Linda, 17, had to be placed in foster care when she could no longer be cared for at home.
I was 12 years old when I was first put into foster care. Mum was an alcoholic so I couldn’t live with her. Being in foster care was really different to my normal home life. It taught me a lot of stuff that I should have already learnt, like manners.
I didn’t like foster care but it was good for me because I was pretty wild. I didn’t like being away from my mum and it felt weird because I was put with a family who were complete strangers. There were two brothers and one sister. Most of the time I got on with them but sometimes I would fight with the older sister. I was with them for four years. I’m still watched by DOCS (the Department of Community Services) but I have moved back home and I’m living with my mum and my brother.
When I was a little girl my brother was on heroine for most of my life, but then my brother got on methadone so that really helped him. I guess drugs were around me but because I was so little I didn’t know any better. I think it was better for me to know and them not to hide it. Instead of me living a life of not knowing and finding out later. I said to my family when I was a young girl, “Look I know you are all doing stuff, just come out and tell me. Don’t hide it. Eventually I will find out and that will make me more angry”. Now that I have lived a different life and I have come back home things have changed. My family has cleaned up a lot.
I was a premature baby, I was born at 29 weeks and I was a very sick baby. I spent a lot of my life in hospital when I was a kid. What I could never understand is I was so lucky to live and my mother was so lucky that she was able to have me. So when she was drinking and taking stuff it felt like she was throwing me away. I didn’t understand. It is a bit ridiculous if you really think about it. She almost lost me once, and then it was giving me up by choice. When I was little my mum used to do things like leave me and my brother and take all the money, so we had to survive off whatever we had. When it got really bad at home, I got put into care.
I was in and out of care for years. The very last time I left my mum we got into a huge fight and that’s when I told her she’d never see me again. But my mum has changed for the better now. When I first left her for foster care I told her I wouldn’t be back at all, I told her she’d be lucky to see me once a month. I would never have thought I’d be back for good like I am now.
Now that I’m back with my mum, my foster care mum is basically not speaking to me because I made the choice to come home. This has really upset me because it’s like having to choose between families. When I went back to her house to pick up some clothes after I’d moved back home I said to my carer “I’m not going to carry on living here because this isn’t my home any more. DOCS have already said that I can pick up my stuff.” She started to cry. I felt really bad. I’ve definitely had to grow up quickly because of situations like these.
It’s definitely made me a better person going through all this stuff. I’m so much stronger than I thought I could ever be. It takes a lot to bring me down, but once someone brings me down I come crashing down. I still have days where I absolutely lose it, and start screaming at people, usually my mum or my brother. I guess I can be a really angry sort of person, too. It’s hard having so much serious stuff to cope with when you’re a kid. You just can’t make sense of it.
What really helped me was the Sister2sister program. Basically it helped to make me feel better about myself. They teach you that it doesn’t matter what people think of you, its what you think of yourself that counts. And they teach you how to deal with anger and stop people walking all over you. I would recommend it to any teenager going through trouble in their life.
Visit Sister2sister.com.au for more information.
*Model is in no way associated with this story*
