Of all the Care Leavers I’ve spoken to, the ones who seem to have it together most aren’t the ones who try to deny their pasts.
By practicing acceptance they don’t waste emotional energy in trying to suppress bad memories. Instead they practice acceptance. They process these memories and move on!
They do not recoil from the horrors of the past, instead they take pride in their ability to survive!
The most successful care-leavers I’ve met recognize their potential for change. They can see that we're not fixed concepts, we’re processes.
Every cell in our bodies is renewed after seven years. Opportunities come and go. Our direction changes. We allow ourselves to grow.
In many ways we’re the lucky ones. As a reward for surviving and overcoming as much as we have we’re granted some pretty unique insights into the human condition. There’s this word from the dictionary of obscure sorrows which comes to mind: ‘lachesism’
“n. the desire to be struck by disaster—to survive a plane crash, to lose everything in a fire, to plunge over a waterfall—which would put a kink in the smooth arc of your life, and forge it into something hardened and flexible and sharp, not just a stiff prefabricated beam that barely covers the gap between one end of your life and the other.”
Having been broken, we get to rebuild ourselves. We take the pieces we like and admire and build around them – discarding that which no-longer serves us.
This unique insight into the process of personal development might explain why so many high-profile care leavers go on to become highly successful authors, poets, and motivational speakers.
“should the cabin loose pressure-”
We honestly can’t stress the importance of proper self-care enough for care leavers. Self-care does not come naturally to adults who were once children of neglect and abuse. It’s one of those things we overlook as a community so badly that we actually dedicated an entire month to it!
Like Self Care, this is another aspect many care leavers (yours truly included) can really struggle with.
Over lifetimes that are quite often badly disrupted we might struggle with a lack of supportive relationships in our lives - which is disastrous for mental health!
If you're a care leaver looking for a community then I honestly don't think you could do better than those fine folks at Care Leavers Rock!
