My name is Luz Neida Torres. I was born on January 18th 1994 in Waterbury CT in St. Mary’s Hospital. My mother is Maria Felicita Torres, my father is Felix Guillermo Martinez. I am 1 out of 3 children, I have 2 older brothers. When I was 1 year old my father passed away, so to me my mother is my father and my best friend. I had a very good childhood with my mother. We would always go out to pools, lakes, or beaches with our friends and family.
As I was growing up, I always had my mother to go to if I ever had any problems. She’s always there for me especially when I am having a bad day. She always knows how to put a smile on my face. I am a Mama’s girl and always will be.
Then a couple years later, when I was 12 years old, I was home with my two brothers who are fourteen and fifteen years old and my mother. My mom decided to step out of the house that night to go to a friend’s house and she was letting me know that she was going out. For some reason I had anxiety, but it was like a really bad feeling so I started to cry and told my mom to please stay home and don’t leave because I had a really bad feeling. I remember her wiping off my tears and told me that everything’s going to be alright. She told me to go to sleep on her bed and that she will lie down and sleep with me when she comes back. She gave me a kiss. I hugged her and told her to be careful. That same night, when my mother stepped out, she got arrested.
I noticed when I woke up that my Mom wasn’t home that morning. I started to get worried. I called a couple of her friends, but they said she wasn’t there. My brothers and I were home alone for five days and we didn’t know where my mom was. I would cry all day and night. My fourteen year old brother would cook us food. It was winter and my brothers’ would leave me home with my friend and go out and shovel snow at people’s houses to get money so that if we needed anything in the house we would be able to afford it. On our sixth day home alone the son of my mom’s friend came to our house and told us that my mom had been arrested. I was upset because if she had listened to my objections, this never would have happened. I can’t say if that’s true, but I was angry because she should have listened to me. I never thought that she was hurt or anything wrong while she was gone. I wasn’t surprised that she was arrested. That’s pretty much what I thought had happened. I started to cry. I was so hurt. He asked me to pack some clothes for about a week and explained that I was going to stay with his mom. I was the only one because I’m the youngest and the girl. They assured me that they would check on my brothers daily and bring them food. Everything was okay during the week.
After about a week I had to go home for some more clothes. When I got there I noticed my Mom’s two cats were outside. I picked them up and brought them upstairs. I unlocked my front door, but my brothers weren’t home. I noticed that my back door had two pieces of wood nailed on. I had the front door key that was my brothers’ only way in, so I started to worry. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I ran down stairs and told the people who brought me to get my clothes that I thought DCF had taken my brothers. I called my brother’s ex girlfriend’s Mom and asked her if she had seen my brothers. She told me that I could come to her house, that my brothers were with her and DCF is looking for me.
I had no choice, but to go with her. In a way, I didn’t mind because at least I would be together with my brothers. Later that day, DCF came to her house and asked me a ton of questions. I didn’t know what to say I was scared, nervous, and I had a lot of anxiety. They just were mostly concerned with where I was staying, but I told them I’m here now so that’s all that matters. I didn’t really want to be bothered. We were allowed to stay with my brother’s ex girlfriend’s Mom for a bit until she decided to be a foster parent. While she was going through the process, my father’s side of the family tried to step in and take me and my brothers, but we didn’t want to go with them, because they were never in our lives to begin with. We don’t have love for them and to be honest, my brothers and I don’t consider them family. I felt that they were just trying to do it for the money that DCF would give them for us. They tried a couple of times. They even tried to ask DCF to set up a visit, so that they can talk to us but my brothers and I refused to even have a visit with them. At the end of all that mess, my brother’s ex girlfriend’s Mom, Gisela became our foster parent. My brothers and I lived with Gisela for a while. I was twelve, my brothers were fourteen and fifteen. There was a lot of drama in the house. My fourteen year old brother, Felix was removed twice from the foster home that we were all together in. The first time he got removed he went to a Star home. After some time, my foster parents took him back. The second time he went to another foster home. Things weren’t that good there either and then he ended up back with me and my other brother. One day, when he was 16 years old, he was fed up with everything and packed his things and decided to run away from DCF. After about 3 months, DCF got tired of looking for him and signed over custody to my mother. When my brother was signed out of DCF, I was fourteen years old and my older brother, Francisco was seventeen years old. We still continued living in the same foster home together. After a while, at the age of fifteen, I was removed. I went to a Star home for two months then I went to a different foster home. I was there for three months, but I removed myself and a two year old little boy because my foster parent was hitting the little boy. I voice recorded it on my phone and showed DCF so they took us out. They called me a hero. I had visits with the little boy until they found him a new social worker. We became attached to each other. That’s what happens when you go through traumatic situations together.
I went back to live with my old foster parent and my older brother and her four kids. Everything was going alright for a while, then everything went back to the same thing with so much drama. My older brother had enough of it he signed out off DCF at the age of nineteen, got his own apartment with his son and his girl. On top of the drama in the house and after my brother left, I was disrespected by my foster Mom’s step father. I recorded everything he said to me on my cell phone and showed my DCF Social Worker and she asked me where this all happened. I told her in my foster mom’s house, when she got married. Her marriage was also another thing that she was hiding from DCF. She didn’t want me to tell them that she got married. My social worker and I decided that I would stay for the rest of the week, but when my worker brought me home Gisela, my foster parent wanted me out of her house. My worker told me to pack up some clothes and in an hour she’ll come back to pick me up. I was stressed out because I didn’t know where I was going to be placed. I remember when I was done packing, Gisela said to me you got what you wanted because you didn’t want to be here.
When my worker came back to pick me up, I put my bags in the car and left quickly. We went to the DCF office because they didn’t know where they were going to put me. After a little while, they found me a Star home in Southington, CT. I refused to go they told me that’s the only spot they had for me. I kept on refusing to go. I grabbed my bags and walked out of the DCF building and just kept walking. I didn’t know what to do. My cell phone started ringing it was my social worker, she asked me to come back, that she needs to drop me off at the star home. I told her I wasn’t going back because I didn’t want to go to any star home. I hung up on her. I called my brother, Felix who was no longer in DCF custody and I was crying to him on the phone because I was upset that they where trying to put me in a star home and out of Waterbury. I had to tell my brother that I would call him back because my social worker was on the other line. I answered and said “Ann, I said that I am not going.” She said, “I know you’re upset so I will let you stay over your brother’s for the night to give you sometime to think about it because I see you’re upset.” I didn’t say much. I told her that I would talk to her tomorrow and hung up my cell. I remember that I was crying and so stressed out that night because of the fact that I didn’t want to go to a star home and I felt like I had no choice. The next morning I woke up hoping that it would all be over, but it wasn’t. That afternoon, my Social Worker called me. I picked up my cell phone. She told me that she had to pick me up because we had to head out to the star home. I had no choice, so I told her it was okay. When she got to my brother’s house, I grabbed my bags and went outside. I put my bags in the car and I didn’t talk to her on the way to Southington. It was about like twenty five minutes away from Waterbury. When we got to the star home, Winerfred House, I grabbed my bags, brought them inside. My social worker had to do a lot of paper work. I take medication for asthma and allergies, so they wanted them packed a certain way, so we had to go to a nearby CVS to get them bubble wrapped. It felt like forever to get all of it done. We got to the Star home at 2pm and we didn’t get all the paper work and the meds done until 9pm. That’s when my worker left and I finally settled in.
Living there wasn’t that great. I was miserable. I felt like I was in detention, but not school detention, jail. They would search our bags every time we came back from an activity like we were criminals. We weren’t criminals, we were just troubled kids. They would lock up forks, butter knives, and anything they deemed to be a “weapon”. I wasn’t able to keep any of my belongings such personal hygiene products and razors.
I had a roommate there. We got along fairly well. Her life story was way different. We became really close friends. Besides all the strict rules and dumb policies, there were times where it was good. I loved the staff there and didn’t have a problem with them. They seemed like they were truly there to help me. I was there for two months. After that I was placed in Beacon House, a group home in Wolcott, which is where I am now. I don’t enjoy being there. It’s different than the other home because they don’t hide the butter knives and forks. You are able to ask for them. It’s a little more of a trusting environment, but I still don’t like it. I have my own room. The house can fit up to eight girls, but right now there are only seven of us, including me. They have really strict rules, but you get certain freedoms once you reach different levels. I’ve been there for five months. I’m on level three. My freedom is six hours out in the community by myself without a staff member. I will reach level four on August 8th. My hours will move up to eight hours out in the community. I always tell myself that everywhere you go there will be rules to follow and I understand that, but in my point of view, I would rather follow rules in a family home setting. I would feel more comfortable and less like a convict. There’s days when I’m always stressed out and depressed and I feel like walking out of the group home but I try to keep my head up and stay strong. I have faith so I believe that sooner or later things will get better.
My oldest brother Francisco is now twenty, he lives with his girl and his two baby boys, and my brother Felix is now nineteen, he also has his own apartment and has a baby boy that he has full custody of and his girl with her baby boy.
Now I’m seventeen and I’ve learned a lot about life these past few years in the system. I hope my honesty in these blog entries can help someone else in my situation understand that they aren’t alone. It’s important to tell your story to try and make a difference.
