u/Limp_Situation_244

How did you find out about it and how did it affect you?

In the UK, Kinship care is a mechanism that allows people to live with their family members once they are placed in care. I was placed with my grandparents and it’s seen as a better alternative to foster care.

I’d like to talk about my experience. Despite entering care at age 9, I was a happy and social girl with many friends. When I went to live with my grandparents at age 11 everything changed entirely.

From the moment I arrived there my maternal grandmother showed severe disdain towards me. I had been happy to go there as I had only wanted a family. Early on restriction was placed on all my devices and they were taken away at any minor inconvenience when they claimed I was ‘rude’.

I want allowed to have any numbers of my family members or speak to them directly. Personal things such as my trauma responses were mocked and shared to school teachers. My appearance was taunted which led me to begin covering my face. I was hardly ever allowed to go out with friends and every single one of my text messages were read.

I spent almost the entirely of those three years being locked away on my room and only really allowed to go to school or have contact with my abusive mother. Lies were told about me to my paternal side, my aunts and uncles and I was physically hit and abused. They would get the church to gang up on me being a ‘bad child’ and eventually went around and told everyone that I had ‘beat them up’ after I left and called the police on me to try and get me arrested after trashing my room.

They breathed peanuts in my face despite knowing that I was allergic and smiled as they did it. I was told that no one wanted me and that’s why I was in care and called names such as ‘little shit’ and ‘dickhead’ daily.

My diaries were read when I was at school. I was only allowed a maximum of 2 hours on my devices daily and all calls I wanted to make had to be downstairs. I wasn’t allowed to wear any makeup and had no control over where I would get my hair done. I was never allowed to see friends outside of school so they eventually stopped asking.

They would attempt to film me as I walked up the stairs, the cupboards were locked meaning I couldn’t eat food whenever I felt like it. They made it out to everyone that this was the ‘real me’ and they were ‘dealing with a difficult child’.

I didn’t swear and wasn’t violent and was being bullied at school at the time. I was in all top sets and got good grades but I didn’t study hardly ever. No matter what I did I was lied about. I was never allowed to talk to family members of my own accord. I started covering up completely and dissociating.

I wasn’t even able to look people in the eye anymore and I became severely depressed and started self harming at the age of 12. No matter what I did I was lied about and targeted. My room would be entered all the time without my consent and I had no privacy.

It was prison and hell and I don’t know what to say. I preferred my life before I entered the care system and I am going forward with pressing charges on them. I did everything right and still ended up there. I lost all my friends and dropped out of school and was stripped of a normal foster home or childhood. I was bright and kind and had friends. I was singing and dancing.

When I was 9 my biological mother lied and claimed that I had molested my younger sister who I was the primary caregiver to to cover up the fact that she severely abused me alongside her husband at the time.

I was then placed with my abusive grandparents who carried out the same controlling methods i experienced from ages 5 to 9. I was never allowed my own phone or to go out and see my friends. I was treated as a bad child and I never knew why. I was never believed.

I was then placed in homeless accommodation at 16 where I was attacked, have had my things stolen, had to leave my sixth form, been placed with mice.

There are external hardships like poverty and neglect and then there’s this. Pure targeted cruelty. I’ve never had a normal childhood or life. I had to drop out of school. Social services did not protect me and sided with the abuser.

Nobody truly understands how this feels because most people experience a break some time in their life. I’ve experienced every kind of abuse. I don’t even know why people are born just to be abused.

Sometimes it’s okay to step back and say things like these can’t be overcame.