Family After Foster Care - How to Cope, Manage, and Grow

I always thought things would go back to normal, or even better than normal, after I was taken away and placed into foster care. Though there was a lingering sense of doom that lurked over my shoulders, my feelings of hope always overpowered it. I knew, somehow, that I would be reunited with my mom and that we would get our happily ever after. When that didn't happen, though, I was left with a sense of emptiness and "missing" that. even now at twenty four, I never seemed to be able to fill. The loss of my mom was tremendously painful, but what seemed to make it worse was that I knew she was still out there. Just, not with me. I would only ever get to see her, for the rest of my life, but I would never again get to be with her. My inner child, however, refuses to believe this truth. "She'll still get me back," she says to me. How do I tell this little girl to move on? She just wants her mom, after all.

I got back from visiting my mom just the other day. I currently live in California, where I grew up, and she lives in Michigan, with my half siblings and the rest of my family on my mom's side. I hadn't seen my mom in four years, because I couldn't afford to fly out for visits. Just as I did as a little girl, I had nightmares of never getting to see my mom again during those four years. It's hard, now as an adult, to visit my mom and then be the one to say goodbye -- there's no social worker or foster parents telling me it's time to go now, just me. And it hurts terribly. It's like a bruise I keep bumping up against, and it never heals. This made me think to myself - how do kids in foster care cope with family after foster care? How do they handle the loss of never being reunified, or the gaps they experienced in between being in foster care and being reunified? How do you cope with the immense loss of being a foster child? I reflected on some things my therapist through A Home Within and the CASA Project had to say and figured they'd be worth discussing publicly. If I'm thinking this, I know there's another former foster youth out there who is struggling with the same turmoil.

Acceptance

I've found that the key to moving forward with your story is accepting the fact that everything up to this point has already been written. You can mourn the what ifs, but it won't make the present any different. It's important to acknowledge the fact that what happened has happened, and that from here on out, things are in your control. Your life is finally in your hands. Accept what has happened as being something that is already over with. It's also important to accept the feelings that come along with it. If the memory of foster care makes you sad, then that's okay. Accept the past as well as the feelings that come with it. Acceptance is necessary to being able to manage and move forward.

Relationships with Family After Foster Care

It's important to remind yourself that you're in control, and you don't have to see or have a relationship with anyone you don't want to. If you do want to have a relationship with your family after foster care, though, there's a chance you might feel like you have to treat the topic of you being in the system as taboo subject matter. Whereas you absolutely don't have to talk about it, no one -- even yourself -- should make you feel like it's taboo. What happened to you is significant. So then. how do you maintain relationships with your family after having experienced the traumas of being a foster child?

Set Boundaries

It's hard to set boundaries with people who you might feel desperate to have closeness with. For me, I want to be close to my mom forever. She has done no wrong and can do no wrong, at least that's what my inner child believes. In reality? She hurt me deeply at a young age and has done a lot to me that has led to attachment and intimacy issues. I still love her, but whenever I'm around her it's a constant battle with "little girl Jessica" not to regress and let her get under my skin. Be aware of how your family makes you feel, and don't brush it aside -- you and your feelings matter. As a young child in foster care, the concept of boundaries is confusing and, more often than not, something that is constantly challenged by those around you. Now, though, boundaries are something that are completely in your control. What are you comfortable with? What do you find triggering? Knowing these things before delving into relationships with your family will help you be able to be both aware of how things affect your mental health as well as who around you is willing and able to respect your comfort zone.

Don't Feel Guilty

DO NOT FEEL GUILTY! This is something I struggle with immensely. I tend to go years without talking to my father, who was -- to put it politely -- just awful to my mom and I both before, during, and after I was in foster care. Sometimes I don't feel guilty, he did so many terrible things and continues to gaslight my mom and I and act hatefully, I often think to myself. Then I think but I'm his only daughter, and he's been through a lot too, so maybe I should just bite the bullet and have a relationship with him. I feel guilty for not wanting to talk to him. I feel bad for not wanting a relationship with him. The truth? I shouldn't. You should never feel guilty for not wanting to have a relationship with someone who hurt you and/or someone you love, regardless of if they're your family. It's something I still need to work on, but because of how heavy it often weighs on my own heart, I know it must weigh on others' as well. Don't feel bad about protecting both yourself and your inner child, no matter the reasons you think you shouldn't.

Check In With Yourself

Make sure to take time to evaluate yourself and how everything is making you feel. Take a second to step back and think about how you feel when you're around your family, and how you can make it feel safer for yourself. Avoiding certain topics, accepting family members for who and where they are in life, and enforcing the rules and boundaries you've set in your relationships. Taking a break is always an option, too. Take care of you at the end of the day.

Own Your Past, Present, and Future - It's Yours!

Life before and during foster care was wildly out of your hands and control. Now, though? It's in your hands! You get to decide how you view and feel about the past, and how you allow it to affect you now and in the future. The biggest take away is just that your life is all yours now. You're not a number, you're a survivor. I suppose a big part of why I wrote this was to feel like someone out there might read this, and for a brief moment we would relate. Relate to missing our families even though we're grown up now, and relate to struggling with guilt over things we shouldn't feel bad about. It helps knowing you really aren't alone at the end of the day. So keep that in mind, and remember that you're more powerful than you've been led to believe!

You're not alone.