January | 2013 | Losing Emma

(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now attending Piedmont college in Demorest, Ga. She has been telling people she is engaged to a boy she met on line, Tyler Buchheim, an architecture student at Notre Dame University, originally from Liberty Township, Ohio.)

Emma Turns on her Dad

Around the time Emma came up with the rape story, we were having problems with Emma at home. She did what I considered the typical teenage things, treating Phill and I like we just weren’t cool, weren’t “with it,” we were an embarrassment to her, etc. Emma did this more so to her dad than to me, usually trying to make me an ally when she made fun of her dad. He was a “dork” a “nerd” a “geek” and I would remind her how handy it was to have a geeky father who could do just about anything with the computer that she liked to use so much. I let her get away with some of her talk because I did think she was a normal teenager, but I put my foot down when she went too far. Emma would speak poorly of her dad for not finishing college and for being a truck driver, saying things like, “All he does is sit on his butt in a truck all day.” Phill may not have a college education, but I always thought he was one of the smartest people I knew.
I would tell Emma that I would not listen to her speak that way about her dad. I reminded her that her dad made a good living, we had a nice home, and because he worked so hard (Granted, I was working when we bought the house, so I should get a little credit too.), I got to stay home with her, drive her to all her activities, and homeschool her.
Sometimes Phill was really hurt by the way Emma treated him, and he was a little envious of my relationship with Emma. We could argue like cats and dogs, but I was the one she wanted to talk to, cuddle with, seek comfort from when she was upset, etc.

Emma became much more vicious to her dad. She would hug me and make a point of not hugging him, and then give this little smirk like she was pleased with herself. She would say, “I love you, mom.” emphasizing the “mom” in front of Phill and act like he wasn’t even in the room. Sometimes, you could tell by her tone that she was trying to make it obvious that she was saying it to me and not him. Other times, she would come into our bedroom to say goodnight to me, and again, ignore Phill completely unless one of us said something to her about her rudeness.
When Phill was on the road, I tried to talk to Emma. I knew Phill was upset by the way Emma treated him, and it hurt me to see Emma treat her dad this way. He did nothing to deserve her rudeness and her wrath.
Emma and I got in many arguments when I did try to talk to her about the way she treated her dad. She said some horrible things about him. She told me she just didn’t like him and that she didn’t like him touching her or hugging her. This bothered me because we had always been what I would call a very touchy, huggy family. Emma probably hugged me 15 times a day. If I was in the kitchen and she walked through, she would stop and throw her arms around me. When we watched television, Emma would lean against me, snuggle up to me, or hold my hand. When Phill was working, she still wanted to have a “slumber” and we would usually watch some tv or a movie in our bedroom, and Emma would sleep in the bed with me.
Then Emma said something pretty bizarre. She told me that her dad called her a “bitch” and a “slut” every day. I was shocked and argued vehemently with her over this. I knew it wasn’t true and was not going to tolerate her saying such a thing.
There was one time when Emma was teasing Phill, and he was joking back with her and imitated Gilda Radner and said, “Bitch” in a high pitched voice, and then we talked about Saturday Night Live and he went on line and showed her some of the old SNL skits so that she could see the character he was referring to, and Emma knew it was a joke.
Emma continued to argue with me several times over her “bitch” and “slut” comment, and she told me that she had talked about it with her on-line friend, ”Lacey”, and her other “best” friend, Kayla Benefield, a girl Emma had met at church camp several years before, but only saw once or twice a year at most.
I was pretty angry that Emma would say these things to other people when I knew it wasn’t true.

Looking back at the way Emma was turning on her dad, I wonder if she was going to accuse her dad of abuse, but she knew she couldn’t get away with it with me, so that’s how she came up with the priest story. I defended and stood up for Phill when Emma turned on him. It’s a shame he couldn’t return the favor when I needed him to be there for me. I wonder how he would have reacted had he been the one falsely accused.

(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now attending Piedmont college in Demorest, Ga. She has been telling people she is engaged to a young man named T. Emma does not care who she hurts to get what she wants, and I hope for T.’s sake, Emma gets some help before she gets married. )

Why would a child make up a story about rape? Let me give you some details of what was going on with Emma in Dec. of 2010, when Emma made up the rape story about on on-line friend she had never met in person. Could all this have been over a boy? Read on and see what you think.

On Emma’s 16th birthday, her dad and I went to pick her up at her church youth group. Upon entering the parish hall, Emma ran up to me to tell me that her on-line friend from an English class pen-pal project had called her during her youth group meeting. Emma claimed that the friend, whom I will call “Lacey”, called Emma from the hospital after being raped. Emma was so shocked and shaken up, I really believed something had happened, but the whole thing seemed so bizarre. Emma went off with her friends, and I talked to one of the youth group leaders for a few moments, sharing with her what Emma had told me. One of the youth leaders had gotten a cake for Emma’s birthday, so everyone had cake and ice cream at the end of the meeting. Later, when we got in the van to leave, Emma was very angry with me for talking to the youth group leader about what she told me.

Over the next few days, Emma claimed she tried to call Lacey several times, but couldn’t reach her. She said she spoke to her older sister. Over that week Emma changed the story and said that Lacey had been raped some time previously and was in the hospital because she tried to commit suicide. Emma said Lacey’s extended family had been over for a family gathering, when Lacey had taken some pills, laid down on her mother’s bed, was found unresponsive by a family member, and then taken to the hospital. I did not know Lacey or her family, so I was not going to call them about such a personal matter. This turned out to be a big mistake. Later on, Emma said that Lacey told her that the man who raped her threatened to kill her family if she told anyone who he was so Lacey was afraid to talk about what happened. Over the next couple of months , I asked Emma how Lacey was doing . Emma said that Lacey was in therapy and didn’t want to talk about what happened. Emma told me that Lacey also had been molested as a child and volunteered with a group at her church that counseled or supported other victims of molestation.
Sometime during the summer of 2009, Emma told me that Lacey’s mother had breast cancer. She said Lacey had been homeschooled, but was going to public school for 10th grade because her mother was too sick to homeschool her. Emma told me that Lacey had called or texted her to tell her that her mother was hospitalized several times that summer. On at least two occasions, Emma told me that Lacey’s mom was in the hospital and was so sick, that the doctors thought she might not survive. Later, I was to find out that about the only truth to all the things Emma said was that Lacey’s mom did have breast cancer, but she was never hospitalized and never close to dying. She did outpatient Chemo and was never on death’s door as Emma led us to believe.

What would make Emma create such a bizarre story about her friend? Was it so she could get upset at youth group, feign concern about an emergency phone call, and let all her friends know how upset she was?

Over the summer and fall, Emma had been spending a lot of time around a young man in the youth group. The two of them seemed to like each other, and it was all very sweet, but after a while the young man pulled away from Emma. While it is my goal to get to the truth, it is not my wish to embarrass Emma as to why the boy lost interest in her, but Emma was still very interested in this young man. She talked about him frequently, had told me that he said he loved her, and said that when his dad was visiting from Va., the boy wanted Emma to meet him. I thought that seemed like a stretch considering the two had never even been on a date, but I just let it go.

I’ve spoken to a psychologist, a couple of social workers who work with problem children, and a Ph.D. counselor who told me that teenage girls often get so engrossed in young love, thinking that their love interest is “the one” whom they will spend the rest of their lives with, that these young girls don’t take it well when they are rejected. Is that what happened with Emma? She didn’t get the boy she wanted, so she made up all this drama? Did she just want attention, or was she hoping all the drama would get this boy’s attention? Kids lie all the time. We all know that, but wasn’t this a bit extreme? All this over a boy?

Losing Emma

Monthly Archives: January 2013

Chapter 2 Emma Turns on Her Dad