“When I turned eighteen, I had the right to contact my birth...

“When I turned eighteen, I had the right to contact my birth mother, but my parents warned me not to do it. I called her anyway. When she got on the phone, it sounded like she was in a manic phase. She didn’t take responsibility for anything. She kept saying that I’d been brainwashed, and that ‘those people’ were not my parents, and that everything was the fault of the social workers. She had this edge in her voice. It gave me flashbacks to being yelled at and being hit by brooms. After we got off the phone, I decided that some doors are supposed to stay closed.”