Trigger Warning: Discussion of foster care, kidnapping, and PTSD.
I wasn't one of those kids who experienced the foster home side of foster care; I was a group home kid. When I was younger and obviously much more ignorant, I used to believe that the foster home experience was different—better, even. As I got older and accidentally came across a job at CYC (California Youth Connection), I learned very quickly how wrong I was.
Our experiences are very much the same, especially when we turn 18–21. One thing I struggled with the most was that I had no friends that weren't foster kids. In this system, you don't get to pick where you live most of the time—unless you are able to get a SILP (Supervised Independent Living Placement), which was a cool experience, though I definitely wish I had saved my money.
The Wall of Isolation
I was enrolled at Paul Mitchell the beauty school, which was a great experience. I had a lot of fun with the friends I was able to make there, but after that, I'm not sure what happened. I think I got too much in my own head. I started noticing how different I was from everybody, how far behind I was, and how much trauma I really had. It was starting to affect me.
Ages 19, 20, and 21 were probably the worst. When I was 17, I was on the run from probation and I was homeless. Long story short: I was kidnapped, and bad people did bad things to me for a few days. I got away and turned myself in. They went to prison, and at 18—exactly one year later—I had to testify against my kidnappers alone. One person got 30 years and the other only got six.
When the "Calm" Becomes the Storm
The point is, the trauma didn't actually hit me until I was at a calm pace in my life. I finally had housing, a job, and even a car (but no license, smh). That's when it got bad. It got to the point where I thought I saw my kidnapper everywhere I went. I stopped leaving my house. I was paranoid; I even started hearing voices. It was a whole mess.
Actually, the job I accidentally got at CYC saved my life. I found so much healing in doing that kind of work. It is not uncommon to hear a foster youth with a similar story to mine. Maybe you ran away a lot, were homeless because of it, or got on probation and it was impossible to get out. I’ve heard too many stories where someone was hurt by evil people in the same way I was.
We have a target on our back, but we don’t always know it. Trauma doesn't always affect you immediately. For me, it took years to realize that what happened actually happened—that it wasn't just a bad dream. I was dissociated for many years, and that caused me to isolate, just like it does for a lot of former foster youth aging out.
The Battle of Two Wars
That’s the hardest part about all of this: while you’re trying to figure out how to be an adult, you’re dealing with real-life PTSD or other mental health struggles that aren’t visible on the outside but are destroying you on the inside. Most of the time we don’t win the fight because we’re battling two wars at once: the external war of survival and the internal war of a mind that is finally shouting the truths we had to muffle just to make it through.
Everyone expects you to just "start your life." They see the housing and the job, and they check a box. But they don’t see the hyper-vigilance. They don’t see you scanning every face in the grocery store. Isolation isn't just about being alone; it’s about feeling like you’re the only person in the world carrying a secret that’s too heavy to put down.
A Path Forward
If you are aging out and you feel yourself slipping into that dark, quiet room of isolation, know this:
The "calm" is often when the processing starts. Don’t judge yourself for struggling now that things are "good." Your brain finally feels safe enough to feel the pain.
You are not "behind." You are running a different race than everyone else, and you're doing it with weights tied to your ankles.
Healing is a collective effort. Finding community—finding people who "get it" without you having to explain the trauma—is the only way to merge those two wars into one fight.
We were never meant to carry the weight of our childhoods and the weight of our futures at the exact same time. It’s okay to ask for help carrying the load. Because the only way we win the war is together.
I shared part of my story with hopes someone may relate and higher hopes that it might help someone - if this message was too much please let me know via the comments and I will take down the post. we are trying to help you get through life with lived experience but we aren't trying to trauma dump or re-traumatize anybody either.
With Love and Light,
we hope you've taken something good from what we have shared
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