My Teenage Dream Ended (25 page)

The officers were trying to piece together what had happened, but my mom was hysterical. She was so worked up that no positive progress could be made at this time, which wasn’t working for the police. They had to make the choice, so off my mom went to the cop car, and to jail.

One of officers drove off with my mom, and the others stayed behind to ask me questions about what happened between my mom and myself that had led to our physical altercation. They took photos of my face, where my lip had split, the area where we had fought, and the knives she had in her hands. After that they left.

I stood there in total shock. I didn’t know what to do now. I was pretty sure I was going to need to find a new place to live. I was just relieved that Sophia was sleeping and taken care of. What had just happened seemed like the most awful thing I had ever experienced (and I had experienced quite a bit by then) but little did I know that in the days and weeks to follow, I would see the worst time in my whole life between my family and I.

THE AFTERMATH

The next day, I was contacted by a social worker from the Department of Human Services. They told me they would have to take Sophia into protective custody if I kept living with my mom. Our family’s attorney, whom I’ve know all my life, and the chief criminal justice attorney from the courthouse also called to talk about what was going on with my mother and about the charges against her
.

I dropped the charges, but they still said that my mom could not be around Sophia unless a third person was present to chaperone, which meant that we couldn’t live together anymore. I hoped my mom would move in with my grandparents temporarily, so that I could stay at our house with Sophia until I figured out what to do, but she couldn’t admit that she should have handled things differently and insisted that I be the one to move out.

I asked her, “Where do you expect me to go now? I have to move out since you want to come back here. I can’t rent anything because I don’t have enough money saved or time to find an apartment.” I had nowhere else to go, so I said I was going to have to stay in her rental apartment in the house that she owned across the street.

My mom still wanted to be in control. She acted like my moving into that apartment was a big sacrifice. Her response was, “So you want to move into my house across the street, I suppose I will let you, but there will be rules…” and so on, blah, blah, blah. I felt like after what had happened, she should have been more apologetic. I had dropped the charges against her, so her ass could get back into her house. I was making it easier for her, but she was still being controlling and adding to the distance she had already created between us.

My dad was mad at me for calling the police. As usual, my mom was yelling at him, acting like this was his fault for, you know, the way I was acting. This was typical for them whenever we had a big blowout in our house. My mom would act like the victim and manipulate others into thinking they were the problem and my dad would cave in to her instead of resolving things the right way.

This time I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I told him he shouldn’t have left me the day my mom and I had the fight. He was always taking off to avoid conflict with my mom and then getting drawn back and bullied into taking her side. I knew I had done the right thing in calling the police. Even after I had dropped the charges the police still made her do community service and take anger management classes, which was exactly what she needed.

I was being a parent and putting my daughter and her wellbeing first. It was my parents who, at this time, had gotten caught up in their issues and the stress of what we were going through and had forgotten their role.

So, after almost a year of living with my parents, of feeling like they were trying to control my life, and dealing with their constant fighting, I was truly ready to move out. Ready to take on the challenge of being a single, working mother and going to school full-time. It was about my daughter’s health and safety, our future. So, I moved into my mom’s rental temporarily, but the two weeks I lived there were a total nightmare.

The house wasn’t finished being renovated and was still under construction. There were no beds, the shower was dirty, there was no furniture and there was dust and dirt everywhere. That first night I tried to settle in as best as I could, using a cot and small pillows and a blanket as a bed for Sophia and I, but I couldn’t sleep and Sophia wasn’t happy. I fed her, soothed her and tried to get her to sleep, but she wouldn’t stop crying. I lost my patience and had to go in another room to calm myself down. This was a real low point in my life. When I had saved up enough money I moved into my own apartment, where I lived for about six months before moving back into my mom’s rental across the street (which by then was finished being renovated) so I could save money.

After I moved out
,
it seemed to me like no one in my family offered me any help. They didn’t call me, didn’t offer support, or to watch Sophia anymore. I think they didn’t want to be involved in the drama between my mom and me.
I felt totally abandoned, first by Derek, and now by my parents and the rest of my family.

After almost a year of grieving for Derek and not being able to talk to anyone about how much I missed him, of fighting with my parents and losing the little support from my family that I had, of no one really wanting to talk but to blame everything on me, and of being left with no one to help me get through school or help watch Sophia, I started to get bitter and hate the situation I found myself in.

I started feeling hate for Derek; for the choices he had made and for leaving me alone, to carry all this stress on my shoulders. I also felt so damn bad for Sophia. She was such a perfect daughter. She deserved it all, but instead she was dealt a childhood with no father and a mother struggling to get on her feet. I started feeling like I was failing at being a parent, which is the worst feeling in the world.

Once the newspaper article about my mom’s arrest that ran in our local paper got picked up by the national media, everything became that much more stressful. By now, the first season of
Teen Mom
had already aired and our fan base was growing more and more. Having our private family issues made so public caused an even bigger rift between me and my family.
They resented being bothered by reporters and nosey neighbors wanting information about me and the family—and who can blame them?

People around me began acting like they knew all about me, that my private issues were their business. I had cut myself off from my old life and now only had party buddies, so when the shit hit the fan I had no one to call, no one to really be a friend. At school, the one place where I had been able to escape from it all, my teachers were constantly asking me if I was okay. Of course, I said I was. But my projects started reflecting a lack of focus, because I really wasn’t okay.

The worst part of this period of my life was having to leave Sophia with childcare providers that I didn’t know. Because my mother was no longer allowed to babysit Sophia and money was so tight, the only childcare I could afford were babysitters from a list provided to me by the DHS.

At one point I went through five different state babysitters in two months. I hated leaving her, but by this point I only had three weeks of classes left until the end of the quarter and I desperately needed help with Sophia so I could work and get to class.

Finally, I told my parents about the situation. At the end of the day, despite all our issues, they loved Sophia unconditionally and agreed to watch her as often as they could, even if this meant they both had to watch her together until it was okay for my mom to be alone with Sophia again. I was relieved.

STORMY WEATHER

A couple of months later, just as my life was starting to settle down, I got served with papers from Derek’s mom. She was suing me for visitation rights to Sophia. But, as I argued in the court papers, she had never seen Sophia, never offered to pay for anything for her, never even sent her a birthday card or a gift.