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This story is shared by a woman who was abandoned by her parents at an early age and how she survived that ordeal with the help of her uncle and grandmother.
I was 5 when my parents left me.
It was at the end of 2004, when my parents and I went on a trip to Perak.
On the way back, my dad left Malaysia for business, and my mum and I were supposed to come back home together. Except, I never went home.
My mother abandoned me at an orphanage
Instead, my mother took me to a high rise building that looked like an office.
I remember sitting on the floor, playing with some toys while my mother talked to this man that I had never met.
She turned to me and told me she was going to the toilet. She walked into the lift, but I didn’t think much of it. That was the last time I saw her.
After hours went by, she still hadn’t come back. Feeling like something was terribly wrong, I started crying.
My next flash of memory was me sitting in the backseat of the car with the mysterious man driving.
I was still crying hysterically, so he distracted me by asking me to watch the colours of traffic lights. We soon reached a house.
When I entered, there were a few other children who welcomed me. At the time, I thought those kids were the caretaker’s own children. It was only when I got much older that I realised I had been sent off to an orphanage.
What it was like at the orphanage
The rooms were filled with bunk beds and I was assigned to one of the bottom ones.
I didn’t have any clothes since my mum didn’t pack anything for me. The older children, aged about 7 and above, had to give me their old hand-me-downs to wear. Their clothes were huge on me, but I didn’t have a choice.
At dinnertime, I was a picky eater because I was used to my mother’s or grandmother’s cooking.
Whenever I refused the food, they would make me kneel on a piece of newspaper with sand and pebbles on it until dinner time was over. My knees would bruise and bleed from kneeling.
I had to do this at least twice a week whenever they served food I refused to eat. During those terrible months, I would always think to myself, “When are my parents coming to get me out?”
After 4 months, I was found by my uncle
My mother called my father and came clean to him. My father in a panic contacted his older brother and begged him to find me.
At the time, my uncle was away working in Jakarta, so he took a flight back to Malaysia and started searching for me.
My mother had “forgotten” where the orphanage was, so my uncle had no idea how to find me. They looked for me for 4 months.
The orphanage was Christian-based, so we would go to church every Sunday. One day, I recognised my grand-uncle at church and said “Hi, grand-uncle.” I had no idea he was actually searching high and low for me!
He spotted me and grabbed my hand. My uncle and grand-uncle took me and marched up to an office with the authorities.
The caretakers did not want to let me go. My uncle threatened them, saying that he will sue them for keeping me there illegally with no documents. That’s when they gave in and I was free!
My parents didn’t take me back
As my uncle drove me back home, I noticed that they drove past all the turns to go to my house, and instead stopped outside my grand-uncle’s house.
It turned out that my parents hadn’t claimed me after all. From then onwards, I would stay with my grand-uncle.
It was lonely staying at my grand-uncle’s, as nobody was around. My grand-uncle and his wife would go to work while their children would go to school or universities. Their maid was my only company.
I couldn’t talk or eat so their maid gave me my comfort food every day, rice and tomato sauce. Although the thought of it disgusts me now, it used to be my favourite food back then.
At one point, every weekend, all my relatives would gather in the house just to get me to eat.
When the weekend ended, my relatives would leave, and I would fall back into depression.
Eventually, after 2 months of this cycle repeating itself, my uncle pleaded with my grandmother to move back to Malaysia, and that’s when she took me in.
My parents stopped visiting me after I was 10
My mother only came to see me once, when I was 7. She came with gifts and I was just over the moon to see her.
My uncle however was furious with her, and almost kicked her out. The only reason he let her stay was because of me.
Despite what she did to me, I was just happy to have any opportunity to see my parents. Every year, I would beg them to come on my birthday. My dad might come sometimes, but my mum would promise that she would show up, and then just wouldn’t.
For my 10th birthday, I pleaded with them to never leave and stay with me. They showed up two weeks after my birthday and stayed for a while. But when they left, that’s when I lost all hope.
By then, I understood: they didn’t want to see or know me as their daughter. After my grandmother died, I realised I didn’t need these connections with these people anymore.
Now, I have a hard time trusting people
For a long time, I was ashamed of the fact that I’d been abandoned by my parents.
I used to make up lies to my friends. I’d say that my parents just work and live in Johor or Perak. I didn’t want to explain a situation that I myself barely knew the answers to.
I just wish I could ask my father why he chose my mother over me. Why isn’t he angrier with my mother for leaving me in the orphanage? Why didn’t he come back for me?
Now, I live with so much anxiety and get triggered very easily.
One common thing people do that breaks me down is when someone jokes around because of my eating habits. It reminds me of the time I had to kneel down on the grainy sand back in that orphanage.
Sometimes, I go to a restaurant and I see a family eating together, or when I see a parent hand-feeding their child, I would think to myself, “Why can’t I get that?” It just reminds me of how I never had that growing up.
Every person wants to fall in love and get married. While a huge part of me wants that, reality always wakes me up.
It’s scary to get into relationships because I have the constant fear that they might judge me or perceive me as someone ‘damaged’.
The fear that married life will disagree with me because of what my parents did haunts me. I find it hard to trust anyone and I have built a wall despite how close I am with my friends.
I feel like I live a double life, a part of living this life and another one is this cheerful girl the public sees me. If I tried hard enough, I would be the girl that I’ve always strived to be and this hidden person would not exist.
I’m grateful for my real family: My uncle & grandmother
Image: The author’s uncle (left) and grandmother (right)
Despite whatever my parents put me through, I turned out well. I’m the top scorer in my class, and I have good friends and family.
This is what my parents missed out on and it was their loss for not being in my life.
I realise now: I should never have had my hopes up for them, and instead I should have focused on what I had.
I was so focused on only caring about what I didn’t have, my parents, that I was blinded to what my uncle and grandmother gave me all these years.
Now I know who my true family are.
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For more stories like this, read: Dear Parents! Remembering That You Were A Child Once Will Help You Understand Your Own Children
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