Do you know me? Do I know me?

This blog contains information I have not shared with many or anyone, be prepared to hear things you would not think to hear and I ask you to not see or treat me differently. I am still me as I always have been.

No one truly knows me, I hardly know myself, this is true of everyone to some extent.
But for me, throughout my life I have kept 99% of myself hidden because I was ashamed of where I came from, not knowing what it meant to have the past that I do.

I was in care from 11 years old till I was 18. I went to 6th form then college, went to university and now work for a university helping other care leavers and looked after children aspire to university. Oh and I also take care of my 14 year old brother on my own.

I am not ashamed anymore, I have made something of my life, battled against the odds to be the young woman I am now.
What I do know is that what it means to me to be a care leaver and what is should mean to every care leaver and looked after child... That life wasn't great and at a young age we deal with more things that most adults won't deal with their whole lives. We are the strongest people in the world and we can choose to use that strength and passion to be negative or we can use it to make the world a better place.

This is by no means a easy journey, to me it feels like a painful birth from a cocoon I have hidden myself in for many years, I am not yet fully out of this cocoon and wonder if I ever will be, but the defects on my butterfly wings will not make me fly lower but push me to try harder and achieve more in the time I have on this earth than the other butterfly's who just don't have those worries.
I am uninqe, and this makes it harder for me to fit in, but I have got to a point in my life where this is no longer a hindrance..it is what makes me get the job I wanted, makes me stand in front of room of people and let them
know a tiny snippet of my life at the NIACE Conferance... May I add that The Princess Royal was present in said room (claim to fame?) and chair a panel of Care Leavers at the Buttle UK Anuual Conference.

One beautiful strong Care Leaver said to me recently that she was the author of her own life book, and we are... Maybe not at the beginning, that was written by social services, foster parents and everyone else but us... We did decide how we dealt with this... I personally became lost, depressed (at least 3 bouts of that one so far) and at some points suicidal because I felt alone, so alone I could not see past my own nose. It was the thought of my 'family' and 'friends' that stopped me from hurting myself, the knowledge that by ending my own pain would create pain, something I did not want to do. However lonely and sad I felt, I never was selfish.
Now I write my life book, my actions are my own and I take full responsibility for them.

It is times of self reflection that are the painful ones... Not only dealing with the past but also the overwhelming fear of the future.

Will I find someone who will accept who I am, who will love me because of who I am... Sometimes it's hard to think this is possible when everyday I have the memory and pain of a mother who still now cannot pull herself together and be a mum, a woman who chose to live a life of drugs, prostitution and god knows what else over her children, a woman who blamed her children for the fact they got taken off her, and to punish them for this slit her wrists and came to where they were showed them her wrists and said that they were to blame because they didn't live with her anymore.

I know I am 'doing well' in life, I have few complaints about where I am, and yet my self confidence is still not there. I feel like I am where I am is down to shear luck, deep down I know this can't be true, but I struggle to shake off self doubt and the fear that if I get this wrong I wouldn't know where to turn.
Not only have I got to think about my own life, but that of my brother.. It is such a huge responsibility that pushes me to my limits, out of my comfort zone into the blaring light of reality and self analysis.

I am strong but lack the tools to make the most of this strength, I have many friends but feel so lonely, I want to be social but want to keep my own company, I want to shout about my life but am so scared of the results and what I may uncover about myself, I want to love but feel unloveable, I want to have full control of my life but also run away and have nothing to control....

Do you know me now? Do I know me now?