I do a lot of therapy groups, and one thing I have to state sometimes to people is that I was orphaned with living parents. I wasn’t raised by my biological parents, and turned 18 as a ward of the state. I have not met many people with this set of circumstances, so I want to ask if anyone here is comfortable sharing?
There are obvious negatives, I was homeless a number of times from 18-24 years of age. Stuggled a lot financially and finding my footing in life. I also have shit self esteem. Now in my late 30s, I never realized how much it effected me to not have an adult care about me as a child, well into adulthood and I still struggle. Also, holidays were rough until a few years ago.
The positives are I don’t have to deal with ass hole parents, dramas and such, and I don’t ever have to worry about their end of life care. I also learned what not to do when I became a parent myself, and have dedicated my life to ending generational trauma.
I guess it turned out ok. My parents were never married and because of my dad’s temper I lived with my grandmother until grade school when she died. I then lived with my real parents for two years, and then with my mother and her new bf for a few more before I ended up in foster care at the start of grade 6. ( I had run away from home and was living on the streets when Child and Family services picked me up.)
By grade 12 I had been in 10 different schools and 6 different foster homes, so I learned to not trust people much. I was a hyperactive kid (now they say I have ADHD but in the 80’s I was just “hyper”) and got in a lot of trouble over the years. One of my foster parents ended up having a nervous breakdown, I ended up in a youth jail, and was living on my own at 17. Later ended up in a provincial jail for getting mad and putting a cop in the hospital.
But then came my daughters, the first of which was born in 93. It settled me down a lot and made me start caring about things, and helped me focus on being less destructive. If it wasn’t for them, I’d probably either be in jail or dead.
I wouldn’t change any of it though. It was chaotic but fun overall and I learned a lot over the years.
I love the happy ending. I hadn’t planned to have kids, but when I had my son it certainly grounded me in a way that having a child didn’t ground my own parents. I felt such urgency to make a good family/life for him.
I moved a lot too, which made it really hard to make and keep friends. I’ve never had a “group” for long growing up. Switching schools/homes/gaurdians so often really makes life hard.
It’s tough as a young person who doesn’t trust any adults, to get support from said adults. Im really glad to hear things turned out okay in the end for you!
That was my thing too. I vowed to myself to be there for my kids and not be like my father. My oldest daughter has Cerebral Palsy and still lives with me, and that helped me focus a lot on the more important things. She is doing well (it’s a milder form of palsy) and has a job she loves. My other daughter bought her own house nearby a few years ago, so I also help her taking care of the place which gives me lots to do. I’m in my 50’s now and have some health problems from all the stupid crap I did when I was younger (turns out we’re not indestructible like we thought when we were young) but we’re all happy, comfy and safe and that’s what matters the most.
No we aren’t as destructible as we think we are, are we? Ha.
I love that you have a fulfilling family today, it makes me smile knowing that it all came together for you