February 2010 Face of a Foster Care Graduate – Maddy Magdalene

February 6, 2010

Our February feature comes to us from California.  She was in foster care from 5 years old until she aged out of the system (18 years old) about 5 years ago.  We are grateful for her detailed account and her bravery in sharing her life with us.    Please welcome Maddy…….

Name: Maddy Magdalene

State: California

Occupation:  Future Writer/Photographer

Favorite source of inspiration:  Enjoys writing and photography.  Favorite author is Ronald Dahl.

I was born into an unhappy, violent, abusive home to drug addicted parents. Fortunately, many of my extended relatives offered help as they could during my early years, though it was still a rocky start.  Also, my paranoid and drugged mother refused to allow me to stay with them when she went to jail one night, and that was my first experience with the foster care system.  I was about five.  My parents had long since separated, my father died a few years after, and i was left with my mentally ill mother and her abusive boyfriend, whose first baby she was about to have.  Any help the relatives offered would never be enough, and as all involved realized this, we drifted apart.

Soon it was just my half siblings, my stepfather, mom and I, and since my parents were wary of strangers, I didn’t really have anything to compare my pathetic life with.  We could never stay in one place, there was always a problem with the landlord, and I was constantly the “new kid” at school.  We lived in some pretty bad neighborhoods.  There was constant fighting, screaming and throwing and hitting and pushing.  I knew by now this wasn’t normal but the one time I tried calling the police I received a sharp slap to the face and made to call right back.  My job was to do my chores, watch the babies when the grown ups went out, and keep my mouth shut.

In the midst of all this, I began to struggle with Manic Depression.  Mental illness runs in my family but feeling suicidal at the age of eight is simply not normal.  Along with the depression and rage came hallucinations and confusion, plus a lot of other things that made it hard for me to communicate my situation.  CPS kept taking my half siblings to foster care but leaving me to fend for myself.  I was hurt and confused but I was too scared to speak up.  I mostly just kept to myself during this time, my nose stuck in one book or another.  Classmates teased me and called me “Matilda”.  I don’t know if you’ve heard of that book, it’s by Roald Dahl.  I’ve always liked Roald Dahl as many of the children in his tales escape a terrible fate, and to me as a young child the thought was quite comforting.

Finally, years later, we moved to another state  and after months, maybe more of fighting, abuse, etc…my mom finally got rid of my sibling’s dad, and a vicious battle for custody began.  Unfortunately, I was lost in the fray.  This time of my life is a blur of images with a lot of missing pieces…me alone in my room trying to block out the screaming…counseling with my mom that was way too late to help matters…bouncing from basement apartment to motel to living in a school bus on a friend’s property…starting respite care with a great family…overdoses…hospitalizations…all this before my twelfth birthday.  Finally I called my grandparents in CA and they flew me down immediately.  However, after my life of freedom with a parent who’s too wasted to care what their kid does, I felt strangled in this house where I wasn’t even allowed to say “darn”.  So, I did what I knew worked: told them I wanted to go back to my mother or i’d kill myself.

The cops were called, I spent some time in the hospital, and was soon on a plane back to the mountains, where my mother and her new boyfriend waited.  I could smell alcohol on her breath, and my stomach sank.  I didn’t even last two weeks before I was carted out of there on a stretcher and soon I was to be sent to a real institution.

My caseworker and mom drove me, if i recall correctly, but i didn’t stay long.  As soon as I turned 13, I was moved to the adolescent wing, where the older girls had plenty of fun picking on me.  I had been “cutting” for some time but soon I learned more ways to harm myself.  When my mom saw my mottled arms and thighs, she pulled me from the program.

I was placed in day treatment, where I excelled not only at all my school work but managed often to daily disrupt everyone as well, somehow.  Some days, I just went back home, to the motel, and on one of these days I took a large number of pills I found on the counter and that is all I recall.

The day treatment closed and I was thrust into public school without a clue.  I got a 504 plan, and was placed in a girl’s therapy group.  I promptly began getting ISS, then simply began skipping school to go hang out with older kids, and my much older boyfriend.  Then I decided too run away.  What did not cross my mind was that not many places welcome 13-year old runaways.  I got a friend to come with, and we dyed our hair in a public bathroom so people wouldn’t recognize us.  Unfortunately, all the speed I was doing (I was afraid of sleeping) caught up to me one afternoon and I fell down and had a seizure right in the middle of a nice neighborhood.  An ambulance was summoned, and at the hospital my friend’s father came to get her.  I was alone, and they wouldn’t treat me because I was a minor and when they entered my name something must have come up, because soon I was being lead out of the hospital and shoved into a police car, handcuffed and dizzy.  During the short drive to the place we were staying all I remember is the cops angrily telling me what an ingrate I was, that I should be glad to have such a nice mom who cared enough to go looking for me?  Then she answers the door, I could barely see her in her nightgown, and soon the cops are sheepishly returning to tell me I am going to respite care for the night so things can cool off.

Next thing I know, mom’s disappeared and left me.  I’m placed in a home with an amazing lady who wants to adopt me, but is moving to connecticut, already finalizing her first adoption of a girl just a little younger than myself and who is having F.A.E. symptoms so severe that she was currently hospitalized.  I’m just glad to have someone who seems to genuinely care in my life, and soon my grades and behavior are improving drastically.  Next thing i know I’m being carted off to a “wilderness camp” for behaviorally challenged youth.  The respite care has failed.  Therapeutic foster homes have failed.  I’ve burned my bridges.  My last foster mom promises if i can keep it together she will bring me to connecticut.  I don’t believe her or a word any adult says.  I feel tricked and trapped.  I am the youngest one and I have just lost my mother (she is in jail somewhere last i heard).  This whole situation is too much.  I lose it.

Unfortunately for me, unbeknownst to me at this time I have been transferred from a local agency to DPHHS, and am now a ward of the state.  The woman in charge of making decisions about my life, where I stay or go, all that has been handed to her in what I assume must have been a hefty file.  Even more unfortunate, is the sad fact that I will not find out until many years later: she’s got around ninety of these cases, just as bad or worse than mine.  I can count on one hand the times I’ve met this woman, and she made every major decision of my life without even consulting me once. and this in a state where the population is fairly low.  This is the reason I chose not to study social work: I entertained the idea briefly but came to the conclusion that it would only make me tired and more bitter.  I decided the next best thing is to speak up, get my story heard, and hopefully get some others to, as well, so we can all learn from our mistakes.

The years I spent as a ward of the state are a nausea-inducing blur to me: first there was the lockdowns, the therapy you didn’t want, and the pills you had to take.  Being a teenage girl is hard enough and having to take pills that  make you get acne and gain weight do nothing to help, that I could see. Initially I was wild, going from silent and sullen to out of control, running around, breaking everything I could get my hands on.  I spent many hours being held against my will, by the bodies of the staff or straps buckled to beds and the like.  I always finished my schoolwork early and correctly- no problems there.  Once in a while I would be released to a lower level of care – a group home, in my case usually a therapeutic group home, but I never made it to public school, and there was always someone telling me what to do, when, and often how.

In short, I became institutionalized.

As my seventeenth birthday approached, I found myself in a meeting with my treatment team at a well known children’s hospital that also had a psychiatric unit.  I must have sold myself well, because soon I was packing my bags to a group home with a promise: succeed there and they help you pay for an apartment.  I faced a few challenges:  I had more than enough credits for a diploma but none of the institutions offered this service  so I would be forced to enroll for a semester in public school.  I immediately sought a program that helped foster kids get jobs by paying their wages for a few months, and got in, and did well.  I also managed to graduate high school with a 3 point something GPA, and did all the paperwork (with help of course) so that I literally graduated on a Friday and started college the following monday.  It was incredible.

Soon summer came and I was growing tired of the group home and impulsively, I bought a Greyhound ticket for Florida and nearly ended up in a very bad situation from which my grandmother rescued me with a plane ticket.  Unfortunately she also alerted the group home of my impending arrival, and with all the nasty things in my system and frustration over my situation, I snapped and took off.  Next move was to a receiving home type place, after which I was sent out of town, for fear I would call upon one of my friends and disappear again.  One month from my eighteenth birthday I spent my final summer as a kid going to horse therapy, doing chores, and going to bed at nine every night.  I was furious and stole bottles of cough syrup and spent hours in my room with my music loud, drinking and cutting.  The only thing I had to look forward to was going back to college- it was my only option at that point.  I had no where else to go, so I reserved my dorm, picked my classes, and waited like a good little girl until about two weeks before I turned eighteen when I was given an envelope from my social worker containing 20 dollars and a Greyhound ticket.

I packed my bags again.

Someone from the transitional living program was supposed to meet me at the bus station, but it was dark out and empty inside when I arrived so I used my precious twenty to call a cab. I had way too much to carry all the way across town to the dorms and no phone numbers with me.

I was soon informed that because I was not yet eighteen the transition program couldn’t legally help me.  They tried calling my social worker, to no avail. and the cruel reality of my situation sunk in.  One of the transition workers was nice enough to buy me a few things-detergent, shampoo, etc. but other than that I was on my own.  School started and I was not into it.  I felt no motivation and less than worthless.  On my eighteenth birthday I went out and met a bunch of nice people at a bar, and soon I was spending more time with them partying at night than I was in class or studying during the day.

After all this, I learned the school and state wanted their money back because I failed all my classes and was already on academic probation.  So, I pretty much have put aside that goal – for now.

Right now I am focusing on myself and realize I am all I have really, and it doesn’t even really make me a bit sad to say that.  I’ve got a lot of things to do: help people from repeating my mistakes, get my illness to the point where it’s manageable,  make a living doing what i really love  (writing and photography have become my outlet and my passion) and living life so I can have something to inspire me makes it all worth it.

Basically, my best personal advice is first, always get your needs met.  Do not be afraid to ask questions.  Be involved, it’s your life, and if you don’t catch yourself you’ll slip right through the cracks, much like I did.  Do everything you can before you come of age to learn about being an adult, because life is going to throw things your way and knowing how to deal with it just makes things that much simpler.

Next is to keep yourself and your dreams and desires close, but to also look at the bigger picture.  I know it can be hard, and it’s easy to say, “take it one day at a time”  but when you’re at the bottom of a barrel and your back’s against the wall, your one day might not do.  I know I have spent an inexcusable amount of time and effort being worried about my problems, my past, other people, what they think, etc. time wasted that I could have spent bettering myself.

I’m taking that time back now, because it’s mine.

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