@TalkingToGhosts

I reread your story, and like the others have commented, I am heartbroken from hearing what you went through.

First, it sounds like you went through an incredible amount of childhood trauma prior to the traumas you had experienced in the hospital. Your winding up in foster care is telling enough to indicate that your home life prior to foster care was abusive. That alone should have signaled child welfare providers to offer you trauma-informed care, but such may not have existed during your time. My half-siblings (not raised with me, much older than I am) were raised in foster care, and they are not doing well adjusting to the abuses they had encountered while in substitute care.

Second, it sounds like you went through trauma during foster care, prior to your experience in the hospital. Being transferred (or what they call having different "spells" or "placements") in child welfare adds to the feelings of rejection, neglect, instability, insecurity, and many other trauma triggers you may have experienced prior to your entry into the child welfare system. Such transfers between one foster care setting to a more residential, specialized treatment setting is scary enough for children and adolescents. That alone is traumatic, as is separation trauma, etc. Although the child welfare workers in one facility were ethically inclined to transfer your care to a place that are trained in areas you were suffering from, where they transferred you to seemed to sound, according to your descriptions, invasive and traumatizing. You may have had trouble concentrating in school, or may have had trouble adjusting to your ever-changing circumstances while in foster care. You may have had trouble with your identity, self-worth, self-esteem, efficacy, lack of psychological hardiness, and many other areas that are effects of originating traumas from childhood. Feeling internalizing emotions such as depression, and then exhibiting externalizing behaviors such as not eating, truancy from school, etc., are all known effects of childhood maltreatment and the traumas that are rarely discussed among professionals - most notably the paradoxical nature of child welfare involvement itself - the separation trauma, the trauma of not having stability in psychosocial and emotionally salient connections, the trauma of experiencing or witnessing deviancy from foster care peers, the trauma of losing autonomy during your adolescence and therefore feeling a loss of childhood, a loss of control, and perceived and real victimizations.

Third, it sounds like the procedures/treatments involved in your care for not eating, depression, trauma, etc. were invasive. You mentioned how you didn't have a voice in your treatment, and that raises concerns about what rights youth have when they are patients and Wards of the State. It's sad that they didn't provide you options for treatment, even though their main concern was for your physical safety (e.g., trying to get nutrition in you so that you wouldn't die from starvation or malnutrition), as opposed to your mental health safety. Tubes being stuck in someone during a medical procedure, even if life sustaining, is a form of medical trauma, even if your mental disabilities at the time affected your ability to self-care. It's the trauma of having been adultified and self-caring in a neglecting environment (from your family of origin who neglected/abused you to a foster care system that also has issues with neglecting youth under their care) that reinforces the trauma triggers, both consciously and unconsciously, in my opinion. That often gets overlooked in terms of physiological care. What's lacking is emotional care and trauma treatments for youth in foster care, and some safety protocols when medical attention is required, so as to reduce medical trauma during such procedures. This is where the break in communication between psychology and medicine occur - especially for youth.

Finally, now that you are emancipated from the child welfare system and an adult survivor of polyvictimization and multiple forms of non-victimization trauma, you are experiencing the effects of not only your originating traumas and the effects of those traumas that were onset in your youth, but also clinical/medical traumas and potential therapy abuse as well. It is understandable that you fear such settings, and you distrust such systems that have the power to take away our power. I'm so sorry for all your losses, traumatic experiences, and suffering. Although you do need help to manage your symptoms, it seems understandable that no matter what is offered, those things you described are intrusive thoughts from traumatic memories that bring about fear concerning seeking treatment.

My half-siblings and some of my peers in college and some of those I spoke with in homeless shelters when I was homeless had similar stories as you. I've heard it time and time again from different generations (my half-siblings were in foster care during the 60s or 70s; my peers in homeless shelters were in foster care and/or clinical settings spanning from the 60s to the 90s; my peers in college were in foster care and/or clinical settings spanning from the 80s to the 90s). Additionally, some of the research I had read about just five years ago revealed that many youth in foster care average between 4 to 8 placements before either reunification, adoption, or other permanency is established (which doesn't include kinship care), dependent on the jurisdictions and different legal systems for child welfare.

It's sad how such settings have affected youth and adults who survived such experiences during their youth. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

If there is any way for you to find an empathetic therapist who understands the foster care system, trauma, and all of your disabilities, that would be the way to go. In the meantime, while you are seeking treatment or dealing with your fears of seeking treatment, online groups here help, in-person and peer-led support groups for eating disorders/trauma/depression/foster care alumni/etc. also help, formal or informal mentoring programs for emancipated foster care alumni might also help, victims advocacy groups might also help to empower you, self-help books on trauma/CBT/DBT/eating disorders/depression might also help, and many other alternatives to care. That said, alternatives will not help you manage or heal all of your disabilities' symptoms, but they might help a little. What safe and good therapy offers are ways for you to heal the totality of yourself, but it is really hard to find, especially when your income is limited, your insurance is limited, etc.

If you have social support networks such as safe friends, safe family members, or safe acquaintances through group membership (e.g., church, support groups), that will also help in the interim of seeking treatment.

I hope these suggestions and my reflections of what I understood from reading your post help. My apologies if any of what I shared or reflected on was triggering. I'm not good at identifying triggers, so forgive me if I failed in that area.