My Side Of The Story: Open Door

By this point, I know that some people have turned away going "lalala I can't hear you you must be lying", just like every time anything ever happens, some idiot is always standing there going "oh you're just trying to get attention". Well, you can believe whatever you want; just don't forget what you read and keep in mind that you have absolutely no evidence to your claim, nor do I have a reason to lie.

That evening, I rode the bus to Diana's house and tried to unpack. I didn't get very far. Her mother heard of me and was concerned about doing something illegal or getting in trouble for helping a runaway. She wanted to do it officially if she wanted to help me and called the police.

After explaining my situation to them once again and contacting the Department of Social Services, they found out that-surprise, surprise-I already had a social worker and a case of my own.

Because Diana's mother was not a licensed foster parent or a court appointed caretaker, a police car arrived to take me to an emergency shelter called Open Door.

That night I rode in a police car with cuffs on my hands. I never knew that anybody who ever rode in a police car was required to wear handcuffs (I rode in some more police cars after that and not all of them put handcuffs on me), but that is what the officer told me.

Answer me this: Why is it that when a bunch of strange people forcibly take a child somewhere they don't want to go to, it's "kidnapping", but when a social worker does it, it's not?

Because that's what it basically feels like. People don't realize this, but having to go to a foster home is just as traumatizing as being abused or having your parents die or whatever. I was physically nauseous, dizzy and shaking when I had to do it. And then there's the fact that they have to do this repeatedly, multiple times a year, some as many as twenty times a year.

Foster care is basically legalized kidnapping. The trauma does NOT end for foster children when they are removed from their homes, as a matter of fact it gets worse, and that's why PTSD is more common among foster children than war veterans.

Open Door was a small, kind of dirty little shelter somewhere in DC. It had a maximum of six beds available-three for boys and three for girls. All the girls shared one room and a bathroom and all the boys shared another. We weren't allowed to leave the house unless it was a court-approved sign-out or a group "outing" we had earned (movies and stuff), could not have visits unless it was, once again, court-approved, and they even had their own school (not really, just a tutor actually) that the staff drove us to. And of course, all your phone calls had to be monitored and you couldn't receive calls from or call anyone the court didn't approve.

There was night staff, morning staff and daytime staff, also separate ones for the weekends. We had a "chore chart" on the fridge that listed all the chores that needed to be done, when and where, and who was assigned to each one (we'd rotate). Bedtime was at nine p.m., and there was a strict schedule we had to abide by. If you were good, you could earn an allowance of about 2-3 dollars a week. And the most annoying thing was the "quiet hour" where we were required to stay in hour rooms and do "quiet" things while the staff switched shifts.

Punishments varied-strikes against certain things resulted in early bed time, "room time" where you had to stay in your room, "chore time" which you had to spend doing chores, days where you went without privileges like allowance, phone, TV, and outings, and of course, removal-immediate if they found you too dangerous, if not that bad, then they'd give some notice-usuallly they'd give your social worker a notice that you had to be out by 48 hours. There was 24/7 for things like fighting, which meant twenty-four hours in your room, seven hours of chores and seven days without any privileges.

I was alone and there were no other girls there on my first night. There was no comforter on the bed either, so I kind of made do with the sheets. I saw my dad in court again. My "mother" just kept saying the whole time to "just do what the lawyer man says" and "he is gonna save our lives". He called me up during court and I told the judge I wanted dad to come back home, just like he told me to say. He had the note that I taped to the door and he used it as "evidence".

"Look, she said so herself that she lied!" he kept saying. "The child herself wants him to return home!"

What he left out was that he had coerced me to say that though he knew damn well it was a lie.

A few days after I arrived, my worker informed me that I had to go to court again because they weren't sure about where to place me. The judge actually came to speak with me before the meeting, and after talking to me, let me stay in his office for he understood that I didn't want to be present during court.

From inside, I could hear my "mother"'s new lawyer vouching for her-saying that she had lived the American dream, that she would never do anything to hurt me, that she deserved a second chance.

"...Well, when I spoke to the child, I could tell that she was under a lot of distress." The judge replied. "So for now, I cannot place her with her family."

And when I walked out, the pastor from the youth group of the church I'd been attending was standing next to my parents, looking at me, talking to them, obviously siding with them and giving them advice.

I never knew how I felt about that.

Because of my aunt's influence, we started attending church, and I was raised as a Christian. Until around 12-13, I believed everything they said without question-but then I started having doubts and researched religions, atheism, agnosticism and spirituality for myself and now I could then conclude that I was a spiritualist-one who is not atheist or agnostic, but does not follow a set religion and rather defines their spirituality for themselves.

But they didn't know that, and neither did my pastor.

I don't know why I'm talking about this now, but recalling seeing him there really made me think of that.

That was around the time I first started completely losing control of my temper, a habit that would haunt me for years to come. I can't remember exactly what it was about-all I knew is I got accused of stealing ice cream or something, and there was a girl there who was bossy. In the first incident I cursed out the staff member. The second incident, the girl accused me of stealing her food and snatched the pack of noodles I had right out of my hand, and I went and took the rest of the box of noodles and threw it against a wall and destroyed it.

Until then I'd been completely and totally quiet and kept to myself. That added to the illusion they had that I was an easy target-and with the stress building up, I think I really got tired of being stepped on.

You can only put so much air into a balloon until it pops.

The outbursts caught them off-guard. At first they weren't very harsh on me with punishing me, figuring that this was something that would soon pass, and I'd be right back to my usual loner self again.

But it didn't.

As time went by, I actually grew worse, and I found it easier and easier to lose my cool. Each and every outburst became worse and even more violent.

Then I started cutting myself again.

They found me in my room, upset, bleeding and with a pair of tweezers. I am telling you right now, foster care does not play when it comes to things like that. They took every sharp thing I had away from me (and later guardians would completely strip me naked, as you will soon find out) and took me to a hospital for mental evaluation.

However, the hospital said I was fine and informed them that this was a very common issue among teenage girls and that hospitalization was not the answer, and I was returned. And as you will soon learn, these so-called "experts" that "work with children"-these "social workers" and "foster parents" have absolutely no idea how to deal with anything that matters or is important. It is extremely rare that you will find someone who actually knows what they're doing and can demonstrate it, instead of just repeating empty credentials and meaningless licenses.

Afterwards, I stayed in Open Door for two months until the court settled things with Diana and her mother, and they received permission to be my temporary caretakers.

I had no clue exactly how temporary it would be.