Aging Out To Nothing

Guest Entry by Lori Trevino

Editor's Note: in my usual, sleep-deprived state, I completely forgot to put Lori's name on this entry along with her intro paragraph.  Sorry about that!  --Amanda

Lori Trevino is both a foster alumni and a mother who lost a daughter to adoption. She shares her thoughts regularly at her thought-provoking blog: "Living Life" As Novemeber is National Adoption Awareness Month, I asked Lori to share her thoughts with us about a topic of her choice.


Growing up in foster care makes life harder than it needs to be. Being a teen in foster care is a nightmare. The thing is it never ends. I thought about this a lot as a kid… would everyone ever stop looking at me like I have dirt on my face and wrinkling their noses? Would the looks of pity and disgust ever vanish? I thought that becoming an adult would magically make me just like everyone else. Like you. You know normal.

I turned 18 in September of 1979…. I stayed in care until April of 1980, thinking I was going to be able to get my high school diploma, you know, beat the odds. In April, the guidance counselor calls me in, as we are all getting ready to order our caps and gowns. She tells me, with that pity look on her face “no, don’t bother; you have to get one more credit to graduate.” Then the school counselor proceeds to tell me that I would have to attend yet another year of high school – at least a semester – of full class load to get my diploma. For a single credit, the schools were going to make me stay yet another semester, and I would not walk with my class.

“Why can’t I just take the one course over the summer?” I am devastated… not only was I not in the year book, I wouldn’t be graduating with my class.

“No, the course is only available in the spring of next year.” The smug look on the counselors face was beginning to tick me off. “You can’t go in the summer and you will have to remain a student, full time, to be eligible to take the class.”

My head was spinning. I couldn’t stay in school another year. I was having trouble getting through this year as it was. My sister passed away a week and a day after my daughter’s first birthday. I had just been told that if I wanted my daughter, I would have to fight for her. That I was not proving myself worthy. I had to graduate that year or they would take her forever.

I left the office. It was noon. I walked down to my locker and emptied it. I took my books to the bookstore and turned them in. Then I walked the miles back to my foster home. I didn’t dare tell them that I had dropped out. That I was no longer even supposed to be in their home, since I wasn’t in school. So, I waited for my social worker to call. I knew she would get a call from the school the moment they realized I had walked away.

Back in September, 1979, I had agreed to stay in foster care until May of 1980. That would keep me in one place and not having to work so that I could finish my high school diploma. At that time, the counselor was saying how impressed she was that someone that never finished a junior year was so ready to graduate and had all the classes I needed. Particularly since I had moved like 8 times between 10th grades – the first time – to my senior year, number two, two years later. (I had gone to 9th grade, then 10th grade - one class, one day, and then retook 10th grade while I was pregnant, a double load – finishing with enough credits to return to my proper year in school the following year – my first Sr. year.)

So there I was. 18 years old. Fighting for my toddler and very soon to be homeless.

That year I had so much happening. The social worker released my psych information to the Air Force – the only branch of the service that not only would take me, but would take me with a dependent. The problem was the records she released, of 6.5 years of foster care, were only the records about how I was drugged and raped at age 11. The drugged part got me kicked loose by the Air Force – the same people that were grasping at me, wanting me to go officer.

So, no prospects, no diploma and nowhere to go…..

I had been talking to an Army recruiter. Apparently, since I was now 18, my psych records were no longer important and the Army didn’t care about something that had happened involuntarily over 7 years prior. So, I called the recruiter. He was a married guy with 2 kids and seemed really nice. Of course, for a foster kid that had been dumped by my whole family almost anyone seemed really nice. He offered to take me in – he needed a babysitter for the kids and only lived about 2 streets from my foster parents.

I packed my garbage bags…my stereo was confiscated, so no worries about carrying anything but clothes and a few personal items. I walked down to his place.

His wife was really nice at first. She worked really hard and stuff, but wouldn’t even begin to help me get a job there. I had no experience and she didn’t want to lose her babysitter. So, I was a babysitter. No pay, living in a place with no running water. But hey, it had a roof and was warm. I slept on the couch.

After about 2 weeks, she started accusing me of sleeping with her husband. Not to me, of course, but I would hear them fighting. I got scared. Where was I going to go from there? I still had no money, no job and nowhere to go. Finally, she flipped out and started hitting me one night. I was ready to run when he told me to get my stuff and took me to a motel – Motel 6. We had never done anything. I didn’t want to because I liked her. But he did that night. A couple of days later he got me an apartment - $85 a month in the local crappy trailer apartment place. It had a clubhouse and a pool and that was about it… as well as a scary place to wash clothes and a roving Great Dane, named Mammy or something of that type, which kept trying to bite my daughter.

Social services had, after a few weeks returned my daughter to me… and then made my life, and my daughter’s life, hell. The social worker would just show up without warning to inspect, even though there had never been abuse. Telling me how I needed to make more money. I was already working 3 jobs and was exhausted.

The guy was still around, his marriage taking a complete dive. His wife broke into my place one night and tried to kill both my daughter and I. It was insane. For a while we had his two kids. It was okay, but I realized he would spank my daughter for almost nothing, but never disciplined his. It made for a lot of tension.

Finally, he headed to Korea. Orders had come through and he was going to be gone a year. I was almost relieved, and scared shitless. His wife never let up. I was exhausted and had been in the hospital once for it. I was falling behind on things, too tired to pay attention to them like I should have.

I called a friend. She had a room with a private entrance and her friend would hire me… to be an answering service operator with a daycare right there for my daughter. It was all good…. It was also out of county. So, like a dummy, I took the job, moved out of county and the next day they took my daughter away… with cops and everything.

I should have known then I would never get to keep her – ever.

Life, after that point was a nightmare…… I have never had a place to call home, except with my husband. My family, while enormous consists of two siblings, their kids and that is it.

When I needed it – there wasn’t anyone… and there still isn’t.