Letter to Myself
A Letter to Myself by Take Root Member Sheri Chiosie I was abducted by my mom and her boyfriend when I was only 8 months old… I grew up thinking I was with my mom and dad my whole life and did not know I had any other family or that I had been abducted until the police arrived on my doorstep one night when I was 10. Being “recovered” turned my life upside down. This is a letter that I wrote as an adult to talk to my child-self back then… January 1, 1990 Dear Sheri, You’re not asleep. I know it feels like it. I know you’re just waiting to wake up. You’re also not being punished for yelling at Mom and Dad that you were a kidnapped princess that would be rescued by her real parents one day. (Seriously, where do you get this stuff from?!) And most importantly, Mom and Dad did not come up with an elaborate scheme to get rid of two kids because they were having money problems. You and Chris have not been sold to a new family! I know that sometimes these explanations make more sense, but the truth is the truth. These loud boisterous boys (and your Aunt) are your new family. (I have good news on that front, though, one day you’re going to outgrow your shy phase and be louder than them! J) They love you very much, though, and their constant teasing is their way of trying to make you feel like a part of the family. I know sometimes it feels like you’re the only one who’s not part of this family. Everyone else has memories of the family you missed out on. Even Chris, who is supposed to be with you 100% of the way on this, remembers things about your grandparents and a childhood with your Dad before your Mom stepped in. Repeat after me: “I WAS 8 MONTHS OLD!” There is no way you are expected to have the same memories. I know you’re scared to tell your new family how you feel, but if you did . . . that is what they would tell you. You are expecting more out of yourself than anyone else ever could. Try to be happy Sheri. I know you miss Mom, Dad & Matt. I know you miss your friends and the life you had before. AND THAT’S OK!!! But THIS is the life you were always supposed to have! Don’t let them continue to take that away from you! Your family loves you very much and wants you to be a part of it . . . and that’s ok too. There is no guilt here for your family or for you. Love who you want to love, miss who you want to miss, but open your heart to those who want to love you and who have spent a decade missing you and wishing they had a chance to know you. You’ll be glad you did later. Love Always,...
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My Baby by Take Root Member Linnea Kralik I am seven weeks pregnant. My baby is the size of a grain of rice. So small, yet so monumental. Imagine all the issues such a tiny being can procure. My first reaction when I found out I was pregnant, was panic. I’m not ready to be a mother. Give me another year. My husband and I have just celebrated our 10-month anniversary, it’s too soon! It will change everything! This baby has awakened a whole new set of issues. What name will I tell my baby is my name, Annika, Emine or Linnea? How will I explain the difference? How will I explain my past, so that a young child can understand? “My mother took me away from my father when I was little, and she changed my name from Annika to Emine. She took me to Turkey. Then she took me to Sweden, and she changed my name to Linnea. Since I have been called Linnea the longest, that is name I use.” How do you explain the concept of name-changing to a child? How can you convey all the conflicts and identity issues that have risen out of it ? how can I explain that Annika is one person, Emine is another, and Linnea is yet a third? Yet they are all the same person. Her mother I worry about the innumerable future situations we will be put in. Different people calling me different names. All the different version of my past, as many versions as there are people involved. And I myself don’t even have my own version straight yet. One group of relatives acts as if another doesn’t exist. How will the child look upon that? How soon will it take to learn the rules of the “game” they play, don’t mention this, don’t bring up that, avoid speaking about these topics? How will my child relate to the concept of truth? What kind of view of reality will she have when she hears one story told from twenty points-of-view, none of which are remotely like another? How will she inherit my ever-lasting quest for truth, that ever-evasive slippery bar of soap? My left-behind parent, my patient and caring father, voices a theory about family patterns. He sees a pattern in my mother taking me away from him, and her mother threatening to take her away from her father when she was a child, and my great-grandmother leaving my grandmother with a relative to grow up without her mother. Now my husband, after hearing my father’s theories, has worries I might carry on the pattern, and take our child away from him some day. I don’t know how to address such fears. I know that now, I love him more than anything else in the world, and I can’t imagine living without him. Neither can I imagine taking our child away from him. But how will I feel in ten years? Will latent urges surface, am I destined to become a parental abductor, as my predecessors seem to have been? Other very practical issues come up. With three sets of grandparents (my mother and stepfather, my father and stepmother, and my parents-in-law), what names will my child give them? Who will we spend Christmases and holidays with? How will we settle the jealousy between them, when two sets are perturbed that the third got to celebrate their grandchild’s first birthday? This is not only an issue of one set refusing to be in the vicinity of another, but also a vast geographical dilemma, where everyone lives...
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Belonging by Take Root Member Rebekah I was sitting in my room, at my dad’s house. I had just returned from studying for half a year in London, England and I was crying. For the first time since I had been found and brought home at the age of 12, after having been abducted by my mother for 8 years, I wanted to let go of the anger and feeling of doom. I was twenty three years old and ready to emotionally move on with my life. But I had no idea where to start or how to go about it. I felt hopeless yet empowered and knew if I did not do something now then the resentment and anger could take over. I went to my computer and typed parental abduction into the search engine and that is when I found Take Root and my life changed. Take Root is the first and currently the only organization dedicated to adult survivors of childhood parental abduction. Just seeing the web site made me feel a little more complete; for so long I thought I was different, or a freak, because no one I knew had experienced the identity crisis I had. Little did I know there are hundreds of thousands of parental abduction cases. As I studied the web site, I noticed I could write a short summary about my experiences and email it to the director, Liss Hart-Haviv, and it would be posted on the web site for people to read; so I did just that. I poured my story out and sent it to Liss and became the first member of Take Root to join the new program after the original founding members started it in March, 2002. I joined in April. That was three years ago and since then Take Root has grown and gained many new members. I have been flown out to Los Angeles for a members meeting, and learned how to tell my story effectively and how to deal with interviews. I have been on the Today Show and CNN talking about the ramifications of parental abduction and how seriously it needs to be taken. I went to a conference in Nashville, Tennessee and spoke in front of three hundred people spanning from local law enforcement to members of congress. I have been volunteering for Take Root since the day I became a member, and I have met and become friends with a number of members of the organization, and can honestly say it has enriched, engulfed, shaken up, and made my identity complete. Through Take Root, its members, and newfound self confidence I finally have a sense of who Rebekah Jean Ford is, even though just like every other human being that identity is always growing and building on itself. At twenty-seven years old I am finally feeling a sense of self and am becoming comfortable in my own skin and in my own life story. I am grateful for the existence of Take Root and its courageous members, and this is my culture: an eclectic array of people and stories that span from my backyard to across the world. No matter who or where they are, I feel a connection with those people that have had to experience similar events I have. Take Root has become a huge part of my life and being a member has helped me through some of my darkest moments and given me some of my...
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Doing Fine by Take Root Member Sam M. I was fine. Or, so I thought. I didn’t need to dwell on my past, in fact, I’ve used it to propel me forward. Or, so I thought. Rehashing sad stories would just be a waste of time at best, or at worst, create an excuse for everything not right in my life. Or, so I thought. I’m not sure what led me to that first-ever meeting of adults who had been parentally abducted as children at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in March of 2002. Perhaps it was a combination of curiosity; a promise to an involved friend; the free trip to D.C.; the chance to help others, most notably my own brother, but certainly not to resolve any issues for myself. Or so I thought. I was the one from that first meeting who told this newly forming group not to count on me for much. I wouldn’t have the time or interest. Or so I thought. Since leaving that first meeting I have been more actively involved via e-mail, Internet research, TV interviews, conferences and just talking with others, than I am for any other outside-of-work activity in my life. Turns out I had been suppressing thoughts and feelings about my childhood abduction (“kidnapping,” we called it then). Turns out that talking about it as much as I have has made me feel better about myself, lighter inside. And, hearing the stories of others who have gone through the experience has made me more aware than ever of the many, many possible effects from parental abduction. Some of the other stories made me actually feel fortunate that my situation wasn’t so bad. Learning from professionals about the ramifications has opened my eyes and heart as well. But the best news is that none of it has negatively affected me. I still don’t dwell on my past, nor use it as an excuse for anything in my life. Though some of it was painful to realize at first, I am motivated by the others who have gone through their own experiences and have come out to help themselves and others. Not by avoiding it, but by confronting it. My biggest “ah ha” from talking about my hidden secret to so many though, has really had little to do with me or parental abduction. By sharing my deep, dark story, I’ve come to learn that nearly everyone, almost to a person, has responded by opening up to me to share the tragedy of their life. Anorexia, alcoholism, lost parents, rape or sexual abuse, the list goes on and on. So many of us have not had any where near a perfect life or childhood. It’s just that we all think we are the only ones with a sad secret. Opening up to others has brought me closer to people – family and strangers -than I’ve ever been capable of being. Finding out we are not alone, and being encourage by the fortitude of others, has been my biggest blessing. I wonder what this world would be like if we all were freed from our self imposed vows of silence and could openly discuss our inner fears without fear of judgment? Take Root has created a safe environment for adults who were parentally abducted to encourage introspection and learning....
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Sarah or Cecilie: The Identity Issue by Take Root Member Cecilie Sarah Finkelstein As a former parentally abducted child who changed names and locations almost as often as I changed clothes, I have often asked myself the question: who am I? Not just in the deep metaphysical sense that many people struggle with, abducted or not, but in the simplest sense, deciding on which of my many real and assumed names to use, how to answer when I am asked where I come from, what religion I practice, which holidays I celebrate, and so on. Aside from the deep sense of fragmentation and pain that being abducted by one parent to spite the other has caused, I have had to grapple with questions about the basics of selfhood. And I had no easy answers. Only recently have I come to a clearer understanding of what makes up my self, and the answers are easier to give. These core questions about identity and self-definition were so difficult in part because my fear was that no matter what I chose, I would lose, I would disappoint someone, lose something precious, and always feel a sense of loss and disconnection inside. In the choosing, would I have to give up some aspect, some part of me that made up me? As those parts were so disparate, so difficult to integrate with one other, I despaired of ever feeling a real sense of wholeness and acceptance. It has taken some time, but I am finally finding the real me in the midst of all the many me’s that I have had to be as an abducted child, and the pain of feeling disconnected, not completely part of anything, is slowly beginning to recede as I emerge out of the chaos of the past. But this has not come easily. Take the issue of names. I have had many in my life. The first, my birth name, the name lovingly bestowed upon me as a newborn child, was Cecilie (pronounced Sess-eel-yeh) Rina. Until my abduction at age four I was called Sissi or Sisselina, in the sweet custom of nicknaming a young child. After my abduction my father changed my name to Sarah Zissel, the first of many aliases, and for all intents and purposes my birth name was no more. During the years on the run my name would change again and again, once to a boy’s name (I was dressed as a boy), the identity of a pre-pubescent boy and the challenge of choosing whether to use the women’s room or the men’s room. When I chose the women’s, I got yelled at by indignant women. Then it was Leah, Sarah Leah, and plain Zissel (which sounds a little like Cecilie, perhaps my father’s way of allowing some of my old self to exist and be acknowledged). At some point my last name changed too. At times it was Nash, which, no offense with any one with the name, I hated. “Me” became a fluid being, changed all the time to suit my father’s intentions. We told a different story in each new place we traveled through during the years on the run. In Philadelphia we were from New York, in New York we were from Montreal, in Montreal we were from Detroit. It was scary to be asked my name or where I was from, because it was hard to remember who I told what to, and what my name was where. Not only my name was changed. When I was 7 my father decided to change my hair color to...
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