2/12/10

I told you, this can easily be a 100 part series. Right after I met Ted for the first time we started E-mailing each other. I thought he was harmless, I was also only 13 at the time. Sure he hadn't been around for the first 13 years of my life, but he was my "dad", he created me. We started off with the basic "getting to know you" questions. What kind of things did we like to do, foods we likes, favorite colors and such. At the time my sister's favorite color was purple. I told him that and about 2 to 3 weeks later he asked if her favorite color was still purple. I responded "yes". The next e-mail he went off on how when she was a baby her favorite color was purple. I mentioned this to Grandma. She told me that the story wasn't true. That was my first of many red flags regarding Ted. The next big thing I remember was he told me that I didn't belong to my parents and I belonged to him and he was going to take me away. At 13 I knew that he had no legal right to me. He gave up his parental right when I was about 7 months old and my parents had legally adopted me. I immediately told my mom about what he said. She talked to our Bishop at church about she should do. His advice was that if Ted kept it up get a lawyer involved. I stopped communication with him then. And he seriously wonders why I stopped talking him! And this was all within a few months of meeting him.

My grandparents tried to keep their feelings about Ted neutral around my sister and I. They wanted to let us form our own opinions and feelings about him. Once we realized and voiced that we didn't like him my grandma told us the first ever negative story about him. I point this out because he is convinced that my family brainwashed us against him!

Here is a funny story about him though- On my sister's 16th birthday we went out to dinner and came home to find a note from Ted. In his note he said that while he and Mom were married they decided that they would let us get our ears pierced when we were 16. So he was giving us his and my mother's permission to get our ears pierced. I remember my sister and I joking about it for months. (on a side note we both already had 2 piercing's. Mom let us when we were 7 and Grandma let us get a second hole when I was 14) My sister and I joked about how we would go to the store to get our piercing's and when asked for parents permission hand over the piece of paper saying we have Ted (who had no legal right to give permission) and our dead mom's permission!!!

- more to come...