This article contains descriptions of child abuse and trauma which some readers may find distressing.
As someone who experienced the care system from a very early age, this personal account of the trauma endured shows how very little has changed.
I was born in the winter of 1982 to an ‘unfit mother’ (I use that term very loosely). By the time I was born she had already had two other children taken into care due to neglect. Despite having a history of neglectful behaviour and being on social services’ radar from before I was born, very little strategy was put in place to ensure history wouldn’t repeat itself.
A catalogue of neglect
The cracks very quickly appeared. I was hospitalised with marasmus (severe malnutrition) and muscle wastage at three months. The doctors grew increasingly suspicious when I was hospitalised with a burn on my foot around the size and shape of a cigarette end that had become septic. The case worker was informed by my mother that I had knocked a pan of boiling water off the stove.
Around 10 months old I had a seizure. Hospital tests showed I had drunk a household cleaner – and yet I was sent home. This wasn’t the only incident of its kind. I was seen scavenging from bins, desperate for food. I sustained burns to my legs standing in front of a fire. I was heard crying for hours on end, then seen to be overly drowsy for no apparent reason – drowsy enough to sleep all day, which allowed my mother to socialise.
My mother would regularly leave me so she could go out. I would end up in temporary foster care. This went on for about two months, back and forth, in and out of a foster home. The warden of the unit where we were living begged social services to intervene, but they said they could do nothing and I was best placed with my mother.
A fateful decision
Then, when one day social services made a decision to withdraw all support, things rapidly spiralled out of control, and my mother went to her doctor. She told them that she hated me, that I had ruined everything, and that if she had to spend one more minute with me, she would hurt me. The GP got her to call social services. Social services told her to calm down, think about it over the weekend, and if she still felt that way to go to their offices on the Monday.
She walked out of the GP office to the hospital where I was born, put me down on the steps and walked away. I don’t know how long I was there before someone found me. I was cold, bordering on blue in colour and I had no ID. I had no blanket for comfort or warmth, just the clothes I had been put in that day. I hadn’t cried to alert anyone. By this point I knew that when I cried no one came.
Hospital, foster care, adoption
It was a nurse who found me and recognised me, as I had been there so often. She carried me into the hospital, and the staff brought me toys and clothes. She stayed by my side for the entire weekend, even though her shift was over. A place of safety order was instigated by the police, the NSPCC and social services. Once I was better I was discharged, but this time it was to the foster family I had spent so much time with before.
I, like so many children do, arrived with nothing but a bin bag with the clothes I had been found in and a comfort teddy bear from the hospital staff. I was just about 14 months old at this point. I spent a year with my foster parents, bonding and learning to trust gradually. I was desperate to be accepted so would often make pretend cups of tea for any visitors. I had many foster brothers and sisters and finally started to accept the love they gave me. But this wasn’t to last. I was around two-and-a-half years old when I was adopted by a wonderful family. So off I went again, wrenched from a safe space to strangers some 80 miles away.
Gradual adjustment
I was again in a home that I didn’t recognise, with people I didn’t know. I was traumatised – I was selectively mute, walked with an odd gait and had a droopy eye. I didn’t know how to interact, so once again I made pretend cups of tea. I would wolf down my food without chewing as I wasn’t sure if food would be regular. I couldn’t be held. I would scream blue murder when my parents washed my hair because I couldn’t bear to be touched; I had come to believe that touch hurt.
Gradually I settled. My parents threw me a party on the day the court officially granted the adoption order. Slowly I learned to trust and I bonded, but there was always that fear that they would leave me – that I would be taken away. That fear remains to this day, albeit subconsciously.
The impact of a life in care
I have what psychologists describe as abandonment issues. I wasn’t given any counselling. The care system forgets about you once you have been placed with a forever family. They also don’t prepare the adopting family for issues that can arise later in life.
Abandonment issues manifest in a fear that those who say they love us don’t truly love us, a fear that our forever home could be taken away from us at any moment. We believe it is our fault we were put into care. If I’d just been pretty enough, if I’d been a good girl, if I had behaved more or cried less, perhaps my mother wouldn’t have left me, perhaps she wouldn’t have hurt me.
These are irrational emotions, but the emotional damage done is irrational. It takes years to come to terms with the fact that we are not to blame. We never truly allow anyone to get close and we never truly trust anyone but ourselves.
The apology tendency
Excessive apologising is a defence mechanism, a behaviour commonly seen from children in care. They may over-apologise as a way to diffuse potential conflict, avoid rejection, seek approval, or to minimise negative attention from authority figures or peers. These children may internalise the belief that they are inherently ‘wrong’ or that their presence is burdensome, leading them to apologise excessively as a way to compensate for perceived shortcomings.
Many children in care systems also learn that compliance is key to survival in institutionalised settings. Whether it’s obeying strict routines or following the rules of new foster homes, children may learn to apologise quickly to avoid punishment or conflict. This behaviour can become ingrained, continuing into adulthood – even in situations where an apology is not necessary.
The end of the story?
My story happened in the 80s so I had hoped that things had changed. I was wrong. Despite a campaign launched in 2004 to stop children being ‘bin-bagged’, this is still happening. While a lot of local authorities have committed to stopping it, a nationwide ban has not happened.
Imagine being wrenched from your community and arriving at a total stranger’s home, sometimes in the dead of night, with nothing but a bin bag with some precious items to your name. There is no dignity, there is no care. Children who come from care live with trauma for their whole lives. For some, it can get better over time, but the emotional scars heal a lot more slowly than any physical scar.
I was lucky I was gifted a wonderful family who through thick and thin have stayed with me, but there are countless children out there who aren’t so lucky. The system fails them and they age out of the system at 18, never having had that family they so deserve, never knowing an unconditional love.
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