EP: 69 "Cassidy"

Hey Light Shiners! I am joined by Cassidy a former foster youth who was being abused by her birth brother in their home. She speaks about how hard reunification can be and how child abuse can cause lifelong trauma in families.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Content warning. The Wards of the State podcast may contain
material that may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. Heylight Shiners, welcome back. I know

(00:36):
it's been months since we've since y'all have heard from me.
I know, I mean, at least on this platform. It's
been so many things have happened. I've had so many
new experiences, lived experiences. I became a Kinsha parent, and
then I'm not a Kingsha parent, and then I have
my book is out. It's going to be coming out
actually in the next couple of weeks from when this
episode airs, so make sure you guys are checking that out.

(01:00):
I've helped so many families. I haven't really posted an
episode in the last couple of months because y'all know
I'm a perfectionist and I really wanted to make sure
that I was in a mental state, and y'all that
book took it out of me. It really did. It
was hard to focus on so many different things, and
also the media company is doing great, so we had
to focus on that. And then also, you guys know,
I have so many different companies. We've rental our companies

(01:20):
doing great, So it kind of took my attention away
from Wards of the State podcast. But now that we
have completed the book project, I have so much more
time now to make sure that I can share the
lived experience with you all. So make sure that you
guys are sharing this podcast with everyone that is interested
in learning more about foster care, adoption, and lived experience

(01:41):
in the child welfare system. It's this podcast is not
a podcast for people to agree or disagree. It's just
a podcast for you to listen. And that's really one
thing I love about the space that we've made here.
We're not trying to change your mind. We're just trying
to have you listen to multiple different different experiences and
some are fantastic experiences, some are really some good wrenching

(02:03):
experiences that we've heard, and some are also inspiring and
on inspiring. So I just hope that you guys continue
to support. The best way to support is to share
if you are small business or if you would like
to help sponsor, their's links below every episode in the
show notes for you to do so. But without further ado,
I do want to introduce our next guest, Cassidy.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
How are you doing today, I'm doing good. How are you?

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I am fantastic, So casside the delicious tell the light
shiners about your lift experience.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
So I actually was born, and when I was born,
both my brother and my sister were already in foster care.
My mom had already lost custody of both my brother
and my sister. And so I was born on September third,
and about eight days later, on September eleventh, my mom
was actually in court fighting to keep custody of me

(02:54):
while trying to get custody back of my brother and
my sister. And then I was born in two thousand
and one. So obviously nine to eleven happened that same day.
We were in the courthouse when nine to eleven took place,
and stay shut down all government buildings. Good morning, America.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
I'm Charles Gibson.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I'm Dian Surian. It's Tuesday, September eleventh, two thousand and one.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Eight is lunchtime in London, five am in Los Angeles
and eight am here in New York. Live from the
CNN Financial News headquarters.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
It is beautiful outside, perfect September day with lots of sunshine.
Oh would you look at Washington huh I'm going outside today.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Other than that, it's kind of quiet around the country.
We like quiet because it's quiet.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's two quiet too. Yeah, this justin you were looking
at obviously a very disturbing live shot there that is
the World Trade Center.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Let's better the mayordas in the apparently a plane has
crashed into the World Tradesenter New York.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
It does not appear that there's any kind of an
effort up there, yeat and now remember, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
That looks like a second plane.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
And so when that happened, they didn't hear my mom's
case whatsoever, and they tried to take me from my mom,
and my mom being my mom, she left the courtroom
with me and left the courthouse before they even had
a chance to come get me. And she kind of ran,
if you would, from CPS for about a week or two,

(04:34):
and then they ended up finding her and they came
and took me and placed me with my brother and
my sister on the basis of drug use. That was
never like proved. It was claims from her sisters who
said that she was like on drugs and because of
the people she was around. It made sense because my
sister and brother's biological father were involved in games, and

(04:57):
then my father was got involved in Arian Brotherhood, and
right after I named after it too. This kind of stinks,
But so when all of that happened, they had, initially
on my claim, said that because of who my dad
was and who my uncle was that my mom couldn't

(05:21):
have me around them. Plus with the accusation of drug
use and then being drug mules for Arian, it was
kind of like, Nope, we need to take her from
her mom. So I was taken from my mom when
I was just about two or three weeks old, and
I was in foster care all the way up until
after I was two. I was almost three when I
finally got out. And the two years that I was

(05:44):
in foster care, I don't remember much of it because
I was young, But there is like one incident that
I do remember, and that's only because of this month
stuffed animal that I am still obsessed with to this
day and have bought every kind of version. As an adult,
I was placed in a home with like this family
that you would have thought was an amazing family had

(06:06):
beds for us that were covered in toys, and I
remember running in and seeing this big, fluffy pink pig
and I grabbed it and it was like my best friend. Well,
as soon as the case worker left, everything changed. We
weren't allowed to sit on the beds, we weren't allowed
to play with the toys, and I wasn't allowed to
cuddle with the pink pig. And so I was in

(06:28):
that home all the way up until I was two,
and then right before my mom got custody back of me,
I was placed with a man named Jim, and my
sister and brother actually stayed there after I was taken
out of the foster care. They didn't get out of
foster parents till about a year after I was and
so when I was taken out of foster care, they

(06:49):
were still involved and were still fighting with that process.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
How many homes were you just at this one home
with the pink pig the whole time while you're in
foster care.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
I was in two different homes. So I was in
the pink Pig house all the way up until like
right around my second birthday. And then about six months
before my mom actually got custody back of me, they
placed us with a new family who was actually trying
to adopt us, which wash and then That's what slowed
down getting my brother and sister out of there, because

(07:19):
he had already tried to start the adoption process on
my brother and my sister, and so that held them
up getting out where I wasn't in his custody long
enough for him to try and kind of finagle that yet,
so I was the first one out, and then they
were in there for about two years after a year
after that, and then after that, we dealt with CPS

(07:41):
all the way up until I was eighteen, and my
brother actually ended up becoming a ward of the state.
My mom was unfortunately put into a situation when I
was fourteen. My brother had actually raped me, and so
we were put in a kind of weird court case
situation where my mom kind of had the ability to

(08:02):
lose me and my brother or sign away my brother's
rights to this state.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
You know what. I've heard that before. I actually had
one of my close friends, this guy that she dated,
like graped his sister when he was a teenager, and
then like the mom had him make a decision like, hey,
you put your child, your son in foster care or
all your children going to tossing care, Like that must
be such a hard decision, but you know, like consequences

(08:28):
have actually have consequences, right, you know, like I feel
that for you, but I kind of don't serve.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
I know, that's kind of And that's what stinks is
because I hate the system as somebody who Yeah, I
was only in foster care in and of itself for
two years, but I dealt with CPS all the way
up until I was eighteen because of all of the
interactions and everything, which I'll dig deeper into, but it's
hard for me to like hate the system in this

(08:56):
situation because a man who I was like afraid of
my life from the only way to get him out
was to make him a ward of the state or
make him be in the system that I know is
so corrupt, And it's one of those like double edged
sorts where it's like I'm grateful that he was out
of the home and I'm grateful I received some form

(09:17):
of justice, but at the same time, like, I'm not
grateful that he was put in foster hare homes with
other children where he was able to do the same
thing over and over again to other little girls. And
not only that, but when he was put in the
foster hair system, it kind of expunged the criminal part
of it. He was put on probation and that was it,

(09:38):
even though he was repeating these offenses in the foster
home he was in, and you know.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
It, it's so frustrating. I once again had another case
where a little ten year old boy was sexually assaulting
other little boys and I reported it to CPS and
they said, well, there's not much we can do legally.
We can just like remove him, and I was like,
that's not going to stop him from hurting other children.
Can we do anything? And they're like, no, there's not much
to do for child on child crime unless both parents

(10:03):
want to press charges. And in that case, like no
parents wanted to press charges. So it's like it shouldn't
be up to parents to press charges on child on
child violence, right right.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
And it stunk even more because he was sixteen when
I finally came out about it. We had a two
year age difference, so it happened when I was twelve
and he was fourteen. I didn't come out to my
parents about it until I was fourteen, and when I
finally came out about it, he was sixteen. He could
have been tried as an adult and actually faced consequences
for what he did, but instead of giving him any consequences,

(10:37):
they were like, Okay, you can sign over custody and
we'll just put him in a foster care home. And
it was, in my eyes, it was just a double
edged sword, like, yeah, I got him away from me,
but now he's put in a position where he can't
and is doing the same thing to other little girls

(10:57):
and nothing's happening because it's just foster kids. And like
the justice system size was, Oh, they're just foster kids.
It happens. And even when we went to court, because
every court case that that other little girl had, I
went to to be like, look, she might not be
able to speak, but I'll continue to tell my story
as much as I need to get him into some

(11:18):
kind of criminal actions for what he's done. And it
sunk because in the system that's supposed to help you,
it was the system that made more victims. Instead of
putting him in juvie or putting him in jail, or
even just putting him in a foster care that had
no other children in it, they put him in a
home that had six other kids, two of which were

(11:39):
little girls under the age of five, that he was
able to continue to do this too at sixteen, and
you're telling me you couldn't do anything other than put
him in foster care. And so it was kind of
like a double edged sword because let me let me
back up a little bit. So when I was about

(12:00):
six or seven, my brother was like nine or ten
years old, and physical finalance started happening between me and
my brother, like to the point my brother was trying
to kill me. He had put windecks and bleach in
my mouth wash. He who thinks of that psychopath? Maybe,

(12:20):
Oh no, he was putting that in my mouth wash.
I've always been super petite. I used to have chubby cheeks,
but I've always been super skinny, and I've always been
a candy freak. Well I don't know if you know
what hydroxy cut is, but they come in these little
gummy bears. And he had taken a whole bottle that

(12:42):
my sister had gotten for her weight loss and mixed
them in with like a five pound bag of gummy bears.
I had one from a fundraiser at school, to the
point that like I had became literal sick and bones
and had to eat protein shakes only to be able
to gain any kind of weight back, and I didn't
know it was the gummy bears. So I was continuously

(13:02):
eating these gummy bears and continuously getting sick and losing
weight to the point I ended up in the hospital
for it.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
And then we had about a year or so where
it kind of like deaded out because I had spent
a lot of time with family and other places in Ohio,
so I wasn't really home unless it was during the
school year, and most of those times we didn't really
interact because there was an age difference, so we weren't
in the same schools, and when we were home typically

(13:35):
our parents were home, so there wasn't much that happened
during the school year. It always kind of happened on
breaks and whatnot. And the first incident that put my
brother back into foster care, I was nine years old
and my oldest sister was watching us, and we weren't

(13:55):
supposed to be left alone at all. At this point.
We already had like a court order from him like
beating me up once before that we weren't allowed around
each other without adult supervision, and so she was our
adult supervising us, and he was sitting on the couch
because he was grounded, and I went to go run
out back to go play with the dog, and he

(14:16):
had tripped me to the point where I fell and
busted my whole face. I broke my nose, broke like
three of my bodies. Oh oh yeah. Because the way
that our like sliding glass door was is like there
was a big step. If you were walking out it,
you were fine, you could make the step down, but

(14:37):
like being tripped out of it, it was just like
a five foot drop straight to the concrete with my face.
And so after that, my dad had came home and
my mom was like, we got to do something. He
is not changing us. Disciplining him isn't working. And granted
that was probably because my parents weren't the best stat

(14:57):
parents in and so they were in the kitchen talking
about sending him to military school, and me and my
sister were in our bedroom and the next thing we know,
my dad's coming into the kitchen and my brother is
stabbing my mom in the leg. And at that point

(15:22):
we had called nine one one.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
How old was he at this point?

Speaker 2 (15:27):
He was I was nine, so he was twelve wow,
And he stabbed her in the leg. She actually ended
up needing to get like three or four stitches in
her leg, and so we called nine to one one
and they removed him from the home and they put
him in a Huckleberry house where like we could go
visit him. But it was like a the best way

(15:49):
that I could uh describe, it was almost like a
rehab facility where you had like family days on Sundays,
and then other than that, it was like counseling every
day in school every day, and so we would go
visit him on Sundays. In about a year or a
little less than a year of him being in the
Huckleberry House, he had quote unquote completed all of their

(16:12):
programs and so they were like, we can't do anything
more with him. We're sending him back home. And so
at this point I was eleven, probably getting ready to
turn twelve, and he was in the home for about
three or four months before anything happened. And then right
around Christmas time when I was twelve, my parents had

(16:36):
went to go Christmas shopping and my older sister was
once again supposed to be watching us because that court
order was still in place and even more so in
place now, and so she was watching us, and instead
of watching us, she actually went next door to smoke
with the neighbor and we were left alone. And at

(16:57):
this point, I'm twelve years old. Yeah, was supposed to
be around each other, but that's my brother, and so
it was like, I'm trying to make this relationship be
brotherly anyway I can like sibling because I longed for that,
like I longed for having a big brother. I had
a step brother who I had a great relationship with.
I had a great relationship with both of my sisters,

(17:18):
so it hurt me not having a relationship with him.
So my sister, my sister had left, and he was
in his bedroom playing Call of Duty, and so I
went in there and I was like, oh, can I
play with you? Like I just want to try and
be friends. And we were playing Call of Duty and
the one and only time I have ever won Call
of duty in my life was that day. And he

(17:41):
didn't like that, and so he turned around and he
punched me in my face. And then that was the
day that he actually essayed me. And then about a
week and a half later, I had just been quiet, well,
I don't let me back up. That same day, my
sister came home, and when she came home, I was
actually in my bedroom door, like covered in my own

(18:02):
blood from being punched in the face, crying, like holding
knives because I was terrified at this point, and she
kind of just looked at me and was like, it
didn't happen, and mom and dad aren't going to believe
that it happened, And it was more so she didn't
want to be in trouble for leaving the house and
being the reason this happened. So I was like, if

(18:23):
she doesn't believe me and she's looking at me like this,
then nobody's gonna believe me. And so about a week
or two later, that whole week or two, I had
been like sleeping with my bedroom door locked, knives under
my pillows, like sleeping by the bedroom door, just like
anticipating him coming in. And we were going to a

(18:44):
Christmas party and we had stopped at a Walmart so
my parents could run in and buy a fruit platter
to bring to the Christmas party, and they left me
and him out in the truck alone, and he had
like tried taking my phone chargers something stupid, and I
was like, I'm telling mom and dad when they get
back in the truck, and he thought I was saying

(19:06):
that I was going to tell on him for the essay,
and so he took the charger cord and he wrapped
it around my neck. He beat the crap out of me.
My head actually busted the truck window, and then he
ruptured three of my spinal discs by kicking me in

(19:30):
the back with steel toe boots that he had got
at another Christmas party that we had went to like
the weekend before, and he bit me. And this was
the only reason why my parents were like actually found
out about it because I tried to lie to them
about the window. When they got in the truck, I
was like, oh, we were like playing around and I
hit my elbow on the truck window and it busted.

(19:51):
Because at this point I'm terrified and I'm still crying
and they're like something's going on, and I'm holding my
arm because he bit me, and I had like a
big leather juncket on, so I'm like not thinking that
there's gonna be a bitemark or anything there. Well, they

(20:12):
told me to take my jacket off because I was
holding my arm, and when I took my jacket off,
he had actually pierced through my skin, and I was
pleading from where he had bit meow, And then that's
when they pieced together, like, Okay, you guys just got
into a physical altercation. Something's not adding up here. So
we went to the Christmas party as planned, after like

(20:35):
nothing happened. And then about three days later, when like
we were home and it was no longer the holiday weekend,
my mom called the Huckleberry House back to see if
she could send him back there, and she sent him back,
and he was in the Huckleberry House for another like
year or so again. And then right before he was

(20:56):
supposed to get out of the Huckleberry House, me and
my mom had gotten to an argument because some of
his friends actually broke into the house when I was
home alone, and I had to call the cops on
them because I'm twelve year old me or thirteen year
old me at this point, scared, scared for my life.
There's just a whole bunch of guys that I don't
know storming in my house. I'm home alone, What do

(21:18):
I do? I ran to the garage, locked myself in
the garage and called back one one and I had
neighbors who were across the street, who I called grandma
and grandpa, And as soon as the cops pulled up,
they were like, Yo, what the heck is going on?
So they're coming over to the house and I'm like,
just call my mom, just calling my mom, and so
they called my mom. The cops ended up getting like

(21:38):
one of the guys because all of the other guys
ran out the back door and ran from the cops
and only once stayed and so they actually talked to
that one guy and whatnot. Well, when my mom and
dad got home, they thought I was lying. They thought
that I had just opened the door and let these
people in, and I was like, why am I calling
the cops if I just let them in? And so
we got into an argument about it, and she was like,

(22:00):
I know you better than you think I do. I
know you let them then, and I was like, well,
if you know me better then you think you do,
then how do you not know that your son raped me?
And my mom at that point had thrown my phone
up against the wall and told me that I was
a lying bitch and walked out, and my dad actually
came in. Who's not my actual biological bag, he's my stepdad.

(22:23):
I don't have contact with my biological dead because of
who he is, but he came in the room with
my stepbrother and was like, what's going on. And at
this point I didn't know really how to control my
emotions or how to handle any of this because I
hadn't told any adult, and so I was self harming

(22:43):
and I was like, if you don't believe me, look
and I showed them like my arms and my legs
and I was like, I'm not lying, like I'm not
doing this for no reason. I don't know what to do,
and so they kind of like helped me like calm
down a little bit, and my stepbrother called my mom.
She came home and we called the cops, and then

(23:04):
when the cops got there, they told my mom that
the very next day she would have to take me
to children's Hospitals home away from home, which is where
they do like the essay kits and you get assigned
a victim's advocate and all of that Now, granted, because
it's been two years since the essay has happened, there's
obviously not any DNA, but there was signs of bssay that,

(23:27):
like I still have to this day, that they were
able to tell, and so I went through that process
and that kind of started the court process of that.
But once the court process started on that, CPS came
back into the picture. And when CPS came back into
the picture, they weren't only in the picture because of

(23:47):
my brother. My mom's sisters found out what had happened,
and they called CPS and her telling CPS that they
were beating me. One of them even lied and told
CPS that my mom was actually my cousin like my
mom's name too, and they said that she was my
aunt Melissa, and that my Aunt Melissa was like beating

(24:07):
me in the back with a two by four board.
Never happened, And so we were having CPS back out
into our house at our house probably twice a week,
getting the inspections where they were checking me for bruises,
questioning me, questioning my sister, questioning my mom. And there

(24:28):
was one point where I was actually taken away from
my mom for about forty eight hours to a few days,
I can't exactly remember how long it was. And I
was placed with my aunt Melissa because we had family,
and so they placed me with the family, and then
they ended up finding out that the claims were warrantless

(24:49):
or whatnot, and they let me go back to my
mom's house. And when I went back to my mom's house,
the CPS stuff from my brother kind of continued where
we had to fight them on I'm sending him back home,
And they actually did send him back home after the
initial charges repressed, and he was home for about two

(25:09):
weeks and he beat the crap out of me again.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Why send him back home?

Speaker 2 (25:14):
I had no clue, Like I want to say that
it was because in my mom's Like I don't think
my mom ever told me the full story behind like
the CPS kind of situation with her and my brother,
because I genuinely do think that in my mom's heart,
it was her son and she was like, he I

(25:35):
don't think he has this in him, Like he can't
be this person. He has to be able to be
his if maybe if I do better, right, And I
think it was more so like my mom trying to
get him home without trying to get him home, like
she wanted him to get help, but she wanted him
to be home too. And so we started that court

(25:57):
case and that the court case didn't actually end until
I was about sixteen, and throughout the whole lengthy court process,
CPS was annihilating me to the point where I was
sixteen years old and I was in high school and
I had my first relationship, and one of my boyfriends

(26:20):
had actually came to court with me, and apparently the
case worker on our case had looked at my boyfriend
and suspected that he was over the age of eighteen
because he looked mature, I guess. So CPS came back
out to our house yet again and questioned my mom,
and in this time it was as if my mom

(26:42):
was allowing me to have a relationship with in their eyes,
a twenty two year old man. And so we had
to fight that whole battle where my mom almost lost
custody of me, and my mom had already lost custody
and my brother and my sister twice prior to losing
custody of me, and in Ohio, if you lose your
kids three times, it's like a three time strike. If
you lose your kid the third time, you don't get

(27:02):
them back. And so we were like strongly fighting because
even though she had only lost me once, she had
lost my brother and sister multiple times, and I was
on the same case report, so she lost me again
as well. It was kind of junto as well, so
we had to fight really hard for that one. And
about the same time as that, we found out that

(27:24):
he was actually essaying the two little girls and his
foster care. And at that point that's when it really
kind of like opened my eyes to not only the
justice system, but to how bad like CPS was failing

(27:46):
not only me but these other little girls. You've sent
him back home to live with me now multiple times,
and now you're sending him to go live with even
younger girls who aren't able to defend themselves. I'm at
least a teenager to where I can try and defend myself,
and I did, but like a five year old little
girl or somebody younger than five isn't going to be
able to do that with a sixteen year old. Well,

(28:07):
at this point, he's seventeen, almost eighteen, almost grown man,
and he was a pretty big guy. And so that
was what really opened my eyes to not only the
justice system failing me and these other little girls, but CPS.
And he ended up never seeing a day in jail.
He spent three days in JUVI and got out because

(28:30):
of a technicality because he was only ever placed on probation,
So the three days that he spent in Juvi were
because he violated probation three times. And then they ended
up getting him out because of a technicality because his
probation officer had reported him using online internet to watch

(28:50):
like CP, and she had made that into like two
different probation violations because he wasn't supposed to use the
internet and he wasn't supposed to be watching anything involved
with minors, and so she hit him with he was
on the internet, he was watching CP, and he was
contacting victims. So those were his three probation violations. Well,

(29:13):
his lawyer got him out on a technicality because technically
two of the violations were actually one because he used
the online to watch the CP. And so he got
out of Dube after like three days because of that,
and he was placed back into the home with those
little girls, and his foster mom at the time was

(29:33):
actually trying to adopt them, and it ended up like
throwing off the adoption for all of the kids that
she had in her home. She ended up losing the
other three boys that she had adopted as well, and
ended up only being left with my brother. And then
when everything happened and she lost all of her other

(29:56):
kids because she she had adopted three little boys that
were all like in a family, and they were all,
i want to say, like under the age of like
four when she adopted them, and they were at now
at this point, like nine or ten years old. So
she lost the adoption, like they came and took all

(30:17):
three of those kids and the other two little girls.
And so at this point she was kind of done
with my brother, and so she showed my brother out
of her house, even though she was still technically his
foster mom, And to this day it just shows that
he didn't like age out of the system. He lived
with her until he was eighteen, even though he did it,

(30:40):
and so he actually went to go live with the
sister who was supposed to be babysitting us that day,
and he ended up getting away with a lot of things.
And when he moved with my sister, he never reregistered
because if he reregistered with my sister's name on the

(31:00):
sex fenders registry with her address, they would know he
wasn't living with the foster mom, and the foster mom
was actually sharing with him the amount of money she
was getting monthly, and was basically like, I'll give you
half of this as long as you promise to stay
out of my house so I can try and get
my kids back. And so because of that, he actually

(31:23):
never registered all the way up until he was about
twenty two, and that was when he tried to reopen
the case with me to get me to this, like
to come back and say, oh, why lied on everything?
Because he had gotten a sixteen year old pregnant at
twenty two and she was giving birth to his child. Wow,
and he's not allowed around minors, which would mean he's

(31:46):
not allowed around his kid, and he's not allowed around
the mother of his child, so he's not going to
be able to see the baby born or anything. And
so he came after me for that. And then throughout
all of that process, I was still on mine and
he had actually like started stalking me. And then when

(32:07):
I was seventeen, I moved with my mom with her
new boyfriend because her and my dad were getting ready
to get divorced, up to a place called Cardington and Ohio,
and I had met like this new guy I was
like efatuated with, and I didn't know that my brother
had knew this guy, and when we went to go

(32:29):
celebrate in Easter party, my brother actually paid this boy
who I thought was my boyfriend, to drug an essay
meet and record it, and so that happened, and then

(32:50):
two days later my brother texted me the video and said,
I know what you did. You're not getting away with it,
almost as if like him having this video proved that
he didn't essay me, as if it wasn't a video
of me being essayed. And then obviously, because now there's
a video of me as a minor and the guy

(33:11):
was I think like nineteen or twenty, there was definitely
an age gap. Definitely shouldn't have been interacting with him
the way I should have, or I was, but I
was seventeen. I didn't know any better. And so CPS
got back involved because now like the Statue of Limitations
was like violated, or the Romeo and Juliet Whall was

(33:33):
violated by the age gap or whatever, and so CPS
got back involved, and it was almost as if like
CPS was blaming me for it, and it was like, well,
if you weren't involved with him, there wouldn't be a video,
like you guys are in a romantic relationship. Even though
there was proof that my brother had paid this guy
five hundred drivers, met up with him and gave him
the date, rape drugs, and sent him the video. They

(33:59):
never did anything about it. They actually tried to take
me from my mom again, but because I was seventeen,
it was kind of like a he can try this,
but it's going to take us eight months to get
her anyways, and by that time she's going to be eighteen,
so screw her. We're just going to leave her alone,
I guess. And at that point, the video had gotten

(34:21):
around to literally everyone I knew, posted on my high
school Facebook page, where everyone in my high school called
me the rape child. So I was like brutally bullied.
I had gotten jumped a few times at school by
some of his ex girlfriends who thought like I was
lying and I saw their boyfriend from him because I

(34:41):
was just the jealous sister. And then all of that happened,
and then I finally turned eighteen, and he kind of
left me alone all the way up until I was
like nineteen or twenty. He got another minor pregnant. He
wanted me to come back and try and drop the
charges and at this point he's twenty four, why are
you getting minors pregnant? I'm not dropping the charges, nor

(35:05):
really can you want me to go in front of
a judge and say I lied about something that was
the truth and they have medical proof that it was
the truth, and then I go to jail for like perjury.
I'm cool on that. And then that was, like I guess,
the extent of my personal experience with CPS. And then
after I was eighteen, my oldest stepsister she was a

(35:30):
heroin addict from the point I was about like five
or six on and her drug use never really like
affected me like I had seen it, Like I had
seen her overtose once or twice, but it was never
something that like she had done in front of us
kids or anything like that. Well, she ended up getting

(35:50):
pregnant and having a little boy, and when she had
this little boy, because she was addicted to heroin, she
had to go on methadone and sat to help her
when she was pregnant. And because my nephew came out
addicted to the methodonius of boxing, he was obviously withdrawn,
so she lost testady of him for I think like

(36:11):
two months, and then she ended up getting him back
and the baby's father wasn't in the life. And then
mind you, this is going to be important later. Sorry,
little scatterbrained. My older sister is white and she had
a biracial baby, so baby father is not in the

(36:33):
picture whatsoever. She didn't even really know who it was.
About three years into him being born. My sister unfortunately
passed away to long term drug effects. She was sober
but doing heroin for eighteen years of her life. Once
you get clean, it still affects your body. So she

(36:56):
actually had a brain aneurysm and a seizure at the
same time and passed away and her son was the
one who found her well when everything happened, my dad
was kind of too old to take him in. My
mom wasn't his like biological grandma because it was my stepsister,

(37:16):
so she couldn't take him. I was too young, I
wasn't a biological sibling, so they wouldn't let me take him.
So he ended up getting placed with our like fourth cousins.
And they are white people. And when I say they
are white, and they are like put your pinky up
when you drink white And so they live out in

(37:40):
like a little country town, and they actually adopted him
in a closed adoption, which I do thank them for

(38:04):
still allowing us to have a relationship with him, because
I know with a closed adoption that's not mandatory or required.
So I do value the fact that they still like
allow us for it, like to visit him and stuff.
But once they adopted him, I had never had personal
experiences with the adoption agency, but that's what had opened

(38:24):
my eyes up to adoption because the moment they formally
adopted him, they changed his last name, they changed his
whole birth certificate, so on his birth certificate, my sister
doesn't exist. In his mind, my sister doesn't exist. He'll
never know his biological father in the way that they

(38:44):
were able to adopt him without finding out who his
biological father was was in Ohio. The only thing you
have to do to like terminate a father's rights is
put an ad in the newspaper for fourteen days and
like the ad my dad like put in the newspaper.
That are well, our caseworker put in the newspaper. It
was literally like trying to buy a car. It was like,

(39:07):
my name is such and such with the picture of
his face, his like data bird, the mother's name, all
of it. It was like as if you were buying
a car in the newspaper with how they made like
this ad and this was two years ago. Nobody reads
the newspaper anymore, let alone somebody young enough to have
a three year old little boy. And so they actually

(39:31):
ended up adopting him. And then about a month or
so after he was adopted, the father, or I guess
the suspected father because it's not been like proven yet,
ended up commenting on my sister's Facebook page and was like,
it's a parent that Erica has my child, but she's dead,

(39:51):
so where's my kid? And the pit The post ended
up getting deleted conveniently, and they went back forth with
that for a while, and then they just went forward
with the closed adoption, and to this day like, he'll
never know who his mom is unless we're the ones

(40:13):
who tell him. He'll obviously never know who his father is.
But not only that. As much as I love them
for taking care of my nephew in a way that
I can still see him, I'll be the first to
admit that there are certain things that even I know
that I couldn't take care of for him, and that
my sister failed have taken care of him and even

(40:36):
down to like his hair. So my oldest sister before
she passed, did a really good job of like trying
to educate herself on his hair texture so that way
she could do hairstyles for him. Well, when they adopted him,
their's like solution to it was to just shave his head.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
That's what they do most of us. Well, he really quickly.
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
I want you to finish up your lived experience and
I also want to talk to you about the relationships
now that you have with your mom, your stepparents, and
even your brother. So we're going to take a quick
break and Light Shanners will be right back to hear
the rest of Cassidy story. All right, Shanner Life, Welcome

(41:14):
back to the show Light Shanners. Once again, make sure
that you are sharing this podcast with everyone. Did you
guys know? We are also available everywhere podcasts or played,
and that's including your Alexa and Google devices. You can
even listen to us in your Alexa enabled Apple car play.
We're on Spotify, our Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts, and many
more so make sure you're sharing this with everyone, especially

(41:35):
if they are interested in learning from the first person
experiences from people who've experienced time in the child warfare system. So,
without further ado, I want Cassidy to kind of finish
up her experience and then also tell us about the
relationships that she has now with these CEO.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
So to just wrap up with my nephew, Obviously, I
love them for being able to still visit him, but
I obviously, like after further educating myself because when I
was like twenty one, was when I actually first found you,
and I didn't find you on TikTok. Originally, I found
you on a Facebook reel. You were talking at a

(42:14):
adoption or an adoption conference or something, and that kind
of like opened my eyes up to like the interracial
adoption issues. And so now like looking at his family, now,
not only is he not going to know my sister,
but he's never going to have an ability to ever
meet his biological dad side of the family because that

(42:37):
is in the closed adoption that the biological dad side
of the family and my sister's biological mom like all
of that side of the family can't visit him. So
only like my stepdad, me and his wife are really
allowed to visit him. And so because of that, obviously
he's never going to be able to really understand where

(42:58):
he came from, who his parents are, really understand the
struggle that he's going to face. They're in a little
rural town in Ohio that is like the number one
Trump town in Ohio, and it is definitely filled with
a lot of racist people. And I know that I'm
unequipped to teach him how he's going to face those things.

(43:20):
And I'm not to toot my own horn, but i
know I'm a little more educated on those topics than
they are. So it kind of like is a stab
in the gut knowing that those are struggles he's going
to face and they might not necessarily be able to
assist him at lost. Yeah, and then that kind of
wraps up with my nephew.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Oh, I hope that he. I hope that he maybe
you know, it's the internet age, so hopefully his parents
are listening or watching. And this is why we've produced
this type of podcast so people can't share it with
transracial adopted parents, so they can get like a point
of view, right and they can hear it also from
the other family's point of view, So whatever happen ended
up happening with your brother, and how is your relationship
with your mom and your stepdad after all of that.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
So I was always a daddy's girl. So me and
my stepdad still have a really good relationship. Me and
my mom's relationship is still good. It's definitely hindered because
she still has such a good relationship with my sister,
and I still kind of have a relationship with my
biological sister, which is my brother's biological sister, who is

(44:25):
the one who is supposed to be watching us that day,
And so it still like stems to an effect that
she caters to my sister knowing that she knew what
happened and never said anything, and she never really addressed
it with my sister. So mine and my mom's relationship
after that kind of hindered. And once my mom and

(44:47):
dad got divorced, my mom really was more of like
the best friend and wasn't really the parent. So I
tested the boundaries a lot and ended up getting myself
into a lot of like dangerous situations as a teenager.
So today he and my mom's relationship is okay. I
guess you would say we still talk, we still communicate,

(45:10):
but there's definitely like a lot of toxicity from that
side of the family, which is actually why I just
moved to Texas to kind of take a breather and
kind of find out who I want to become and
who I need to become for me and now my child,
because I just found out I was expecting so thank

(45:31):
you so to try and kind of learn what not
to do from my mom. As much as I love
her and as much as I appreciate everything she did
for me for me, it definitely hindered mine and her
relationship with how much she catered to my sister and
even really kind of how much she fought for my
brother because as a kid, it hurt me knowing, oh,

(45:53):
you know how bad he hurt me, and you still
want him here. It's almost like, why don't you keep
him and let me go? And so me and my brother.
He actually never ended up serving a day in jail.
To this day, I don't talk to him at all.
As far as I know, there's still a restraining order

(46:13):
in place. I don't know how accurate that is, but
I asked, as if there's a restraining order in place,
and the last I actually heard from him was about
a year and a half ago, which was when I
first went viral on TikTok. I actually found like he
popped up on my four you page and he was
like sitting in the back of a truck like singing
them along to a song that was very like grape

(46:36):
culture song. And I had like do edit it and
was like, oh that TikTok finding my rapist. Didn't think
anything was gonna happen out of it, and it blew
up exponentially. I ended up getting like almost like fifty
thousand views on it. Wow. And so obviously he's seen
my duet and so he had like reached out to

(46:59):
me trying to get eat to take the video down.
And at that point I was eighteen. So I posted
dark court documents where he had like admitted to raping
me and saying that he would do it again if
he had the opportunity, and he ended up trying to
take me to court for defamation. It's like, how are
you gon take me for a quote for her own?

(47:24):
And so I never talked to him really after that,
other than and he tried reaching out to me a
few times there was one time that he had reached
out to me under like one of my ex boyfriend's
fake like a fake account under my ex boyfriend's name,
and was like, meet me at this park. I just
want to talk. And so I went to this park. Yep.
I went to this park and my brother was sitting

(47:45):
on a park bench. And at this point, we did
still have an act of restraining order, and being the
kind hearted person I am that tries to like find
the good in every situation possible, I was like, let
me just hear him, let me just hear what he
asks to say. And the whole conversation was victim blaming
of well, if you weren't such a pitch, I wouldn't
have done this. If you weren't this, I wouldn't have

(48:06):
done it. I need you to, you know, go and
say that you didn't do this. And I actually ended
up like getting up and walking away and calling the
cops because we have an active restraining order. Yeah, I
kind of violated it, but at this point, come get him. Well,
by time the cops got there, because in Columbus State,
we didn't really have the best police department, by time

(48:26):
the cops got there, he was gone, and then he
actually moved back in with my sister after that, and
so mine and my sister's relationship probably took the most
damage from it because of it, because she continued to
let him back in and it wasn't until she like
ended up getting like three hundred dollars stolen from her
from him, so she was like, Oh, I'm done with him,

(48:48):
and it was like, oh, that that's what took you
to be done with him, not trying to kill me,
not him trying to rape me, not actually raping me,
but him stealing three hundred dollars. So a lot of
my relationships were impacted by it, but the biggest relationships
that were impacted by it were like my friendships and
my relationships because growing up in a home where you

(49:10):
have to be in fighter flight mode twenty four to seven.
That transpired inst my relationships and even to my marriage
to this day. There are times where like we'll get
into like a smallish argument and I'll blow it up
out of proportion because I go into fight mode and
it's like if I don't fight now, then it's going
to turn fiscal. Even though I know my husband would

(49:32):
never put his hands on me it's that fight or
flight in the back of my mind because I know, oh,
all of mine and my brother's arguments were just arguments
at first, and then it turned into piscol and then
it turned into essay, and then it turned into him
trying to kill me. So it definitely impacted more of
my like chosen relationships rather than my familial relationships, because
I already kind of had a like, I don't want

(49:54):
to say a grudge, but a grudge because of what
happened with my biological family. So it was more or
less like it impacted like my friendships. Even when it
came to like females, it was hard for me to
trust people because if oh, you're telling me I look pretty,
are you telling me I look pretty because you want
me to look stupid in front of your friends so

(50:14):
you can make fun of me like my brother did,
Or are you just doing this to put me in a
bad situation. And I definitely had those friendships that they
lied and they put me in some sticky situations, and
it most definitely affects like my like intimate relationships the most.
For the longest time, anything sexual to me was extremely

(50:36):
like off limits. I could never imagine doing anything sexually
in a like pleasing way, because it was like always
like traumatizing. I remember, like the first time I lost
my virginity, I like screamed and cried and like was
telling him to get off of me and actually called
him my brother's name. And it wasn't like he was
doing anything wrong or that it was unconsensual. It was

(50:59):
just in my mind it automatically sent me back to
that day when my brother was doing it. And so
it impacted a lot of relationships. And because I was
so combative with some of my relationships, I'll admit that
I kind of put myself into a few abusive relationships
where I would instigate almost like a physical altercation with
my boyfriend, and then it turned into Okay, I'm no

(51:23):
longer initiating it, and I'm just being the battered wife,
almost not wife, but the battered girlfriend, where I stopped
initiating the physical violence and just went into flight mode.
And now I'm getting beat because they think I'm about
to beat them, And it hindered that the most.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
And I tell this about a lot of time, like
being a survivor of any type of abuse, especially like
sexual abuse or physical abuse, even with the strongest people.
And when you become an adult, it takes a lot
of work for you to not repeat that behavior and
revictimize other people, right in your own spouses. And that's
the challenge that I went through when I was in

(52:02):
my early twenties too. I'm no I've talked about it
on divorce court. I've talked to me and my husbanding
on divorce court back in the day when I was acting.
But like, I used to just be this angry person,
and I would like, the first thing I would do
was just like harm people. I just hit like that
because every growing up, that's all that I got and
that's the only way that And when people would love me,
quote unquote, I'm hitting you because I love you. I'm

(52:22):
abusy because I love you, right, So love to me
looked so totally different. And then I had to take
a step outside of that and say, hey, this is
not normal, this is not how normal people interact. And
some of these situations you could have prevented, but you
were so traumatized and you and your frontal low wasn't formed.
And there's like a lot of different things, right, CPTSD,
all of these different things, but it's great that now

(52:43):
that these are things that you realize, especially now that
you're going to be a mom yourself. So and I
think that navigating trauma is a lifelong experience. No one
ever is going to be an expert at navigating trauma
that they've experienced. You just kind of learn how to
make it workable, right, You kind of learn how to
make it a little bit acceportable. But no, never will
you be like I'm one hundred PERCENTUAU like trauma free.

(53:05):
No that that that doesn't happen you trauma.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Free exactly like And the only reason why I ever
actually went through counseling or any kind of therapy for
like my essay and my like foster care trauma was
when I was eighteen, I had gotten pulled over and
I had weed in my car and they got me
with possession with intent to distribute because I had two

(53:31):
different bags of weed, and so they sent me to court.
And in Ohio, once you see one judge, that's the
only judge you ever see, even if it's like for traffic.
So the same judge who's seen me as the fourteen
year old little girl who was great, was the same
judge seeing me for my criminal case for the marijuana now,
and so her answer was, We're not going to put

(53:53):
you on probation, We're not going to do anything like that.
I'm going to issue you into court mandated therapy for
six months. In the first three months, I was really
invested in it. I really took from it. My counselor
was amazing. And then the last three months of it,
I kind of felt as though I didn't need it
as much, so we kind of just texted back and forth.

(54:14):
But that was really the only time that I actually
had the ability to be like, Okay, this isn't my fault.
How do I better myself? And obviously it's something that
I still learned from this day. My husband to this
day will there are certain things that we do in arguments.
Are all doing an argument. He's like, hey, that's your
trauma response, talking like breathe, you're okay, And like, one

(54:39):
of the biggest things that he points out is that
in our relationship, I'm more vocally combative with him because
I know he'll never put his hands on me. Whereas
before I was a very like hush, quiet person. I
didn't speak my mind to a man because I always
feared that they were going to do what my brother
did to me, whereas with my husband now, I'm like, yeah,
I'm going to talk to six foot grown man because

(55:01):
I know you're not going to hit me. It's almost
like I'm comfortable being not necessarily toxic, but I'm comfortable
being combative with him because I know that what I
went through in my past isn't going to happen. But
I still know that that's part of my trauma responses
that I have to work on daily.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
Absolutely well, Cassidy, thank you so much for sharing your
lived experience. And I'm so sorry for a lot of
everything you know and not being heard as a child,
and but I'm so proud of you that you know
you can identify these things now right and you can
stop that pattern pappen to your child. Is there anything
piece of advice that you would want to give a child,

(55:39):
a little teenager or a child who would be going
to something similar with that you went through. Would there
be a piece of advice that you would want to
give them.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
The one thing that I never did was speak up
for myself. The victim's advocates that most children are assigned
are there to speak for the victim. And that's what
I do know when I was a kid, and so
they kind of just spoke on my parents perhaps for me.
And so when you have like a victim's advocate, or

(56:08):
even if you don't have a victim's advocate, and you're
in front of a judge and you're given that opportunity
to speak, I know it's terrifying. I know it's scary
to get up in front of somebody who has hurt you.
No that as a minor, you do have the right
to ask for that person to be removed from the
courtroom while you're speaking. That's something I wish I would

(56:29):
have known. But not only that, but do speak because
if I would have spoken to the judge when I
was younger, prior to a lot of the things happening
to me, I could have prevented well, I possibly could
have prevented those things. And even if I couldn't have
prevented them, it would have shown the habit, the record,
the repeat pattern to where when CPS came to me

(56:51):
and I was telling them these things of him physically
abusing me, it wasn't just like, oh, this is sibling rivalry.
There's actually grounding and foundation. There you said it front
of a judge under oh, use your voice. I know
it's scary, but that's just the one thing I wish
I would have done when I was in these situations,
were to actually speak up for myself, not only to
my parents, because sometimes parents, when their kids are involved,

(57:14):
are going to try and play middleman and be there
for both kids, and sometimes even as a child, you
have to speak up for yourself. And that's what I
would say, is just if you're ever into a situation
anything remotely similar to mine, and you have the opportunity
to use your voice. I understand it's scary, but the
word you feel after finally being able to speak your piece,

(57:36):
whether it's to a judge or to a victim's advocate,
I wish I would have done a million times soon.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
I love that. That's fantastic. That's fantastic advice. It kind
of reminds me of my slogan, always shine your light,
always use your voice. Right, Well, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Slogan for the longest was don't become, but don't become
a victim, become a survivor. A victim is somebody who
never overcomes, and a survivor somebody who always old that
was like my slogan for the longest was that I
don't need to victimize, I need to survive.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
Absolutely. I love that. I love that. Well, thank you
for sharing your survival story, Cassidy, and I just can't
wait to see you blossom into an amazing mother. I
know your little one's going to be in the great
hands of just all of like just your lived experience.
I think people who've endure trauma and work through that
trauma become the best parents, They become the best people
because they know how dark it really can get. And

(58:31):
light shiner speaking of how dark it can get, make
sure that you guys are continuing to shine your light
and always know that there is a light at the
end of the tunnel. And it's important to keep sharing
these stories so they don't repeat. And if you guys
were going through anything that Cassidy spoke up, like she said,
speak out. You know there are hotlines, there are numbers,
or if you see a court or judge like Cassie said,
speak up and know you're right. So I really appreciate

(58:54):
you giving that lift experience and that knowledge of us
today and sharing your story and light Shiner's. Like I
say every week, never be afraid, always shine your light
and until next time, we'll see you guys on the
next episode. H h