Teaser:
This is the story of one persons life. A life lived completely alone. About a girl who was left to fight on her own. She had no family to see. She doesn’t know who to be because the system never cared. Not one child spared but all of us scared. Left to fight alone and finding her way to share her experience.

Introduction:
Every 10 seconds, a case of child abuse is reported on kids in foster care. Since I began reading three cases have been reported. This is a disturbing statistic. I am this statistic. Foster care has been my reality for 17 years. I was first abused in the year 1998, I was not even a year old. “The Systmem” by Angelia Matchett is the story of the life of an abused foster child, raised by the system.
       

Poem:
It’s dark here but I’m used to it. It almost gives me comfort. Inside I’m alone, I don’t let people in. Because i’ve learned that people don’t care and that people don’t stay. This is what has taught me.

The abuse felt never ending. Every hit making me more afraid. Feeling like I was in a dark place with no new light.

Wanting to run with no where to go. Wanting to belong but never fitting in. Wanting to scream for help but hoping the marks would be enough.

Going to gym and changing with marks down my back and legs. Everyone stares even the teacher but no one asks, no one cares.

When people look at me different because I have a black eye and bruised arms.

No one wants to hangout with the girl who chooses to work alone at school. I’m the girl your mom tell you to be “nice” to.

Never wanting to be felt “sorry” for but wanting to be normal. But the adopted girl or the girl in foster care is not normal to you.

The pain that goes through me when people say the “hate” their family. I have no family. I’ve never met my biological mother or father, I have nothing.

What I do have is memories. Memories of pain. Of not understanding why my dad hits me. Wondering what I have done to him. Is it simply because I’m alive?

At some point I moved. The state finally decided to move me and move me and move me again. Actually moving me eight times in three years. Six out of eight times due to abuse.

But they were always quick to promise this would be the last move. The last home. The last new mom and dad, but they’re wrong, they’re always wrong.

Then came a new home at age six and this one was different. I remember being told before I met them that they would adopt me.

So when the day came to meet them I took my to-be mom to the bathroom to ask some six-year-old questions. Such as:

Will you really be the last move? Will you hit me? Will you hurt me? Will he hurt me?

Her response was yes I want to be your last move. No I won’t hit you. I would never let anyone hurt you, and he would never hurt you.

And to credit her the first two years were okay . But there was no connection between us. And when things got tough they changed.

Just like all the rest of the people she had lied. She did all these things and sat by while he did the same. It went on for eight years.

Everytime they hit me with the rod I was hoping tomorrow would be my last day. So all this pain could end.

Eight long years of yelling, downgrading, hitting slapping and being hit with a metal rod, being shaken or whatever was convenient.

Eight years of bruises, bloody noses, bleeding wounds from the rod, black eyes. Eight years of being a punching bag, a human looked at like an object.

After ten years of being adopted, eight of those years being abused and seven reports put into SRS and being substantiated I was brought back into a foster home.

When I found out relief flooded my body. My own hell was over or so I thought.

It was August 2, 2013. After ten hours in several different offices and a two hour car ride, I found myself at a big house in a new town with a new set of foster parents.

They seemed nice there were other teenage girls there. But what I thought would be my rescue, my safe haven wasn’t.

It was the same old. I lived there fourteen months. i would call my case manager and cry, asking to be moved at least seven times.  But since I wasn’t allowed to talk to her alone she saw no reason to move me. So there I stayed.

When I took all I could I had to move and I had to do what it took to get a chance at a good place to live. I ran.

I was scared I saw things I never thought I would. After two long days I turned myself in. Went back to that foster home, but after a few big arguments I was finally moved.

I bet you wonder what’s next. i wondered what would come next.

Believe it or not it has been a rainbow at the end of a seventeen year storm. I’m now in a amazing foster home with a woman I love who takes care of me, and girls I care about. Now while I’ve been reading this nearly 40 cases of abuse have been reported. This is my story of my experience with the system.