Friday 17 July 2015

Contact through the eyes of a teenager.

Ella and I thought we would write something a bit different about contact. Contact through the eyes of a teenager. 

Our friend Didi was the daughter of a drug-dealing rapist (now deceased) and a drug-dealing rape facilitator currently serving a long prison sentence. She went into foster care in her teens and stayed with the same family until she timed out at 18. She is in frequent and happy contact with them. But for her own safety she cannot have any face-to-face dealings with friends and other family members from her former life. Not now and probably not ever. She uses an email address that is not used for any other purpose to stay in touch with a few people, like her former class tutor from school, but she is very careful to never give any hint as to where she lives or works. She doesn’t seek nor would she accept contact with her BM.

Many young people who end up in the care system in their teens have been victims of neglect and /or abuse. In these days of social media it is easy enough for victims to track families down even if they have moved away but many of our friends show zero signs of wanting to do so! And why would they?   

But the need to have roots and a sense of belonging can sometimes become almost overwhelming and we have known people in their 20s who went to lots of time and trouble to track down their birth family. It seldom ends well. And we have a theory about this. 

Family abuse is most common from the BF (or the BMs boyfriend). Men don’t change their surnames when relationships break down and reform so it is easier to find male abusers even years later. An abusive man isn’t going to share his nasty secret with a second partner so the last thing he wants is his abused son or daughter coming back into his life.

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