calling all care leavers, due you still feel judged?

Hello everyone,

i am a 36 year old mother of 2 children 3 and 18years old.

when i was younger,one thing i always promised myself was that when i grow up i would never bring up my children the way in which i was dragged up.

from as earily as i can remember, me and my silblings were in and out of care, left a home alone of dumped on my mothers friends and family. i experienced alot of abuse at the hands of my mother. when i was about 12 we were placed back in foster care, this time 6 instead of four siblings. this was the moment i was waiting for, as i refused to return to the "family " home. I witness and suffered alot in the care system and for years tried to block it out, don't get me wrong i do tell social workers, teachers, but i was the threat of not being found another foster placement and the told i would have to return to my mother i locked away, when i did speak i was believed so again locking it away.

when i was about 16 i was place in a leaving care project in the worst place ever, back into the area which my mother lived, away from my friends and there families and my then boyfriend. i was told this was the procedure, before a child leave care they have to return to the area which there parents lived. To cut a long stories short i began to feel very isocatated, i tried to get along with my mother, but all she wanted was my money, if i did have any or asked for it back, i was allowed to see my silblings and they were not allowed to speak to me, that hurt so much. i always found talking to boys alot easier then. i met this boy who as 3 year older than me, he was a friend of the girls who also lived in the living care project, he didn't have a very good up bringing and we would talk alot about that. about 2 months later i ended the realationship with my then boyfriend because of the distance, there was not phone in the project, so we lost contact, i also felt this is were i'm living at the moment and i did to give it ago. big mistake, i started dating the guy, 1 min we would spend all our time together the next i would hardly see him. i would take it to mean it was over,then he would turn up and have this big storie to tell me and i would for give him. i had never beenin a serious relationship before, so to me it was more. i remained with him for 3 years in that time, he was in and out of jail, he had a record as tall as i was, he abused me in every way you can think possible and more. i stayed with him because i had no one else. to me this was my life and i had to make do with it for the sack of our child. to cut a long story short, a left him just before my son 3 birthday, i moved into a women save housein the area i live as a child. things had change alot and i had lost contact with a lot of friends and the friends i had contact with notice a change they could see i was not the same confident person i once was.
however, the biggest time came when i was told, that i would not be housed in the area, they wanted me and my child to return to all that abuse. i found my strengh got a solictor and taught to stay in the area, which i have now been in for about 15years.

the thing is in those 15 years a lot had happen to me, good and bad, but i leant alot about myself as a person, but i do have alot more i need to learn about my self.

I've stopped people pleasing, cut negative friends out of my life,have not contact with family whatsoever, and trying to do what is best for myself and my children. however, i still feel as though i am not beign listen to. i feel i am being Jugded because, i was in the care system, because i don't speak to my family and cut them out of my life, and because i don't have "friends". they don't understand that i want postive people in my life and if that means not having friends at the moment then so be it.

what do you think, be as honest as possible