Ashlyn C. / Be gentle and gracious with yourself.

Ashlyn biggest challenge she faced in the system was the confusion of what was happening to her and why. While there were resources at her disposal, she was only 5 when she was put into the system so she had no capacity to understand why she was taken from her parents. There was very little she was informed of, and it led to her having a lot of anxiety as a child that she still carry with her today. She overcame these obstacles by first going to therapy and learning proper coping mechanisms and how to communicate and remedy her grief and anger.

“Being physically taken from your parents is a very traumatic thing to experience and it makes you question where you belong if even your own parents don’t want you.…”

As an child the most difficult part for her was finding her sense of belonging somewhere. She felt like there was a stigma that she should be ashamed to be a foster child and a child going to therapy; it made her feel like there was something wrong with her for a very long time.

One of Ashlyn’s major accomplishments was her being able to take all the negative and painful experiences she had in the past and turn it into her motivation to strive for success and happiness. She genuinely is doing really good and she can’t wait to see what her potential lives out to be.

Ashlyn is an example of what it means to have potential. Despite her time in the system, she didn’t let it determine her life overall. Her goal in life is to open her own physical therapy practice, run her own foster animal program off her own property, travel, and ultimately be happy. .

Her advice for those experiencing foster care like herself is:

“Be gentle and gracious with yourself. There’s nothing you could’ve done to prevent this outcome so don’t ever feel like a reject or ashamed because you’re a child of the system. Use it as your personal challenge to overcome, and imagine that day when you can say you succeeded against the adversity.”

In 5 years, she will have graduated with her bachelors and will be pursuing her Masters degree. She will probably be doing clinicals and working as a paramedic of some kind on the side. She hopes to have a partner and be thinking about her future family. She also hopes to have started saving money.