with me. It wasn't love - I knew the signs. It was infatuation and the beginnings of obsession. I tried to put James in his place and failed miserably. I tried again and again I failed. Finally, I gave it one more go and wasn't very nice about it. He still comes around and tries, but he's never going to find me anywhere without back up if he's around, and if I'm ever alone I'll be packing some punch with me, and I don't mean of the fruit flavor variety.

Ricky (42 and married) turned out to be a real piece of work. I befriended him and he fell in love with me. I tried to help him and he took it to be returned love. He grew more and more

obsessed each day, each time he saw me. He developed scenarios in his mind, played out fantasies in his head that nobody else could see. When I turned him away in fear and anger, he tried to sabotage my career with my company. He told his wild fantasies as

though they were fact. He grew spiteful and vengeful. He continued calling me and sending me text messages daily. He would show up where I worked and wanted to 'talk' to me. I avoided him at all cost, for fear of my own safety. He told me that he wanted to move in with me and marry me. Enough was enough... once more I had to put someone in their place and things only got worse.

Things with Ricky are far from being completely over I fear. I know there is more yet to come, but just like James, he'll never find me unprepared for his worst.

When I was only 18 years old, I had a boyfriend who hit me. Instantly I grew scared, but knew that I couldn't leave because there was nowhere for me to go. As soon as I obtained an escape, I took it. I did what I had to in order to escape things from getting worse, and that meant walking away one day without a penny to my name or a thing I owned except the clothes on my back. It wasn't the first time I'd lost everything, and for those who know me well know that it wasn't the last, either.

Months later, having given up my entire life and started over without any bills in my name, somehow he found me. He called the phone belonging to the girl I was staying with at the time. He left a very detailed message stating where I was, whom I was with, what I was wearing, how long I was in the pool, whom I sat in the jacuzzi with and what time I returned to the apartment. The police were called and a full report was made. That was the last I ever heard of or from him. In that case, the law worked.

Why do people develop such obsessions? What turns a normal man or woman into a stalker? In most cases, unless the person is a serial murder or rapist, most stalkers don't have a previous case history.

While on a call setting a schedule to pick up my things from an ex after a break up once, I asked him what it was that made him snap. He had followed me to work and then waited for me to go on lunch. Then he walked into my office with a single long stem rose and a very

morose expression on his face. In a flat monotone voice, he asked the office secretary where I was. From the tone of his voice alone, she was frightened. She told him I was at lunch and secretly planned to call me the second he walked back out of the office and started to head for the elevator.

But he didn't leave.

"Is this her chair," he asked, spotting a picture on my desk identifying it as mine.

"Yes, it is. I'm sorry but you'll have to go. She isn't here."

"So this is her desk," he continued, running his fingertips over my

keyboard, the edge of the desk, the lip of my coffee cup, down the length of an ink pen laying flat...

"Y-y-yeah," she stammered, "but you'll have to..."

"You said that already" he said, cutting her off in that same, flat, monotone voice. "Don't worry. I'll leave. But I'll ask you to do something for me before I go."

"W-what's that," she asked.

"Tell her," he paused, the corners of his mouth lifting ever so slightly. He stood up, placed the rose across the desk in front of the keyboard, and looked back at the secretary with a steely cold stare, "tell her I was here."

As if that whole scenario wasn't scary enough, he then went downstairs and decided to wait for me to return from lunch. All of the elevators in my building were in the same place, so it wasn't hard to figure out how to find me. At some point I would HAVE to walk through the lobby on my way to the elevators.

He spotted me before I even reached the front doors and came running outside. As soon as I saw him, my heart jumped up into my throat and began to pound in my brain. My ears rang with the power of the reverberation of my beating, pulsing heart. I turned away from him and began to walk back in the direction I had come from. I could find salvation in the restaurant with my coworkers. I remembered that I had a friend on their way to see me to drop off my revamped resume, maybe they could help. My ex ran in front of me and I had to veer off to the left, away from the restaurant. He stepped in front of me. I turned around and headed for my office. My high heels prevented me from running, and had I taken the time to remove them I could have easily been thrown off balance and hurt. He jumped in front of me again and I turned around once more. Over and over he paced me, darted in front of me, yelled, screamed, cried, threatened and grabbed at me. People were everywhere - it may have been the only thing that saved me. They started to look, to stare. Who was this madman trying so hard to stop the girl on her way to work? And yet not a soul called the police.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the first number in my phones

memory, the person coming with my resume. He grabbed the phone out of my hand - but not before the person on the other end picked up. I yelled at the phone as he thrust it at me, yelling, asking who it was I was calling.

"Help!" I screamed at the phone. Then, as easy as sitting on the porch sipping a glass of iced tea in an Arkansas summer, I relaxed and continued the exhausting pace of walking back and forth along the sidewalk, waiting for someone to help me. I showed no panic, and in fact smiled, despite my abundant fear. That only angered him more. I didn't respond. I wouldn't look at him. I just kept walking.

Suddenly a large green SUV pulled up to the curb not far away from me. I turned my ex before he jumped in front of me again. I walked about three paces before I suddenly spun around. In spite of the high heels I took off at a dead run, grabbed the passenger side door handle and yanked the door open. I jumped in, slammed it shut behind me and locked it securely as I did. The green SUV tore off around the corner, squealing tires as we went. My friend had shown up, just in time.

I got a restraining order against this guy the following day. It wasn't even by choice, but was decided at work that if I didn't get one, I wouldn't have a job.

"I don't know why I did that," he replied. "I've never been like that with anyone else. I've loved people before, but not like I loved you. Like I LOVE you. Something about you disarmed me and threw me off balance. I felt the need to always be near you, to be with you, and that if I couldn't have you I didn't want anyone else to have you either. You belonged to me and to no one else. You were mine. You ARE mine."

I believe that people are made of an electric energy, hence the subtitle for my blog. We have this magnetic attraction to certain people, just as magnets have attractions and repulsions to

other magnets. Sometimes the attractions are stronger than others, sometimes the object of the attraction isn't attracted in return. Take the case of the magnet and the safety pin. The safety pin doesn't have any magnetic properties, but the magnet will still attach firmly to the safety pin, taking it wherever it goes. If you leave the safety pin attached to the magnet long enough, it starts to draw on some of its powers. Later, the safety pin will be attracted to other metal objects, whereas before it was not. Something inside the safety pin changed. It 'snapped' if you'll pardon the expression.

I think with the electric energy we possess, sometimes we can change something in the others around us, forming them into someone or something they aren't familiar with. In the case of my ex, he had never been a scary stalker type of person before. He had loved before, but he had never 'snapped' on someone before. Something inside of him had changed. Something inside of him, long dormant or previously non-existent, came raging to the surface, causing him to become someone else entirely. He transformed into an innert safety pin into a magnetic force, sharp, cold, precise and frighteneing.

People with no previous case histories, like Joe McArthur of

Duncanville Texas, can suddenly snap like he did in 1999. His wife left him for another man, and in a few months time he crawled on his stomach through an empty field toward her house. He carried a rifle and a Bowie knife. He shot and killed her mother through a window, shot her father, leaving him in critical condition, shot her new husband and left him in a coma, and shot her brother, leaving him paralyzed for life. Finally, after chasing her around the house in circles, he pinned his ex-wife in the bathroom. He took the Bowie knife off of his belt and cut her from stem to stern, gutting her like a deer. He left her there, bleeding in the bathroom floor.

With no previous case history, why would a man snap like that? There's really no way to predict who will do something like that. Sometimes it's the abusive man like the one I knew when I was only

18 years old. Other times it's the gentleman with the child-like temper, like the workplace incident I had. Often it's a woman, mad with jealousy, out of her mind with 'love', or her version of it, anyway.

In each case, the stalkers and killers leave scars. They may not always be visible. I've never been given a physical scar by an ex, thank goodness. I've been hit, smacked around, thrown by my hair and jostled, but I've fought back, refusing to succumb to the temperament and violent tendencies of someone else. No, all of my scars from previous relationships are internal. They're scars though, none the less.

Some of the scars will heal with time. Others remain just below the surface, and yet others never develop that protective layer. They are always on the surface, always raw to the touch.

The scars are marks of character for each of us. They are the reminders of life's many lessons. They keep us in touch with who we are and where we came from. Without them, I wouldn't be the same person. Sometimes I may wish that one scar in particular didn't exist, but if that were the case I wouldn't be as cautious. If I hadn't been burned by the Tupperware Fire of 1989 and lost the feeling in the tip of my thumb, I may have lost my entire arm in the Potholder Pyrotechnics Fire of 1991... the Tupperware made me more cautious.

Because of my past run-ins, I can handle James and Ricky much better now than if I'd never had that sort of a past. The scars made me just that much more cautious.

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

The Secret to Life

In 1991 a funny but poignant movie by the name of City Slickers was released in theaters nation wide. It made people laugh, it made people cry, and others were made to think about life in general. We all go through moments in our lives when we reinvent ourselves. The main characters in the movie tried to do this by having affairs with Grocery Store cashiers, running from two ton beasts with horns attached to their heads, trying their hands at being a cowboy, and learning what it means to do the right thing by finishing what you start.

Jack Palance's character, Curly, had a line in that movie that has resonated in my mind for many years. He was speaking to Billy Crystal's character at the time. He held up one finger and told him something I never forgot. The entire sceen is below, embedded from youtube.com for you to see.



So what is that "one" thing? Curly was right, it really is different for all of us. For Billy Crystal, he discovered what that one thing was. Curly never told what his was, but it was obvious even in this scene that he had already discovered his own. I think that was because Jack Palance himself identified with the character.

Jack Palance had discovered that one thing early on in his life. It wasn't the ability to act or having a career in Hollywood. Jack Palance was a Heavyweight Boxing champ, winning his first 12 matches by TKO. His boxing career ended with the beginning of WWII though, and after he was wounded in combat, he received the purple heart, good conduct medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. He never watched any of his own movies. He spoke 6 languages including Ukrainian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, French and English. He was a graduate of Stanford University. He had a cattle ranch with over a thousand head of cattle and yet was a vegetarian. He was a painter and a published author, and the father to three children. Jack Palance had peace of mind. That was his "one" thing.

Having peace of mind isn't easy to accomplish. It's not for the lazy or reckless. It's not for the judgmental, the selfish, the mentally weak or the physically strong. Peace of mind comes only to those who have obtained the peace of heart.

There are those out there who would disagree with what I'm about to share, and those who may agree with it. There are also those out there who may learn something, so please continue to read if you have an open mind.

The way I deal with stress is unusual to most. That is my "one" thing, the way I handle situations. That directly relates to my secret to life - less stress.

If something is bothering me to the point of feeling stress, I sit back and think rationally. If I can fix the situation causing stress, I stop worrying and fix the situation. Then I don't have a reason to stress. If I can't fix the situation, then I stop worrying because it's out of my hands and I move on to the next situation that I can fix and I don't stress. Life has managed to throw one curve ball after another at me and either I step up to the plate and knock it out of the park or I step aside rather than let it hit me in the face.

Patience is key. To sit back and breathe a moment helps me to clear my mind. I can feel the immense stress leaving my body with each breath I let out. I know right now that I have a trip that I can't wait to go on. Rather than wish the time to go by faster, I resolve myself to understand that the time will pass on its own. If I rush the time, I may miss out on the richness of day to day life that so much deserves to be lived. If I'm stuck in a moment that I would prefer to go by faster, I take a breath, let it out slowly, and think rationally. This will pass. This will not last. All things in life are fluid and constantly changing. I have lived through some of the hardest trials a person can endure and came out the other end a stronger and more determined person than ever. I can survive anything at this point, so why would I rush my way through things? I may miss out on an important moment that could change my life as I know it if I went through life rushing this way and that, not paying attention to the little details - the way the rose petals bend under the dew or the way someone's facial expression changes just by smiling at them.

When someone tries purposely to upset me, I turn off the negative emotions. They never did me any good anyway. I think calmly and rationally. In many cases, if the point was to upset me, the only thing it does is upset the pursuer. I make it obvious that they are not able to raise my blood pressure and that angers them more. The more calmly I state the facts with a slight smile on my face, the more angry they get, the more I find it humorous that I've once more succeeded in winning the argument by not arguing. They may grow as angry as they like to the point of yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs and yet I will remain stationary with a slight smile on my face. If I can fix the situation, I will. If I can't then I won't worry about it.

People confuse this rational side of me with coldness; contemplative, calculating cruelty. That's not it at all... it's patience. To be patient is to rule your own world.

I'm such a never ending patient person that I would rather be an hour early for something than have anyone wait 5 minutes for me. I am more patient than most and don't mind waiting. Because of that near phobia of being late, I've only ever been late twice in my life... once was to deliver my son. He was a few days overdue when he was born.

Patience and rationality have provided me with the control over my own life that I've searched for as long as I can remember. Even the moments of removing myself emotionally in order to think rationally about a situation can be contributed to patience. Some people think I'm too young to know what my "one" thing is, but I know already. It's different for everyone, but my "one" thing is patience. Through patience, all things are possible.








"One of the most important reasons for living is to do something - live outside of yourself and put together an idea, an idea that you want to explore and then complete... Awaken your creative sensitivities!"

- Jack Palance.

Despite All Odds

Each day I live with the knowledge that my parents are ashamed of me. Each day that passes I know they claim that they do not judge me, but rather disagree with the life I live. Each day I wake up, I know that there is so little they know about me and how I live. And - what is judgement if it's not a disagreement with how someone lives or what choices they make?

I'm a strong, powerful, self sufficient woman these days. Maybe I haven't always been that way, but things change. Even though I live each day knowing they judge me and 'disagree' with my choices, I don't dwell on it or think about it each day.

I live my life with purpose. I've tried to find meaning in my life, and though most of the time I can't find it, I know it's there. Yes, I look towards the future, and yes, I remember the past. I even share stories of my childhood - but I live in the moment.

For the first time in my life, I live alone. I have no roommates except for the cat. I watch what I want on TV, I eat what I like, I go where I choose and I fully support myself. I pay my bills on time, I parallel park my car on the street and I go for long walks when I'm having a bad day. More than that, I'm a good person.

My parents were convinced that I was sexually active when I was very young. I didn't loose my virginity until I was 17, and even then it was to someone they knew. My mother was at one time convinced I would marry the guy. She never knew about us. They were also convinced that I was addicted to drugs at about 13 or 14 I believe. I actually took myself off of Ritalin at 15 years old after an 11 year addiction. I imagine my unusual behavior symptoms at that time could be contributed to having withdrawals after being on a highly addictive drug for so long. I flushed the Ritalin daily. When they noticed the signs, I was taken to a shrink and put on Paxil, Prozac and Klonopin, which I flushed down the toilet each day. One night when they were angry at me for something (something I undoubtedly deserved their anger for) I went down stairs and FINALLY took the medicines I had been prescribed by the military head doctor. When they called me up to 'talk' to me, my eyes were dilated. They didn't believe that the only thing I had taken were the medicines I was told to take daily because they didn't know that I hadn't been taking them thus far.

Once or twice my mom would make me take the medicine in front of her. I tried to hide them under my tongue to spit them out later on, but she found them. I tucked them into my cheeks, but that failed too. On the days I actually took the medicines, I nearly passed out on the bus to school. I couldn't focus all day. I would grow paranoid and became highly reclusive. I skipped school because I couldn't stand the noise of people talking around me. I grew fearful of everything and everyone. On the days that I flushed the pills, I felt like a normal kid.

I lost a lot of friends during the time I was going through all of this. I also lost all of my possessions, having them taken away one at a time. A lot of people don't know the true story of what happened to me back then. I was living in a daily Hell and fought back every second. I knew I was strong enough to make it and I was Hell bent to prove it to myself.

Eventually I was taken out of my High School and put into the school for troubled kids. I focused on my art and writing, finding an escape in every day activities. I never sacrificed my own morals or beliefs in order to survive during the times I ran away, despite what my own parents believed and told others about me.

I was beaten and abused by a boyfriend at 18. They never believed me.

I was kidnapped at 19. They never knew.

My ex-husband was controlling and manipulative, depressing, appalling. They wouldn't listen.

I nearly starved to death once and got down to about 96 lbs., showing every one of my ribs. Anyone could count my spine beneath a T-shirt. I asked for help in order to survive and they said no. They wanted me to return to the abusive relationship.

I stopped asking for help or telling them what I was going through because I knew it didn't do any good. Likewise, I didn't tell them how well I was doing. I just decided not to tell them anything of importance from then on. Last year, I decided to try again and was disappointed.

Three years ago, the day Pete proposed to me, I didn't want to tell my parents because I dreaded their reaction. Something about that is incredibly sad. It should be a happy moment. I told my Dad and he grew very morose. He said something to the effect of knowing it was doomed to fail before it started. When I told my mother later on, her response was simple.

"Promise me you'll give the ring back when you break up."

There has never been much faith from either of them, and yet I've worked my entire life to prove them wrong. I've worked hard to prove myself right - that I can survive and be happy. Perhaps they have hope - but they have NO faith in either of their children.

More than a year ago now when I called them to let them know that Pete and I had broken up, they told me "we knew it was coming" when I expected just to hear "I'm so sorry to hear that." When I had my hair done for Extreme Makeover, the first words out of my mother's mouth after years of not seeing her were "Your hair is too dark" instead of "you look lovely" or "Hi". When I moved out 2 days after I turned 18 and they couldn't understand it, my father said that my mother gave me 6 months before I came crawling back to them. My father gave me 3 months. When I went to stay with them last year, my father told me "You had a good run of it, Kiddo - but you remember what I said. We always knew you'd be back." It's no bloody wonder I left again in such a damned hurry. There was no way in Hell I was staying there for a full year. The breaking point was when they threatened to kill Oliver or turn him out into the streets because he had gotten out of my room while I was gone.

I left in July of last year. I called for birthdays, I called on Thanksgiving - but something was amiss. Something was wrong. Something was broken and I couldn't fix it. Then my 30th birthday came and went without a phone call, without a card. It was then I realized that they had no faith in me, and equally no hope. Truly, they were that disconnected from me.

I've done better since that exact moment than I've ever done in my life. I have the highest salary I've ever gotten right now. I have a job where the people respect and love me. I have 9 people working for me that would do almost anything for me that I asked of them and a boss that speaks frankly with me out of respect and understanding. I have more at this exact moment than I've ever had before in my life... Self respect, dignity, humility and a loving understanding of the world around me. I have my cat. I have furniture, groceries in the fridge, a reason to wake up in the mornings and a passion for all things in life; past, present and future.

It's been a release for me, knowing finally, once and for all, that I do not have the approval, respect or understanding of my parents. I never will. That's not something I'm looking for anymore. For 11 years, that was my greatest mistake. I wasn't trying to figure out who I was - I was trying to be who everyone else around me wanted me to be. I wanted more than anything to be a success so that they would FINALLY be proud of me. Knowing now that it's something I will never achieve has made me open my eyes to new possibilities. Now, I am finally proud of MYSELF.

I have people who read my blogs, who listen to my thoughts and stories, who respect and love me and want more than anything for me to succeed. As much as I love each of you for that part of you, I have to tell you that the only person I have anything to prove to anymore is myself.

I don't know if I'll be the hero of my own story or if I'll perish as an unknown at the end of the final chapter, but I wish the world to know that I have truly lived a wonderful life full of happy and wonderful moments, love, laughter and LIFE, despite all odds.

Without You - song from My Fair Lady

Eliza (singing):
What a fool I was, what dominated fool,
to think that you were the earth and the sky,
What a fool I was, What an elevated fool,
What a mutton-headed dote was I!
No, my reverberated friend,
you are not the beginning and the end.

Professor Higgins (speaking):
You impetant hussy! There's not an idea in your head or a word in your mouth that I haven't put there.

Eliza (singing):
There'll be spring every year without you. England still will be here without you.
There'll be fruit on the tree.
And a shore by the sea.
There'll be crumpets and tea without you.

Art and music will thrive without you. Somehow Keats will survive without you.
And there still will be rain on that plain down in Spain,
even that will remain without you.
I can do without you.

You, dear friend, who taught so well,
You can go to Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire.

They can still rule with land without you.
Windsor Castle will stand without you.
And without much ado we can all muddle through without you.

Professor Higgins:
You brazen hussy,

Eliza (singing):
Wihtout pulling it the tide comes in,
without your twirling it the Earth can spin,
Without your pulling it, the tide comes in
Without your twirling it, the earth can spin
Without your pushing them, the clouds roll by,
If they can do without you, ducky, so can I
I shall not feel alone without you
I can stand on my own without you
So go back in your shell
I can do bloody well
Without...

Professor Higging (singing) interupts:
By George, I really did it,
I did it, I did it,
I said I'd make a woman and indeed I did,
I knew that I could do it,
I knew it, I knew it,
I said I'd make a woman and succeed I did!

(speaking)
Eliza you are wonderful

(Eliza)

Goodbye Professor Higgins. You shall not be seeing me again.

Hair-Story

I often get questions about my hair these days.

People ask if I've ever had long hair, or if I have always had short hair and ever thought of growing it out. I often try to explain the lengths of my hair over the past decade, but at this point it's been short for over 6 years and I'm quite used to it. Don't get me wrong, I've often thought of growing it back out, but each time I try, it gets to my collar of my shirt and starts to bother me. I think if I could get it past that point, my hair would survive. But yes, I've had very long hair most of my life.

(See left and below).

I had short hair as a kid once... and was teased for it

mercilessly. I had gotten the idea after the movie "All Dog's Go To Heaven" came out after the character Ann Marie (see character on the right). My hair was long and constantly tangled. Mom and I decided it was time for a hair cut, so she put it all in a pony tail and braided it down. Then she put it in another ponytail at the bottom and chopped away. The braid was removed and put into a plastic bag for my father. He still has it somewhere.

Mom cut it off at such a crooked angle that we really didn't have many options. It was either the "Ann Marie" cut, or short like a boy's hair cut. I had gone through that in Kindergarten and earned the nickname George (I'll save that for another day). I really didn't want to go through that again, so Ann Marie it was.

Several years ago Dad retired from the military and got a job working on the base painting missile trucks. One of the guys that worked with him had a very long ponytail nearly the same color as my hair. He had the brilliant idea to take that ponytail with him to work one day. He then grabbed a pair of scissors, held the ponytail in one hand and the scissors in the other. Then he tugged on the guys ponytail, sliced a bit off of MY ponytail, and held my ponytail out for the guy to see it. He said the man's eyes got as big around as saucers and he started to scream. He reached back and discovered his own ponytail was still in tact. I'm sure he wanted to kill my father for that one.

When I was 17 my mother pulled me into the bathroom and dyed my hair blond. She told me that she had never really liked my hair color. It went to a bright carrot orange, so she dyed it blond again and it came out Strawberry blond.

That summer I got my first ever modeling job, working as a Runway Model at a "Back to School" fashion show on the military base. I was shy, but that job started to bring me out of my shell. Several years later when I moved to California, I found myself working with a photographer during my first photo shoot ever (see above). The photographer, Christopher, was rather inexperienced and this was the best picture we got from the shoot, but I've always loved this shot.

I've had several different colors used in my hair over the past few years. To the left is a photo of me right after the Extreme Makeover show cut several inches off of the bottom in 2004. They feathered it along the sides and gave me bangs after giving it a rich chocolate brown color. I didn't have the heart to tell them, but that was the exact same haircut I had in 1998, and I had cut it myself. Even the color matched the old photos of my hair from 6 years before. It just wasn't enough of a change for me.

In the mean time, I had gotten married. My new mother in law had once been a very talented hair dresser before a car accident messed up her back. She couldn't do it all day anymore, but a hair cut once in a while didn't hurt her. I asked her for a big change - and she obliged. We cut it off rather short, had it layered and feathered around my neck, and tried to color it back to red. It was so dark from the Extreme Makeover show that it really didn't take, but I was so in shock over the length of my hair that I wasn't focused on the dark color. It was an alien feeling, running my hands through it and finding my fingers slipping free just at the neck.

People seemed to think that the dark color suited me, so I stuck with it for a couple of months. I stuck with the length too, but having to put it up in little poofy pigtails I called Panda Ears in order to work food service was rather annoying. I decided once more that it was time for another change. I went back to Sue and asked her to cut it once more, this time to get rid of it all.

If I hadn't cut my hair the last time I never would have gotten any of the modeling jobs I ended up with. The short, red hair suited me, but was also edgy, pixie-ish and feminine with my facial features. Immediately I was picked up by several photographers for my unusual look. I was a rare thing - a girl with short hair, a girl with red hair, and a girl who didn't look Butch because of the length. Richie Bravo was the first photographer, and within days I was working with several others, including Jack Fleming Photography and D'Jef Photo Styles. Fleming has since made quite the name for himself.

I've played around with my hair a bit, trying to grow it out and then deciding to chop it all off again. I've had bangs, I've had

none. I've gone from brunette to blond and then back to red again. I've played around with my hair a lot, but pretty much consistently for the past 6 years it has retained this primary style and color, just with a few minor variations. I even tried the "Ann Marie" thing again once... and decided that it suited me even less in

adulthood than it did when I was a kid. It was a very short time

before I let that one grow out and got rid of the Duck Tail.

My hair has always been a way of expression for me. People tell me that I should grow it out, that I should cut it off, that I should do this or that or get a perm or get extensions or shave my head. Well, it's my hair and I do what I like with it. It's a part of me and I'm grateful that I even have hair. I'm glad I have a way to express myself and my own personal style without resorting to something like tattoos or piercings.

And now, I've done this style for long enough...

I think it's time for another change.