How do you tell a complete story when all you have to work with is a handful of puzzle pieces scattered across the floor? How do you tell a story when you can’t put it in order? How can you tell a story piece by piece, in a nonlinear fashion, writing it as it comes to you?

I don’t know the answer, but I’m doing it. I’m writing this story, piece by piece, trying to assemble the puzzle when I don’t even know for sure what it really looks like or how bad it really is.

I still haven’t been able to Google the names of my doctors. I googled Alldredge Academy and discovered it shut down after a prisoner killed themselves. The guy who was running it now owns a therapeutic boarding school for girls. I am horrified and disturbed. I can’t even imagine the horrors still at play.

I’ve been thinking about my school again. I thought they were good people. I thought they were helping us. But the truth is… I don’t know. I don’t know what I don’t know. But I do know there were things that happened there that were very off. I remember being isolated on multiple occasions for not “behaving correctly.” I remember friendships and relationships ruined. I remember things that didn’t seem quite right at the time. I know there was more to the story than I was told.

The truth? I barely remember my junior year of high school. It’s a blackout from all the drugs they had me on. It’s hard for me. There are some things I just can’t remember. I remember the names of the medications. I remember the names of the doctors and the hospitals and the schools. I remember sitting in “group therapy” listening to other kids trade stories about the abuse they experienced at these boarding schools and wilderness therapy programs.

I don’t know how much I can do beyond sharing my story with the world. Here is my name, here is my face. Here I am, Crazy Betsey. Bipolar Betsey. That Crazy Bitch. That Psycho. Don’t listen to her. Don’t talk to her. I just want to warn you about her before you start talking to her. She’s CRAZY!!!! Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. My whole life I have been called crazy.

But I’m not.

I’m not crazy.

What happened to me was wrong. It was abuse. It was a human rights violation. It was not my choice. I did not choose what happened to me, nor did I choose how it affected me.

Here is what I choose: I chose to write a blog and share my stories with the world in the hopes someone out there would hear me, see me, validate me, understand me. That didn’t happen. It was just more of the usual CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY shit from the same type of people who have always been on a mission to silence people like me and keep us down.

I chose to go to India and become a yoga teacher. This was a good choice. This choice is working out well.

I chose to take the TEFL course, update my CV, throw it into a pile, and hope for the best. I got a job in Hong Kong and I chose to take it.

I met a beautiful man in India and I chose to make an arrangement to marry him. This is my choice.

I chose Paris, I chose travel, I chose to get into my car and drive through dozens of Indian Reservations. I chose yoga, meditation, and to connect with my spirituality.

I chose to share my story with the world.

I chose the life I am building for myself now.

I chose it. Me. I made the choice.

For the first time in my life, I am making my own choices.

If I can do it, so can you.

I don’t know what else to say right now. The memories are coming back to me in pieces. I can’t put them in order yet, but I will. Someday… I will. Someday this story will be told.

No one will be there to stop me. Especially not my family. Especially not these glorified drug dealers and child abusers.

If there is one goal I have in my life, it’s to come to a place where I can tell my story in order, with real names, and hold these people accountable for their crimes against children.

Someday.