My Life Story

Lessons Learned

I can say a lot of positive things about being in foster care. I met a lot of amazing people, a lot of them being my social workers over the time. And I met a lot of people I still to this day talk to.

One thing I learned, is you can never get too attached, in a lot of homes things don't always end up so well and you get moved and uprooted to a whole new area. Without any warnings or goodbyes. Which, I think messed with a lot of kids heads, being moved around so much.

Foster care is a system in which they take children from parents, and give the parents an improvement period. If they don't see any improvement, the children stay in foster care longer, or sometimes get put up for adoption. Both parents have to give up rights to the child/children in order for adoption, or their rights or revoked in most cases. It all depends on the case.

I've also learned that foster care isn't always a bad thing, it helps a lot of children get out of ugly situations. There are a lot of foster homes that are loving and caring. The ones who are not just in it for the extra income every month. Those are the ones that are worth it, the ones who make life worth living, the ones who give your life a purpose. If the foster care system were perfect, which it indeed is not, all foster homes would be like this, but sadly they are not.

In foster care I never really remember anyone teaching me to talk about my feelings. I never learned to not hold things in. I was in therapy, but I didn't believe that I needed it, so I just really kept all of my feelings to myself. That's one of the main things I regret, not trying in therapy when I had the chance. Now anytime that I have to talk about my feelings or talk about serious stuff, I freeze and try to talk but the words don't come out of my mouth for while. But, it's definitely something I have been working on, and getting better at. I will talk more about that in  the next chapter.