Oct. 3, 2013

(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am 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 living in Ohio at the home of her fiance’s grandparents, attending Wright State University http://www.wright.edu/, and talking about getting married. Emma claims her mother poisoned her with DDT and that she had to move to Ohio to get away from her mother. She also claims her future mother-in-law lives in fear that Emma’s mother will show up and kill her entire family.

Emma loved having very finely tweezed eyebrows.

I’ve been thinking about a few things that I thought about some time ago, and for some reason, they popped back into my thoughts.

How do abused children act? Emma told her therapist Suzie McGarvey of Lanier Counseling (Now with North Gwinnett Counseling Associates, Suwanee, Ga.) during our March 14th, 2010 visit, that she wanted to go to a group home because she didn’t want to be in the same home with her mother.

Let me tell you how Emma was acting up until a couple of days before March 14th when she hatched this little idea.

Emma had pretty much quit going to PetsMart for Adoptions on Saturdays, and I usually went alone. She begged off saying she had too much school work, but I think the real reason was that she could not face our friend Janice, at whose home she stayed during her first accusation of abuse. Emma had adored Janice, and Janice loved Emma. That Christmas, since Emma had taken up sewing, and Janice was an excellent seamstress, Janice bought Emma a sewing basket and all kinds of notions she needed for sewing, and at my suggestion was going to give Emma a sewing day, where she could come over with whatever she wanted to make, and Janice would be there with her expertise to help her. I thought Emma would love this. She thought the world of Janice and spending the day with her, sewing, sounded like a great gift.

After all the lies Emma told to Janice’s face (You can read them in another part of the blog.), I think Emma couldn’t face Janice. Janice knew the truth about Emma and knew that Emma could look right at her and lie. Once someone caught on to Emma, she no longer had any use for them.

So………….getting back to my topic about the abused child. A couple of weeks before Emma wanted to be removed from our home, I came home from Adoptions, tired out, and Emma was jumping around, acting all silly, begging me to take her shopping. It was the last thing I felt like doing, having had been out most of the day, but I wonder how many abused children beg their abuser to take them out. Don’t abused kids typically avoid their abuser?

If I had been paying attention, I would have caught on to Emma’s actions. Up until a couple of days before March 14th, when Emma hatched her little plan to get out of the house, Emma was always very affectionate. Before she went to bed, she would hug me and kiss me when she said good night. If I were in bed, reading, she would lie on the bed next to me and want to cuddle and talk for a while before she went to bed. I remember how a couple of nights before March 14th, this stopped. I just let it go, figuring she was being a moody teenager, but it was much more than that. Emma was a cold, calculating young woman, and had I been paying attention, I’d have realized she had something up her sleeve, having seen her act this way before.

Another thing Emma did has to do with her eyebrows. In 9th grade, when Emma was going to Jackson County Comprehensive High School, she rode the bus and sat with 4 other girls from our neighborhood. At first, Emma was crazy about riding the bus with them, and said she would never go back to being homeschooled. After a month or so, I’m not sure what went on, but maybe she just wasn’t fitting in. Emma complained to me about school and told me she wanted to be homeschooled again. She accused me of giving up on her. One of the girls on the bus later told me that Emma complained about the school and exaggerated the drug problems of the high school. Emma complained about there being too many lesbians in the drama department, and she complained about the black kids getting special treatment at school.

One of the girls Emma rode the bus with, was the daughter of a beautician. One day, this young lady plucked Emma’s eyebrows into a very thin line. It looked fine, but being somewhat lazy about my own make-up, it was not something I would have attempted on me, but if Emma wanted to do it, that was up to her. She liked the look, but when her eyebrows started growing back in, she realized that this look took a little maintenance. Emma did it herself for a while, and she went a little too far and took out the middle of her eyebrows so it looked like she had two half brows over each eye. It looked pretty odd, and I got on to her about not over-plucking her brows.

Emma didn’t like plucking her eyebrows herself, so she would come to me with a pair of tweezers and put her head in my lap, wanting me to pluck her eyebrows. I didn’t really mind, as it seemed like another time we would have some “girl talk” as I plucked her brows for her. I am wondering though, does this sound like the behavior of an abused child? Later on, when I mentioned to Phill how Emma hugged and kissed me every night (while often “forgetting” to say goodnight to her dad), Phill tried to claim that Emma only did this because she would have to face my wrath if she didn’t say goodnight to me. Uh, yeah. Right. I guess he thought I went into a wrath if I didn’t get to pluck her eyebrows too. Yep, I lived to pluck those eyebrows. My day just wouldn’t have been complete otherwise.

Coming up Next, the movie that influenced Emma’s decision to accuse a priest of sexually abusing her.