for those who don't know, Freedom is my sister.
Thank you for the post, sis. Some memories came back to me after reading it. One of them was the Seed, and then my father ,smugly repeating over and over to me that I "would be dead withing a year" if I lived with my Mom. They stripped her of all credibility,refused to let her even speak to us, and used to verbally attack her after she would drive from Ft lauderdale all the way to St Pete for open meeting. Then they wouldn't let her talk to us, and told us we couldn't see us because it would interfere with our "recovery".
The first time they let us talk to her, we were already on 2nd phase back home. It was after open meeting about midnight in the parking lot. My stepfather looked at us and nodded his head towards the car and said, "you Know, you don't have to go back in there". I said, "yes we do, Ed".
I knew damn well we wouldn't get 5 miles from the place with The Nazi like St Pete Police squarely in the Seed's camp. Also, If you ran and were brought back, they then brought you to juvy to have you court ordered in and increased your miniman sentence.
I didn't know at this time that a St Pete Judge had purjured himself in order to keep me in the Seed to Ft Lauderdale judge whom ordered me out. I didn't know my mother had been fighting with her limited resources to get me out.
I think, Sis, that it was a one- two punch that permanently may have taken the wind out of her sails. She had left us a scant two years earlier with plans on getting her life together and getting us. That summer we both went to stay with her, and we were doing pretty good. I had no real plans on going back to St Pete and in fact wasn't even talking to my father. I think Mom finally was thinking that she could make up for leaving us, then she felt so guilty that she let him trick us into the seed, then felt helpless as the judicial system failed us all.