Lorraine pascal (possible trigger)

[Bongobaby]

A couple of months ago I watched a documentary about Lorraine pascal and her childhood. It was very painful for her and she broke down in tears at her upbringing. She had been abandoned by her bio mother at a very young age and I think then adopted by a mum and dad but the mother didn't cope to well and had issues so Lorraine went into foster care.
Lorraine requested her old records from social services and found out some tough things that she hadn't known or forgotten about and it was hard to see her get distressed at what she was reading. I guess she wanted closure.
Lorraine is a remarkable lady to me and I went the next day to also request my social services records. I spent time in foster care after trying to take my own life as a 14 year old to get away from my toxic emotional and physical abusive mother.
These records are now ready for collection tomorrow and I now think shit aibu to want to drag up my past and aibu to want to ask for some hand holding please. I'm dreading what I may find out. But part of me wants and needs to let go of my abusive past and move on, then I have a wobble and think no don't do it.

Bongo - reading those records will be difficult and possibly traumatic. I would ask, do YOU have all the support you need? Friends, family, professional support? You need to be able to turn to someone you totally trust. What you imagine is usually always worse than reality, so with good support, even if you uncover nasty stuff, you can move through it and then move on.

The second thing is why are you doing this now? Usually when people are searching through their past it's because of a major shift in their own life - getting married, having a baby etc. You might also find it helpful to buy a cheap notebook and write a journal.

Good luck

I actually think it's better to know these things. As ginger said, your imagination will usually be worse than reality. But if you are going to read them you really need some real life support. We will support you here, of course, but a physical hand to hold would be better.

I have no idea about this, but once you know what your past is then you can leave it in the past.

I hope you have some support and I hope reading these records will have some sort of closure for you.

I haven't told anyone in rl this is what I am doing. I'm a very closed book when it comes to my personal life and it's why I came here as I know you all offer really good advise. Some members of my family say to me "no matter what she has done she is your mother" . I went no contact with her a good while a go for my sanity and came here to post when I unexpectantly bumped into her last year and then suffered panic attacks and nighttime flashbacks.
I'm at the stage now where I go between feeling sorry for myself and anger that I had been treated that way. To me it wasn't abuse it was just the way things were. Until it was pointed out to me that yes she was abusive. I'm trying to sort my head out and not enter into anymore abusive relationships i.e father of my child and ex partners.

Do you have someone you 100% trust that could read these before/with you?

Cross post. Are you strong enough to process whatever is in there?

I think it's better to know these things but I think you need support as whatever the outcome you're going to feel pretty rattled I imagine.

Sad as it is I absolutely trust no one as I have been so badly let down since the day I was born until now. I'm not one for woe is me and tend to bury things away rather than talk in rl about it.
Mumsnet is the place I feel most safe and take strength from to express my feelings. I was thinking of maybe taking myself off to a quiete place somewhere tomorrow to read them, before my ds finishes for the school holidays. I'm a bit teary that ds has his last day at primary school already tomorrow the time has flown by so quickly.

I'm

Just because they are ready tomorrow doesn't mean you have to collect them or read them tomorrow, you can do so when you feel the time is right.

I also think it is a shame you don't have any support in place, basically you have coped by burying everything and keeping going, which is a good strategy for a while- but this might bring up all kinds of things which might be harder to squash down again. Do you have a friend you could confide in?

I'm shaking and my legs have gone to jelly sitting in my car reading this bit of my social service record. Bongo had a brief disscussion with her foster carer about boyfriends ill treatment which she revives from boyfriend. Foster carer thinks bongo should take responsibility for the situation.
Bongo has become withdrawn and moody, breaks down in tears at times but can't get her words out. Foster carer advised to take a step back.
Bongo had a row with boyfriend in the street where boyfriend threw dustbin at bongo and called her a slut and a whore. Foster. Carer intervened to defuse situation. Bongo retaliated by throwing a bottle at boyfriend. Foster carer took the opportunity to speak with boyfriend who said " bongo winds me up and makes him hit her, she wants to be hit, she is comfortable with being hit. Foster care was amazed at boyfriends insight into the situation and decided that perhaps boyfriend was not such a bad lad and invited him into the foster home for tea.
This cunt raped me twice whilst I was in foster care and I didn't feel comfortable with telling the foster carer. I am so fucking angry right now fuming nobody helped me.

I have no experience with this situation at all. Just wanted you to know your not alone.

You are being very brave and remember you can close that and put it down at any time. It might help to process the information a bit at a time.

Oh Christ Bongo, that's one of the worst things I have ever read on here... I would be in pieces. I know you've said you find it really hard to open up in RL, but is there anyone, anyone at all you could talk this through with? You shouldn't have to go through this alone. And would it help at all to try to channel the anger - for instance, now that historical allegations of abuse are being taken more seriously, could you lodge a formal complaint against your former foster carer? (NB, only if you feel it would help you - she deserves to be strung up in my opinion, but if you don't feel it would help you to complain then don't).

Foster carer was even complaining that it wasn't fair in her own children that I got brought new clothes and they didn't. Fc said why does she have to buy me clothes I should buy them myself out of my £29. 50 YTS wages so her kids aren't upset. As it is they were upset that I got more pocket money than them. Social worker told fc that the purpose of her payment for looking after me was to buy me new clothes, feed me and give small amount of pocket money.
How could fc have been ok with then boyfriend hitting me, I was a very scared vulnerable child of 14 ffs.

You have to try and remember that these people are nothing to you. Do not let them back into your thoughts and life now you have read your files. You are stronger than them. You have the absolute power over your life and the direction it goes in. If at some point in the future you feel strong enough and supported enough to bring charges then do so. Speak to your GP and find someone to talk it all through with in a safe environment.

My own childhood was horrendous. It is in the past. I absolutely refuse to let people who are not fit to lick my feet have any effect on my adult life. My behaviour and happiness now are down to me and only me. Yes its hard. Its tough to trust. But you CAN do it. And by letting it go you can free yourself from the emotional ties you have with your childhood self.

I hope you can find a way through all this without punishing yourself.

Sorry but I need to off load this. When I took the overdose because mother was beating me daily saying she wished she had me aborted all the time. She found me lying at the bottom of the stairs in and out of consciousness she then proceed to kick the shit out of me badly that the neighbours heard my screams and called the police. It took four policemen to drag her off me. Admitted to hospital saw a psychiatrist who said "bongo has no psychiatric illness and should be discharged immediately. He felt that the cause of the problem was that bongos mother had issues with discipline with bongo and that perhaps more stringent punishments and boundaries were necessary".
He felt that receiving bongo into care when she wished to go home might be a more suitable punishment.
Mother responded with "take the bitch into care to teach her a lesson she makes me sick"

I've nothing to say that can possibly help you, I'm just so sorry you suffered like this at the hands of people who were supposed to have your best interests at heart.

Oh Bongo, I'm sorry. Your foster carer sounds dangerously clueless. I think it is a good idea to post on her for support - are you on the Stately Homes thread?

Also, is there any chance you could get a couple of counselling sessions in real life just to process this? Perhaps you can access support through Rape Crisis or even just put a call to the Samaritans?

It will be hard and painful to process this, but I hope it can be the start of some healing for you too.

This breaks my heart ... I hope to goodness your FC didn't foster any more...
what are you going to do now with what you have found out? Do you remember it? maybe a councillor would help?

I'm currently involved in a welfare case and the mother involved sounds not unlike your "Darling" Mother (boak). She posts stuff on Facebook about how much she "loves her kids"...3 older ones were taken into care several years ago, she's not allowed any contact with them. She now has another DD in foster care as the girl herself asked to be removed from the home. She's been overheard saying "I hate that fucking bitch (DD). I hope her foster home is shit". This is about a 15 year old girl. What a mess. Sorry for hijacking your thread with this but it gets my goat so much about horrible "parents" and the damage they do which you'll understand only too well.

So, so, sorry Bongo. Please get the help you need.

Mother said she would of had me back home if I was prep aired to admit it was my fault the breakdown in our relationship. She didn't want anything to do with me until I did.
Still reading through the notes and finding it hard that caring people let me down and that I was made out to be a bad person. Even when I was self harming at the foster home and used toilet paper to clean up fc moaned I was using to much toilet paper!! Her kids used to wipe their shitty fingers on the bathroom wall anyway. Steal my belongings from my bedroom and I would find them broken in their bedrooms. Fc would deny all knowledge of this.
She wouldn't wash my clothes and would send me to the laundry using my own money.
Apparently she was fed up of me playing the victim all the time!!

I'm finding it really hard to understand why I was not taken into care sooner to be away from that women. Myself and two other siblings were also taken into care. One sibling before me first as she was badly assaulted and treated by her. Then myself and after my other sibling for the same reasons.

I received my records 7 years ago. They sat in an envelope for ages until I finally read them.

I discovered a lot of truth in them that my mother had denied - for lack of a better term, I had been "gaslighted" by her for years until I ended up first in hospital and then in a treatment facility as a teenager.

I moved out of that facility into a rental of my own, and had limited contact with her from that day forward.

Much time has passed since then - my DS still speaks to her, but my DD has no idea who she is and I am NC entirely.

It is what is best for my mental health - what has been done to me cannot be undone.

HOWEVER... I also destroyed the records after I read them - I needed to put them behind me, and keep from obsessing over the lies and abuse. I tore them to shreds, then burned the whole pile.

It was very cathartic.

Seeing the reaction and words written down in black and white from the fc is hurtful. I blocked out most if it when it happened and now I know why. She winds me up so I hit her, and basically the fc seemed to accept that was ok.
As for the psychiatrist reaction words fail me as he did that day. He was a professional who had a child infront of him crying out for help who thought it better to try and take her own life than go on anymore. He shouldn't have said it would be better to punish me in making me go back home.

I am so sorry, what heartbreaking failures on the part of people who should have had compassion for you. I hate that you were treated with such callousness and insensitivity.