Brianna Boyer

I was taken away from my family due to abuse of narcotics and my sister chrissy and I were placed into foster care at young ages. We were bounced around to 7 different foster homes in 5 years. And in one foster home (I was 9 my sister 5)I was raped repeatedly for a year. During that time my sister and I slept in bunk beds and during those nights where the rape took place she would be awake and witnessed them. Our foster parents had us on heavy sleeping medication for those reasons to try to keep us so medicated we didn’t know what was going on. Eventually I gained the strength to tell a friend at school and we were eventually taken out of the home, and placed with another foster family who eventually adopted us. They were extremely physically and mentally abusive. We endured beatings, talked down to and separated and treated as out cast all because we came from a broken home and broken life. As a result of these events that took place I developed some serious issues and began to take it out on people that were in my life. I got into a physical fight at school my sophomore year and I ran away from home. I was found and brought back and I tried to tell anyone who would listen about the events taking place in my home life and no one listened. Our then adopted parents told social services and the police I was lying and just wanted to do what I wanted and not listen to rules. They allowed me to go stay with a biological aunt. And weeks later picked me up and placed me in a residential home for troubled youth. After getting out I tried to gain contact with my sister as we were never apart our entire lives. I was denied communication and lost hope. I was struggling mentally and I attempted suicide a few times. I was self harming in multiple ways and slowly self districting and sabotaging my life in anyway I could. I chose a lifestyle of dropping out of school, abusing drugs and alcohol etc. I found myself 17 sleeping on a friends couches when a friends family took me in as their own. They got me the help I needed and gave me the stability and support I needed to continue on with my life. I was gifted with an amazing boyfriend whose family also played a major roll in my life. I buckled down and got a job. I saved money and worked and focused on myself until a month after my 18th birthday I moved into my very own first house and purchased a vehicle! I was doing great but also struggled with depression. My friends family helped me set up psychiatrist appointments and counseling appointments where I was diagnosed with manic bipolar depression. They got me the help I needed and set me off a good foot once again. Something that always kept me going was my friends mother used to always tell me that I needed to focus on myself and one day I would eventually be reunited with my sister. I held onto those words and I continued to stay on a narrow path. When I got a message from a friend saying my sister had went to school and told them about the abuse she was enduring at home. Social services got involved again and I was able to go to a meeting for her that they held. At that meeting they appointed me as her guardian and for the first time in two years I was able to see my sister but this time she was mine. Since that day I have been raising my sister who was 14 at the time and I was 18. It wasn’t easy and I wasn’t prepared for everything or for raising a teenager when I was still one myself. But I buckled down once again and we took it day by day. We went through alot of road blocks in our journey, but we managed them! Their was a lot of wounds that were fresh for her that opened a lot of wounds I had tried to heal, but we worked through them together the best we could. Social services monitored me for about a year just to make sure I was capable of raising a 14 year old at 18. Today I am currently 20 years old and my sister is 16 and we are doing amazing! We still have bumps in the road. The things I went through as a child up until now are a big part of who I am today but instead of using them for bad I try my best to use them for good. I felt alone and like no one understood me or would ever understand me. I felt unwanted and unloved. I still to this day fight the things that try to haunt me from my past but it isn’t impossible! I’m a work in progress. We are still dealing with alot of things that associate with our adopted family and social services and legal things, but i try to do my best. I would love to share more in detail events and situations through that time. I would love to reach people and share my story and maybe touch people’s hearts but also to let others know that know matter where they came from or what they’ve been through their is always a way to turn their life around. I’m grateful for this opportunity and cannot wait to share more in depth my story with you.