Betty grows* up in a horror family: 'Shit Ethiopian, I regret that adoption so much'

To the outside world, it seems as if adopted child Betty lives in a children's paradise. In reality, her childhood is a living hell for fourteen years. She is insulted, humiliated, threatened and abused. "My mother really had traits of a psychopath."

“Glutton.”
“You're dumber than a donkey.”
“You filthy piece of shit, go back to Africa.”
“You fucking Ethiopian, I so regret that adoption.”

In the beautiful house with the large garden and the swimming pool, somewhere on the border between Brabant and Gelderland, just one thing has to happen and Betty's mother goes ballistic. She is a woman with two faces: to the outside world a model mother who the whole village is crazy about, inside a cruel shrew. "She never had an official diagnosis," says Betty. "But she really had traits of a psychopath."

Mother Bea doesn't stop at just scolding. She also hands out punishments. And they are extreme. A few minutes late home after a sports training? Betty - crazy about football - has to leave the club immediately. What are the tangles in her African hair? Mother grabs the clippers and shaves her daughter bald. "You sweep it up, fatlip", is the command the crying teenager then receives.

When she mumbles that she can't take it anymore, Betty is handed an axe. "If you want to die so badly, then do it," Bea screams. And to the rest of the family: "Everyone shout: Do it - do it - do it!"

Tangles in her African hair? Mother grabs the clippers and shaves her daughter bald. “Wipe it up, fatlip”

Scene from 'Mom, I can't do this anymore'

At fifteen, Betty really sees only one way out. With a long, self-braided rope, she goes to the attic of the barn. "It's okay," she wrote in a farewell letter on her laptop. If it weren't for the fact that she unexpectedly meets her brother in the attic, her story would probably have ended very differently.

Mom, I can't do this anymore

Betty (28) has now been away from the horror family for twelve years and has written a book about what happened to her as a child: 'Mom, I can't do this anymore'.

It took her two and a half years to get the story on paper. "I didn't type every day, mind you. That wasn't possible, because it was hard. After every writing day I suffered from insomnia and nightmares," she says, sitting on the couch in her apartment in Hellevoetsluis.

She wears jeans, a blazer and cool Dr Martens shoes. She has tied her shiny curls in a ponytail. “Yes, that hair is back,” she laughs.

On a table in the corner of the living room is a large portrait, composed of two faces that merge almost seamlessly. They are Betty and her twin sister Tizita. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” says Betty. “Being twins is already a lot. But when you have a past like the one we have together, you are double twins.”

Portrait of Betty and her twin sister Tizita© Private

Betelehem (Betty for short) and Tizita were born in 1995 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Their mother died the day after giving birth, they never knew their father. The girls ended up in an orphanage. “Bea and her husband Aad picked us up there,” says Betty. “Bea was friends with a homosexual couple who also wanted to adopt us. But those men were not allowed to do so, because of their sexual orientation. They were also at my book presentation. They cried the whole time. Because it could all have turned out so differently…”

'We have to tackle that vigorously'

Betty takes her laptop out of the cupboard. “I’ll show you some videos,” she says, putting the computer on her lap. “About how my parents treated us.” Black-and-white images of two endearing toddlers appear on the screen. “Here Tizita and I are still in Ethiopia and about two and a half years old. And listen to what my father says: ‘That round one – that was me – he’s a boss, you know. But we’re going to change that.’”

Another film, now in a typically Dutch setting. After the flight from Africa, the two girls are sitting on the couch in their new home. Betty and Tizita are laughing and waving their hands. “We really need to tackle that fattest one, Betelehem,” Betty’s adoptive mother tells the visitors. “And uh… the other one too, you know.”

Betty: “The way they react to us as parents is not really loving, is it? Afterwards you say: what happened, you could have predicted. You sometimes hear that adopted children have difficulty bonding with their parents, but with us it was the opposite. Tizita and I never did anything right and were blamed for everything. 'Because of you I have a stomach ulcer', my mother would say for example. Or: 'If I'm not here tomorrow, it's because of you.'”

You sometimes hear that adopted children have difficulty bonding with their parents, but in our case the opposite was the case

Betty

"My father was a sweet, gentle man at first. But eventually he joined in my mother's madness. She would regularly leave the house in the car. Then she would shout that she was going to commit suicide, because she was fed up with those damn kids. Eventually my father did exactly the same. He also hit me with a chair for no reason once. From that moment on I definitely started to look at him differently."

Foster children and dogs from abroad

Betty and Tizita are not the only children in the family. Over the years, Youth Care placed two more children with Surinamese roots and two Dutch children with Aad and Bea. “At a certain point, I saw a pattern in that,” says Betty. “Whenever things weren’t going so well at home, my parents brought in a new child. And when there were no more children, my mother started with dogs from home and abroad. Those animals were abused just as badly as the children.

Bea especially hated Sjako. That dog got beaten up a lot and had to sleep in the pouring rain for nights as punishment. He eventually died. I didn't do anything for Sjako and I still feel guilty about that. But I was already so worn out then. And besides: whoever stood up for someone else always got punished. In the family, everyone tried to save their own skin, if necessary with lies.”

Whenever things weren't going well at home, my parents would bring in a new child

Betty

According to Betty, it is not surprising that youth care placed so many children in the family. “My mother knew very well how to charm people and keep up appearances. And we were all so drilled that we did not dare say anything when such a youth care worker came by. Moreover, to the outside world we lived in a kind of children's paradise.

We had a pond in the garden, a climbing tree, a trampoline, a caravan to play in and lots of animals. Dogs, of course. But also chickens, rabbits, a piglet and even horses. What child wouldn’t want to live there? It really seemed like a nice place. But what I do blame the people from youth care for is that they never looked behind the facade. If only they had taken us aside and asked how we were really doing.”

We were all so drilled that we didn't dare say anything when a youth care worker came by.

Betty

When she receives a letter from the GGD via school, in which she is asked how things are going at home, Betty sees an opportunity. She writes that there are a lot of arguments, that her parents are constantly angry and that she does not understand why. She hides the letter between the sheet and the mattress of her bed. But her cry for help is discovered. And then the house is too small.

Betty is dragged down the stairs by her ankles and the letter is shredded before her eyes. From that moment on, she is no longer allowed to call her parents mommy and daddy. "It feels like I'm no longer part of the family and they don't want to be part of me either," she writes in her book. "I want to avoid confrontation, so I try to ask as little as possible of my parents."

Interrogated as a criminal

At the age of sixteen, she decided to run away. "Because the situation at home was becoming increasingly unsafe. For example, my father threatened to set the house on fire when the children were asleep. 'Then it will be in the newspaper tomorrow that there has been a family drama', he said. And then to Tizita and me: 'I have another plan for you. Because you are destroying the family. I will throw you in the Waal with a bucket of cement at your feet.' Bizarre, isn't it? And do you know what they said at youth care when I knocked on their door after I left? 'Oh, when you are sixteen you sometimes see things differently, because then you are going through puberty.' Well, I was not going through puberty, I never did, and I had not run away because I did not like some house rule. Yet I was interrogated there as if I were a criminal."

Not perished

It was one of the motivations, she says, to write 'Mom, I can't do it anymore'. "I hope it will open the eyes of as many people as possible. When the book was presented, half the village where I grew up was in the audience. I felt the indignation. And also the sense of guilt. People wondered why they had never noticed anything. I said: 'What you can do from now on is pay close attention to children who are in the same situation. And who may also be afraid that no one will believe them.' Since this book was published, I have also been invited to give guest lectures on child abuse. And soon I will have a conversation with youth and foster care. These are all wonderful effects."

“I don't think it's a book full of self-pity. It's more of an indictment than a lament. I want 'Mom, I can't do it anymore' to give people strength and inspiration. Tizita and I have suffered traumas and we have to learn to deal with them. But we both didn't succumb to them. Tizita works in the neurology department of a hospital and is going to run the marathon this year. I'm really proud of her.”

I want 'Mom, I can't do it anymore' to give people strength and inspiration.

Betty

I myself work as a quality nurse in nursing home care. At my work I get a lot of appreciation. I am overwhelmed by nice words. By older colleagues I am sometimes even re-adopted - how special! - 'You are so sweet, you are my bonus daughter', I am then told.

People see me for who I am now and I continue to grow in self-confidence every day. But do you know what is really annoying? In my head I still hear my mother's voice, telling me that I am the biggest mistake of her life and that I don't deserve it all. A bruise on your body heals quickly, but a bruise on your soul…?”

Postscript: In the book, the author uses the names Aad and Bea as pseudonyms for her parents. This has also been done in this article. In the future, Betty plans to change her last name to the name of her biological mother: Loha. She also wants to go to her country of birth this year to meet her biological father.