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Susan Elliott - I've Made All My Dreams Come True
By Cameron Barrett
June 6, 2006
I’ve Made All My Dreams Come True
From the frying pan into the fire. That’s the best way to describe the first 27 years of Susan Elliott’s life. From a birth mother who couldn’t deal with a new baby, to the New York City foster care system, to an adoptive family rife with alcoholism, to an abusive marriage.
“I had been in pain all of my life,” said Elliot. “I had hurt all of my life. I’d felt abandoned, and rejected. No one loved me, no one was ever going to love me. I felt as though I couldn’t even love my own children. Whenever I did anything wrong, [my adoptive mother always said], well, you come from this bad place.”
Elliott describes her darkest day. She was the mother of three young boys, she had just lost her job and her marriage was falling apart. It was then that she realized she had been trying to fit into a biological family that didn’t want her and a adopted family that didn’t like her. “It was like the sun broke over marblehead,” said Elliott. She realized that it was time for her to stop trying to fit into a life she never could, that it was time for her to make a life where she did fit. “It all kind of clicked. And then I said, ‘Oh God, what do I do now?”
Elliott picked up her kids and left New York, making her way to central Massachusetts and a decade of long, hard work to make that life she needed. “Every night I would do something,” said Elliott. “I went to support groups, I went to therapy. I read every book there was. I went to women’s support groups, weekend retreats. If it had anything to do with an issue I had, then I studied it. I did a weekend anger workshop for adult women who had been adopted. I think there were five women who had a lot of anger and a lot of issues. It was amazing. Once I realized I could fix this, I was willing to do anything.”
After five years, Elliott wondered if she was ever going to make things better. But at the ten year mark, she knew she was approaching the light at the end of the tunnel. “I thought, I’ve done it,” said Elliott. “I knew because my life just worked. My kids were the proof in the pudding. I took them away from all the crazy people, and they’re wonderful men now. They were close, they’re close to me, they love me.”
Elliott with her eldest son, Chris and her grandson CJ.
Elliott’s children credit her with ending the cycle of
abuse in her family.
During those ten years, Elliott went back to school, earning a Masters of Education in Counseling Psychology and a certificate in grief counseling, and began giving seminars to help people get over the issues of their past that were holding them back. Her messages were all from personal experience. She told those she counseled that they could do whatever they wanted, but that it involved a lot of hard work. Spoke of willingness and explained that if you wanted to make your life better, you had to wake up in the morning and choose to make it better. And she used herself as an example of someone who had gotten over her past, and made all her dreams come true.
But one day, at one of her seminars, someone in the audience asked her if she had done everything that she wanted to in her life. “And I said yeah! And then I said no!” Elliot had had one experience as a child that was always with her. When she was eight years old, during a routine legal process involving her adoption, she found herself in a judge’s chambers. “And as I’m talking to him, I remember thinking, even back then, I can do this.” It was the one dream she hadn’t chased - hadn't acheived.
Having some experience with risk-taking, and knowing a thing or two about picking up a life and moving it closer to a dream, Elliott went from central Massachusetts, to the elite halls of UC Berkeley Law School. Of the 7,000 applications Berkeley receives each year, the school accepts less than 300. Elliot was one of them. “I had a lot of goals. I had a lot of pretty lofty goals. I went to the law school that I wanted to go to. People told me at my age, ‘You’ll never get back to New York. You’ll never work for a big law firm.’ Long story short, I came back to New York and I work for a big law firm. I love being an attorney. I love doing pro bono work. I love using this position to help people who otherwise wouldn’t be helped.”
After decades of exploration, discovery, study and sheer effort, Elliott has gotten past her past. Now, she wants to share what she has learned. “I feel like I have an obligation to tell people that it can be done. You have this [ability] inside of you.” The result is Elliott’s self-help company Getting Past Your Past. In her very limited spare time, Elliot is planning her next set of night and weekend seminars. This fall, she’ll be teaching at the Learning Annex and the NYC Seminar and Conference Center, both in Manhattan. And her first book, Getting Past Your Past should be ready for publishing later this year.
How does Elliott know that she’s truly gotten past her past? “I’ve healed all the things that put me there in the first place. I’ve learned how to live life and how to be okay with me. And nobody can ever take that away from me. There’s no going back. I’ve plugged up all the holes and I also have an armor that makes it so no one can put the holes back [in me] again. I’ve made all my dreams come true.”
Elliott (second from the right) and her family
at her youngest son’s engagement party last month.
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Yea!
Mike - Nov 27, 2006 2:48 PM
YEA!
so inspiring...
Judy M - Nov 27, 2006 2:49 PM
Thank you for your insipiration - it is just what I needed to hear today
You rock!
nahnah - Nov 27, 2006 2:50 PM
You rock, Sue!!!!!
thanks
Amy - Nov 27, 2006 2:50 PM
Wow! Takes away that feeling of hopelessness just to read this article. Thanks for sharing it!!
amazing...
firecracker712 - Nov 27, 2006 2:51 PM
Such an amazing story, shows what you can do once you get tired of being tired.
What an inspiration
frani - Nov 27, 2006 2:52 PM
Susan what an inspiration you are. Lady, you rock!!
American dream
Taltoris - Nov 27, 2006 2:52 PM
Truly an inspiration. This is the american dream.
remarkable
janice brandt - Nov 27, 2006 2:53 PM
What a remarkable story. I am so inspired and awestruck. You are a marvel!!!!!
story needs telling
joann - Nov 27, 2006 2:53 PM
This story shoud be told over and over again to give people hope!
Truely a Great Lady!
claudette - Nov 27, 2006 2:54 PM
You are Truely a Great Lady!! Kind of like a Legend!! I would love to be at one of your conferences.
still struggling...
C6Vet - Nov 27, 2006 2:55 PM
Susan, You are truly an inspiration to all of us still struggling with codependancy. Mike
This is me!
Susan - Aug 30, 2007 8:09 PM
My name before I married was Susan Elliott. That was my adopted name. It is so weird to read this and think it was me, until I got to the part where you made a sucess out of your life.
Good working!
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Sounds like my sister:)
Pat Erickson - Nov 25, 2007 6:34 PM
After being adopted myself and having a difficult start at the age of 28 against all odds (everyone I knew said I could NEVER do it), I went to Vet school at Cornell University. I currently teach and practice veterinary medcine. I know if I can do this, if you did what you did, then ANYONE can......
Thanks for your wonderful story and keep up the good work!
Warm Regards,
Pat
Sounds like my sister:)
Pat Erickson - Nov 25, 2007 6:35 PM
After being adopted myself and having a difficult start at the age of 28 against all odds (everyone I knew said I could NEVER do it), I went to Vet school at Cornell University. I currently teach and practice veterinary medcine. I know if I can do this, if you did what you did, then ANYONE can......
Thanks for your wonderful story and keep up the good work!
Warm Regards,
Pat
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Karen - Dec 29, 2009 4:18 AM
Dear Susan,
Thank you for sharing your drive and determination to become all that you can. But having worked in the "system" sometimes being grateful for what you were given can be a true blessing. An adoptive family is something that many children dream of an never have. All families have problems, adoptive or biological. It seems your adoptive family must have done something right in order for you to accomplish what you have. I wish you much success personally and professional. but gratitude can soften anger and hurt and help you move on. God Bless!
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