Kitty's Biography:
It really is amazing to reflect on my life. There's so much that has happened, so many experiences I've had. And the story continues...
I was in New York City during the 1970s, adopted by a white mother, who then gave birth to my brother, who is black. I remember Vietnam protesters, platform shoes, the completion of the building of the World Trade Center, the garbage strike, and visits to Harlem.
We moved to upstate New York, where country living gave me daily access to exploring the woods, picking wild raspberries and strawberries, and where my mom would take us secretly on joy rides in the car - during the gas crisis.
I found solace from my inner pain in books. We had one county library, and I read everything I could, finishing the children's section and on to adult books when I was around ten.
I managed to be functional, and discovered I could get out of school work by writing stories instead on my mom's portable typewriter for my teacher.
Books and writing were not enough to ease the transition into puberty. We moved back into the city, this time to West Philadelphia. The city was in turmoil, crime was rampant, and the MOVE bombing happened not far away. Sexual abuse and blackmail entered my life, and ended in a rape when I was 15.
My attitude and emotional health spiraled down out of control. I was barely present in my life, and abused multiple drugs. I left, and wandered around the country, sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes without food, and usually without a place to sleep.
Once I was completely outside of society, I stayed. The anonymity of homelessness in America suited me. The dangers were not so different than what I had already experienced when I lived in a house.
There was no way out, and nothing I felt I had to return to. I had failed at life, so perhaps took some measure of comfort in the others who were there with me. Vietnam vets, who were suffering from all types of undiagnosed mental and emotional issues were there with me. Hundreds of teen runaways lived in secret places all over the US, banding together where no grownups were allowed. No one ever gave their real name, we just had nicknames. But I felt a sense of acceptance, maybe here I did fit in.
Storytelling was what we did, and we all had dreams of "being something" or "doing something" with our lives, but few could define what that meant, and none had a plan to get there.
I had a child, and gave her up for adoption. I couldn't bear to have her live the life I had. She was at that time also the only human being on the planet I knew to be genetically related to me. My guilt and sorrow over her loss only served to make the hole in my heart ever larger.
After the motorcycle accident, during which I lost part of my vision and sustained a brain injury, I couldn't do it any more. I didn't have health insurance, or rehab. I had also had a stroke, and cardiac arrest. I was dead for a little bit - long enough to talk with my grandmother. She told me I had to go back, there were still things I had to do.
The next few years I tried to find my place in society. I learned how to walk without trouble, to use my hearing to compensate for the poor vision, and how to talk in a sentence that had a complete thought in it.
My head felt as if it was permanently stuffed with cotton. Thinking and planning was muffled, clear thoughts seemed to be far away. I tried a couple conventional jobs, and was fired from both. The second one, my boss gave me a label - disabled. I had not heard that applied to me before, and it felt restrictive. Even my dreams and fantasies were curtailed by that word.
And life went on. I met my birth mother through an online search (Soundex Reunion Registry) and searched on my own for my half brother, finding him not long after. I learned about the Social Security Disability program around 1994, applied and was turned down. My brother went to court with me when I appealed, and through the grace of God we won.
I still hadn't found my place in society, nor had I been able to do much on my own. I ended up homeless again, and this time I took action to get out of the situation.
I found in the entertainment industry I could work when I was well, and easily 'book out' when I was too tired or too sick to work. An agent took interest in me, and I began working as much as I could in modeling and acting. I couldn't do lines of dialogue, so he would book me on background work. I couldn't see well, and couldn't drive, so he would book me with my then-boyfriend who would patiently lead me around the maze of hazards on each set, and make sure that I got enough food to keep my blood sugar under control.
I got to be anything other than what I was - in photos I was beautiful with hair and makeup done professionally. In acting I was an airline stewardess, a checkout clerk, or a security guard, and my imagination made it seem real to me. For a few hours at a time, I was whatever that character was, and I had an identity, a job and a purpose.
I was living in Manhattan during September, 2001. I had moved back to NYC to study voiceover, and I was taking acting & auditioning classes too. New York is my home, and to be back in the energy and excitement was terrific. And then, on September 11th, everything changed. The world watched on television, listened to radio, and I was there. It was the single most devastating event of my life, and took me a long time to recover enough to at least feel like I wanted to continue on in this new, shocked and vulnerable world.
I eventually moved to Los Angeles, and tried my hand at ever bigger things: directing, producing and screenwriting. There were small successes, and I found myself living in the life I had before only imagined.
There were red carpet events, awards for my work, and I ended up living in an expensive downtown loft with a concierge and valet parking. It overlooked the same street where I had been years before - Skid Row - and I mingled with homeless people and rich people.
I was now surrounded by people, and still always felt alone. In the best of people I often found prejudice. I wasn't disabled enough to fit in with some, or was too disabled to fit in with others. I started experiencing discrimination because I was a woman, something I had never before viewed as a possible liability. Some people were more concerned with me being able to "pass" as a non-disabled person, or as a white person, or even to try and teach me to downplay that I was a woman. Everyone was categorized and grouped and labeled. Great talent was often overlooked in favor of who knew who, who slept with who, or who was doing drugs with who.
For many reasons, I chose to give up that lifestyle. I went back out into the unknown, moved to a country I had never been to, to live with a man I had never before met in person.
Europe is very different than the US, and the Dutch are very different from their close neighbors. If life is all about learning, I've definitely put myself in the class that challenges me the most. Although my physical condition has gotten substantially worse since 2007, I continue to write, and to share my story with anyone I think it might be helpful to. I judge myself so harshly, I am not afraid that others will do so for sharing the bits and pieces one usually hides away. I have learned and continue to learn life's lessons the hard way, so if I could dissuade someone else from walking the same path I have been down, I would feel that my life really has had a purpose.
Each day that I have, I remember to be grateful. Most of us have so many things we take for granted: running water, food, shelter. Those are some of the greatest luxuries of my life. I'm so glad I've had the opportunity to have so many other experiences to draw from to help me learn compassion, empathy and appreciation for those around me, and those who are yet to come into this great story.
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Little Kitty with MomKitty's Bio, Short Version:
This is a photo of me and my Mom, just after I was adopted. I was born in NYC and placed in foster care until my (single) mom, Claire, adopted me.
Behind the little smile and quiet, shy exterior, I was deeply troubled. I had missed the love of my birth parents, the comfort of knowing where you belong in life, and searched the faces of strangers to see if any of them looked like me.
There was nothing my adopted mom could do to fill the hole in my heart, in my soul. I knew I was abandoned, unworthy and unlovable by those who should have been genetically compelled to be there for me.
By the time I became a teenager, drugs gave me temporary relief from the pain I felt inside. I fit in with the wild child crowd, where everyone had similar struggles to my own.
I ran away from home for good when I was sixteen, disappearing from society and into the world of homelessness. The hole of my life was so deep, I could see no light, no way out.
On the night of October 3, 1988, when I had just turned twenty, a motorcycle accident changed everything.
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