Trust No One by Teresa Cooper
“One of the most moving accounts of child abuse that I’ve read” (Natasha Harding THE SUN Newspaper )
Thrust into care at six months of age because of an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother, Teresa Cooper’s life began in a less than perfect way. Teresa spent an unsettled childhood in a variety of children’s homes before being sent to Kendall House in Kent, which would become her prison and worst nightmare. At Kendall House, Teresa became a victim of a terrible regime, being injected with dangerously high doses of drugs and sexually abused. This cruel and vicious treatment, accompanied by punishments such as 163 days spent in solitary confinement, meant that it was not long before Teresa began to harm herself and even attempt to take her life. After three years of hell, Teresa thought her nightmare was over but another was about to begin. Teresa Cooper is a survivor. Fighting against a corrupt social care system, she has taken her case of abuse and drugging to parliament, and is fighting to prevent many more children from suffering at the hands of unethical doctors and abusive foster parents.
Read Prt Chapter Thirteen
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On 8th Mar 2010 at 08:44 AM Melizza Moore said...
O.M.G This book had me gripped. Not since I read the book by Dave Pelzer called a child could it, have I had goosebumps. I am now in the process, a long one of uncovering the truths of my own story. I have my Psychiatric records. After five months it seems that I will be getting my social services records. I was an outpatient of Thorneywood Cahms in Notts and I now wonder if my Psychiatist told anybody else in authority about the stuff I said. There is the evidence there in that file. My teacher deemed me a attention seeking troublemaker. My headmistress refused to believe me that the music teacher groped girls. Me included. As did my “parents” (They insisted on me calling them mum and dad as soon as I moved there). It seems to me that they are all guilty of sitting on suffering and making me look like I was barmy.
I moved into another foster placement when I was 16, as they were leaving Notts. I refused to go.
On and off antidepressants since I was seventeen years old, (Now Im totally off all anti depressants after all this time)though other professionals ( G.P) who knew what the true issues were. My precious boys are now in long term foster care . And Im proper freaking.
I wish I had the guts like Teresa did to publish her book. I have written it all down. But Im scared because I do not want the backlash of my foster family. They made me look barmy then. Ive spoken to them last year in detail about how I was sexually abused before I lived with them. They seemed SHOCKED, but not suprised. I emailed them with the truths subtly .TOO SUSS THEM OUT.. As they know there son has also confessed to sexual abuse of his two other siblings and I. I do not know what they think of me now. There was nowt wrong with me, and there never was.
On 30th Mar 2010 at 05:12 PM Melizza Moore said...
Subject: A personal poem about the truth of my time in foster care
To: I grew up in foster care <i_grew_up_in_foster_care@googlegroups.com>
DEEP DOWN INSIDE
Why did you call me the names
that you did
I can still remember them all
Inside it really really hurt
but on the outside I was being tough bolshy
I was just a bereaved little kid
Why did you tell nobody
that your eldest son used to hurt me
I was so scared
It’s like you watched him do it
right in front of your eyes
He bruised me, sometimes he hit
why did you not tell anybody the truth
Simply put in a nutshell
I missed my family
My real birth family
All you could see
was that I was bad
even worse than that, made to look like I was “mad”
These people were not really mine
Did you know the real reason why?
that I used to sit in my room for days
Trying to intermingle with my “new family”
but I just could never fit in
So I would sit in my room and pine
for my real family
I used to visualise street maps
in my head
Which way is the way to go HOME
I was confused as I kept being told
that this was MY HOME
But my family was never there
Did you even care?
Maybe you did
maybe you didn’t I dunno
where do I go
The pieces of the puzzle
Where was my Mother and my Grandmother?
Why can’t I go HOME?
You called me all those nasty names
Do you know
how that made me feel
I was just a bereaved little kid
who wanted to her mum
But mum was never there
It’s like she was dead
but came alive every so often
I want my mum
but now it is too late
because I am still that kid
deep down inside of my head
A mother myself now
I’m still haunted by these ghosts
I want my mum to sit and hug me
just like I sit and hug my kids
I never want them to feel
the same way inside.
SOMETIMES YOU SHOUTED AT ME, MADE ME FEEL WORTHLESS. OH FOSTER PARENTS
A.K.A MUM AND DAD YOU HIT ME TOO. YOU SCARED ME LOTS…... I TOLD ON
YOU TO MY SOCIAL WORKER BUT I WAS STILL LEFT IN YOUR HOUSE-IN YOUR
CARE.