AI Summary
5 min read#67 Jenna
Jenna was eight years old when a social worker called her to the principal's office and told her she wouldn't be going home. She got into a stranger's car with nothing but her school backpack and the clothes she was wearing. "I remember going through my head of well, maybe that's gonna be my new house as we were like driving by houses or maybe that one's gonna be my house, or I hope it's nice." The car drove deeper into rural Georgia until it reached a farmhouse by a pond. A tall blonde woman emerged and introduced herself as Rhonda Grizzle. Jenna's new foster mother sat her down on the screened-in porch and asked, "Is it okay if we call you Jenny?" It was a question, but Jenna understood it wasn't really a question. No one had ever called her Jenny before. She was entering a strange new home with nothing much but her name, and now she was losing that too.
The weight of not belonging
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What you'll learn
- 1 Main Outline
- 2 (00:15) **Jenna's Childhood and Her Mother's Illness** - Jenna describes growing up with a mother who had paranoid schizophrenia, leading to periods of homelessness and the constant threat of child protective services.
- 3 (07:17) **Arrival at the Grizzles' Farmhouse** - Jenna meets her new foster parents, Rhonda and Eddie Wayne Grizzle, and is immediately asked to change her name.
- 4 (09:55) **A New Life and the Promise of Adoption** - Over two and a half years, the Grizzles become Jenna's family, and Eddie Wayne asks if she wants to be adopted.
- 5 (11:27) **The Adoption Falls Apart** - Jenna's mother discovers where she lives, and within days, the Grizzles decide Jenna must leave.
- 6 (13:37) **The Weight of Not Belonging** - Jenna explains the lasting damage of being given up, especially contrasted with how the Grizzles fought for their biological son Cody.
- 7 (15:45) **Ready for Answers** - Jenna, now nearly 40 and a mother herself, decides she needs to understand what happened and asks Jonathan to help her ask the questions.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
When Jenna was eight years old, she was taken from her mom and placed with a foster family called the Grizzles. For two and a half years, she built a life with them, and when they asked to adopt her, Jenna was thrilled. But then, abruptly, the Grizzles changed their minds. Three decades later, Jenna still wonders: What happened?
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