To anyone reading this, hello. I’ve taken a long hiatus from this blog due to personal discoveries over the last few months. Last year I started the process of releasing my foster care records. This has been a long and grueling ordeal with a lot of back and forth between social workers, state officials. and myself. I officially began the inquiry after moving to remote Alaska. It was something I had wanted to do since I turned 18, but never had the courage or time to divulge into all of that mess. The beauty and grace the natural landscape showed me, and the internal peace I found so far away from everything sparked an inner flame within myself. I owed it to myself to know everything.

Recently, I finally gained access to these records and the first thing immediately apparent to me was how much had been redacted. Most every name had been redacted from the release, along with a few other things which I felt jipped of. I had been expected this in a way, but what I wasn’t expecting was the flood of memories to rush back to me. The redactions disappeared in my mind, each page revealing more and more, filling in these blank spots in my memory and in the report itself.

These blank spots I’m referring to are what I like to call my personal ‘dark ages’, between the ages of 0-10. This time of my life was filled with so much abuse and trauma that my brain overtime has shrouded those memories with a sort of dark film, grainy flashbulb memories that I can’t make sense of. This report made those dark spots bright and impossible to ignore. It’s difficult to express the emotions I’ve been dealing with over the last few weeks. While I had vague ideas about what I went through in foster care, learning the specifics has felt like an out of body experience. It feels like reading about something that happened to someone else. The abuse is the stuff out of horror films, or shiny headlines meant to make you cringe away.

“Young child faces abuse in foster home from hell”.

It has also been extremely validating to see something like this, physical, tangible, on paper. I’ve grown up my whole life having to question if my life was really that bad, or comparing my trauma to those less fortunate to myself. Who am I to complain, really? I’ve had my health, my life experiences, I went to college, I have loved ones, and I’ve been cared for. This is more than so many have, and my trauma is shared. But now when I see this report, I see a child surrounded by abuse and neglect her whole life. At birth, born positive with crack and thrown into a system that would eventually fail her. PCA workers and nurses reported I was an ‘unconsolable baby who cried all day and night’. I wonder if I somehow knew the ugliness to come and couldn’t bear it. I see a child who was left physically deformed for years after the abuse I faced in a foster home. I see a child who was mutilated, beaten, raped, starved, and taken advantage of. I see a child robbed of a childhood, innocence. Therapists would eventually see a bow-legged 6 year old who more closely resembled a 4 year old (per report) and diagnose her as : failure to thrive, intellectually delayed. FASD, among many other things.

Now you may be wondering why I shared all of this. When I started this blog I knew I wanted to document my journey processing and healing from my trauma. I wanted to show myself that despite living with this burden I can choose to find meaning in the meaningless. I don’t know why these things happen to us, but I know despite everything we can still choose something different.

I refuse be silent about this issue. Native foster youth make up most of the foster care system, despite being less than 2% of the population. Native youth and women especially are also at higher risk for sexual abuse, physical abuse, and murder. The system is broken, no one can hear us screaming. We’re being raped, we’re being beaten, we’re being killed. We’re being robbed of our childhoods, our connection to our family, our roots, our culture, taken from our homelands and sold. I feel that doing something with my trauma for the betterment of this system would be monumental to my own healing journey. What I faced is horrific, but I want to stress it is NOT unique. Youth in foster care face this, and much more every single day. We cannot be ignored any longer.

In closing, I want to express gratitude for the life circumstances and amazing role models I have had the chance to experience which have led me down a path of healing. My perspective can be acreddited to these things. With the issues I’ve talked about in this post, it is easy to slip into a lifestyle of finding healing in destructive ways. My life most definitely would not have turned out the way it did, had I not had some incredible people lifting me up along the way. I also want to pray for my sisters and brothers still suffering in foster care, or in any home that isn’t fulfilling you, and share a poem.

Nana’isanishinaam / Bring Us Peace

-Margaret Noodin

Gizhawenimimin Gichidibenjiged
We are blessed by you Lord
ezhi-aanikoobidooyan gakina gegoo.
you who connects all being.
Gizhawenimimin Giizis
We are blessed by you Sun
ezhi-mashkawizi’iyaang.
you give us light and strength.
Gizhawenimimin Dibiki-giizis
We are blessed by you Moon
gikinoo’amawiyaang zaagaasidiyaang.
you teach us the importance of reflection.
Gizhawenimimin Mashkiig
We are blessed by you Land and Water
ezhi-ditibiziyan wenji-bimaadiziyaang.
your circulation supports our living.
Apii zhawenimiyaang, zhawenimangidwaa.
As we are blessed, we bless others.
Apii zaagi’iyaang, zaagi’angidwaa.
As we are loved, we love others.
Apii noojimo’iyaang, noojimo’angidwaa.
As we are healed, we heal others.
Apii inawenimigooyan, inawenindiyaang.
As we are related to you, we are related to one another.
Naadamawishinaam daga noongom
Help us all now
Nagamotawishinaam daga noongom
Sing to us all now
Nanaa’ishinaam daga noongom
Repair us all now
Nana’isanishinaam daga Gichidibenjiged.
Bring peace to all our souls O Lord.

Miigwech, thank you.