My Life Journey Part 4 by Scarlet Jay*

This is part 4 of Scarlet Jay's* story, you can find the other parts at the bottom of the blog.

Welcome back my lovely readers

Todays story is going to be long, like really really really really long. So this little section isn’t going to be long, just something short and simple. As everyone is breaking up from school in a few weeks I would like to thank my foster carer and other foster carers out there for helping us foster kids in tough times.  I know many of us foster kids have been going through exams and I know they can be tough, so I'm proud of each and every one of you. You probably done amazing! Okay that's all I have to say in this part, go on, off you go to reading the rest

My story, part 4.

Right then I just wanted to be swallowed into a black hole and never return. Everyone's eyes were on me. I walked down the corridor, it felt like everything had been turned to slow motion, giggles and whispers filled my head as I walked towards my form class. How did they know? I didn’t tell anyone. How did they find out?

So many questions filled my head as I walked into the form room, eyes found me again, the class was surprisingly full. It never felt this full before. My head ached and my vision blurred, so many voices filled my head, I couldn’t do this, everyone knew and I didnt understand how. A cold hand found my upper arm, a cold but calm voice found its way to my ears, it drowned everyone else's voice out, I turned to see my form teacher standing next to me. “Are you alright?” she asked me. Everyone just stared as she sat me down, whispers fill the room again as her eyes focus on mine, and at that point, I knew this was going to be the beginning of a long and torturous year.

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, it wasn’t long before the bullying happened.

I knew it was going to happen at some point, you can’t just be a foster kid, with everyone in the whole school knowing and not be bullied, that wasn’t the way. It stared with just a few name calling, I was fine with that, I could just shove my headphones in and ignore them, pretend they weren’t there but it got worse.

My school bag started getting thrown on the floor, school books teared apart, work scribbled over. But this wasn’t all, I started to get shoved into walls. The list goes on. But no-one at home knew, how could I tell them when at home I have to deal with my siblings, I didn’t have time to be weak or emotional, I didn’t have the time to cry and scream about anything anymore. So I ignored it and put on a fake smile and bottled it all inside.

After a few months it died down, not fully, I kept getting shoved and my bag kicked across the classroom, but it was like they couldn’t be bothered. But before long things started to break inside me, tears would fall at night as I lay in bed thinking about my day, bruises started to be visible. It was staring to turn into something I couldn’t hide anymore, and it was visible that my mental health wasn’t stable anymore.

My grades started to slip, my attitude towards school dropped dramatically. I started to fake being ill so I wouldn’t have to go and face a day of pain and torment.

But how long can one really go without breaking. And that's what happened, I broke, completely, tears fell like waterfalls, my head reeling with pain, my hands shaking. I had no-one, no real family to turn too, no real help. I couldn’t even talk to my social worker, and before now, I didn’t even know I had one. But isn’t that their job, to protect the child in their care, after all they are the legal guardian of the children, but me and my siblings didn’t even know ours existed. Until a few months into the placement, she came to the house and told us we were going to be spending 2 weeks with complete random strangers because our aunt and uncle needed a break, after all they had not had their honeymoon yet.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This is all sounding really deep and negative isn’t it. Your probably thinking how could this little 11 year old girls life get any better.

Well lucky for you people I hate stories that never end in a happy after. But this one magically does, my story is still yet to be continued but as far as I'm aware now, I did have a happy ending. Lets fast forward shall we.

Fast forward to after the 2 weeks with complete and utter strangers (Aka restbite, but I didn’t know this when I was 11 guys okay)

It was okay, I never felt comfortable with them, how could I, I only had one of my siblings with me, my other sibling was separated from us and was sent to a different person, I worried every day for him. But it was only 2 weeks. After those two week were over, I was actually quite pleased to see my aunt and uncles face. I didn’t like being around people I didn’t know at all. But when we did get “home” as we all called it, we were faced with news that would change us forever..

The car ride was long, it felt like forever. My sister sat in the front with our social worker, I sat in the back with my brother, he hugged a stuffed teddy so tightly, if it was a real he might have actually choked it.

The car climbed up the tall hill, on top of this hill was the place that was going to be our new “home”. Another stranger we have to get comfortable with. This seemed to be how our life was now, moving from one stranger to another. The car parked up and I opened the cars heavy door open and climbed out. I helped my brother out, as our social worker took our suitcases out of car. This was it. This was going to be our new life..

Could you welcome a young person like Scarlet Jay* into your home? 

Speak to us about fostering

* Name changed to protect the identity of the young person.