I aged out of the system as well. At 31 I still have trouble making lasting connections. Your video made me feel not as alone. Thank you for sharing your story.

I grew up next door to your mother. We were very close friends until she began her path of destruction. I had to make the hard choice of walking away from her. I still feel like I should have tried harder to help her but as you know she always goes back. I did get to see you a couple of times as you were growing up and I cried every time. The last I seen you I think you were about 6. I am so sorry for the life you were given.This video confirms what I knew in my head. I am sorry I couldn't do anything to help you or your brothers. I wish you all the best in your future Sara. It looks like you have reshuffled the hand you were given and you are going to have a beautiful future. Many prayers for you and your son. I understand if you block this comment. I just wanted you to know there were people in your life that wanted to help but had no power to do so..

I was put into Forster care at the age of 7 after living with my abusive aunt and uncle for 4 years. We were physically abused for 4 years but never had anything down about it until my eldest sister refused to sit down at school because it hurts us that much just to sit down and the day she refused turned into the best day of our lives

This is so sad .. how can someone treat children this bad.. especially scared and vulnerable.. so sorry this happened to you.. you’re strong and beautiful! Keep your head up !

Just wanted to say despite your childhood experiences it looks like you've grown up into a lovely young lady. Really pleased to hear you're now settled and happy.

Sara you inspire me everyday! The person you are today is nothing but amazing.

@ssmith344

3 жыл бұрын

You’re amazing. Thank you ❤️❤️❤️

Hi Sara, your story is very similar to mine. I’ve been wanting and trying to write a book about my unfortunate experience in the foster care system but I have a lot of trouble remembering all the details. I want to make a difference in someone’s life that is currently going through the same thing as us to let them know that they can eventually live a normal and fulfilling life but of course, each experience and story is different. I wish a change could happen within this system and that more precautions were needed! My foster parent beat me (almost burned my face) at the age of 6. I don’t know what they did with her or if any legal action was taken. I’m 44 now and trying to see if I can retrieve my files from NY. I need to know what happened to me and what treatment if any I was given. I stand very proud of myself today for surviving not just the foster care but life when living back with my parents that also had very heavy drug addiction and domestic violence problems along with my 5 younger siblings. I’m a certified paralegal, raised 3 wonderful kids, own my home and I’ve been married to the father of my kids for over 25 years. There’s hope, and stories like your and mine can give someone even if it’s just one person hope to push forward and persevere. Thank you so much for sharing your story, I hope to have the strength and memory to do the same soon. God bless you!

@alacazaba

2 жыл бұрын

I hate to say it, there's no political payoff for helping foster kids. State doesn't care, no assets to liquidate for hungry lawyers, we're family court fodder. Records, restitution, justice will always evade us. Our story, our pain, is already etched into our lives and can't be undone. Keep telling your story, don't look for revenge, make the lives of others in foster care better.

Thank you for sharing this. We're getting our house open and I've been trying to hear as many of these stories that I can so I can help understand what these children are experiencing and where they're coming from. The trash bags have always bothered me. My wife and I agreed that we'll never let a kid leave with their stuff in anything but a proper bag.

You are very brave. Thank you so much for sharing all this. I believe and hope that hearing stories like yours can really help those of us preparing to become foster parents.

Hello I’m 22 and went through the exact same….. I moved when I was ten and got bullied moved 4 times cause they broke down there some of them were awful and I wonder why it’s allowed in these homes were people are meant to have a better life for children I was a people pleaser too I just don’t understand how all of these grown adults have no idea about how to look after children and there mental health there is so much wrong. I’m still getting over the effects and you’re so right people should be more understanding and you sharing your story is inspiring. No body should feel especially as a child that they are not wanted, the system is broken and there is no help for any after effects I’m too embarrassed but since I’ve aged out and have freedom I’m happy but scared as I’m very ambitious I’m 22 now but there’s so much of my life I want to regain.

Wow, thank you so much for sharing your story. You are an amazing woman, And are worth so much! My heart is so sad to hear what you have had to live through...I can relate only with the abuse which is more than enough and you've been through so much more. But you are so courageous, beautiful, articulate. You are brave and only from what I can see here, have become an wonderful young woman with so much to offer in life. I love it how you said you're an great mum! I really believe you are!

I think I first heard your story about four years ago now, and I find myself coming back once in a while. I am hearing you more and more. I want to thank you so much! I will pray to my God for you.

You are beautiful and amazing! Sara u are worthy of LOVE💕 hugs

You've come a long way! You had to go thru some things in life in order to become the person you are today! Your experiences have made you stronger!! I commend you and applaud you to push yourself to make a better life for yourself and be a better person, dispite your past and horrible up bringing!😥 You're an awesome example to your beautiful son💖 but more importantly..a Great Role Model for him!!👍💛💖 May GOD continue to bless you with strength and knowledge, and Continue to use you as a Blessing to others thru your story and experiences🙏. 😍😘💖

Ok as an adult that grew up in foster care in the same foster family and suffered abuse in that family the part where your brother put the food colouring in the roses really made me laugh & I definitely related to your reaction to that 😂 funny how we find those moments in such bad times. I had some FU moments like that too. Hope you are managing ok now, it's a lifetime of healing ❤

I not only believe your story but feel for you to overcome this and turn out to be a beautiful young lady is a an overcoming that is absolutely miraculous power to you young lady thank you for sharing your story I hope a young little girl will see this someday and be empowered to overcome

Thank you for sharing ❤️ I’m showing my husband so he can see why we should foster.

Beautiful job, Sara. How about an update covering the last four years?

There are more people who have the same kinds of anxiety that you do you’re not alone there are many of us very much like you I admire you for telling your story and I hope that you find peace thank you for your story hopefully it helps make things change.

You are so sweet and come a long way, pretty well articulated and educated. I hope you have a wonderful end in the story.

I could never abuse a child. Oh my god! How can anyone! I just want to hug you! May god bless and keep you! I was never in the system but I had my fair share of childhood trauma. I count imagine being in your situation on top of it all

@ssmith344

3 жыл бұрын

I hope that you have found the strength to overcome your childhood trauma. If you ever find yourself in a place where you need to talk with someone, please reach out. ❤️

I can relate to not embracing normalcy/stability/routine, the problem was I was never taught to achieve with dignity. We were the 2nd poorest family in town until Lenny moved out (lol). In rehab they call it a, "flawed definition of success." I embraced the criminal lifestyle and paid dearly for it. I was never put in foster care, I was left cause we never told. Can't say which is worse, but I can say I am proud of your courage to talk and endurance to overcome your past. Wish you nothing but the best. Thanks again for sharing, and I hope it helps you as much as it helps me to talk and find solutions to the problems that seem to never end, years later? When the cold wind blows, especially in the summer to fall, I hit an emotional/mental wrecking ball. This year I finally managed to overcome my own issues and not wreck my own life. Once more, you seem like a very sweet person and it's beyond tragic that you should face such a terrible start. I believe I see a humbleness that is very powerful inside you. I hope you find out how to express your super powers and realize what your best is? There's a tremendous potential in your heart that would be a real tragedy if it was wasted because it needs to be shared. Much love and respect to you little sister, I'm very proud of you!

You are so inspirational. My mom and dad are actually foster parents. We have fostered two girls already. Im planning on adopting/fostering when I’m older. You are so gorgeous btw 💖

@ssmith344

3 жыл бұрын

That is amazing!!! I love when the biological children of foster parents become inspired to do foster care as well when they get older. It melts my heart. I hope that you continue that plan and change the lives of so many children in need. Please reach out if you ever need advice along the way. ❤️

Extremely Heartbreaking 💔 . Thank You. I hate life, and I grew up in a good family. So many millions of sad stories in this world. 29 min

To be without a loving household I'm sorry when I look at so many people in passed judgment not knowing the background and where they came from you are a beautiful young lady and I'm sorry that this happened to you

You are very brave! Thanks for sharing.

You are beautiful!! Thank you for sharing your story my heart aches for that little girl but i see a beautiful strong woman and great mommy

@ssmith344

3 жыл бұрын

This is such a sweet comment. Thank you so much for the kind words.

@olivegreen337

2 жыл бұрын

@@ssmith344 Hello Precious Sara I can so relate but in my case it was my biological parents who were the abusers my sisters and I also went through our childhoods in a living hell, I am now an older woman but remember it all and I suffer severe depression, severe anxiety and ptsd. I have a very difficult time trusting people and am still afraid of people and never feel loved! For so much of my life I would apologize to people even in a store if I slightly bumped into them and I am like you a sweet person with a very caring way. Sara I never believed in children being in foster homes I think more children should be in adoptive homes where the parents provide for the child financially so that they are not after just money which is the main reason people foster children. I really hope that you do more video's explaining how you turned your life around so children from abusive pasts can learn how they can do it too. I will never understand how people can be so cruel and I always lived by this phrase you treat people the way you want to be treated! In my case I did therapy from the age of 20 till the age of 32. You are such a sweetheart and please take care of yourself and you are in my prayers!

i’m sorry to hear your story, i was told many times that i’d age out of the system i went in around the age of 9 but i went in and out of the system since i was a baby but the last time when i was 9 i stayed in for around 6 years and moved around 13 times i definitely didn’t have it the worst but there was few homes that were terrible, the most memorable was this old lady who would make “food” such as cow liver and just anything she knew i didn’t like and seafood although she knew i was allergic she would make me sit at the kitchen table for hours until i ate the food and i wasn’t allowed to leave the chair until the entire plant was clean, i remember hiding the food in paper towels and bringing it to the bathroom and flushing it just so i could go to sleep, she’d have me sitting there from 5pm to 2 in the morning with no care at all i’d go to bed most nights starving. It got to the point where i was hospitalized twice because i hadn’t been eating, i tried telling my case worker many times but she would never do anything, i stayed there for atleast a year it was terrible not to mention she also had two toddlers one with autism, i wasn’t able to go outside and i spent my days inside watching baby shows all day with no real interaction with anything and i became depressed but i was too young to understand. Another home where i didn’t eat much was when i was with a nigerian couple that made food from their culture such as goat and all sorts of different foods which of course i didn’t like so they’d make me eat hotdogs heated up in a micro wave and mac n cheese everyday, i had a friend that lived a few floors down in the apt building and he would give me food whenever i went to his apartment and we would also go to the library across the street. For the entire summer i would wake up everyday around 7 am and make two pieces of toast and wrap it in a paper towel and walk to the library and read books and use the computers there, i wasnt able to eat anything else because they both went to work early and i’d have nothing to eat because they put a chain and a lock on the refrigerator, not to mention i’d have to wait outside for hours alone because there was a key fob that you needed to get into the building and i would always try to sneak in whenever someone came out most times they wouldn’t let me in, it got to the point where my case worker came for a visit and i explained what my living conditions were like, i never told her because i thought it was normal at the time, i was around 11-12 at the time. Also they were religious people so we went to church a lot I lived in new jersey at the time and the church was in new york almost 2 hours away on weekends and weekdays we would go which caused me to be tired all the time in school which they shamed me for. It got to the point where i was taking these little juice and cracker things that they have at churches and eating them because i was so hungry. I got to visit my sisters once a month (i have two sisters and one brother who died in a foster home when he was a baby) we all were split up so they had to get DYFS workers to take us all to see each other. throughout my entire time in foster care my mother was trying to get us back but she had a tough battle with drugs and alcohol so she wasn’t able to get us back, she would lead us on and tell us all the time that we’d be back soon and i started to realize it wasn’t happening around 2 years after she told us we would come home the first time, and my father was in and out of prison throughout our time and he actually didn’t know we were in foster care until we went to visit him in prison and he asked who the lady was that brought us and we told him our case worker(he aged out of foster care so he knew what a case worker was) and he got his life together after he got out and fought for years and eventually got us out and my older sister and I moved with him from new jersey to north carolina where i currently reside in 16 now and i still deal with the aftermath of foster care such as i get very depressed if i do repetitive stuff everyday due to the fact i spent years doing nothing but the same thing everyday but it did make me stronger in some areas such as my ability to adapt to different situations very well. It was rough but i’ll never forget those amazing people i’ve met on my journey ;).

@JayShocka

2 жыл бұрын

btw this my first time sharing my story so i’m sorry for typing a lot i would explain more but that would take ages 😭

Thank you so much for sharing your story 💖

God Bless You Strong Brave Women!

Hi Sarah you should be proud of yourself for opening up to share and for overcoming what you went thru. Congrats on being a loving mom. I opened your go fund me link but it says it no longer takes donations. Hugs from Canada

I was fostered in the earlier 80,s and im about to go on a journey in the coming weeks about talking about being fostered.the feeling I felt the frustration. Totally get the fact you was labeled as a foster kid .

If you are still alive, hello from the Netherlands. Stay strong.

I had mother's and fathers stepfathers, and foster care kids at school teachers all abuse me, as a kid, im happy im out of that but still go through side effects of the trauma.

Is good to share these sort of things and talk about it.

I am sending you all my love

Thank the Lord for making it thru the darkness and being a light to others.

Thank you so much for sharing Sara. I know people aren’t dependable, but there is someone’s Love who you can always trust in: God’s unimaginable love for you. If you feel called, I think you might appreciate a series of videos (not my videos) that I have pinned on my channel called “Truth Beyond Death” about near death experiences and God’s love. You are a beautiful diamond who has been formed by unbelievable pressures. God has a plan for you.

As a foster care Social worker, I make it my priority to make sure all of my kiddos coming in to one of my agency’s foster homes are given a brand new bag and I iron on their name to their bag. No kid should have to experience the additional trauma of a trash bag. I like to ask former foster youth what are some things you needed from your social workers in order to feel supported and safe and heard in order to help me be a better social worker. What did you need from your social workers (that you did or did not receive) in order to feel supported, safe and heard?

@alacazaba

2 жыл бұрын

What I remember: social workers didn't believe me or my brother, they didn't understand how we felt, they dismissed us. Kids can't speak for themselves effectively so if they say anything, it is much more full of undiscovered meaning than what an adult may say. And if they are silent, it says equally as much, sometimes more.

very sad, you did survive .god bless sara

Thank you for sharing, I know it can’t be easy. You have grown into such a kind, sweet woman. I’m 28 and a newly licensed foster mom and will be fostering teen girls. Any advice you can give me to make it a good experience and welcoming for them? I’m trying to get as much feedback as I can from former foster youth.

@sharrison1309

2 жыл бұрын

Try to build strength and resilience by teaching them new ways to view the world. Patience. Many might have severe ptsd and won’t be in their right mind because of it. Forgive again and again. They are “still cooking” and that might take longer than expected for other girls. Build them up. Listen, listen listen. Even when they can’t talk. Sometimes they only want to know someone is there. At the moment, with them. That’s it. If they have flashbacks/episodes, find them some object that makes them feel safe. For me it’s roses. I could zone out on a rose and break out of triggering that way. It’s hard being a foster mom too. No matter what you are always good enough as long as you are still trying to be.

@michaelrunk5930

2 жыл бұрын

Patience and lots of love and treat them as if they were your child. Those are the best pieces of advice I would give.

@suzannegaglie6146

Жыл бұрын

Love them as much as you possibly can. Eventually, hopefully, they will let you in

I am a survivor of attachment therapy. I was a ward of the state of Washington for 16 years. I was diagnosed RAD at 6 and was in therapy until I finally escaped by running away at the age of 14. They used forced restraint, food control, physical and verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, forced indoctrination, confusion, isolation along with many other barbaric techniques. When I turned 17 I had a child and they took her even against psychiatrist recommendation. They also took the child I had a year and a half later. I did have another child many years later and was able to fight them and won when they tried to take her too. I was also deprived of an education or any future planning and removed at 18 from my ward status with nothing. While I had mental issues the way to help me form attachment or to teach me how to trust was not to spend the whole of my childhood terrorizing me on every level they could think possible. This diagnosis is an excuse for sadistic therapist to torture/break children and traffic them . It has taken me most of my natural life to try heal what they did to me in the name of mental health. I found out recently that this method is still wildly practiced and I want to find a way to stop it. There have been deaths from this practice as recently as 2020. Today I am 42 and I still struggle but I am a survivor. I would be happy to talk to someone about my story as I have a pretty extensive case history and was one of the first on my state. My case set presidence for how these cases are delt with in Washington state today.

I was taken from my parents due to truancy. Sent to a boy's home where the first night there I was held down by five much older teens. I escaped. In temporary Foster Care I went from a terrible situation to a not so good situation. Eventually I was returned to my parents.

❤

I really want to 'sponsor' a teenager who is age out. But when I looks at the the liability, I'm very worry. I can not adopt until I'm very sure that I know the kid enough. I'm torn but I feel bad for these kids.

I am/was a foster Dad. I have a horrific. My now ex and I adopted an 8 yr old, but "we" sent our childs younger sibling BACK into the broken foster care system! Stay tuned....

done very very well talking about abuse .i was abused different adults took turns on me.my story of abuse is in a Authors book .published.MARK

Baby girl there is nothing for you to be ashamed of

What happened to your content? Good start! Good voice, good presence on camera, you could do something with this channel. Your story, all of our stories have value and meaning. Awareness to issues will make the lives of others now in foster care better.

Ni

Just know it’s not your fault

When did you make this video? You said you were born in 1981 and you're 28 years old, but it was posted in 2020. Seems like you're off by about 10 years.

@ssmith344

3 жыл бұрын

Hi there! I was born in 1991, not 1981. I’m sure I said 1991 in the video. So, that would make me 29 years old now :)

@BigGiantMonster

3 жыл бұрын

@@ssmith344 It sounded like 81. I wasn't being critical, just curious

@aermanfrost9672

3 жыл бұрын

Yes she said 1991 and you apologise for hearing wrong chicken monster.

@BigGiantMonster

3 жыл бұрын

@@aermanfrost9672 GFY

@aermanfrost9672

3 жыл бұрын

@@BigGiantMonster nah I'm OK Chicken man

If you are referring to TP as your abuser, I am shocked.... shocked that this was going on while your mother was at first step. I hear that he is dying of Covid. Good riddance.

@ssmith344

2 жыл бұрын

No, TP was not my abuser. TP was her third husband. my abuser was her second husband. TP was a very nice man from what I remember. I wanted to comment this so others don’t think it is him.

@elcapitan6790

2 жыл бұрын

@@ssmith344 I'm so glad I wasn't right. I do remember him as nice years ago, but your mom has said some things to the contrary more recently before he passed....I know there are three sides to every story. I'm glad you are beginning to heal. Addiction sucks. Been on both sides of it. I hope your mother is doing ok.

wowWOW.........THANKS FOR YOUR STORY.....being a child is hard .....with crazy parents.....but to be treated like you .....that is a tragedy......a son.....no husband.....???? .... I STOPED TO LISTEN TO YOU BECAUSE YOU LOOK LIKE A GIRL I WAS IN LOVE WITH......AND SHE MARRIED SOME ONE ELSE MANY YRS AGO........YOU LOOK , TALK, VOICE.....JUST LIKE HER........mmmmMMMMmmm i was transfixed with your beauty.....thank you

Your story is really painfull I can see it through your eyes I would recommend you to read Qur'an with English translation for calmness and tranquility

Well you're beautiful I would have adopted you