It's Not About Me

It was 1954, I had been caught with a bag of stolen peanuts in my desk at school. It wasn't long after they had found them that I was seated in the principal's office. A police woman who was talking with me had just told me that I was going to the detention center. I will never forget that day. Not one time was I offered the chance to speak to my grand parents who had raised me. I burst into tears and was whisked away into a car and to Juvenile detention. In court I was informed that I was to be sent to a place where I would remain for one year, a big lie.

In a matter of a couple weeks I was in a bus on my way to the Girl's Training School in Adrian Michigan. There would be my home for nearly three years. In that time I learned that the feelings I had experienced for my own sex was something shared with me by not a small number of other girls.

Yes, I had felt that there was something quite different about me at about age eight and I also felt that this was not something to talk about with my grandparents or anyone else for that matter.

In the training school a person's hunger for affection and for someone to love them became the single most needed fulfillment in life. To be held and told that all would be o.k. Told that you are loved and to feel the warmth of a kiss. These were things you read about but never experienced without sneaking them.

During my adolescent years there had been molestation by men who were close to our family and even one that was part of the family. He was put in charge of my care for a short time one day and took advantage of this to force me to give him oral sex. There was the time my "sister" brought home her future mate and he toyed with my private parts and attempted to have sex with me. And there were many others.

My starvation for hugs and love didn't help in these situations because I encouraged them. This in no way excuses the actions of adult males but just so the whole story be told. The "sister" I mentioned above I found out later just happened to be my mother. She had been a fifteen year old girl when she became pregnant with me. This was a very shameful and disgraceful thing back then so she had me and handed me off to her parents.

Back to the training school.

When I first arrived there at the school I learned how a person loses their privacy so completely. There was physical exams during which a "doctor" would do horrid things to me and laugh at my upset. There were matrons who had about as much empathy as a floor mop. We were locked in our rooms when not on a work detail and had to use a pot for a toilet at night. We lived in what were called cottages and these held around thirty girls in each. We lined up in the morning to empty our pots and take water back to our rooms for bathing. It was somewhat of a nightmare.

In the three years that I spent there I had numerous close encounters with other girls. None of them wound up in bed because we were watched very closely. There were notes and an occasional bit of kissing and fondling that went on but no sex. One thing sure though, I was definitely turned on by the kisses and fondlings. Sex came much later.

I got into many disciplines because of note passing and so on.

There was one foster home. That turned out to be unbearable for me and I ran away only to end up back in the training school again.

To Be Continued