Dede's how ya doin' page
I want to let all of you know that
in my journey to my peacefull placement, I went
through hell and high water to get there. I have
been through so much in the last three years.
Luckily I happened to be close to the age of 18.
I am home now, living with my mommy
(yes, I still call her mommy) in Dilworth,
and I am finally enrolled into West Fargo High School,
where my sister Danielle goes. I am quite excited.
However, gaining all of this glory was very difficult.
I will tell you my story.
Chapter One
It started with chores.
*laughs* yep. chores. Who woulda thunk it?!?
It was the only thing me and my mother ever argued about.
I convinced her that I wanted to move out of the house
and try living on my own like she did at my age. By the way,
was 15 years old at the time. She finally decided to let me
move in with one of her apprentices at the time that lived four
blocks away. I moved in and all was going well. One day,
of the blue, A police officer (or The Shrew herself)
showed up at my mother's front door and tricked her into
signing unruly papers on me. A little while later, A police
and a Social Worker showed up at my apartment door, and asked
to pack up some of my belongings because I was going somewhere
else for a while. I packed up my things and was taken to
Attendent Care where I stayed for four days. I was waiting
them to put me in a foster home. I finally got into one that
happened to be not very far from my apartment and my mother's.
I frequented those two places very often. When the Social Workers
found this out, they freaked out and made plans to ship me
clear across the state. I woke up at 7:00 am in the morning
on June 24, 1999 to Leslie sitting in a chair next to my bed.
She told me about where I was going and told me that it was so
that I could be a kid again because she felt that my mother gave
me too much responsibility. Goddess forbid that a 15 year old
girl be a mature 15 year old! She told me to pack all of my
things. I did, and put them in the back of an unmarked cop car.
I was handcuffed and shackled in the backseat of this vehicle
and was denied any water or food, or bathroom breaks until we
there. Mind you, this journey across the state was almost 8 hours.
I was not given any air conditioning, in the middle of the summer
might I add, and was not given anything for the next eight hours.
I finally got there and immediately asked for some water.
Administration Building had one of those Culligan Man water jug
thingies in the break room. It was about five gallons big, and
half full. I drank it all. I was so thirsty, you would not
believe. I was lucky enough to smuggle in a bottle of Fruitopia
me in the back seat of the cop car, so when we stopped in
Dickinson and they went in to go to the bathroom and to pay
for gas, I drank most of it. I knew that we only had an hour
left of driving, so I thought if I drank all of it then, I would
be ok until I got there. I was, but I was still thirsty.
If I would have been on the ride in my conditions any longer,
I would have dehydrated. We got to this placement Facility
around 3:00 pm. I was placed there for reasons I still to this
do not know. I begged for them to let me call my mother, but
they wouldn't. Finally I talked to Leslie and she told me that
I wasn't allowed to talk to my mom because she didn't want to
talk to me. When my mom talked to Leslie, Leslie told my mom
that she was not allowed to talk to me because I didn't want
to talk to HER. So for the longest time, Me and my mother went
without speaking to each other because we were both told that
neither of us wanted to talk to each other. Finally, I begged
Leslie to let me talk to my mom, and she let me, but they had
to be on speaker phone with a staff present. I talked to her
and finally squared things away and found out that we were both
lied to. We set up a few visits where she could come to Home On
Th Range ( The name of the placement I was at) and have visits
with me, UNSUPERVISED! We chilled and It was great. The only
reason why they were UNSUPERVISED was because at the time mom
still had all the girls but me. Finally, on January11, 2000,
mom came with my fiance's sister, and took me from that hell
hole because Leslie was going to place me in a foster home
IN THAT AREA! NOT in Fargo or back home where I was supposed
to be. I wanted mom to take me away because I knew that if she
didn't, I wouldn't be able to see her for a very long time.
WE flew on the wings of Dragons all around the Country until
finally we settled in PA. During that time of Traveling, My
sisters were taken away from my mother, which was very
devastating for all of us. I think it was harder on my mom,
though. I did love my sisters very very much, but it was the
whole mommy thing that hurt the most. When we got to PA,
I talked my mom into letting me go back to Fargo with my
LOVE for KORN concert but ONLY ( And I mean ONLY) if I
stayed at my gramma's. I didn't. I didn't want to come home
at three o'clock in the morning and wake her up, so I stayed
at My love's sister's apartment. I was there for quite a while,
and that was when I got my FIRST TATTOO. It, of course, was
very crappy, but I thought it was the coolest because it was
free. It's the GODSMACK symbol around my belly button.
My Mom was sure ticked off at me for that one!!!
(but last week she took me to her friend...a professional
tattooist and had it 'fixed') :) She told me when she saw
it, that I should have gone to a real professional if I was
going to do something like that. I felt bad for not asking her
first, but I couldn't do anything about it then, so I just
apologized, and all was better. Not the same, but better.
Well, I sort of got stranded in North Dakota because my ride
back to PA bailed out on me. My love and I got onto the internet
and got all that situated with my mom. She was going to meet us
in Nebraska at a friend of hers' house. we did, and I felt a
little out of place because he sort of looked like Marshall,
and I had bad experiences with him. My love had to go right
away back to Fargo so we parted from there. My mom came and
picked me up and we stayed the night before leaving right away.
Our road trip back up to PA was the greatest time of my life!!!!!
We had so much fun! We played leap frog with the truckers, got
flashed by a female passenger of a truck, had some weird guy
follow us through a few states. Mom finally got along side a
big truck to block his view of us and he left. We stopped and
bought stickers for the car every time we stopped for gas. We
got to Ohio, and I decided to call my sister, who was still in
PA, and told her to call my love at home and tell him that
I would be home in a few hours and that I would try to get
online to talk to him. She called him. When we got back,
Dani and I decided to go rollerblading at the neighboring
trailor court. They had better hills for roads. :) We finally
got to the top at the entrance, and I asked Dani if there was a
road that came back up and around because I couldn't see around
the corner at the bottom. She said she was sure there was one.
I took this opportunity to gain some killer speed on my
rollerblades. I started down the hill, and I swear I was going
about 50-60 miles per hour. As soon as I turned that corner, I
noticed that a little ways in front of me, the road ENDED!! I
couldn't stop at that moment, so I kept going. When I got to
the grassy area, I thought that if I ran on it, I could stop.
I fell and rolled a few times. The tips of my rollerblades
caught on the ground and on my last role, I sprang up and
landed on my feet. I looked down at my favorite khaki's and
saw the massive grass stains. I looked at my WHITE tank top
I had on, and saw a little grass stain on it, but noticed the
huge grass stain all along my arms and chest. Dani came down
in her shoes and said she would have stopped me sooner, but
she was not going as fast as I was. She wanted to tell me that
she mistakened this driveway with another one. I didn't get mad,
in fact, I thanked her. I had just made history! To this day,
I still call it "The Great Fall" and Dani is the only one who
knows, besides mom, what that means without having to explain it.
Anyway, that was the only excitement I experienced throughout
these last three years. After we got home, I jumped in the
shower to see if I could wash off the grass stains. I got out
of the shower, went to my room, and while I was getting dressed,
the cops showed up at the house to get us. I finished dressing,
and the officer asked me to pack some of my things. I did, and
he took me to a placement facility where I stayed for three days.
Then they drove me to the airport. There, My sister and I were
handcuffed and shackled the entire time we had to sit in the
airport and on the airplane. When we finally got back, we were
taken to a Safe home, and were finally un-shackled and
un-handcuffed. Our shoes were taken away so that we couldn't
run away again. My sister was finally placed in a group home
in Bismark two weeks later on April 19th of 2000. She left at
6:00 in the morning. She made me promise not to run away while
she was there. I kept my promise. About 7 hours after she left,
I ran away from there with another girl that was also placed
there. We traveled to many places, and finally settled in at a
friend's apartment at the Flying J Hotel. We were there for
quite a while, but were caught and taken to attendent care.
We managed to stay there for six hours before we ran again.
we were on the run for three hours, if that. It was quite
humorous, though. We ended up at an old friend of mine's house.
I called my friend Joe to come and pick us up. Instead of coming
to pick us up, he called the cops on us and told them where we
were at. As soon as the cops showed up, we bolted out the back
door. We both were running down the alley out back. The girl
that had come with me got caught right away, but the other cop
that was chasing me was not very fast. I would stop to let him
catch up a little, then bolt off again, just for my own simple
humor before I got haulled off to where ever I was going. Finally
after the second time of doing that to this guy, I stopped to
finally be caught. We were taken to the Juvenile Detention Center
in Fargo. We were put in seperate ends so that we did not
interact at any point of our stay there. I had extreme
claustrophobia, and I ended up carving on my arms with my finger
nails to get myself out of that room. They sent me to Prairie
Psychiatric Center in Fargo, where I spent two and a half weeks
eating ice cream and walking in circles around the Living room
in the center of the facility. There was this green strip of
carpet that circled the livingroom.
Chapter Two
this chapter is still being worked on.
Please be patient.
