In the United States, roughly 391,098 kids are in foster care. And for many of them, there isn’t always an immediate happy ending where they become part of loving families.
TikToker Salah Brooks (@salah) spent much of her childhood years in the foster care system, and she’s sharing the negative experience she had with her foster parents.
Both of her parents died before she turned eighteen, so at the age of thirteen, she ended up in the foster care system. Shortly before her mother passed away, she asked a family from their church to take Salah and her siblings in.
Wanting to respect her wishes, the family did just that. However, they did not actually like Salah or her brother and sister. The couple already had three kids of their own and weren’t happy about having three more to care for.
“I realized that if I wanted anything to go my way if I wanted to be able to do anything at all, I had to learn what they wanted me to do and how they wanted me to do it,” said Salah.
She attended all three church services available every Sunday and every Wednesday. She also had impeccable manners and went on every single mission trip. She even referred to her foster parents as “mom” and “dad.”
At some point, Salah became sick of pretending to be someone she was not. By the time she was about to turn eighteen, she still hadn’t been adopted. Her therapist told her that the reason behind that may be because she wasn’t being her true, authentic self.
They made a list of everything she had ever lied about, which was mainly just small stuff like sneaking out of the house to wander around.
Afterward, the therapist suggested they sit down with her foster parents and share the list with them. Her foster parents didn’t say a word during the entire session. When it was over, they simply got up and left with Salah.
The next day, after she returned home from school, she found all her belongings outside, and the front door was locked. Salah later found out that her foster mom had told everyone she knew to refuse to allow Salah into their homes.
Salah was officially homeless. She kept going to school and stayed in the locker room. One day, her foster mom pulled her out of class and took her to a psych ward. After all that the family had done for Salah, her foster mom believed the only explanation for Salah’s behavior was that she was crazy.
After undergoing some testing, the verdict was that nothing was wrong with Salah. And since she had just turned eighteen, she could not be admitted to the psych ward without her consent.
Upon hearing the news, Salah’s foster mom was furious. She continued pulling her out of school and took her to six different psych wards. They all came to the same conclusion as the first one.
On the last day, her foster mom told her that if she didn’t tell the psychologists that she was insane, she would never be able to go home again and that she would no longer have a family.
When Salah entered the facility, she sobbed and begged the man who was testing her to have her admitted. However, the man refused because she was not a danger to herself or others.
“I never see my foster mom again…a few months later, she shows up at my high school graduation and pretends to be my parent, pretends like she was a part of that whole journey, like I wasn’t just homeless the entire duration,” she said.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
