Growing up in foster homes, she found her ‘Mom’ in a Marine

“Not all problems are visible ...”

Emily Thornton sat on a bench outside the Bluffton Library, holding her small service dog, Lucy, in her hand. The dog frantically barked as young skateboarders whizzed past.

It’s enough to stop Thornton mid-sentence.

She’s had post-traumatic stress disorder since the age of 14. That was a long, long time ago.

She still has triggers. Her attention span “is shot.” There are nightmares.

She can’t hold a job or handle her own money.

“I’ve learned to accept that I can’t do any of those things,” she said, finally continuing her interrupted thought. “But I can do other things that make a difference.”

But coming to that realization almost didn’t happen.

Growing up without a family

Thornton grew up in Columbia. She was put up for adoption and shuffled from foster home to foster home. She says it was the abuse she sustained at that time that led to her PTSD.

And no one wants to adopt a child with PTSD.

“Everyone had pretty much given up on me,” she said. “By the time I was an adult, I was so damaged.”

She was in her early 20s, still in care, when she discovered the Homeshare program with Coastal Empire Mental Health.

According to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, the program pairs former long-term state hospital patients with families in the community, and they are provided services to help them transition to living in society.

And that’s how she met her mom.

‘They had nowhere to put me’

Nina Benedict retired from the Marine Corps. A native of Syracuse, N.Y., she wanted to help her sister become certified to help the mentally ill.

Benedict found herself certified as well.

“They had nowhere to put me,” Thornton remembered. “They called her up. ‘Can you take her?’ ‘Sure.’ ”

Neither was a hugger. And Thornton was used to being rejected. So used to it that she tried to sabotage the relationship herself.

“I tried everything I could to test her,” she said.

She would say she wanted to leave. Benedict would call her bluff.

There was no use arguing with a Marine.

Thornton was there to stay. And she realized it.

“That’s when all my shenanigans stopped.”

From Marine to Mom

Thornton later found her biological mother and moved out of the program, hopeful of connecting with a family she never knew. But, she said, rejection soon followed.

She called Benedict.

“Can you come get me?”

Benedict drove two hours.

She asked Thornton what she wanted.

“I want you to take care of me.”

“You got it,” was the response.

That’s when Benedict became Mom.

‘She made me the woman I am’

Thornton can’t hold a job. But she has a driver’s license. She can change the oil and a tire. She trains her service animals.

She credits all of that to Benedict.

“I was still a kid in my mind,” she said. “She made me the woman I am.”

Benedict, who is up at 4 a.m. each day to pick up Hilton Head students on her bus route, volunteers with the National Alliance of Mentally Ill and works to fight the stigma attached to mental illness. She also, Thornton says, takes care of abused and abandoned animals. The home is a refuge for foster pets. There are currently 12.

“She helps all of us who have problems,” Thornton said.

Benedict and Thornton aren’t related by blood. But don’t tell Thornton the former Marine who loves Star Trek, Harry Potter and the Smurfs isn’t her mom.

“She’s my everything.”

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 11:06 PM with the headline "Growing up in foster homes, she found her ‘Mom’ in a Marine."