Conquering Chaos (13 page)

“That’s bullshit!” I was outraged. “You’re working full-time for free! I can’t believe
this. He has to pay you. You need to stick up for yourself!”

The kid got all nervous and told me to lower my voice. He wasn’t ready to take a stand,
that was for sure. But that was one more reason for me to narrow my eyes at the Pizza
Nazi every time he walked by.

The last straw was this stupid test he used to secretly trick all the drivers into.
We all used GPS on our phones to deliver the pizzas, which was the obvious, simple
way to do it. But the Pizza Nazi had a buddy whose house was in a really weird spot
that always confused the GPS. If you didn’t write down the exact directions, your
phone would send you somewhere crazy. The Pizza Nazi knew this, but he wouldn’t say
anything about it. In his mind, it was a test to see how long it would take us to
realize something was wrong with the route and how fast we’d call him to ask for help.

Of course I wasn’t about to call the Pizza Nazi unless it was my last resort. When
I realized I was lost, I thought I could figure it out. But then my phone died, and
I had to admit defeat. I turned around and stopped at a little fabric store and used
their phone to call Fort Pizza. I came clean and said, “I couldn’t find the house
and my phone and GPS died. I’m on my way back. What should I do? Do you have the customer’s
number so I can call them?”

“Get your ass back here!”

When I got back, the Pizza Nazi went off. He talked a tough talk and told me this
was the last strike. I said, “You know what, dude? You’re absolutely right.” I took
my hat off, tossed him my apron with a big smile, saluted everyone and got the hell
out of the Pizza Nazi’s dungeon.

That was when I realized I wasn’t really good with overbearing bosses. I went and
got a stockroom job for a retail company where Catelynn worked. That went much better.

Catelynn:

In retail you definitely have to deal with dicks. But I’m good under pressure. I’ll
just smile and say, “Okay, thank you, have a nice day!” Then I turn around and bitch
about whatever happened. That job was pretty easygoing, and it was nice to have Tyler
working in the back. Sometimes we’d be able to take lunches together.

But pretty soon we both found something we liked a lot better. Tyler’s sister had
worked for this company that placed caregivers for people with special needs, and
we thought that would be a really valuable job for us to take on. We filled out applications
and took all the necessary first aid and CPR classes, and then they filled out our
profiles and matched us with people. I worked with a twenty-one year old girl with
Down’s Syndrome, and Tyler worked with a twenty-four year old guy with autism.

We loved the job, although it was incredibly draining. You have to have really high
energy and be really excited all the time. There’s a lot of burnout. In our case it
was Monday through Friday, two-thirty to seven, with no breaks at all. You’re at their
homes, eating your meals with them and being at their side all the time. The agency
gave us information about what our people needed to work on, so there were lots of
goals and checkpoints to work toward. I was trying to help my girl become as independent
as possible. I would coach her through taking a shower, blow-drying her hair, cooking
for herself, and all the other little tasks most people take for granted.

It was exhausting sometimes, but so rewarding! The best part was when they learned
something for the first time and you could see the progress they were making. What
always bugged me was when I’d go home for the weekend, then come back on Monday to
see that she’d lost all of her progress because her parents weren’t keeping up the
routine we’d planned to instill all of the things that I was helping her build up.
Still, I would do that job again in a heartbeat, as long as it was one-on-one or with
parents who were committed to the program.

Tyler:

The guy I worked with was much more independent. He lived on his own already, in a
house his parents had gotten for him. He was autistic, but he was very capable. His
parents had treated him just like their other kids and tried to raise him to be as
independent as possible. They liked me as his caregiver because I promised never to
do anything for him without giving him a chance to do it himself. When this kid would
say, “Tyler, make me pancakes!” I would say, “Nope. You make your pancakes. When I’m
not here, you make your own pancakes. When I’m at home, I make my own pancakes. So
you make your own pancakes.”

And he was down with that! At least, most of the time. I did have to hold my ground
during some tantrums, and that wasn’t easy at all. He was a huge guy about six-foot-three
and two-hundred pounds, and when he got mad he’d smack his head and stomp on the ground.
It was freaky for me because he could totally destroy me. But I had to hold steady
and make sure he knew I was standing firm. It was a good experience for me to actually
experience the authority side of things for once and see how I handled it. It wasn’t
too bad at all!

Catelynn:

While we were working hard to get our lives to a different place, we still had the
same old environments to deal with. After enough time had passed, my mom and Tyler’s
dad finally started to come to terms with our decision. My mom felt horrible about
fighting with me during all that, and she apologized to me in tears. We were able
to make peace on that specific issue. But there was a lot more going on that was hard
to deal with.

My mom and Tyler’s dad stayed married for six years, and in that time they brought
out all the worst in each other. They were so comfortable with each other’s bad habits
there was really nothing to hold them back. After Carly was born and they moved into
a different house, things got a lot worse than we even knew. They wouldn’t do things
in front of us, but we found out later about the stuff that was going on in that house.
They’d drink all night, or take pills, or even smoke crack together.

Tyler:

They were both addicts. And they sheltered each other from shame and judgment. They
got comfortable with it. And then whatever problems they didn’t already have in common,
they started sharing with each other. For example, Cate’s mom wasn’t into crack, and
my dad never smoked it at home. That’s the thing with addicts. They can’t follow the
rules you need them to follow, but they’re not soulless. They still have their own
moral codes they hold onto as hard as they can. And for my dad, that was always his
one single rule as an addict: No smoking in the house. That’s why he would leave on
crack binges for three days at a time and come back when he was done. During those
benders, we’d all be calling the jails and hospitals trying to keep track of him and
make sure he was still alive. That was the reason my mom left him back in the day.

But with Cate’s mom, the issue was that she didn’t want to be alone. She hated being
left there by herself while he went off and did his thing. She’d beg him to just stay
there with her, whatever it took. But for him it was a choice between staying home,
crack-free, or going out and smoking crack. He always chose the crack. Finally Cate’s
mom got so desperate to keep him there she said, “Screw it. I don’t want you to leave.
Get the drugs, come back, and smoke them here so you’re not out there leaving me by
myself.”

That’s how it all escalated. Once he was doing it there in front of her, it wasn’t
long before she was doing it with him. It was a bad line to cross for both of them.
My dad even told me that was the first time he’d broken his one rule. Twenty years
he’d been doing it, and he’d never smoked it at home in front of the kids. And as
soon as he did, guess what? Cate caught him.

Catelynn:

He was in the bedroom smoking it when I walked in. I completely freaked out. I went
absolutely crazy. I was yelling at him, demanding to know how he could do that with
kids in the house, calling him a piece of shit. I was so shocked and upset and furious.
I could tell how high he was by the look in his eyes. And I could tell he was caught
off guard and ashamed, because normally he’d freak out at me for yelling at him. But
this time he was stuttering and refusing to look me in the eye.

I called Tyler crying my eyes out. I told him what had happened and that I didn’t
want to be in that house anymore. Not a week later, I moved in with him. I just felt
more comfortable at Tyler’s house. It was a safe place for me where I could feel comfortable
and normal. His mom was there, and he was there. There was just no comparison.

Tyler:

I was shocked when she told me he was smoking crack in the house. I thought, “Damn,
he’s really going off the rails if he broke that rule.” He told me later he’d never
been so ashamed in his entire life, that he couldn’t even look at Catelynn after she’d
seen him doing that.

My dad and Cate’s mom were married for six years, but they only really spent six months
together. The rest of the time, he was in jail. He was constantly in and out of jail
because their relationship was so messed up they got hit with a no contact order,
which they then kept ignoring.

The no contact order was sparked by a fight they had in Richmond, which ended with
the cops coming and taking my dad to jail for the first domestic case he had ever
had brought against him. In Michigan, the state pursues domestic violence cases no
matter what. Once Cate’s mom realized what the no contact order meant, she tried to
write the parole board to lift it. But they told her it wasn’t going to happen, one
of the reasons being that he never completes his parole.

So the no contact order remained in place. And they kept breaking it. And he kept
going back to jail. The chaos continued, the same way it always did for them individually,
and the same way they were comfortable with it together. That was what they were used
to, and they just weren’t about to get out of that cycle.

Tyler:

Some of what we’ve talked about in the last couple of chapters might be familiar to
you if you know us from MTV. Our involvement with the show became an important factor
in the direction we decided to take our lives. Not because of the cameras or the media
attention, but because it opened us up to the love and support of the many, many amazing
people who reached out to us after watching our story unfold.

Cate and I were featured on MTV’s reality TV series
16 & Pregnant
, which documented the pregnancy, the adoption, and our experiences after placing
Carly. Like all of the other teen parents featured on
16 & Pregnant
, we had no idea what a huge deal it was going to be or that we’d be asked to return
for another series following our lives. The show brought on a lot of attention from
the press, and tons of reactions from viewers. That turned out to influence us in
huge ways.

Catelynn:

This was back in the days of MySpace. After
16 & Pregnant
aired, we started getting all of these messages on MySpace. For days and days we
were just swarmed with messages. And not just little messages like, “Hey, what’s up,”
but thoughtful, personal messages that were pages long. And almost every single one
of them was positive.

For days and days we were just shocked by this huge outpouring of love and support
from all of these strangers. It was message after message from people of all ages,
telling us how we’d inspired them. People were sharing their life stories, thanking
us for our strength and honesty, encouraging us to hold our heads up and stay strong.

It was insane to realize that just from that one hour on TV, people felt connected
to us and were willing to share their life stories. Not only that, but to extend so
much kindness and support to us. And it could not have come at a more important time.
In a way, the people who supported us from day one really helped us through our grief
and loss.

Tyler:

When the show aired, we were still deep in our grief and loss. We were waking up every
day depressed because we didn’t have our daughter with us. All of that love and support
gave us a boost during our darkest times. On the days when we were really down, we’d
go online and read all of these messages of positivity and support. It uplifted us
so much to know that all these people were rooting for us. And it showed us that just
by sharing our story, we’d already taken a step toward making something meaningful
out of our lives.

Once we shared our adoption story and started to see the impact it had on such a huge
number of people, we started to think about how many people have been somehow affected
by adoption. Adoption is a big part of a lot of families, whether it’s touched the
life of an immediate or distant family member, a parent or a sister or an uncle or
a cousin. But the weird thing is that it’s still not something that we discuss in
an educational, accurate way. There are still a lot of misconceptions out there about
adoption. Even though the process of adoption has evolved, the conversation hasn’t.
It still is sort of quiet and hush-hush.

Catelynn:

So many of the responses we got came from adoptive parents and birth parents who had
placed children in adoption. They wrote things like, “I’ve been waiting and waiting
for someone to get it right. Thank you for showing this process the way it really
happens.” When we thought about it, we realized they were right. Birth parents are
misinterpreted in the media all the time. Maybe you’ve seen one of those crazy old
made-for-TV movies where some deadbeat birth mom shows up to tear a family apart,
and she’s hiding in bushes and stalking the kid, or whatever. Or you’ve seen some
sad story about a kid who finds out she was adopted and tracks down her birth parents
only to get the cold shoulder. There are lots of dramatic and tragic stories about
adoption that play out in the media. But there aren’t a lot of places where you can
find birth parents represented accurately or positively. We didn’t realize it when
we agreed to do the show, but our representation of adoption was something that was
really rare and really needed by a lot of people.