Where can you go for help after being in care as a child?

[horriblethingsinmymind]

It was a very long time ago (30 years). There doesn’t seem to be much help for adults who were in care of one sort or another as children.

I had a chaotic childhood with parents who both have a learning disability, complex stuff going on (probably what you’d call abuse now). The solution 30 years ago was to bring in outside carers. To this day I do not know how that was arranged and by whom and why (I can guess, but I don’t know for certain). I have a few letters that say my dad was abusive, family home wasn’t fit for humans to live in (it wasn’t watertight and didn’t have a working sewage system at one stage) but I’ve got nothing else. Just bad memories and nightmares, and odd phobias of inexplicable things.

I’ve asked social services for my records, but got told they were routinely destroyed a long time ago.

I haven’t got a proper relationship with either parent now and at the time, family were not involved. My parents did not have close friends who were involved.

It’s difficult because to the outside I look somewhat OK. I have two degrees, I have a professional job where people listen to me and respect me, I’m clean and tidy, I take care of myself.

My parents do love me, I know that, and I was never seriously hurt or physically neglected - I never went to bed starving, but they’ve left me with a bit of a legacy.

I have a diagnosis of OCD, CPTSD, mixed depression/anxiety, I’ve spent time in hospital. I’ve had some therapy but mainly focusing on anxiety management in the here and now and less life skills/trauma stuff.

And in amongst all that, some of the people who were employed to help, they were almost just as difficult if not worse. I still have nightmares about a couple of ‘carers’; who are probably a long time dead!, but in my mind they’re still very present.

I find a lot of aspects of adulting a nightmare. I’m terrible with money, I vastly overspend my salary. Im not used to having money so I don’t know what to do with it. I rent and I often feel like I’m play acting in someone else’s home. I don’t know how lots of things work. I’m crap at relationships. I often think I might be damaged socially because of my early life. I second guess everything I hear in case I’m being laughed at. I cannot cope with confrontation out with work at all, even if it’s on TV I’ll turn it off (eg, Eastenders I can’t watch).

I don’t know who to ask for help. I’m functioning well so I don’t think NHS will want to help! I don’t suppose there is a service for adults who function well but still struggle with some stuff. Is it just a case of trying to get on with it?

Is it therapy you’ll looking for, or some sort of ongoing assistance with daily life?
If it’s the latter, I highly doubt such a service is offered by anyone.

I think it’s a mixture 🫣😂 but yes I doubt such a service exists!

Hey OP. I’m sorry I am not hugely well informed but I do know of this organisation who support care leavers of all ages: The Care Leavers Associatiom

This may be a good place to start. They recognise some of the issues you mention.
www.careleavers.com/adult/

You can contact NAPAC they can give you advice and support. You can also try BACP for therapy.

I'm so sorry, OP. The care leavers association is a great place to start. Catch 22 can also support.

I'd encourage you to follow Ashley John Baptiste on Instagram - he does a lot of work with Care Experienced adults and young people and signposts some brilliant resources. I'm sure there are other great ambassadors out there that other posters can signpost better than me.

If you are based in Scotland, Who Cares Scotland are great.

The John Lewis Partnership also does apprenticeships and other work with care experienced adults and young people.

Best of luck to you.

I was in a similar situation growing up. My mum had a learning disability, and my dad had MH difficulties. I ended up very depressed and suicidal so was put into care with horrible foster carers when I was a teenager. Then my dad died so I was pretty much completely on my own.

Outwardly I appear ‘together’, friendly, have a degree, my own home etc even though I’ve also spent time in hospital and have been very unwell at various points in my life. It’s been very difficult. Nobody showed me how to ‘adult’, I’ve had to learn to do more or less everything by myself.

I wish somebody had told me about all the various things available to care leavers when I was still young enough to be eligible to receive them!

I didn’t know about the care leavers link so I’m going to look into that myself. I would recommend Reddit for help with things like finances. There’s a sub called UKPersonalFinance where I’ve seen posts asking for similar kinds of advice.

You could also speak to your GP and see if you could speak to a social prescriber. This link is for England but I think the service exists in other parts of the UK too:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/personalisedcare/social-prescribing/

What are the life skills you feel you’re lacking?

I would say look into EMDR for the trauma, but it sounds like it might not be affordable at the moment?

If you were a looked after child, then the local authority should keep your records for 75 years from your date of birth. I would be pushing back with them - they're probably in an off site storage facility (ours are), and they're just being obtuse.

The book My Name is Why by the poet Lemn Sissay had a profound effect on me https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/29/my-name-is-why-lemn-sissay-review

He grew up in the care system. The book describes so much of what I was unable to articulate about being in care, which helped me to process it. He also describes the extremely difficult process of getting access to his care records (pages of which are scattered throughout the book). I seem to recall he was also told his records had been destroyed.

Different but similar childhood. I had an alcoholic & very chaotic mother. I was in many ‘emergency’ foster homes for the night & on the ‘at risk’ (as it was called then) register.

I think these types of things as a child really do last into adulthood unfortunately. My sister & I had very different lives. I had a different dad & although he was absent, his parents were not & they saved me from a tortured future. My poor sister however had so many problems in her adult life which ultimately killed her. Her DD was the same due to learnt behaviour. I’m the only one ok thanks to my wonderful grandparents.

I do have some strange ways about me - fiercely independent, massive saver to name a few but luckily (& I do feel lucky) relatively unscathed all things considered. The things that went on at my childhood home should’ve ruined me really.

I think therapy would really benefit you op. Those formative years are so very important to children.

I'm not a care leave so this might be completely inappropriate and I apologise if it is. Would volunteering at somewhere like citizen's advice help you to learn to adult or maybe to accept that actually you're doing a pretty good job already? They should give you training to help other people and by helping other people and being in the position of responsible adult you might be able to help yourself, in conjunction with more therapy. On the flip side it might be too much or too triggering

horriblethingsinmymind as a pp said, local authorities are legally obliged to retain your records for, I thought it was 70 years, pp said 75, either way it’s a lot longer than 30 years. Ask again. This is for child protection cases and children in care though, so if you weren’t officially a child in care, or a looked after child, this may be why your records have been destroyed as records containing personal information should only be kept “as long as is necessary”. Did you live within just one local authority area or might there have been another authority involved? Ask them all. Coram Voice is another organisation who might be able to provide some advice, guidance or support.

I hope all this makes sense, and I sincerely hope you find some answers.

@StamppotAndGravy i think that’s a really clever idea actually. I volunteer in an emotional support role (not (usually) crisis level, but emotional support around coping with a disease) and it’s definitely helped me to manage my own emotions better, although it can be a bit triggering at times.

Coming at this from a very different angle, I’m currently in the process of adopting, which requires huge amounts of research about children who suffer trauma and neglect, and how it affects their brain development.
You might find it useful to read some of those books to understand how your developing brain was affected by the care you received. It might perhaps allow you to treat yourself kindly for what you perceive to be your inadequacies as an adult.

I found the reading really enlightening about my own less than perfect upbringing, and it allowed me to understand myself better.
Annoyingly I don’t have a reading list to hand, but there are lots of recommendations on the adoption boards here.

Child hood years are formative. That is why they are so important and why they have a lasting effect. You have done so well to get where you are. It sounds like there is support from charities out there (but not as much as there should be) I hope there is no upper age limit on getting the support because everyone needs support at different times in their lives. There is not enough money and resources invested into this area. Good Luck for your future journey.

If you a former care leaver, your records with Social Services should be kept for 75 years after you turn 18 years old. Ask the local autority for more information on this. If you were definitely in care, you should still be able to access your records and specially if the case went to court.