Through violence, through illness, through social services. Here’s a look into the mind of a young person in care.
Who cares? I ask myself this every day, sitting here waiting for someone to come and love me. Waiting and waiting, listening to the prostitute that lives next door have an argument with one of her many guys, listening to my social worker tell me it’s my fault and I’m not going to get far in life, listening to the sound of threatening violence while someone gets stabbed next door, listening just listening. Feels like my head’s going to explode into millions of pieces and someone’s going to watch the blood drip excessively and just stand there watching. Why? Because no one cares enough to save me from this predicament.
Statistics say only 1% of children in care go to university. Why is this? I ask myself, yet I think the same thing… because no one cares. Yes, I go to college, but what support do I get? I have to sit there day in day out, listening to everyone go on about their happy families and how they are going on holiday next week and what their parents are cooking for dinner. Unlike them, I’m alone. I wonder for a few seconds what it would be like to be part of a family or even just have someone that cares about me.
BANG! The doors closes behind me, I’m in this volatile care home again. I wipe the tears from my eyes; I shake myself trying to pull myself together. ‘What room do you want?’ the social worker asks me. Wait. I get to choose a room? You’re probably thinking it’s a good thing. No, no it’s not. The walls in the room are painted cream, unadorned and dreary, there’s a washed out wardrobe in the corner. Looks like it’s going to fall apart any second. In the other corner there’s a chest of drawers, again just falling apart. And a bed in the middle of the room, I sit down on the bed to rest my legs, my muscles are tense feeling like they’re going to rip and I’m going to disintegrate any second. I don’t bother saying I want any room, she just assumes I want the one I’m in because I sat down. She says bye as she goes into her posh, sleek car and goes home to a cosy house, not having a care in the world about how I am.
Frustration gets the better of me; my head goes round and round. I smash my fist against the brick wall. I look at my hand; I see the delicate skin on my knuckles peel off, leaving scattered red flesh for me to look at. I’m angry because I don’t understand why social workers don’t actually care and they just do their job for the money. I’m angry because my mum put me in this situation. I wouldn’t be going through depression if it wasn’t for her, I’m angry because all my family is the same and no one was there for me. They disowned me, I’m angry at my friends for not being there for me, I’m angry at myself; maybe if I did things differently I wouldn’t be alone, maybe if I wasn’t alive everyone would be better off, maybe if someone was there for me I would get better. But the fact still remains… No one cares.
Sitting in a dark room… I close my eyes… all my emotions surround me; all I can think of is how I don’t want to be alive anymore. I try to make myself believe there’s a reason for living. At that precise moment I can’t find any reason for living… I slowly release my eyes, I see my anti-depressants on the floor lying next to a pile of dust that they didn’t bother cleaning before I moved in. I think to myself maybe it’s time I just left the world and let everyone be happy. Surely my mum wouldn’t be troubled as she put me in care, my friends would probably cry for a couple of days then just move on as they have nothing to worry about in their lives, and social services wouldn’t give a damn because I’m just a part of their job. The only reason I could possibly live for is my sisters. I imagine kidnapping them and running away to a far far away place where we could be happy, but I remember I’m just imagining something that will never be possible. I pick up the tablets and my bottle of water which has gone disgustingly warm. Without a last thought I take as many of the tablets as I possibly could… BLACK OUT!
Why did I do this…? Because NO ONE cared. I was alone. Maybe if social services placed me with foster carers things would’ve been different, maybe if my mum didn’t hate me so much, things would’ve been different, maybe if I was still alive things may have changed. Not anymore, all because no one cared.
This article was written by Farzana Miah a student on Dv8’s Multimedia and Journalism course. If you live in London and are interested in applying for this course click here. DV8 are based in Walthamstow and also run courses such as the Complete Music Industry Project and Music Production and Business.
