Hi @mypincessmowmow
I'm sorry it has bee so difficult for you, but know that you are far from alone. I am an adoptee and it cause me to have similar low-self esteem and confidence issues through out my life. Bad enough to the point where as your very accurately put it, I sent myself to an island. Now in my mid 50's have I only just started to try and get myself off.
I don't know what experiences you had with foster families and how much worse they made the trauma, and it is trauma. But from looking into my own issues last year and finally talking to other adoptees and some counselors who deal solely with this, i've learnt that even people who were put with perfectly loving and kind adoptive parents, those feelings of not belonging, not knowing who you are, not feeling a part of a family, and all the resulting self-esteem and social anxiety issues, are very very common.
Studies have been done that have shown how just the act of being removed from a biological mother at or near birth have traumatic responses to development. And it has been now identified as 'separation trauma' and a lot of children experience this will go on to develop insecure attachment styles. Basically, we learn from as a child that we can't trust anyone with out emotional wellbeing. So we become untrusting of others and try to copy with everything alone. Because of this we struggle to form strong relationships with other people, when ironically it is what we most desire. But as much as we want it, that fear, low self-esteem, and lack of trust that people wont reject us forces us into isolation more and more and it snowballs from there. And try not to worry too much about what your file says. They had no idea about any of this trauma and the behaviours it causes back then. They still struggle with it and there is still a lot of dismissiveness out there.
So like I said, I dont know if there are extra trauma's from your time with foster families, but even if everything was fine, the cards were stacked against you. I did some foster parent training last year because I thought it would be something I could help with. I learnt about a lot of the traumas that many foster children experience and the behavioral differences and how different theses kids need to be treated because of their traumas. For example, not to use reward systems with them, because that trust isn't there. So by saying if you do this, i'll give you this as a reward. the child will just think "i'm not falling for that" because that trust isn't there, it just wont work like it would with a child without that trauma. I don't know if that example resonates with you at all.
You said you have no idea how to start dealing with the issues, but you've already started, just by posting your story here and starting to trust people to share how you feel. It may seem like just frustration, but it's a massive first step. No matter what you've been through, it helps to just talk about it, feel validated, and know that it wasn't all your fault. And that all those decisions you made (or failed to make) that led you to your island were not decisions you consciously made and were not due to failure or weakness on your part, but trauma responses that we built up to keep ourselves from harm. These responses basically consist of a few rules. Trust no one, no one will accept you, you're not good enough. It is so difficult to stop listening to these responses because we've listened to them from inside out own heads for so long without any other input that they become undeniable facts to us. So by reaching out, talking to others, and hearing from people that those rules aren't true, only then can we start to question them and start to make the decisions that will get us off that island. It just takes time. It's also like any problem, you can't fix it until you understand what is going wrong.
So i really hope some of this makes sense to you. And i sincerely hope you can start to find that happiness and emotional wellbeing. It can start to change quickly though once you start to reach out to people and learn to actually be vulnerable with people. Those doubts and fears will persist but you will doubt them and start to do things they tell you not to. I'm always happy to chat if any of what i said resonates with you, or just listen to your own feelings and thoughts and what the differences may be.
