“I was 17, I was almost an adult and they couldn’t put me back into foster care,” Ashley tells us as she shares her foster care journey.
But they did. And for good reason. Her father, who she had met for the first time when she was a teenager, was sexually abusing her. “He got six years in jail and I’m going to be scarred for life,” Ashley said.
While her story is incredibly sad, the fact that she used her voice to talk about it, and got some redemption, is powerful. After last year’s news cycle, we know that historically women don’t speak up, don’t talk about harassment and abuse. Ashley knew confiding in a school counselor would likely thrust her back into a system that had already failed her. In her mind, she didn’t have a choice.
[For more on this story by Mira Zimet, go to https://chronicleofsocialchang...tive-in-trauma/31636]
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