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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