The System Kid

I was five years old.

I was five years old when I was ‘apprehended’ from my parents and placed in my first foster home.

This was due to child abuse and neglect at home, by the hands of my parents. My leg ended up getting broken, and then my father asked me to lie about what happened to my doctor.

But my doctor knew otherwise.

And a few days after my leg was casted up; social workers showed up at my door.

I can remember being driven away from my home by these ‘social workers’.

These people I didn’t know.

These people I didn’t connect with.

These people who were strangers.

I can remember crying so hard I could barely breathe. Turning around in the back seat and reaching for my mother in the back window as I watched her reach out for me in the driveway.

And then she was gone.

I drove away out of her sight, in this car with people I didn’t know, to be placed in a home with people I knew nothing about.

They were also strangers.

Due to the child abuse, and numerous traumatic events I experienced as a child, I unfortunately have a lot of gaps in memory.

But I remember this home.

I remember this house.

I remember these people.

For me, peeing the bed was a response to trauma, and in this home I began peeing the bed. But instead of having people try and comfort me, work with me, and try and come up with options to help me through this traumatic time, I was met with people who consequenced me for doing so. I can remember being stood in the corner with my nose on the wall for what seemed like hours to the point when my knees started to buckle and my legs began to give out. I remember crying and crying, begging to be let out of the corner while the parents and children in the home sat there and watched TV.

I can’t remember how long I was actually in this home, but I can remember having a conversation with my social worker in his car, telling him how much I didn’t like living there.

And at some point I moved back home with my parents.

From working in the system now, I can only assume, some family work was done with my parents by this point, and that social workers felt like my home, with my parents, was now a safe place for me to return to.

But I can’t say that for sure.

And this ‘cycle’ went on for years.

An ‘incident’ at home, move out to a foster home, and then after a period of time I would move back home.

I don’t know exactly how many foster homes I was in, but it was many. I can think of 20; yes twenty, just off the top of my head.

And those are just the ones I can remember.

So try and think about it from the perspective of me as a child.

Constantly being torn away from my family, by people I barely knew, and being placed in home with people I knew nothing about. Then later on being moved back home again, only to have the same cycle repeat itself a few short months later.

And this ‘cycle’ went on for 10 years.

This is a child being put through repeated traumatic events, to which other ‘people‘ are calling it the ‘best interest of the child’ in order to keep the child ‘safe’.

Is it though?

I remember one incident where my house was broken into while I was in bed asleep.

My parents had rented out a room in the basement to a man named ‘Peter’. There was a looked door separating the basement from our living area and the upstairs. One night while in bed (My mother was sleeping in the room with my brother as he was having breathing issues and dad was at work), I was awoken by a huge smashing sound downstairs. I stayed in my bed and just listened. I heard rummaging downstairs and then heard someone walking up the stairs. I heard my mother whisper ‘shhhh dont move’. The person coming up the stairs then broke down the locked door to my parents bedroom and I could hear them rummaging around. Then the person started walking down the hallway toward my room. I heard my bedroom door open and the person stood there in the doorway. Watching me. I pee’d my bed in fear but I stayed dead silent and dead still. I felt as if they wouldn’t do anything if they thought I was asleep. Then after what seemed like a lifetime the person left and I heard them go into the basement. I am not sure if I fell asleep in fear, or passed out, but I woke up the next morning to my parents filing a police report on ‘Peter’ the guy downstairs. My parents stated that Peter was the one who broke into our living area and into their room and stole some medication. They stated they found the medication in Peter’s room downstairs and that he wouldn’t be coming back.

Peter spent his life in and out of jail and eventually committed suicide.

As a child experiencing an event such as this, with this level of trauma, I figured out later on in life is the reason I currently have sleeping issues. I can wake up at the drop of a dime, never really enter REM sleep, and toss and turn all the time. I was recently placed on Seroquel medication for sleep and it seems to help quite a bit.

But I wouldn’t be in this situation if I received proper therapy when I was younger for various different traumatic situations.

Or would I be?