A Mothers Cry For Help

This is my story of how I lost custody of my daughter to the one person I should have been able to trust, my dad. This is a story of a broken childhood, drug addiction, loss, pain, suffering and generational patterns and how I was able to overcome all of that despite the overwhelming events in my life. My hope in writing this is that I may be able to get my story the attention it needs so I can break this generational curse and move on to be the mother I now know I can be. I hope this will also help other mothers who may be in a similar situation as I am. I hope my story resonates with mothers who struggle with drug addiction as well as those who have mothers who struggle with addiction. If you take time from your day to read this long story, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Growing up, I never really knew my mom. My dad, Howard, was who raised me. We were inseparable. I loved Howard with everything I had; he was all I had for a long time. We took care of each other at least that’s how I seen it through my eyes as a child; hindsight is always 20/20. As I started to mature, I started seeing it for what it really was. It wasn’t healthy having a father who was a drug addict/alcoholic. I went to so many different schools that I honestly couldn’t even tell you the exact number. All I could tell you is that I was always the new kid. I was an angry kid. Always fighting in school and when I look back, I know it’s because I was crying out for help. When it was just Howard and I, things were great but when he had a girlfriend, things were bad. The fights were always my fault. Sometimes I would cry and beg for my mom, and I was told that she left me and didn’t love me. I was told that she had other kids that were more important. There were a few times he would send me to go live with her when things between him and the girlfriend would turn sour. That never lasted long. Just as I was getting comfortable, he would come to take me away again and the lies would start all over. As I got older the physical abuse started and the threats to kill himself. I started acting out, as any child in that environment would. His favorite thing to do as a punishment was to grab me up by the hair and throw me or to tell me I looked so much like my mom it made him sick. He would even let some of his girlfriend’s abuse me. Pinching, slapping, pressure points. I want to believe that he was so far into his addiction that he didn’t see it happening, but I know in my heart that’s just me trying to justify it because that’s easier to think about than him knowing what was happening.

I was 15 when I started reaching out to my mom on my own. By that time, I knew Howard was a liar and I wanted to find out for myself what my mom was like. I quickly found out that everything he had told me was either a full-blown lie or only half of the truth. My mom always wanted me, but Howard did everything he could to keep her away from me. So, my mom and I started to have a relationship, but I was still very attached to Howard and was unsure of what I wanted. Part of me wanted to live with her but I just wasn’t ready to totally give up on Howard. This is the year that I met my daughter, Kaylee’s, dad and that also played a part of why I couldn’t just leave Portsmouth Ohio to move 250 miles away to Alliance Ohio. I was in love!

I met Kaylee’s dad, Sean, at church. His mom was dating Howards best friend from his childhood. Immediately I was infatuated with him. He gave me another escape from the reality that was my teenage years and when I was with him everything seemed alright. This was also the time I started praying for Howard every time I would go to church. I put his name in the prayer box so many times and I would kneel at the alter and cry and pray for God to save my dad from addiction before something bad happened. Then one day God answered my prayers and Howard came to church! I was so happy, and I thought everything from that moment on would be better. Howard was going every Sunday and Thursday, and he was studying the bible. I remember at one point he had the entire family tree of Jesus up on his walls in his bedroom scrawled in messy handwriting on wrinkled notebook paper. I was proud and so thankful that finally everything would be alright but then it wasn’t. One day Howard was working, and he got stopped by a police officer for driving with a suspended license and they cuffed him to take him to jail. He had given me his wallet so I could put some money on his books and when I looked inside, I found suboxone. I was so upset that I packed up my things and went to live with my mom who was living in Waverly Ohio at the time. She had left her husband and moved closer to me and her dad’s side of the family. Sean also came with me, and we stayed there for a while. I do believe this is where my daughter was conceived. My mom was struggling to be able to see her other 2 kids, my brother and sister and eventually she moved back to Alliance Ohio to be with them. Sean and I followed shortly after.

I was 17 when I found out I was pregnant, and I was so scared. I had no idea what my future was going to hold, and I was still a child myself. I was living in Alliance with my mom, but things weren’t great. I didn’t get along well with her husband because he blamed me for my mom leaving him. When I found out I was pregnant, my first thought was abortion. I was afraid to bring a child into the mess that was my life but when the doctor told me I would have to go somewhere else for that service, I knew right then that God had a bigger plan for my life and that if I trusted him, everything would be alright. Sean and I ended up moving back to southern Ohio to stay with his dad during my pregnancy and because of this move I dropped out of high school. Eventually we got our first apartment in Wheelersburg Ohio. It was a little 2-bedroom in a brick one story building, and this is where we lived when Kaylee was born. Sean worked to support us and our baby, and I did have a couple jobs here and there but mostly I stayed home with Kaylee. I struggled with post-partum depression. There were times I wanted to kill myself and the only thing that stopped me was that tiny baby looking up at me with her little blue eyes. It was hard being a young mother. Afraid to make the same mistakes that Howard did and afraid that I wasn’t cut out to be a mom. I felt like my childhood was robbed. Like I didn’t get the chance to be a kid because I dealt with so much growing up. I never blamed Kaylee. I knew it was my actions that got me pregnant, and I was willing to deal with that and raise my daughter. Sean lost his job sometime after Kaylee was born. He was working at Walmart and stole a box of diapers and got caught. So, we moved to Jackson Ohio to stay with Howard and his new wife Kendra. Sean worked with Howard to make money. There was one time that Sean and I wanted to go out with our friends, and we asked Howard and Kendra to keep Kaylee for the night and it was a whole thing. We were bad parents because we wanted to go have fun with our friends and I remember yelling at Howard that I never wanted to be a mom and that I still had a life to live. I was angry and still dealing with post-partum depression and I didn’t understand why I couldn’t have a night to myself. Plenty of parents leave their kids with trusted adults to go have some time to themselves. This was just another way for Howard to gain control over my life. He once told me he felt like he could right the wrongs he did with me by doing the right thing for Kaylee. I have never regretted my decision not to have an abortion. Kaylee changed my life, and she gave me a purpose. Even now she gives me purpose. Even as I’m writing this story 260 miles away from her. She is the reason I still go on to this day.

I don’t remember the year exactly, it must’ve been some time before Kaylee’s first birthday so let’s say early 2012, Sean and I moved into our own apartment in Jackson Ohio. We started to struggle in our relationship. We were kids when we met and at some point, I just think we grew up in separate directions. We both started to use suboxone, probably to numb the hardships of parenting and life. We didn’t know healthy ways of dealing with life’s hardships. Had I known then what I know now, what would’ve transpired out of trying hard drugs for the first time, I never would have done it. I would do everything differently. I would go to therapy, and I would’ve asked for help. I might have moved back in with Howard and Kendra just to keep myself from getting so lost in the drug scene. One night a fight between Sean and I got so bad that I called Howard to come get Kaylee for the night because I didn’t want her to be there to hear us fighting. I remember what it was like being a young child and hearing fights between Howard and his girlfriend. I remember being scared and worried about what would happen to me if the fight got out of control. I never wanted Kaylee to feel like I did so many times. I wanted to protect her from things that I suffered through. I wanted to do better than Howard did!

Sean and I ended up splitting up shortly after. It was a rough one too and I treated him terribly. He moved out and I stayed. I stayed in that apartment, and I started getting heavier into drugs. At this time Kaylee stayed at Howard’s a lot and I signed for him to have temporary custody because I thought she would be safer in a home that was drug free. I did go visit her from time to time but then I started running around with the wrong crowd and started seeing a guy who would introduce me to using the needle. I just wanted to be numb. Numb from everything that my life hadn’t become and from everything that it had, and the needle offered me that. It made me forget and wrapped me up like a warm hug. When I look back now, I realize that all I needed was for someone to remind me that I was still loved and that I wasn’t a failure because my family was broken but I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed. I was still worthy even when I felt worthless and if I could tell 20-year-old me anything, it would be that. I ended up getting into trouble with this guy that I was seeing and using with. We stole a car and got caught speeding in it down main street in Jackson Ohio. We both went to jail for the weekend. On Monday I got out, he did not and that was the end of our relationship. Unfortunately, it was not the end of my drug abuse. I continued to use and stayed wherever I could because I had lost my apartment. The theft charges were dropped but unknowingly to me, I was secretly indicted on charges of theft of a motor vehicle.

I moved back to Portsmouth Ohio after a while to stay with my paternal grandma and to dry up from all the drugs. It was then that I met my soon-to-be husband, Brad. We used suboxone together from the start of our relationship and I got right back on the needle. I was going to stay with Howard and Kendra on the weekends to spend time with Kaylee and during one of these visits they called Jackson County sheriff on me to turn me in on my indictment. It was right after Kaylee went to sleep and I had just promised her I would still be there when she woke up because she was afraid I was going to leave. I’ll never forget how that made me feel and how it must’ve made Kaylee feel to wake up to me being gone. What did they tell her? Did he lie to her like he did to me all those times about my mom? I was incarcerated for 10 days in Chillicothe Ohio before they transported me to Jackson for court and I was let out. There was no way I was going back to Howards after he did that to me, so I walked all the way from Jackson down highway 32 towards Portsmouth. I did end up getting a ride from this old guy, but I was very scared because he kept trying to advance me and at one point I questioned if I would even make it to where I was going. God must’ve been watching me because I made it back to Brads.

I struggled to forgive Howard for turning me in, but he had my daughter, and I wanted to be in her life and get custody back so I played by his rules and Brad and I got married so that Howard would help us get a place in Jackson. He didn’t believe in living together unmarried so those were his stipulations to help us. We got married and moved into a place in Jackson where we rented a room in a house. I would go to Howards in the morning to get Kaylee ready for school and then use his truck to drop her off and then I would walk to work at Arby’s. Brad was working at Wendys at the time. We did end up going to court over custody for Kaylee and the judge granted Sean and I shared parenting. We had her for a week and then she would go to Seans for a week. That went on for a while. Meanwhile Brad and I moved into a 3-bedroom house in Jackson. We were still struggling with addiction, and the relationship had become volatile and physically abusive. We ended up losing our house and Howard arranged for us to stay in a camper on a friend’s property. We stayed there for some months, still doing the shared parenting with Sean. At one point Howard learned that the kids in Seans household had been taken by children services due to drug paraphernalia being found in the home where he lived with his mother. It was her drugs and her kids but that didn’t stop Howard from calling to report to Kentucky children services that there was another minor child in the home. This resulted in them removing Kaylee and placing her in a foster home. A week later I went to court in Kentucky without an attorney and they let me take Kaylee home. All of that could have been avoided if Howard had just talked to me or Sean but once again this was Howard trying to gain control over the entire situation. I trusted Sean and I know he would have never put Kaylee in a situation where her safety was at risk, but Howard has never had her best interest at heart it has always been about his ego and about Kendra not being able to have kids of her own. Howard was not the Dad I knew growing up, or maybe he was always like this, and as I grew into an adult the blinders were slowly being removed.

Winter came and Brad and I were still staying in the camper. Kaylee hadn’t been back to her dads because of the situation with children services but he did come to Jackson a few times and we met at the park so he could see Kaylee. One night an argument broke out between us and the owners of the property. It was over a heating situation. Kaylee had been staying at Howards because it was just too cold at night, and we didn’t have money to fill the propane tank for the heater and the owners would not let us run an extension cord for an electric heater. Brad and I ended up leaving as the argument almost got physical. So, for the next few days we stayed in a friend’s house in Jackson. At the time my mom and stepdad Chuck were getting ready to move back to Ohio from Florida to help us and to be closer to all her children. I allowed Kaylee to stay with Howard and Kendra since we weren’t sure where we would stay from day to day, we were essentially homeless. Howard did say that I could stay but that Brad wasn’t allowed in his home, and I didn’t want to leave my husband on his own since the reason we were in Jackson in the first place was for me. I planned on picking up Kaylee as soon as my mom and Chuck were close to Ohio and that’s exactly what I tried to do. I had tried to call Howard the whole day and texted with no response so that night I walked to pick up Kaylee since my mom would be there the next morning. When I got there no one answered the door but I seen that the TV was on, so I knew someone was home. After continuing to knock for some time, I decided to leave and try again in the morning, maybe they were just napping. As I was near the end of the street a police officer pulled up behind me and I ended up going to jail on a probation violation for missing a court date. Howard had called to turn me in once again. This was why he didn’t answer the door when I came to pick up my daughter. It was a constant fight with him over Kaylee. She is my daughter, and I have always wanted her but there were times when I needed help from family to make sure she was safe and taken care of when I wasn’t sure where I would lay my head for the night or where my next meal would come from. I could have taken her with me all those times, but I never wanted her to go through the same things I did as a child. I wanted better for her, better than Howard had given me and I trusted that he would help me and not hurt me or his granddaughter. I was very wrong.

So, I went to jail that night and was transported to a work release center for non-violent offenders. They informed me that I was being held on a 30 day hold for a probation violation and that they could hold me for 30 days and release me or charge me with the probation violation and take me to court within those 30 days. Howard came to bring me a pack of cigarettes and a small travel sized deodorant. While he was there, he told me that he would bring Kaylee to see me on the next visitation day, which I believe was a Sunday. The place I was being held was an old school building and the visits were contact visits so I didn’t think it would be upsetting for her to see me there since it didn’t look like a jail. That day came and I waited outside all day smoking my cigarettes and waiting to see my daughter. When the time for our visit came and went, I tried calling Howard multiple times and he never answered. I was so upset, and I just knew something bad was about to happen. I remember calling my mom because I was heartbroken and I missed my daughter. A few days later I was served with papers at the work release center. The papers were emergency custody papers Howard had filed, even though I wrote a statement saying that he could take her to school and to the doctor while I was unable to. He was already on the pickup list at the school, so the statement was really for him to be able to take her to the doctor if something happened while I was incarcerated. I was so upset when I got these papers. I felt betrayed by Howard. How could he do this to me in my hour of need? It’s like he waited for the perfect moment to hurt me, and he hurt me in the most evil way by taking my child from me. I tried to call my probation officer to let me out so I could attend the hearing for emergency custody, but he wouldn’t let me, and they wouldn’t transport me, so I missed the hearing and custody was granted.

My mom took care of me those 30 days I was incarcerated. She sent me all the things I needed for hygiene and sent me a carton of cigarettes. She paid for me to have money on the phone so I could call and talk to her and Brad. Brad was staying with her and my stepdad. I tried to call Howard multiple times. He would never answer. I wrote him a letter telling him how hurt I was that he went behind my back to take custody from me. I told him how I thought out of anyone, he would understand how hard it was to escape addiction. He wrote me back telling me he didn’t understand and how he was doing what was best for Kaylee and to stop calling. That hurt me so much. Did he forget raising me as a drug addict? Did he forget all the times I parented him? I just couldn’t understand his coldness, and that was the beginning of the end of our relationship. After 30 days I was released when my mom paid my bail. Her and Chuck came to pick me up and Brad and I stayed with her for a while. I continued to use. I was so depressed over losing my daughter that I just didn’t see a reason to stay clean. The physical abuse continued in my relationship with Brad and at times I felt like I deserved it. I had failed as a mother, and I had failed Kaylee. Brad and I ended up moving out after a fight between him and my mom and Chuck. They told me I could stay but Brad had to go, and I just wasn’t ready to give up that relationship. As bad as it was, I was so consumed in addiction that I didn’t care about myself or my wellbeing.

We moved back to Portsmouth Ohio and were staying with Brads mom. The drug abuse only got worse as did the physical abuse. One day it escalated to a point where I feared for my life and I was finally ready to get out of that situation and start to heal because I feared if I stayed, I would end up dead. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I called Howard for help. His response was that he would help me if I signed my rights to Kaylee away. I was so angry I hung up the phone. He really didn’t care to help me, it seemed as if he was still trying to hurt me. So, I called my mom and Chuck, and I told them what happened. They were there that same night to get me and I was finally able to get away from Brad and work on starting to heal. That was the day that Chuck became my dad, and every day since then, he has been there for me. Through the good times and the bad. He has never turned his back on me. My mom either. They have shown me what true loyalty and family are. I’ll always be grateful to them for rescuing me from Brad and at times, from myself.

I struggled with addiction for a while. I was so lost in depression because Howard refused to let me talk to Kaylee on the phone or come see her. I think he was upset that I left Portsmouth to go live with my mom. He has never had good things to say about her and once I moved to northeastern Ohio to be closer to her, things only got worse. Eventually I stopped calling. It was just so hard to keep getting told no and to keep being rejected by Howard. It was easier to leave things alone and during my addiction I didn’t think about it a whole lot. August of 2017 was the last time I did hard drugs. I was running around with the wrong crowd again. I remember the last time I used very vividly. I overdosed that night and fell out on the bathroom floor. When I woke up the next morning, the water in the sink was still running and no one even noticed that I had overdosed. It scared me so much that I never touched the stuff again. I went back to my moms to dry out before I went to stay with my aunt Victoria in Toledo, Ohio. While I was staying with Victoria, she got me to call attorneys about trying to get custody back. She helped me pay the retainer fee for my attorney and I started fighting Howard for custody. It was a long and difficult custody battle, full of drug tests and false accusations and at the end of it, I only got visitation. I could have kept fighting for full custody, but it was very expensive to keep paying attorneys and I just couldn’t afford to keep going so I agreed to the visitation. The order stated that Howard would get the first full weekend of every month and Sean and I would alternate the remaining weekends. No child support was ordered since Sean and I were both responsible for all transportation. Sean lived in Kentucky and I lived in northeastern Ohio so the rides for visitation were long, but I was happy to be part of my daughter’s life again. Something was better than nothing. It seemed like things were finally starting to fall into place. Then COVID hit and my world was shattered once again.

March of 2020 I received notice that Howard filed a motion to temporarily suspend my visitation rights due to the spread of COVID. I was very upset but also understanding given the state of emergency. Howard was to allow LIBERAL contact via social media and phone. I was allowed to talk to her for a few weeks but then slowly he started having excuses of why Kaylee couldn’t talk. Then they took away her phone and the contact stopped. I didn’t know what to do. I was already struggling to make ends meet due to being out of work because of the pandemic so getting another attorney just wasn’t possible. I felt defeated and like he won once again. It just wasn’t fair. How many times is he going to get away with keeping me from my daughter? Why was he still doing this even though I proved to be more than capable of taking care of Kaylee? It had been 3 years since I used and still Howard treated me like I was a drug addict. Instead of giving her back he forced me to fight in court knowing that I didn’t have access to money like he did. There was a status hearing eventually and I was excited to be able to go in front of the judge and tell him that Howard wouldn’t abide by the liberal social media contact as ordered. I arrived at the courthouse just to be told the hearing was cancelled and when I asked what I was supposed to do they told me to hire an attorney. I called Howard to see if he would let me see Kaylee while I was in town and he said yes and gave me his address since he had moved since my last visit with her. While I was there I asked him about resuming my visits since the state of emergency was over and he told me no, I would have to fight him in court again. Anything to keep me out of Kaylee’s life. Just like he did to my mom when I was a child. You see, he has a history of secluding children from their mothers. He needs to have total control over everything and his only way to control me now that I’m an adult is by holding Kaylee over my head. How is it her best interest to be away from me? I could understand while I was using because I wasn’t in the right state of mind to raise a child, but now that I have passed every drug test he has made me take during court and I have kept a job, what’s the reason other than to hurt me? To hurt my mom too? It just doesn’t make any sense. They now have their own kids, and you would think that they would want to give mine back so they could focus on theirs, but no.

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t tried to reach out to Kaylee as much as I should have these last few years. At some point I thought that maybe it would be better for her if I didn’t because how is it healthy to keep popping in and out of her life, even if it’s not directly my fault I can’t be there?

Earlier this year, January 28, Kaylee reached out to me for the first time through a fake facebook profile, Jack Lee. Unfortunately, I did not get the message request but she didn’t stop there. On February 22nd at 11:37 pm she sent a message to one of my best friends, Lauren Cooney. She told her it was Kaylee Morrell and that she was trying to get in contact with me. Lauren passed the message on to me and as soon as I got it the next morning, I searched for the profile and sent a message. This is when I seen the message requests, but the actual messages had been unsent on Kaylee’s end. Kaylee and I talked through facebook and text messages for several days. We even had an almost 2-hour phone conversation. She said that Howard and Kendra couldn’t find out we were in contact, or they would take her phone and she asked me why she couldn’t come live with me. This is when I decided to get in contact with attorneys and get the process of fighting for custody started. Kaylee told me during our phone call that there was a fight between her and Kendra that got so bad the cops were called, and this prompted me to request all the police records from their address. I discovered that there is physical abuse going on in the household. There’s a police report where Kendra admitted to biting Kaylee and hitting her with a curling iron!

It didn’t take long before they found out we were talking, and they did take Kaylee’s phone away from her. She told me on facebook that they read all our messages and that she was afraid of what they would do to her. I started to text Howard asking him why Kaylee couldn’t have her phone and why she couldn’t talk to me. If that’s what she wanted he should let her! He informed me he was going to give her phone back to her and even let me have a phone call with her. So, a few days later I got the call. It was so much different than our first call and only lasted 10 minutes. You could tell that they were right there with her and probably even coached her on what to say. Ever since then the messages from Kaylee have been very few and very hostile. I now understand why she was so afraid of them finding out about us communicating. I don’t know what is going on in that house and I don’t know what they are telling her. One thing I know for sure is that there is proof of physical abuse and knowing Howard’s history and how he liked to punish me when I was a child, I’m positive whatever is going on, it’s not good. I know I haven’t always made the right decisions for my life or for my daughter Kaylee but I’m no longer the person I used to be and im going to do whatever it takes to get to Kaylee. She deserves to know that she has so many people who love and miss her and that she’s never alone. Not just me, but my family and her dad and his family. I have also been in contact with them since Kaylee reached out and they all love and miss her too. Kaylee shouldn’t have to continue to suffer because of mistakes that I have made.

I was able to secure legal representation, but my fear is that it’s going to cost me so much that I won’t be able to see this to the end. It breaks my heart that in all of this, money has been the main reason why I couldn’t continue to fight for my daughter in court. If you have made it this far in reading my story and can find it in your heart to help with attorney fees, please help me. Any amount will help. Even $1 will help. If you can’t help monetarily, even sharing my story can help. The more people who read this story the more of a chance I have to get the publicity this story needs to help reunite a daughter with her mother. I know I can do this. I know I can prove to the courts that I am more than capable of caring for my daughter and that her best interest isn’t with Howard and Kendra anymore. This story is going to be the beginning of my autobiography. This is only a summary of everything that my daughter and I have been through and I hope to be able to get Kaylee’s perspective on what she has already gone through in her 14 years on this earth.