Being raised in foster care and my daughters ending up there used to seem like an unbreakable cycle. I had feelings of being stuck in the past. The abuse I encountered at home and in foster care left scars so deep. I suffer from them as I write this story.
Triggered
Going into adulthood I prayed and promised myself that I wouldn’t continue the cycle. But the problems I wanted to run from consumed me. My first … Read More
in 2007 when I was 20 years old and he was one and a half. I had run away from foster care and had nowhere to live and no money for food. I was also dealing with depression and trauma—and an abusive partner. I didn’t have support from my family and felt uncared for and alone.
The family friend lived in a cozy, nice home. She suggested that I leave my son with her and write a statement saying that he would live with her family temporarily, just until I got situated and had my own place.
I did not want to be without him, but I wasn’t able to provide a home or food. A ball formed in my throat and I wanted to break down and cry, but I agreed to it. If I had access to food, housing, mental health care and emotional support, I would not have made that decision. I didn’t know that my son would end up living there for 10 years.
The child welfare system needs to have a policy to fight false allegations, and their workers need to be trained to detect them. Right now, false reports are simply tools for perpetrators to continue controlling their victims even when those victims have succeeded in going on with their lives. ACS becomes puppets of our abusers and our children suffer.
On the morning of June 14, 2009, my daughter, grandson and I headed north from our small town in Nebraska on the 90 mile trip to theBehavioral Health Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. My grandson, Nathan, had been acting extremely aggressive for 36 hours. He threw chairs across the room, punched the computer screen, and kicked and hit family members.
Nathan, who has been diagnosed with Bipolar, ADD and ODD, and also has … Read More
I rolled the meth pipe between my fingers and watched the smoke as it moved toward my lips. I looked around the bathroom I had secretlybeen getting high in despite my enormous eight-and-a-half month pregnant belly. My boyfriend, Mike, had torn all my things off the walls the last time he had beat me in there, and I’d decided to redecorate.
As I climbed on the counter to put up an aquatic … Read More
