This is dedicated to all those kids in school who said I had cooties. I was a shy little girl, mainly because I found out at a very early age what happens when you "play" with people. I was afraid to play with the other kids, so they rejected me and called me Cootie Girl. They didn't know that I was being sexually abused since the age of 3 or 4. They didn't know that my mother was a hoarder and my house was not a place I could bring a friend to, even if I had one. They didn't understand that there was no safe place for a little girl who desperately wished she had been adopted. It's hard for me to see what they saw and understand their point of view. I can't seem to see them from the perspective of time. Every time I think of those days, I'm a child again and it hurts to go to school almost as much as it hurts to come home.