How CPS steal the childhood from the children they are claiming to protect.
Above is a photo of the last birthday that I ever celebrated. It was the last birthday that I was with my family. I was 12 years old. There will be no more celebrations for my birthday EVER!! Yes, even as an adult this day has brought me no joy or celebration. And even worse as many parents celebrate their own children’s birthday I never saw the need to celebrate my children’s birthday. Yes, I would give them a gift and buy them a cake, but it was never a big thing. I am turning 40 in June and I have realized that being taken from my parents has caused more damage to me that I knew.
As I see my children turning into their teen years. I can not help but look at them and think that they are now the age I was when I was torn from my family and forced to grow up fast. My oldest is 13 and by the time I was her age I was living on my own and taking care of myself. I look at her and I realize just how unprepared she is for this world. Not that I was any more prepared at her age. I can not imagine her being put in that same situation I was in. She is just as smart as I was when I was her age. She is at that age where she is finding herself and trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life. I remember that stage well, as I watch her discover herself I am reminded of my dreams of my future when I was her age. I wanted to go to the university and get a good job. I wanted to be a teacher. I have always had a love for teaching children. Maybe this is why my children are home schooled. But that is a topic for another day.
At times I wonder what my life would be like today if I was never removed from my family. Would I have been that great teacher? Would I have discovered a different passion? Instead of finding out who I was I was worried about where I was going to sleep or if I was going to have to stay up all night and drink coffee and sugar water because I had no where to sleep. I lived in the city so there were no woods to go into to sleep in. I had no worries about food as I knew many restaurants that would give you a meal if you washed their windows or mopped up at the end of the night. There were times I would stay with friends but even that I could not stay with them for too long. I knew that truck stops had showers I could use for $2 or $3 depending on which one I went to, so I was always clean. There were times I slept in abandoned houses but one time I woke up to some guy touching me, so I never did that again.
During the ages of 12-14 I was “on the run” and this was the hardest years of my life. There were times I was glad to be caught and placed in juvenile detention of in a group home. You see these places no one really bothered you, so I would take a break and as soon as I was let out I would run again. I never spent too much time as I did not commit crimes so a week or so was the longest I was in detention. Group homes were just a few days to a week. But at the end of the day I simply was happier on my own.
This was in the 90's so seeing teenagers walking around the streets during the day was not a common sight. I am sure there were some kids that were home schooled but if the police saw you on the streets during the day they would stop you. So for this reason you had to stay hidden during the day. Being I never went to school I felt that I still needed an education. the internet was not around. (Can you even imagine life without the internet?) Well before the internet the source of information was the library. This is where I spent much of my time during the day. Oddly enough I was never bothered there. So my education did not come from the school system. This is most likely why I think the way I do and feel the way I do about the school system. I will tell you how I feel about this in a future post.
When I was 13 I spent a few months in a mental hospital because they said I had ODD. (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), Manic Depressant, and OCD. They forced me to take all kinds of drugs I ran away from this mental hospital twice and each time I was brought back there. When I decided to play their game, I was told I could leave. When I finally left there, I stopped taking the pills.
When I was 14 I meet this guy named Tate and for about a year I could call him any time I needed money. I never did drugs, drank alcohol, or sold myself. These were things I sore I would never do. I had to have a set of rules I lived by, I felt like if I honored these rules God would protect me. I spent many nights sleeping in a church playground or hiding in their bathroom. This is where I felt the safest. But when I needed anything that costed money I would call Tate. Sometimes I would call him just to get me out of Florida. He would go to the Greyhound bus station and pay for a ticket for me to go wherever I wanted to go. Through this I was able to spend time in California, Iowa, Colorado, Indiana but I always would return to Florida. As an adult now, I question that relationship as being strange but as a teenager it was what I needed. The say that God puts people in your life when you need them, and he sure was in my life at a time I needed him. He disappeared just as fast as he entered my life though.
When I was 15 I stole a car because I was in danger and I needed to get out of the area. This is when that incident that I told you about in a previous post about my friend Maria happened. When I was released from the mental hospital I did not feel safe in the area as I was still in fear that if I was seen by Angel or any of his friends I would be taken so I stole a car and I drove the car all night around Miami and headed north on the turnpike. I got to Ft Pierce where I feel asleep behind the wheel and I crashed the car. This was the first time I was arrested for committing a crime. When I told the attorney why I stole the car the judge agreed to allow me to stay in Port St Lucie. I had to wear an ankle bracelet and I had to stay in a foster home. This was the first foster home that I had actually stayed in for more than a few minutes. This only lasted a few months and I will tell you more about this foster home in a future post.
After I left this foster home I spent the remainder of my 15th year, in another mental hospital. This is where I celebrated my 16th birthday. This time it was because of the major mental breakdown that I had because of the foster home. I attempted to commit suicide. This is a story for another time as well. When I left, I spent about a month living with my birth mother. Things there were not so good, so I left.
After I left my birth mothers home, I got ahold of a fake ID and with this ID I was able to work. So, for the next year I worked under this ID. I held down 3 jobs, all of which paid me enough that I could easily afford a motel room. And I spent my off days cleaning rooms at this motel.
There were times that I would get stopped by the police and they found that I would have a warrant for being a run away. So, they would pick me up and take me to the office and I would wait for them to find me a foster home and drop me off. As soon as they dropped me off I would leave and go back to my life. This was an unending cycle.
When I was 17 I reunited with a childhood friend and her family took me in. They attempted to adopt me but the cost they wanted was too great for me. They wanted me to marry one of their cousins so he could come to the USA. That too is a story for another day.
Now I could have told you everything I am talking about but each story I feel is better if it is told separately. This post is a timeline for you to understand what my teen years were like. It is very basic in that way. And I am writing this for 2 reasons. The first one is because I did a video telling you about my life in Foster Care. Sadly, that video is now gone off the platform. And secondly as I stated my girls are at the age I was when I was taken, and it is bringing up a ton of memories and I am thinking about it more now than I have ever thought about it.
For those that are reading my story for the first time, I was a foster child. I was removed from my family when I was 12 and never returned. Well I returned when I was 18. So, I aged out of care.
CPS never had a real reason to keep me away from my family, so they created one. I tell you my story, so you are aware of what they do and how they effect the families and children involved.
My hope is to one day be rid of CPS. I know that there are children that are truly in need, but the majority are removed for the wrong reasons. And this needs to stop. I was removed because of a lie.
As I stated before this some of this was talked about in my videos, but those videos are now gone. So, I will put them into blogs so they will be here for whenever anyone needs them.
This is just the beginning of my story and the information that I have. If you wish to hear more please consider following. And upvoting and resteem this. The more people that know about the ways CPS uses to steal children the less likely they are to get away with it. And one day we will be strong enough to put a stop to their tyranny.
As I fully support the #familyprotection movement 25% of ALL the SBD generated for this post will be transferred to #familyprotection. The other 25% WILL BE USED TO BUY MORE Steem Power. So my voting power will go up. The last 50% will sit in my account until someone needs it, I need it or I will use it to buy even more Steem Power.
As always Thank you for taking the time to read this post. It means the world to me to finally have a place where I can speak openly and without fear or repercussion.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!