Memorializing a Miracle

Hey Liora. It's going to be warm today. The snow is going to get all slushy. Better wear your slushy boots if you go out.

Yeah. Good idea. I've got to go into town. I got a Saturday appointment with my therapist. I want her to meet Angel.

(looking shocked) You got an appointment on Saturday? Isn't that expensive?

She cut me a deal. She's been my therapist since my divorce. She says she 'deprogrammed' me because my family and my ex were in a religious cult. She really wants to meet Angel.

Johnathan, you don't just cook bacon and then eat it, silly. You have to make the whole breakfast.

When is your appointment? There's something I want to do today, as a family. It's been on my mind all night. Just think about it. Ten days ago I was just a single guy writing code and raking leaves in my backyard. You were a single mom organizing play dates and raising a pre-schooler. Now we're basically 'married with children', with a teenager even. Just think about that.

So what do you want to do?

It scares me that things are changing so fast. I want to memorialize these events with a family portrait, you know, to remember all of this, if things change.

Me too. I lay in bed and wonder if I'll wake up, back in my rental house, and this was all just a dream. But don't worry honey, I think things are going to be stable for awhile. The Angels wouldn't give us all this just to take it all away, and I'm not going anywhere. My appointment is in the afternoon so if we can do the photoshoot this morning that would be good.

Ok, get the girls ready, do your hair, put on your makeup, and I'll get an appointment with the photographer.

Angel, I'm so glad to meet you. Before we begin, I want to make sure you're comfortable with Liora being part of this conversation. We're going to discuss some difficult things, and it's important you feel safe here.

I need to be transparent with you about what's happened today. I've spent the morning coordinating with several agencies—Child Protective Services, your probation officer, a judge from Juvenile Services, and your pediatrician. When Liora shared your age and circumstances, I was legally required to notify the authorities. I want you to understand that this comes from a place of ensuring your safety, not punishment.

Initially, CPS recommended placement in a level one facility—essentially a secure detention center for youth who've repeatedly left placement. I advocated strongly against that. I told them I would take direct clinical responsibility for your case, provided you remain with Liora. They've agreed, for now. But Angel, I need you to understand—this is a significant opportunity. It's also conditional on your engagement with treatment.

It's okay. I want Liora to know everything.

All right. Then let's talk honestly about where you've been, so we can figure out together where you're going.

According to your case file, your parents have chronic substance use disorders. They've been living in unstable situations—trap houses, abandoned buildings, vehicles, encampments. The environments you've been exposed to have included criminal activity and active drug use. Your file indicates you've experienced commercial sexual exploitation since before your thirteenth birthday—what's legally termed trafficking, though I know that word might not match how you understood it at the time.

You've had arrests—shoplifting, solicitation-related charges, a prostitution charge that frankly should never have been filed given your age, and an assault charge. You've had multiple placements: your aunt's home, a residential treatment program, juvenile detention, a transitional group home. And according to records, you left each of these placements to return to your mother. Is that accurate?

[quietly] Yes.

Your records also document that your mother has physically assaulted you, has facilitated your exploitation for money and drugs, and has been consistently abusive. Yet you've repeatedly chosen to return to her. That's the pattern we need to understand together, not to judge you, but to help you break free of it. So I'm going to ask you something that might be hard to answer: What is it about your mother that pulls you back, even when you know—on some level—that returning to her puts you in danger?

Well, I guess it's because she needed me.

Tell me more about what you mean when you say she needs you. What does that look like?

She's... she's not doing well. The last time I went back to her, she hadn't eaten in two days. She was shivering in this horrible place with all these scary people around, and she looked so small and lost. Like a little kid, you know? I'm the only person who really cares about her. My dad certainly doesn't. He's completely checked out.

That sounds like it weighs heavily on you—feeling responsible for your mother's wellbeing.

[voice rising, defensive] I'm not just 'feeling responsible'—I AM responsible! Everyone else has given up on her. Her family, the system, everyone just writes her off. If I don't take care of her, who will? She'll die out there.

Angel, when you're with your mother, how does she typically treat you?

[long pause, looking away] She's... she's going through a lot right now. The addiction makes her say things she doesn't mean.

What kind of things does she say?

[quietly] Sometimes she tells me I'm stupid, or that I'm just like my worthless father. Last week she screamed at me in front of all these people, just because I asked if she wanted some food I'd brought. She called me a pathetic little bitch and told me to get lost. Said I was embarrassing her.

How did that make you feel?

[tears forming] It hurt. It really hurt. I ran away and cried for probably an hour. But then I started thinking—she was probably just hungry and going through withdrawal. She gets mean when she's sick. When I came back, she was passed out. I cleaned up around her, made sure she was breathing okay, stayed until she woke up.

So when your mother hurts you emotionally, your response is to take care of her physically?

She needs me! You should see her when she's really sick. She gets scared and confused, almost childlike. I'm the only one who knows how to calm her down. I hold her hand and tell her everything's going to be okay, and she actually listens to me then. She needs me in those moments.

Angel, I can see how much you love your mother. That's not in question. But I'm concerned about what you're being exposed to when you're with her. Can you tell me about the environment she's living in?

[defensive] I can handle myself. I'm not some naive little kid.

I don't think you're naive at all. In fact, you've had to develop survival skills that most adults never need. But you mentioned she's staying in trap houses. I'd like to understand what that environment is actually like.

[hesitating] It's... intense. There are always people coming and going, doing business. Lots of paranoia, lots of weapons. My mom says I'm smart and could make good money helping out. She tells me the foster system is just trying to control me, that I could be independent if I wanted.

What kind of help does she suggest you could provide?

[very quietly] Just like... delivering things sometimes. Running packages. Keeping watch. She says it's easy money and that I need to learn how the real world actually works instead of living in some fake bubble where everything's safe and clean.

How do you feel when she asks you to do those things?

[conflicted] I mean... I want to help her. And she gets really happy when I say yes. She tells me I'm her 'smart girl' and that she's proud of me. Those are the only times she seems proud anymore. But... [voice breaking] sometimes I get really scared. The people there aren't nice. They look at me in ways that make my skin crawl. I've seen some really bad things happen to people who mess up.

That sounds terrifying, Angel. You mentioned she's proud of you when you help with these activities. How does she treat you when you say no?

[long silence, picking at her nails] She... she gets really angry. She says I think I'm better than her, that I'm judging her lifestyle, looking down on her. She tells me to go back to my 'precious foster family' if I'm too good for her world. Sometimes she won't talk to me for days, just completely shuts me out.

So you find yourself in a position where you feel like you have to choose between your safety and your mother's love?

[crying now] You don't get it! She's my MOM. She's the only family I really had for most of my life. Yes, she's sick right now, and yes, she makes mistakes—bad ones—but underneath all that addiction and anger, she loves me. I know she does. When she's having a good day, we laugh together and she tells me stories about when I was little, before everything got messed up. She needs someone to believe in her, to not give up on her like everyone else has.

I can hear how much pain you're in, Angel. One of the hardest truths to hold is that love and harm can exist in the same relationship at the same time. That doesn't make either one less real.

[wiping tears with her sleeve] Everyone keeps trying to separate us, but that just makes everything worse. When I'm not there, she gets more reckless. She takes bigger risks. At least when I'm with her, I can try to keep her safe, make sure she doesn't overdose or get hurt by dangerous people. I can be there if something goes wrong.

It sounds like you feel you're protecting each other. But I want to ask you something: who's protecting Angel?

[quietly] I don't need protecting. I need my mom.

But last week, something changed. You ran away from your mom. That's a big shift—running away from her instead of running to her. What happened?

[voice cracking] It all got to be too much. I mean, I need her, but I'm dying there. Literally dying. And I realized—what good am I to her if I'm dead? I can't help her from a grave.

That's significant, Angel. That awareness—that you matter too, that your survival matters—that gives us something real to work with.

Angel, have you ever heard the term 'trauma bonding'?

No.

Trauma bonding is when you form a powerful attachment to someone who hurts you, usually because they also provide comfort or relief from the very pain they cause. It creates a psychological cycle that's incredibly difficult to break. The person creates chaos, crisis, or pain—then they rescue you from it, comfort you, or show you affection. Your brain learns to associate them with safety and relief, even when they're actually the source of the danger. It's not logical, but it's deeply neurological.

Like when my mom would start a fight with me, say horrible things, and then later that night she'd hold me while I cried and tell me she was sorry, that she didn't mean it?

Exactly. Your nervous system gets conditioned over time to see that person as both the problem and the solution. It creates what we call an intermittent reinforcement pattern—sometimes you get hurt, sometimes you get comfort, and you never know which is coming. That unpredictability actually makes the bond stronger, not weaker. It makes leaving feel impossible, even when you know logically that you should go.

There are a few other psychological mechanisms at play here. One is called learned helplessness. When you're in a situation where your choices consistently don't matter—where you get hurt whether you're 'good' or 'bad,' whether you comply or resist—your brain eventually stops believing you have any control at all.

So you just... give up trying?

Not consciously, and not as a character weakness. But your brain learns at a deep level that effort is futile, that trying to change your circumstances is pointless. So even when real opportunities for change present themselves—like Liora's offer to provide you with a stable home—it feels genuinely safer to stay in the familiar hell than to risk the unknown. The devil you know feels less frightening than the devil you don't. But you did leave, Angel. You walked away. That's your brain starting to believe that change might actually be possible. That's the beginning of growth.

There's also gaslighting—when someone consistently makes you question your own perceptions and your grip on reality. If your mother regularly told you that your feelings were wrong, that your memories were incorrect, that your needs were unreasonable or your reactions were crazy...

[interrupting] She did that constantly. Still does. She'd do something horrible and then tell me I was remembering it wrong, or that I was being too sensitive, or that I was making things up to make her look bad. Made me feel like I was losing my mind.

Over time, that systematic erosion of trust in yourself becomes profound. If you can't trust your own perceptions, how can you trust your instinct to leave? How can you believe your own assessment that you deserve better? You lose the ability to be your own advocate because you no longer believe your own testimony about your life.

Here's what I want you to understand, and I need you to really hear this: None of this is a character flaw on your part. None of this means you're weak or stupid or broken beyond repair. These are normal psychological responses to profoundly abnormal situations. Your brain was trying to protect you the only way it knew how—by adapting to survive impossible circumstances.

But I still chose to keep going back to her. Over and over. Even when I knew it was bad.

You made decisions based on the information your traumatized nervous system was giving you. That information was fundamentally distorted by years of conditioning. Your mother isn't actually a safe person for you to be around—we both know that objectively. But your nervous system had learned something different. It learned that the familiar, even when dangerous, felt safer than the unknown. It learned that you couldn't survive without her. None of that was true, but your brain believed it was.

So I'm not just... weak? Pathetic?

You're not weak at all. Angel, do you have any idea how much strength it takes to survive what you've survived? To keep going when everything in your environment is telling you you're worthless? To maintain hope when you've been betrayed by the person who should have protected you most? You've been using tremendous strength every single day just to stay alive. Now we need to help you redirect that strength toward healing rather than just surviving.

How do I do that?

First, by understanding what you're dealing with. You can't fight an enemy you can't see or name. Second, by building up your sense of self-worth independent of what your mother or anyone else says about you. And third, by creating new experiences that teach your nervous system that safety and growth are actually possible—that people can be trustworthy, that you can make choices that matter, that the world isn't always a trap.

Angel, I want to ask you something, and I want you to really think about your answer. Not what your mom would say, not what you think I want to hear, not what sounds right—what you actually feel deep down: Do you deserve to be happy?

[voice barely above a whisper] I think... maybe I do?

Hold onto that 'maybe.' Protect it. That's the part of you that made you run from your mother last week. That's the part that knows the truth, even when everything else is screaming lies. That's the part of you we're going to help grow stronger.

[voice thick with emotion] How do you feel, sweetheart?

Like I understand myself better. Like maybe I'm not as broken as I thought I was. But also... scared that it won't matter. Like I'll just end up making the same mistakes again. Like this clarity won't last.

Recovery isn't linear, Angel. There's no straight line from here to 'fixed.' You might struggle. You might even leave Liora's house at some point. You might run back to your mom again. If that happens, it doesn't mean you're hopeless or that all this work was for nothing. It means you're human, and change is genuinely hard. What matters is that you keep coming back to yourself, that you keep choosing to try.

Now I want to ask you the most important question of today. How do you feel about Liora and Jonathan and the family they're offering to make you part of?

[lighting up with a genuine smile for the first time] Oh my God, you don't even know. This is literally my dream. For years, I've dreamed about being part of a real family. I used to imagine what it would be like—in my dreams, I'm latina so my family was always Mexican—but Liora and Jonathan are perfect. They're actually perfect. There is no way I'm running away from this. Not from Liora.

This session has gone very well, Angel. The fact that you've successfully completed detox and are stable on medication-assisted treatment—the Suboxone—is genuinely impressive. Many people your age can't manage that. I've called in your prescription to the clinic on Fifth Street. You can pick it up starting tomorrow. I believe your progress will help keep CPS comfortable with this arrangement.

I noticed something interesting in how you've been talking today. You've been moving back and forth between present and past tense when you talk about your old life—sometimes "my mom says" and sometimes "my mom said." That linguistic shift suggests you're in a state of transition. Your brain is starting to categorize some of those experiences as past rather than present. That's a very good sign. It means you're beginning to separate who you were from who you're becoming.

Now, I want you to have my direct number. If you have any cravings—for drugs, to shoplift, to return to old survival patterns, anything—you call me. Day or night, I don't care. Two in the morning, during dinner, whenever. That's what I'm here for.

[voice low and serious] You and Jonathan are in what we call the honeymoon phase right now with Angel. Everything feels wonderful and possible. But I need to prepare you for something difficult: old patterns of behavior can resurface without warning, especially under stress. These patterns are deeply ingrained survival mechanisms.

In your specific situation, you need to be aware of something uncomfortable but important. Research shows that in step-parent situations, particularly with teenage girls who have been sexually traumatized, there's a higher risk of boundary confusion. This isn't about anyone being predatory—it's about how trauma rewires the brain's understanding of relationships. Angel learned from a very young age that sex and affection were transactional, that her body was a tool for securing resources, safety, and connection.

She may—and I want to emphasize may, not will—attempt to engage Jonathan in ways that feel sexual or seductive. She might not even be fully conscious of what she's doing. For years, that's been her primary strategy for securing male protection and resources. Jonathan needs to be prepared for this possibility so he can respond appropriately if it happens—with clear boundaries but without shame or rejection.

Talk to him about this before it happens. If you see signs of it beginning—overly physical contact, inappropriate comments, boundary testing—intervene immediately but with love and understanding. This isn't evil or manipulation in the malicious sense. It's a traumatized child using the only tools she knows. She needs to learn that she's valued without needing to sexualize herself, that men can be safe without requiring anything from her body.

I'm telling you this because Angel is a beautiful young woman, and she's been trained to weaponize that beauty for survival. Jonathan needs to be prepared to see past that, to maintain appropriate boundaries even if she tests them, and to help her understand that she's safe in your home without needing to perform or provide anything.

Dad! be careful!

(grinning) I just did that to show you how important it is to be careful.