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About Us
Everyone Inside 101
Favorites:
TV shows: Sesame Street, House, Little House on the Prairie,
Dr. Phil
Colors: Blue, Black, Purple
Books: Julius, Baby of the World; the Bible; Speak; Caroline's
favorites are too many to count. We will read anything.
Movies: The Last Mimzy, The Miracle Worker, Mr. Holland's Opus,
Dangerous Minds, Freedom Writers (any teacher movie according to Caroline)
Day of the Week: Tuesday (therapy day) and Saturday (napping
and sleeping day)
Hobbies: reading, computers, and making websites, and reading
more
Holiday: Christmas!!!
Proudest Moment: Caroline-- teaching Kenneth to sit up all by
himself when he was seven. Mae- writing her letters. Jo- she says it will be when she can tell our therapist everything that
happened with our jerky ex boyfriend. Michelle- watching our niece be born. Tuck-- holding a 10 foot long banana snake
right next to its mouth (ugh!) (boys!)
Fears- being left. People not understanding how much we love
them. Not being able to save the whole world. Our sister not being happy. Losing our niece and nephew.
Things we like: fairies, rainbows, things that sparkle, going
for walks, dogs and cats and just about every animal there is, rocking babies and kids to sleep, making kids laugh, sleeping
in late, the 1st day of summer vacation, giving people presents, learning new things
Number of Insiders: the other day someone helped us actually COUNT. We never had before
(too afraid). We ended up with 19. NINETEEN. Geesh. No wonder things feel so crowded inside.
Our friend wrote most of this since
we couldn't manage to do it ourselves. We think she did a good job:
Michelle-
only 14 years old but seems to have the weight of the world on her shoulders. She
helps to teach, read, and play with the kids in her classroom. She is very creative
and shy around new people. She has been hurt a lot and has a hard time trusting
people. Fear and pain are a big part of her life.
Jo-
used to call herself nobody and still does on bad days. She holds a lot of
the pain from an abusive boyfriend, but has been working hard to express it. Her
artwork has been a great form of self expression. She often looks after the littler
kids and really knows them well. She does not have many outward friends and tends
to be very quiet and reserved.
Caroline-Is
the “mother” of the group. She is the all around caregiver, helping
out friends and everyone else inside. She is very well respected by the other
teachers and often they will come to her for advice. She feels that she did not
suffer any of the pain from the past, which lets her be more open socially with all of the people around her.
Missy-
is opinionated and outspoken. She says exactly what she thinks so beware. She feels like she is nothing like the others and they are the ones with all of the
problems. Her idea is to just get over it and move on.
Caden/Caedmon-
(it depends on who is talking about her) is an adult that handles adult situations when no one else knows what to do. She comes out only to handle the problem and then goes right back in.
The
Bully- a great big jerk who must be patterned after every abuser we ever knew or heard of. He works behind the scenes.
Makes demands and rules that are strict and hard to follow, and loves to insult us and call of us names. Missy seems to work
for him.
FatGirl-is forever anorexic. That
is her total identity. Hopefully in time she will have more.
Claire-
is only eight years old and spends all of her time in the meadow with all of the animals around her. She has never had any type of human contact and focuses all of her time being a good mother to the animals
in her care. She communicates perfectly with the animals through her heart. She doesn't
talk out loud.
Mae-
has been said to have grown the most. She used to spend all of her time crying
because of major trauma in her life. With the help of her therapist she is learning
how to express her feeling and has made great progress. Mae is a very literal
child. If you say “it is raining cats and dogs” she will run to the
window to see all of the animals.
Tuck-he feels his job is to take
care of all the girls. He plans to be an astronaut when he grows up, so he likes to do things where he has to be brave and
strong to get through them. He is Claire's twin brother.
The Twins- are two 10 year olds
stuck in 4th grade who both just want to go back to their favorite classroom where they felt important and cared about.
There are other kids,but they remain inside
and don't talk to outside people.
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Claire
Claire is around 8 years old, she lives deep in this meadow far away from everyone. She is an untouched child, no human
contact, only animals. She is content because she has never been hurt by people, never been in contact with people. She takes
care of animals. That is her thing. The animal mommy. All sorta of animals, she imagines with her. She will do anything and
everything to nurture animals.
Never could quite figure out why I needed Claire before. Having an 8 year old insider who
just took care of animals and hung out in a field all day (and who also does not speak at ALL--- she speaks to the animals
only with her heart)-- that never made sense to me.
But one time among me, Caroline, Nobody, and Mae, sorta pieced together
some stuff from the flashbacks and memories that came up--- having to do with Mae internalizing some stuff about animals being
hurt. Mae took it all in, until she could identify with the animals so much-- I can't go into it all.
But then Claire came.
And Claire is the safe place for the animals, where they will never get hurt, never get left outside to freeze to death, never
get shot, poked, prodded, eaten, or hurt in any way. Claire smiles and helps them and takes such good care of them.
Claire
just smiles. She is happy to be left alone for hours and hours on end, (maybe I used her as an escape to get away from the
endless loneliness I've had at times), and to be with her animals . There is no need to talk outloud with animals. They talk
from the heart. No animals will ever, ever, ever get hurt in Claire's little world.
Mae
Mae is 5 and is the one who, in our opinion, has made the most progress of anyone.
She has gone from a crying, traumatized hidden child to someone who talks about her feelings and is learning to read and communicate
better. Working with our therapist and developing a good relationship with her has done wonders for Mae. She still has a lot
of bad days, trying to deal with flashbacks of a lot of abuse, but if it weren't for her, the rest of us wouldn't have made
it.
Mae's favorite TV show is Sesame Street & her favorite actor is Big Bird!! |
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Tuck
He sees himself in every way as a boy. He knows he's 8 1/2 years old, and that's all their is to it. We all see
him as an 8 year old boy from head to toe. He does not come to the front very often, unless he's out in the woods playing
by himself or playing with Mae, because he realizes his voice sounds funny (like a girls), and when he talks to anyone he
gets very nervous and I've noticed that the few times he has talked to an outsider he tends to stutter a little. But he's
a very sweet, polite little boy. The other day I was trying to figure out just how Tuck came to be, and I think I may have
come up with an answer.
At age 8, I LOVED school. School was a haven, this safe place, with an amazing teacher
that I loved to spend every minute with. A teacher I could hold hands with, help out in the classroom, a teacher
who told me I was bright and creative and inspiring. But then came the last day of school. This is what I can remember:
I couldn't
stand the thought of leaving school for 3 months (probably the only child in the world who moped around on the last day of
school!).I held onto her teacher's hand as long as I could. Kept telling the teacher I didn't want to go...
but finally had to. Stared out the window of the bus, wanting so much to cry but trying hard not to, aching to be with my
teacher again. The song "Crying" (by Roy Robinson, maybe?) was going through my head. Didn't want to go home. HAD
to stay at school. I finally caught the teacher's eye, and we waved to each other. I started to cry just a little, but then
stepped back inside my self to disappear. She was 8 1/2.
I wonder, perhaps, if that's around when Tuck came. I dont know
for sure of course. But I just wonder. That year I got a boy's haircut and took up football and motorcycles. That summer I
started running around in the backyard with no t-shirt on because "all the other boys are allowed to". And of course, the
single happiest day of Tuck's life was the one day when his dad took time to play football in the backyard with him. The one
day. Which he refers to over and over to try to convince himself that his dad loves him-- "my dad played football in the backyard
with me once." |
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