I grew up thinking I was the “lucky one”. Somehow, I was chosen out of the 5 hundred other kids who needed a home. So, being the “lucky” one is no fun and games. There is a sense of guilt that stays with you forever.

“You should be thankful” my white  A mother would say to me as I tried so hard not to stare her in the face. “You were sitting in your own piss when we rescued you. Your mother was so poor she could not care for you. Your brother was ill and your father was nowhere to be found.”

Turns out 20+ years later I find out my father had no idea my mother had given me up for adoption. 20+ years later my brother has a visa to visit the United States whenever he wants to. 20+ years later my sister is not pregnant with 5+ kids as my mother had originally thought. The stigma of poverty permeates.

“If it were not for us, you would be dead” she whisper under her breath, loud enough for me to hear, but soft enough for me to not pick up each word. That always hurt me. To think that they were the only ones who could “give me life” was so hard as a child. I really did not have anyone to turn to. All I could think about was getting out of that house.

Along with all the other issues going on in my life as I was growing up, the last thing I needed was to be told that I was “lucky.” As if dice were rolled and a 12 came up. What are the odds?

My parents were missionaries. I use that term very lightly because I believe that though missionaries do good, they immensely fudge up a child’s life forever. First and foremost, their goal is often times not about physiological needs, but spiritualist needs. How can one function spiritually if they are hungry or thirsty? When they do attempt to cover the physiological needs, they create a white supremacist environment and inevitably dependency.

I remember going to the “village” and watching my mother prance around barking orders to the village people. Every village person was black, poor, and hungry. Yes, she created the village…..but she also ran it. Instead of teaching them how to run it, she, the white person, had her hands in every single jar. It got to a point where the village wanted to revolt in order to gain some form of independence.

The other day I spoke to a friend who confirmed my dire situation as a 2-year-old. I along with a couple other little kids were locked in a dark room for days at a time, only to sit in our own feces and drink of each others piss in order to stay alive. Do I remember these events? No! But these events are undoubtedly buried deep down in my psyche.

As a child you want to believe everything your caretaker is saying. I believed my mother. I believed that I was in such bad status that she had to save me.

BUT GUESS WHAT MOM, I am no longer that little kid. I am a 36-year-old woman, with adopted kids of my own, with a partner, a dog and a beautiful house with a pool. I have 3 college degrees and several certificates. I am working on a Masters and I am HAPPY TO BE ME………….WITHOUT YOU!

Wake the F**k up White Christians, we kiddos don’t NEED you, we are blessed to have you.

I was adopted, from Haiti at the age of 4. But I was abandoned in the Dominican Republic at the age of 27 because I didn’t match up to the standards and benchmarks my mother had laid out.

I am Smart-but I always was. Yes, you helped shape my intelligence by giving me an education. Yes, you kept me clean and for the most part out of trouble…But someone else would have done that. I don’t believe anymore that you were the only one who could have saved me. I am claiming the freedom of who I am, and from who you are!

My mother did the worst she could do though. She never gave me US citizenship. So yes, she adopted me, I became an obstacle SHE has overcome, I became a petting zoo-literally and figuratively. I became someone she could show around and say “look at the good I have done.” But in the end, I remain just like my siblings. My freedom to explore the world, and be someone, is the exact freedom I started out with and the exact freedom my siblings have today.

She never wanted me to be part of who she is. She never wanted me to have all the opportunities in the world. She wanted me to be dependent on her, like a little black slave serving her every whim. Without citizenship I am still only a little black Haitian, stuck in the corner with no food, sitting in my own filth.

My freedom to be who I will always be has not come to a halt. My new-found freedom is one without you physically. I am free because I am who I always have been. Just me.

WAKE THE F**K UP CHRISTIANS……cuz when you do, you are going to wanna nap because the truth is so overwhelming.