From Lost to Loved: The Story of a Foster Child Who Rebuilt Her Own Family

A True Story of Childhood Abandonment, Survival, and the Science of Healing

I still remember the scent of my mother’s coat.
It’s strange what the brain holds on to—how certain sensory memories stay when the rest fades. I can’t recall the sound of her voice anymore, but the smell of that worn wool coat? It’s etched into me.

I was five years old the last time I saw her.

She walked me into a child protection office with a silent grip on my hand and vanished behind a closing door. No explanation. No goodbye. Just gone.

That moment shattered something inside me—not just emotionally, but neurologically.

What Abandonment Does to a Child’s Brain

The human brain, especially in childhood, is wired for attachment. It’s not just a preference—it’s a biological imperative. When a child’s primary caregiver disappears or is emotionally unavailable, the brain interprets it as a threat to survival.

That moment—my mother leaving—was processed by my amygdala, the brain’s fear center, as trauma. My stress response system—the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis—kicked into high gear, releasing cortisol and adrenaline. Over time, this overactivation created a state of chronic hypervigilance. My brain was no longer wired for connection—it was wired for survival.

The Foster Care Years: Constant Change, No Safety

By the time I turned eighteen, I’d lived in eleven different homes. Each one came with new rules, new strangers, and new people telling me to call them “Mom” or “Dad”—as if those words weren’t sacred and loaded.

I learned quickly: don’t get attached.
Love was temporary. People left. Smiles were just masks that slipped when things got hard.

This is classic relational trauma. Repeated disruptions in caregiving during early development often lead to disorganized attachment—a confusing mix of craving love and fearing it at the same time. I didn’t trust anyone. I couldn’t. Trust required vulnerability, and vulnerability had only ever led to abandonment.

School, Labels, and Misunderstanding

I was labeled “defiant” in school. Teachers saw a kid who talked back, who avoided homework, who skipped class. What they didn’t see was a child whose brain was stuck in fight-or-flight, whose executive functioning—regulated by the prefrontal cortex—was underdeveloped because stability was never consistent long enough to build it.

I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I was just trying not to be disappointed again.

Seventeen, A Group Home, and the Statistics

At seventeen, I lived in a group home. I had a part-time job, a couch to sleep on, and no real plan. Statistically, I knew where I was headed: homelessness, incarceration, or worse. Foster youth who age out of the system face the highest risks across nearly every metric.

But there was a flicker inside me that refused to go out.
Call it instinct. Call it stubborn hope. Call it something sacred. But it was there.

Then came Rosa.

The Power of Being Seen

Rosa was a youth advocate who had aged out of the system herself. She didn’t try to fix me. She didn’t throw pity or platitudes. She just listened. It was the first time in my life I felt emotionally mirrored—a critical component in the development of self-worth.

In psychological terms, Rosa became what we call a corrective emotional experience. Her consistent presence began to reshape my attachment map. She helped activate the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that allows us to feel safe in relationship with another human being.

She helped me apply for transitional housing, grants, and college programs—but more importantly, she made me feel like I was worth helping.

College, Collapse, and Crawling Toward Healing

At twenty, I started college. Social work. I wanted to understand my story—and rewrite it.

That first year nearly broke me. Panic attacks. Sleepless nights. Crushing self-doubt. I’d cry into my pillow, certain I didn’t belong. That I was a fraud. This was impostor syndrome, yes—but also the lingering effects of complex PTSD, where the nervous system is stuck in a loop of threat detection, even in safe environments.

Rosa kept showing up. She reminded me that healing isn’t linear—and that strength isn’t about never breaking, it’s about learning to repair.

Meeting Myself in Therapy

In my second year, I started therapy. That’s when I truly met myself—the little girl who used to sleep with her shoes on, just in case she needed to run.

We worked with inner child healing, a process rooted in Internal Family Systems (IFS) and attachment repair. I began writing letters to her. Not to fix her—but to tell her:
“I’m sorry no one protected you. But I will now.”

Each time I spoke to that inner child, I was engaging my self-compassion circuitry—activating the medial prefrontal cortex, calming the amygdala, and slowly building emotional regulation. That’s not just psychology. That’s neuroscience.

And slowly, the fortress I’d built around my heart began to soften.

Becoming the Mother I Needed

Now I’m thirty-one.
I’m a licensed social worker and the founder of an organization that mentors foster youth.

I’ve adopted two beautiful children—siblings—who remind me every day why I do what I do. They call me “Mom.” And sometimes it still stops me in my tracks.

Our home isn’t perfect. We have hard days. We work through triggers, tantrums, and the shadows of old trauma. But we have something that many never get: safety.

We have family dinners. Inside jokes. Laughter.
We have drawings on the fridge and quiet nights reading together.
We have a home.

The Science of Post-Traumatic Growth

Not everyone who experiences trauma grows stronger—but it is possible. What I’ve lived is known as post-traumatic growth—a phenomenon where people who face deep adversity develop greater resilience, empathy, and purpose.

What made the difference for me?

• One consistent adult who saw me.

• Access to therapy and education.

• A chance to rewrite the story—not erase the trauma, but give it context, meaning, and direction.

The Final Truth: We Don’t Always Get the Family We Deserve—But We Can Build One

I didn’t get the mother I needed. I didn’t get the childhood I deserved.

But I gave those things to someone else.
And in doing so, I gave them to myself.

Trauma may have shaped my early story.
But healing—and science, and love, and choice—shaped the rest.

And that, I believe, is the most powerful kind of legacy there is.