Catherine:
Welcome to the Loved Called Gifted Podcast. This is your place to come for musings about spirituality, identity and purpose. I'm your host, Catherine Cowell. So for this episode of the Loved Cooled Gifted podcast, I'm really pleased to be joined by Addison Torrance and Caidyn Bearfield from Ohio. So welcome to you both.

Addison:
Thank you for having us.

Caidyn:
Thank you for having us here.

Catherine:
It's great to have you with us. So I was really intrigued to meet you. We have a mutual friend called Kim, who I chatted to on a podcast recently with Annie Ponder that was about finding Mama God. But you've met her through work connections, haven't you?

Addison:
Sure. So I met Kim during a statehouse event for an organization that both Caidyn and I volunteer for called Foster Action Ohio. And that's Alumni of Care Improving Outcomes Together Now. So On State House Day, we were joined by current and former foster youth, along with experts in advocacy work like Kim, to actually meet with representatives and their staff to discuss issues that are really weighing on us and and policy work that we'd like to do related to improving outcomes for current and former foster youth. So I was in a group with both Caidyn and Kim, the Franklin County groups and we've got to meet with different representatives and it was really helpful to have Kim's guidance and mentorship during that process.

Catherine:
Yeah, the first time that I became aware of this work was that Kim had shared a video of young people advocating. The in some of those settings. I'm in the UK, so exactly the ins and outs of the political system where you are, I don't know. So you might need to help us a bit with that. But I was really struck by both the power of alumni of the care system advocating for themselves and sharing their experiences. And the eloquence with which they were doing it and I thought this is just brilliant. And I know Caidyn that you were originally campaigning for there to be an advocate. And then you became the advocate.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Caidyn:
Yes, so Kim and I both entered the foster youth advocacy space on the same day. Columbus State Community College was hosting Senator Herschel Craig's board to have a hearing of a youth ombudsman in the state of Ohio. Several, but not all, other states already had some sort of youth ombudsman. Ohio did not.
I was a part of a program called A Scholar Network, which is by and for former foster youth. They told me I seemed very passionate about helping people, that they know I was afraid of public speaking, but I should consider going to this event because it's a Very high impact event. I let them talk me into it because I wanted to be able to put myself aside for something that mattered like that.
So Kim helped me write my testimony because she is just so good with the understanding the bureaucratic side of things, understanding what kind of language lands with what kind of people. She's always just been brilliant about that. And we had only just met, and we were both like, Well, I don't know if I belong here because of this, this, and this so we had buddied up.
And that was back in like early 2020, late 2019. This whole time Kim has been a rock for me in the advocacy spaces. Now she's taken on lots of different roles and I've taken on lots of different roles. We've always found our way back to each other because she has such a good understanding of systems and I have that lived experience component. So I've always always felt like we were a good team.

Catherine:
Yeah, it sounds like it.
I'm wondering if you would both be comfortable to share a little bit of your journey that led you into the care space.

Addison:
So I feel like I'm kind of an accidental advocate. Like I kind of found my way here just by chance.
As a teenager, I was I was institutionalized in a a for-profit psychiatric facility called Sequel Pomegranate. And in that facility, I witnessed and endured abuse.
It was really traumatizing and for Many years after that, I kind of just shut it out of my mind as much as I could and tried to stuff it away and focus on going to college and building a life for myself and just getting by, honestly. Until I reached a point that I really couldn't. Like Caidyn was saying, wanting to turn that pain into something better, improving things for other people so that other kids wouldn't have to go through the same thing.

And I didn't start off just thinking Well, I'm just gonna start doing advocacy work now. It started just by advocating for myself. I was trying to get my medical records from Sequel Pomegranate and having a really hard time. For many months, I went back and forth with them over emails, just asking for proof of what had happened to me, basically. I just wanted to have that record of of what had happened. And the facility had so many excuses as to why they couldn't fulfill my records request. I was feeling exasperated. I was feeling like I was banging my head against the wall. And then I decided like, okay, I'm gonna sit down and figure out how to get past this. So I researched how to like file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services to get access your medical records.
It was a long and dizzying process, but finally I I was getting somewhere with that.
And along the way, while I was emailing back and forth with this facility, I noticed that their email signature had changed. They the person I was emailing with was the same person, but it was no longer Sequel Pomegranate, it was Tory Behavioral Health. And this facility had been in the news for years. So it appeared that they were attempting to rebrand to escape some bad PR. And I thought to myself, why isn't this in the news? Why isn't no one talking about how this facility is trying to subtly save face and then and rebrand?
So I reached out to people who were already doing the work. And this is where the story takes a turn and actually becomes like the advocacy work of trying to work on the behalf of others. So I really owe my advocacy journey to people who are already doing this work.
Organizations like Disability Rights Ohio, their abuse and neglect team had investigated Sequel Pomegranate. A local investigative reporter, Bennett Haberley from Channel 10 TV, had investigated. The Juvenile Justice Coalition of Ohio had spoken out about Pomegranate, and most significantly, there was a former foster youth named Nikki Chinn.
Nikki Chinn passed away a little over a year ago, but she was really a role model for me. She was someone who talked about what was happening at Pomegranate before anyone else.

Uh she was the one who went to the local news and got them to start investigating and and publish these reports on what was happening at Pomegranate. So connecting with Nikki became a the turning point for me. where I really got involved in the space. It was finding people who were already doing such amazing work and finding ways that I could chip in just a little bit and play a small role in Holding this facility accountable for their abuses and then once that facility eventually did shut down, I'm happy to say, looking to where we go from here, right?

Because it's not just about shutting down one facility, it's about making sure that kids who are entrusted to out-of-home care are actually safe. And safety is the number one concern, right? We want to make sure that kids aren't being hurt any more than they already have. Especially I'm talking about traumatized kids who end up in congruent care settings like Pomegranate. So I really owe my advocacy journey. to wonderful former foster youth advocate, Nikki Chinn, who later connected me with Caidyn. And now Caidyn and I share the role that that Nikki once filled at Action Ohio.

Catherine:
Yeah. We get kind of called into the stuff that we do for all sorts of different routes. You said it started with advocating for yourself. But it hasn't stopped there, and for quite a lot of people it might have done. You know what I mean? I fought my battle, I've done my journey, I've paid my dues. I can hang up my baton now and let somebody else take over So I'm wondering if there's any more to say about what it is that keeps you in this?

Addison:
I think what keeps me in it is trying to carry on Nikki's legacy, which is very big shoes to fill, and I certainly am not doing all that she did. But knowing that there's people who care about kids who are still suffering, right? Kids who are still in positions like I was, knowing that this still happens at other facilities. What I experienced at Pomegranate was not unique. This is a widespread issue in congregate care facilities like Pomegranate. Kids are enduring more than anyone should ever have to. So I think what keeps me going is is knowing that the suffering is still there and there's something I could do to to call attention to it.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah yeah. Do you want to explain to us what a congregate care facility is, what that means?

Addison:
Sure. So really a congregate care setting is any out-of-home placement where kids are kept in groups, right? It's not just one kid being placed in a foster home. There are a lot of different forms of congregate care facilities. They may be called like group homes or residential treatment facilities for youth. That was where I was at Pomegranate was a residential treatment facility.
It's a group home or a an institution where there's lots of people. Another congregate care sitting is like a nursing home, which is not really where youth are placed, but Uh it's really any type of facility, any type of institution where people are held together.

Catherine:
Yeah. So how old were you when you entered the facility?

Addison:
I was sixteen when I entered Pomegranate and I I turned seventeen there.

Catherine:
Yeah. Where were you before that?

Addison:
I was at home, so I I lived with my parents until I was placed in that congregate care facility. So I had a little bit of a different journey than many other youth.
I wasn't actually a proper foster care Which I can relate to Caidyn saying, like, I don't really know if I belong in this space. That's kind of how I felt at first, but then I've been reassured by advocates like Nikki and Caidyn and Lisa and Kim that If you're doing the work and you care about the community, you're a part of it.

Catherine:
Yeah, absolutely.

Addison:
What leads most kids to places like Pomegranate is trauma. And that comes in a lot of different forms. So kids who end up in congregate care facilities almost always have a trauma history Uh Caidyn, would you agree with that?

Caidyn:
I would agree with that. Yeah.

Addison:
Yeah. So ending up in a place like Pomegranate. it isn't the youth's fault that they end up there, although they're often made to feel like it is. I remember being at Pomegranate getting the kind of scared straight treatment for if you haven't heard of that before, it's where staff basically try to shame you into not coming back.

There used to be a program called Scared Straight on TV where like they would take troubled kids into like jails for a day and just yell at them all day and berate them and tell them how awful they are and this is where they're gonna end up for life if they don't change their behavior now. But a lot of the kids who are ending up in places like Pomegranate are there because they're suicidal. They they want to die or they have PTSD and they're having frequent flashbacks and panic attacks. or they're experiencing psychosis. These are things that are really out of their control. It's not like a choice that the kid is just choosing to be bad and that we can just shame the badness out of them. Kids who end up in places like Pomegranate experience trauma through no fault of their own.

Catherine:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it doesn't work, does it? Like there's very few people out there who are wanting not to be good in inverted commas. y you know, most of us are doing our best. The idea that you can scare somebody into being different just doesn't fundamentally it doesn't work, does it?

Addison:
No.

Catherine:
And I'm really sorry to hear that you went through that. And I'm I'm wondering what that kind of did to your sense of self.

Addison:
Yeah, I think it's had a huge impact on who I am today. It's part of the reason I'm so hyper-independent and have trouble trusting authority.
I still deal with trauma symptoms daily. It's something that I've left Pomegranate that's been almost a decade, but I still feel like I'm there.
And that's something that I think I'm gonna carry with me for the rest of my life.
But it's also given me a sense of purpose and community. I found the disability community through my experience because of organizations like Disability Rights Ohio who went in and recognized that kids in facilities like this are disabled and deserve to be free from abuse and neglect.
And it's helped me find the foster youth community as well. Kids who have had really challenging childhoods, but are able to come together and find family outside of the one that they were born into.

Catherine:
Yes. Yeah. What struck me as you were talking about that kind of idea of being shamed good is the really profound sense that there is within that of simply not being seen. You're nodding, Caidyn.

Caidyn:
Yeah, I empathize so much with what Addison is saying, and I think that Nikki was really wise and intentional in connecting us to each other and us being the ones to carry on her work, when she found out that she would be dying.

I think a big component of that being scared straight and the way that it sticks with you is Whether or not you're actually a ward of the state or not of foster kid proper. The whole premise of these facilities is supposed to be to keep kids safe And then you arrive and you're treated like a prisoner. And something I've really struggled with is internalizing that I can't trust myself, internalizing that oh, there is something just fundamentally wrong with me or wrong with the types of decisions that I think are good for me because of such extreme conditions as a teenager If you're incarcerated and they're calling it that, there's this almost sense of acuteness. It's like, okay, this is the amount of time I have to wait until I've I'm done with whatever that wrongdoing was. But when you're in a carceral setting under the guise of treatment, it feels more like an attack on the self, an attack on the personhood. And there's almost this extra element of shame of, well then why didn't that make me feel better? And once you get past that it's hard to feel anything other than angry at the system and angry at the kids that are there because they're abused and traumatized and now being told, on some level, at least in subliminal messaging, that they're there by some fault of their own, and need to be punished, or need to be reformed. And and I think there's just a fundamental systemic shift that needs to happen. And I feel like that's the type of work that Addison and I work on the most.

Catherine:
Yes, yeah. I'm hearing that you've both talked about not being able to trust. Addison, you were talking about not being able to trust authority figures and Caidyn, you were talking about not being able to trust yourself and your own judgment. And I'm wondering if you are both carrying both of those kinds of mistrust.

Addison:
I I love what Kayan brought up about Well, I don't love it, but it's s very true that she brought up about not being able to trust yourself. Because one of the lessons I learned from being at Pomegranate is it's not safe to be vulnerable. that it's not safe to open up to people. It's not safe to show this side of yourself that's really hurting. Bad things happen. And I think that's where it comes to really damaging the sense of trust. Caidyn, did you have something to add?

Caidyn:
Well with the self-trust versus authority trust, I definitely struggle with both. because in any sort of institutional setting, I'm wondering what their goal is at the end of the day. Because another dimension of congregate care is something called shelter care and shelter care is basically overflow.
Shelter care is not ever like the placement that someone gets put in if there's a better option, but the fact of the matter is, sometimes there's more foster kids than beds to put them in. And In shelter care specifically, we were just held in a cafeteria. We couldn't have books, notebooks, phone calls, couldn't go outside. Like it was a very, very incarceral, this is under the guise of treatment, or under the guise of this is just until we figure out something else for you. But then you find out later in life as you start to research these policies and procedures and how did these systems even come to be? that these placements are getting hundreds of dollars per day per child to have those beds full.

Catherine:
Yeah.

Caidyn:
And so you really wonder, is this actually what's best for these children when we don't know where else to put them? Or is this just a way to make sure that the system can fund itself and continue? So while, while I internalized a lot of shame because of the messaging I received in these places, I also have a lot of Mistrust of systems at large, because I think sometimes what the public message is or even the original goal ends up being so distorted that How it actually operates is completely different from what it's supposed to do.

Catherine:
Yeah. So that leaves you with multiple levels of lack of trust, which is a big place to kind of work your way out of. I wonder what have been the threads of kind of healing of that for both of you.

Caidyn:
Being in community with other people who have had lived experiences has been probably the most healing thing because I know before I entered a facility like this, I didn't even know that they existed.
I knew that group homes existed, I'd read Girl Interrupted, whatever, all of that. But to to see dozens of children held in a cafeteria or to experience like when I did make it to my final residential treatment facility where I was supposed to be out of shelter care. They kept me there for over a year. And i it's a very othering kind of experience, which I think is why it's so healing to meet other people who've had similar experiences because it's like we see the world in a different way because our childhoods have just been filled with very different experiences and experiences that aren't even on people's radar.

Catherine:
Yeah. Do you want to tell us a bit about your story, Caidyn, of how you ended up in that situation?

Caidyn:
The short of it is as a result of trauma and suicidal ideation, I was engaging in very dangerous behaviors. It was almost a test to see if anybody would notice. I had felt very very, very alone. And it to s some level of that. It's like normal teenage angst. But if you if you throw trauma and mental illness into normal teenage angst, that is now a much bigger beast.

Catherine:
Yes.

Caidyn:
Yes. And eventually after having never gotten in trouble at all, ever, um Truly, I had never even gotten a warning at school. I was a straight A student, no detentions, no talking to, pleasure to have in class.
I got an out-of-school ten day suspension. And then uh just a couple weeks after going back to school, I had another and they found some uh very concerning items in my backpack and I was sent to the hospital, and the hospital said that Basically, if my parents were not going to willingly sign me over to the state to receive some sort of long-term care, that they were going to get children's services involved and From my family's perspective and being fifteen when all of this is happening, the details are very fuzzy. I don't know exactly how everything unfolded, but I remember kind of being told like you're not gonna go home and my parents being upset about this, but my parents being like, Well what do you want us to do? You're dangerous now, apparently. And if the state is telling us we can't keep you safe, then I guess we're gonna sign you over to the state. I guess that's our option.

And when I'd already been at the hospital for two weeks, they knew they wanted to send me to a specific residential facility, but it w they weren't going to have a bed for quite some time. And that's how I ended up in shelter care. And I asked, like, can can my mom or dad take me there? And they said no. I had to be restrained in an ambulance and taken to shelter care. So I'm like laying flat. I can't move. I'm not allowed to move. I don't even know where I'm being taken. And this is what they do to traumatized children and then realizing like, okay, I'm having this experience because I exhibited some level of dangerous and reckless behaviors But then I I'm having this realization as I arrive that some people are here just because they're being abused. Some people are here by even less fault.
And that's a very like slippery slope language. I don't like the implications of that, but that that is how I felt at the time.
And it was such a culture shock. I had already felt like my worldview had been shattered because of the trauma I had experienced. at home and in my community and then to see this was a whole whole new layer of it. And I was in uh shelter care for about two weeks, so I didn't see the sun for about two weeks. And eventually I was taken to residential, where I was for a year and seventeen days, which is a really, really long time. I was extremely over medicated.
In residential at least I was allowed to have books, make phone calls, have visitors but it was kind of funny the messaging. I have a poem about this called "Mixed Messages", where it's like, If you're good, you get to transfer over to open campus where you're not locked in. And it felt like there are all of these kind of loopholes of like, see, look, we're giving you your dignity. Look, you're free, like we're not locking you in. Doesn't that feel better? But it's like an alarm still sounds if I open the door and then I'm chased. Like I'm not actually locked in. that actually not practical ways to make someone feel like they have autonomy or dignity. And just being there so long and seeing people come and go. I was in the smallest unit, so uh there were very tight quarters. It was a lot.

It was a truly world changing experience. I didn't get to go to school. They had like their own school there, but it was completely subpar, like seventh graders and high school seniors. So like seventh and twelfth graders. We're all receiving the same schooling, it was just whoever was there got to go to class. So I fell very, very behind. And then when I got out of care, I took a little bit of time to just work and whatnot, but eventually when I decided to go to college and I went to community college, my social worker from the residential facility I was in. And I have no complaints about her. She was an amazing resource that I felt truly cared about me. but she had found the Scholar Network program at Columbus State, which is designed by and for former foster youth.
And again I'm like, but I wasn't ever in a foster home I was the one that was unfit for the family because that was the messaging I had received it was Nikki Chinn who was kinda ready to slap me on the nose real gently and be like, "stop it!" Like "kids, kids don't do those things when their needs are met!" and you belong if you want to be here and it seems like you want to be here, anybody who is willing and able and wants to do the work should do this work.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah, I I think it's a really profound statement, kids don't do these things if their needs are met.

Caidyn:
And that was really a life-changing thing. to be told and I I I needed to be told it several times because I'd I'd received years of this messaging that this was my fault. That's still something that creeps back in sometimes. But I those behaviors that got me there are never something I would have engaged in if I was okay.

Catherine:
Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. I'm wondering if you had any idea when you were in these places how long you were going to be there.

Caidyn:
They told me when I arrived that it was like a three month program, six months tops, and then to be there for over double their maximum estimate was really disheartening. By the end, I was allowed to like go home on weekends and stuff, but to be removed from any sense of normalcy for that long, I like still feel developmentally behind. 'Cause I didn't get to go to high school. Like really at all. I didn't have even one full semester of regular high school.
I ended up graduating early because I talked them into letting me do online classes while I was in residential and I was just flying through those because I had nothing else to do. But I really feel Like fifteen, sixteen is such a intense age for social development and then I was just completely taken out of any sense of normalcy. for a long time. Like if you count the hospital and shelter care, and then is the year and seventeen days of residential like a year and a season of just no normalcy.

Catherine:
Yeah. And it it sounds like the normalcy was fading quite a bit before that, that things were becoming really difficult.

Caidyn:
Yes, yes. But at least I could go to school, even if things weren't normal at home.

Catherine:
Hmm. So for both of you, were there people in those periods of being in care, which sounds like a very bad word for it actually. People who did show genuine care who were helpful in the midst of that.

Addison:
I will say there are certainly good staff members at the facilities, um even bad facilities that they're there because they care about kids and they want to show up for you. But that's often not enough. They're they're contending with an institution that's prioritizing profit and control over the well being of of the kids in its care. So one person looking out for you in a facility that that's intentions are just so out of whack is really not gonna do much. And another really harmful consequence of being in an out of community placement really is it it rips you from your community, your support network. So even if you do have just one or two friends or trusted adults in your life outside of a facility. being placed within one, those people are are gone and oftentimes communication is restricted in places like this. My phone calls were always monitored, so when I would try to reach out for support. staff members would literally hang up the phone if I started talking about what was happening to me there. So I think there there certainly were people who who cared about me and and sat with me when I when I cried or but That wasn't it it wasn't enough.

Caidyn:
I agree with Addison that there are good staff members and like I said, I uh I was in in touch with my social worker who was also my family clinician and then my personal clinicians like therapist. I I chose to be in touch with her till I was twenty four years old. I would still be in touch with her if I could be.
And there are really good people that are there because they care, but there are also people who are not. And What is a good therapist supposed to do if the psychiatrist insists on over medicating? The therapist then can't even advocate for you because then they're speaking out against the facility, and it seems then I don't know, like I've manipulated them or like they're not trusting their colleagues or something like this. So it becomes this kind of catch twenty-two of there are people who care and who want to help, but at least so long as you're still in that facility, the weight of being institutionalized can't really be lifted by a handful of people who do care. And I feel lucky the residential facility that I was in was of the better ones. It was certainly much better than shelter care. I sometimes I would witness like restraints and things like that, but it wasn't violent, like the way it was violent in shelter care and like the way it's violent in Pomegranate But there's just something about being institutionalized that is kind of an unliftable weight.

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it is violence in itself, isn't it?

Caidyn:
It's emotional violence to be told that you can't be safe. And I understand how people who are self-harming or using drugs every single chance they get that they need some sort of intervention. And it's hard to to imagine what a more undignified intervention would be because sometimes people and I I will admit that at the beginning I was determined to not see tomorrow. But it it got to a point where that was no longer my MO and I had deteriorated the trust so badly in those first couple months that Six months of good behaviour was not enough to convince them that I was on the trajectory of wanting to be better and just being so profoundly untrusted by every single person in your life. Is something you carry with you.

Catherine:
Yeah. So I'm hearing that that for both of you there was quite a profound loss of self in the midst of all of this. And I'm wondering what is helping you to kind of come back to yourselves.

Addison:
I want to go back to something that Caidyn said that really resonates with me, and that's community, right? It's finding people who share your lived experience and finding family in that community. I think that is how you build back to who you want to be or or who you once were. Another part of it is finding purpose. It's finding a reason to keep going. And maybe that's making sure that stuff like this doesn't happen to other kids again. So finding community and finding purpose have really helped me feel a sense of direction in life where I really didn't feel that way when I was younger.

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah. If you think about the moments when you thought, actually I'm beginning to find community or there is something safe here I'm I'm wondering if you both have kind of first moments of seeing that, of experiencing that, whether you can share something about that for us.

Caidyn:
For me, it would be Scholar Network. I was bound and determined to convince them that I did not belong, that I was bad that I was too socially anxious to participate in a club like this, that I wasn't even in real foster care. And they really have to give it up t to Nikki and Katrina, the program coordinator Chloe Juliana, all of these other people who were around during that time, who kind of gently insisted, like you're not just gonna hide through your whole college experience and I felt like some of the self-isolation behaviors and some of just the genuine and earnest like anxiety that I had being around people at all. is so afraid of causing harm in some way that I could not identify, thus could not prevent. So it made me not want to interact with people at all 'cause I was afraid that I was just this ball of destruction.
And to just kind of repeatedly be invited in, regardless, for them to say, you can show up anxious, you don't even have to talk, but just show up. And then seeing that they actually meant that because I would show up anxious and not talk and still be invited back, that I was like, oh. They mean what they're saying, which wasn't something I was terribly used to at that time in my life. And Then when I would start to open up and I realized people had really similar experiences, like Nikki had also experienced residential, everybody there had experienced some kind of foster care, kinship care, adoption, some sort of atypical family experience, I realized that all of these things that the people I grew up around couldn't relate with, the people in my classes couldn't relate with, that they could to have something in a community college that's based around this common identity, this shared experience. It's like nobody is even making you be here. which I think was also really important because while there can be a lot of therapeutic value from those other types of programs there's still usually at least someone who's there because they have to be there. And that just strikes this like ick in me as someone who has had to be somewhere that I did not want to be. So to see that everybody is here because they want to be here. And everybody is here because they understand the unique challenges that former foster youth have trying to go to college. I felt for the first time like it was safe to be authentic, and then I felt like from that point forward I received a lot of positive reinforcement from those people.

Catherine:
Yeah. There is something, isn't there, about being in a amongst a group of people who've got a um a shared experience. That there's a level of not having to explain.

Caidyn:
Yes, yes. And that's huge, because it can be so emotionally taxing to have to explain. So finding people who just get it is like [breathes out]

Catherine:
Yes, yes. And when you were speaking, Caidyn, I was thinking of something that Addison had said about it not being safe to be vulnerable and the fact that you were invited into this group. And so you can show up anxious and you're still welcome. You can show up vulnerable. And you're still welcome. Yeah. Do you have anything to add to what Caidyn was saying, Addison?

Addison:
Just that I one hundred percent relate to it. Finding a community that's voluntary, that's consensual, that's you're showing up because you want to be there, you're showing up because you want to show up for each other, and you're able to show up as you are. is really something that's a breath of fresh air and a huge weight off your chest when you've been through a coercive experience where you're kind of forced into a community of people that does not want to be there. It really is is night and day. These experiences really can't be compared. And also I just so relate to needing to be disabused of the idea that I I don't belong. I've had to have frequent reminders, first from Nikki and now from Caidyn. And it's still a you know, it's something that I I really appreciated about Caidyn. This she'll stop me and say like No, you you have a right to be here and I really appreciate it like from the bottom of my heart because you need that when you've been through something where you don't really feel like you deserve to take up space or or or show up somewhere. to to be told that that you belong, that like you can be a part of this group of uh supportive, caring people that that just wants to be there for each other. It really means the world.

Catherine:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Caidyn, I'm thinking about just who you are and and what you're passionate about and and what fires you up. I'm wondering when you first noticed your love of learning. 'Cause I I was listening to you and saying we like you graduated from high school early whilst you were in the facility. You said, Well, because I had nothing else to do, but there's um There's a real passion though. I wonder if you if you look back, when did you first know that you enjoyed that?

Caidyn:
That is that's something that has been consistent from childhood. As a quick sidebar, I would like to say that I I think that I was only able to graduate early because these were very cheap online classes. And I don't know how much they cost, but I mean kind of from a quality judgment. If you passed the pretest, you didn't have to do any of the units, and it would take you to the final. I truly don't feel that I have. high school education. I have an associate's degree, so I have an education. I'll be graduating with my bachelor's in May. But I don't feel that I learned the material that I was supposed to learn. to be honest, for the sake of transparency. But that aside, learning is something I have always been passionate about. One of the things that kept me sane when I was in residential, as soon as I was allowed to go on uh community passes, which means like your family can take you out for four hours at a time. Like you have to like take a drug test and be pat down and everything when you get back, but you're allowed to leave, and I would always have them take me to the library, always, always, always, because there were no computers or anything like that on the units, so to be able to get uh books and CDs really kept me sane. And reading and writing is just something that I've done because I like it my whole life. And that's something that regardless of what else is going on has stayed true. That's just who I am.

Catherine:
Yeah. So what section of the library did you head for?

Caidyn:
I read a lot of memoirs while I was in there because I wanted to know about what other types of strange experiences people had had and I I found a lot of solace in just hearing about other people's atypical lives or interesting, crazy, wild lives. It was very comforting to see like one that you can do something with that story. And two, that you don't have to have been normal to make it out alive I also read a lot of graphic novels just for easy reading and I would sometimes try and trace the pages just because I was bored, I had nothing to do, and graphic novels were fun for trying to trace and trying to teach myself to draw. I this is such a brat move. I had one of my grandmas buy me the DSM five to bring me to the facility so I could be a real smart alec. And uh try and dispute some of what they were trying to put on me. I'm like, look, it's not all of these criteria. And then they had to have a staff meeting about if they were allowed to confiscate this from me. 'Cause they're like, can she have this? And it landed on, you can have this, but if you try and diagnose someone That is not you even once. We are taking this. And I'm like, that's not the point. The point is to dispute what the psychiatrist is putting on me.

Catherine:
Hmm.

Caidyn:
I know I'm not the psychiatrist. So really just lots of personal stories, lots of things to bring levity, lots of things adjacent to the experience of institutionalization. Because it just felt important to understand more of what was happening to me and what happens in brains.

Catherine:
Mmm. Yeah. So what is your degree in?

Caidyn:
My associate's degree is in English and I will be graduating from Ohio State with my bachelor's in linguistics because after completing my degree in English So I chose linguistics because I still have a a passion for language, and I've been pleasantly surprised how much of a hard science a lot of linguistics is. uh versus English or some of those other I think liberal arts degrees. Like

Catherine:
It's got physics in it.

Caidyn:
It it does, like the acoustics of sound and measuring space and spectrograms and all of this. But I really enjoy that and getting to think about language, not just English, but all languages in a broader scope. And for me understanding more about language as a system, I think, is still consistent with that interest of understanding how people work and communicate.

Catherine:
I was a speech and language therapist, for twenty years.

Caidyn:
Oh cool. Yeah, that's definitely linguistics, phonetics, phonology.

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely So what what about you, Addison? If you kind of look back, what are the sort of passions and things that you have seen have kind of traced through?

Addison:
I had a similar path to Caidyn because of my experience finding a lot of interest in like the human brain, behavior, and coming from a place of just wanting to understand what had happened to me and the other kids I was institutionalized with. And so right when I got out the very next year, when I was still senior of high school, I enrolled in a few college classes at Columbus State Abnormal psychology, adolescent psychology, sociology of deviance, sociology of the criminal justice system. We're seeing a theme here, right?

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah.

Addison:
Um And then this was all stuff that was really interesting to me and I just felt like a pull towards it. And when I went to Ohio State the next year, I ended up majoring in in neuroscience and with minor in disability studies, which is a field that was really born out of the disability rights movement. uh similar to other identity studies fields like women's studies or or fields like that. And that's really where my heart was was finding community in disability spaces.

Catherine:
Yeah, and and absolutely knowing from the core of your being, how crucial that is.

Addison:
Absolutely.

Catherine:
Yeah. It's really interesting how sometimes the really difficult stuff that we end up in can be a link into what becomes a real interest. So I I have two adopted boys and there are kind of different levels of interest. There's there's the heart thing about okay, I'm I am walking through a relationship with these two incredible human beings. There has also been a real kind of intellectual interest in, okay, so you're doing that now. What is it that's going on for you? You know what I mean? Sort of like, so what is going on in your brain and your psychology that means that this is what we're dealing with now?
Certainly for me, some of that kind of academic interest that has been really good for problem solving has sort of allowed me a certain level of kind of detachment from sometimes what is really the deep pain of what's going on So it sounds like you you kind of have those two things going on, Addison, both the fascination with what's going on for people, but also that kind of deep commitment. to wanting to see things different, but understanding at both a personal experience level and kind of sociological, psychological level, what needs to happen. So you've kind of got both of those things happening, haven't you?

Addison:
I don't know how well I'm doing both at the same time, but um it's definitely where my heart is and where my interest is and

Catherine:
Selfishly. I've heard both in this conversation, you know, both a real understanding of what's going on for people, but also an absolute heart cry of this needs to stop and things need to be better.

Addison:
It's definitely a constant learning process and I'm constantly learning from really other advocates and and people in the community like Caidyn.

Caidyn:
Yeah, yeah. And don't let Addison undersell himself. I think it is so incredible how because of that passion and just that sense of justice, how independently you were able to enter advocacy work, I feel like I was very gently step-by-step guided and pushed in. But Addison, from from his own sense of injustice and wanting justice and not wanting other kids to go through what he went through, He figured out from just like research from the ground up how to start doing some of this legislative advocacy stuff and some of this like calling out institutions and licensing. Some of that nitty-gritty detail I still don't understand. So I think we're always both learning from each other and I've always been so impressed Addison's like DIY entry into this space is truly indicative of passion and commitment and like doing what it takes to figure out how to get done what needs done.

Catherine:
Yeah, I d I get the feeling though, Caidyn, you've been on a similar journey. Because I remember earlier in this conversation you were saying that your first experience of ombudsman was when you were working in elderly care and you had needed to advocate for somebody. So there was a seed of something there, wasn't there, for you? I'm wondering even if that that situation in the elderly care facility was your first kind of advocating for people or whether you had kind of done that when you were younger too. Like if you really look back, I wonder what your first kind of standing up for somebody else was.

Caidyn:
I have always had a strong sense of justice. I think I cared about politics from a younger age than most people do. In elementary school I was uh the ESL buddy, so people who were learning English as their second language. The school was kind of like Yeah, she'll be nice and patient and kind of understands language more than the average seven year old. Go on, talk to her and I would like to be pulled out of class to talk to the people who speak like a Spanish and Swahili and and I loved that.

Catherine:
So advocacy and linguistics. Yeah.

Caidyn:
Goes it goes all the way back. It's pretty pretty core to There's something so fittingly poetic about about Caidyn's journey.

Addison:
especially as it relates to the Youth Ombudsman Office, how she was really from the start one of the people pushing and providing testimony for this office to be established and then now to become, you know, I've come full circle and serve as the intern for the Youth Ombudsman Office. And Caidyn, I definitely see that DIY from you too. As we were talking about education and how you really received a substandard education when you were institutionalized. But you did it yourself. You'd went on and continued reading and and teaching yourself and learning just through a love of learning.

Catherine:
And I'm quite amused that one of your comments, Caidyn, was that you didn't think that was a very good standard of education that you were receiving. These were very cheap classes I was flying my way through. There's even an analysis of the level of of the quality of education. You know, it wasn't just uh you were not just kind of scraping by, you were analysing the quality of the education program.

Caidyn:
Well, because I thought it was so ridiculous to be grouping together thirteen year olds and seventeen year olds and giving them the same schooling. So after I had complained about this enough, they let me do online schooling And like it was still I was still only allowed to access it during that three hour block because there's no computers on the unit or anything. But I'm not sure Pedagogically, just because you pass a pretest, because you made good guesses, that you should receive credit for that class.

Catherine:
You need to be able to make decent guesses, don't you?

Caidyn:
And one of the sciences, when I saw I passed the pretest, I was like, wow, I guess my guesses were really good. I guess I guessed well And so I I still feel sometimes that some of my foundation is lacking. I suppose I'm about to graduate with a bachelor's. It hasn't been so detrimental. I think it more comes from a place of wanting people to be able to get real school because had I not graduated early, had I not flown through those online classes and I had gone back to the district, I don't think I would have been able to pass the classes that I had been placed in. Part of my motivation to graduate early, because I was just I was just ready to be an adult. I'm done with this. I'm done with Like 'cause I when I worked at the old folks home I was seventeen and I honestly cannot believe that they let a minor have that job. And I did that for a year and when I turned eighteen I went to community college and started catching up. But for those students that do go back to their regular school after being in residential for an extended period of time, I really don't think that that's fair and I hope that they're able to pass and able to get through. And that's why the Foster to College Scholarship Act was so important to to me and to Kim and to so many other people, because I'm I'm not sure that people fully understand the reality of inaccessibility to education while in foster care. If extracurriculars are off the table, then you're only in school for three hours a day, by no fault of your own, just because of lacking that foundation. How are you supposed to qualify for a scholarship?

Catherine:
Absolutely. And it's not just the amount of education, is it? It's also what the other stuff that's going on around it.

Caidyn:
Yeah, because trauma impedes learning, like if we don't have the space in our brain, if we're in fight or flight all the time, it's very hard to remember things that aren't necessary to survival.

Catherine:
Yes. And there's not of much of what you're learning in education that is necessary to survival. I wonder if there are things that you would say have grown in you both through your difficult experiences that actually are now strengths.

Caidyn:
I think knowing to look for injustice when analyzing any problem, I feel like I I zoom out a little bit more than the average person. And that these experiences taught me to do that. I don't necessarily think any of the direct trauma made me stronger, made me a better person, but I do think it equipped me with a different way to look at things and a way to zoom out and say, okay, what's the full picture here? How do we even end up in a situation like this?

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I I mean I I I totally hear that trauma doesn't make you better. I absolutely hear that. But yes, do you have an example of where you've noticed you sort of seeing a broader scope?

Caidyn:
A pretty impersonal example just cause this was the first thing that came to mind. Kind of when people talk about like unhoused people and people living on the streets and like, oh they're drug addicts or something. Their behaviors are are causing this. It's like, okay. First of all, a lot of people don't start using hard drugs until they're already living on the street. And then it's a survival. What else do you do with your time? But things like like something that really resonates with me is if an unhoused person loses their ID, they have no address, they have no way to keep documents dry It is now fifty times harder to do absolutely anything to get yourself out of that situation. And I think a lot about how these things compound on each other. It's not as simple as walk in and get a job if you don't have clean clothes, if you don't have an address, if you can't pay the phone bill to answer the phone when they call you back. So it's like just this big scope of So many problems. I think we try to tackle even like well-meaning people in the wrong ways because we're not considering all of the variables that are going into a situation like this.

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah. So you've got a much more nuanced, complex view of what's going on and an ability to see the different elements of that than you might otherwise have had. What about you, Addison?

Addison:
I really love what Caidyn said about zooming out, and I'm not sure I could say it. Well I know I can't say it any better. That was really beautifully put. I think too often we default to looking for individual solutions to social problems. And that's where what Caidyn said about really zooming out and looking at the system level problems that are leading to, let's say, a kid being suicidal. Like where is this trauma coming from? Is it because this kid is broken and needs this individual fix? No, right? There's a problem in the family, in the community, right? In the in a structure, in a economy, frankly, that prioritizes profit over the well-being of kids.
I I firmly believe that facilities that are making a profit off the confinement of anyone just simply should not exist. That's includes for-profit prisons, for-profit nursing homes, right? For-profit uh youth residential treatment facilities, the priority is is profit. So really taking a a look out and seeing like where is the problem? Where do we locate the problem of you know trauma in kids? And we could often see that it's it's not within the bodies of the kids themselves, it's within these these system factors, things like poverty or racism or things that are really outside of this individual's control.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. So the the gift that you are able to bring actually is the gift that you both needed, which is the ability to see. And an awareness that people need to be seen in all of the complexity.

Caidyn:
And people need to be seen as people. It really does go back to that. Like people don't choose to be in these situations. They need loved and supported and validated through these situations and understood the scope. And so often I love what Addison said about lots of times there's a fixation on an individual solution to a systemic problem. And I want to love every individual that's experiencing this, but addressing it at that level is not meaningfully addressing it. It's not even preventing that person from experiencing it again later.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so much easier though, isn't it, to identify the problem as being with this person. It lets everybody else off the hook, doesn't it?

Addison:
Yeah. It really is an unfair default. Yeah.

Catherine:
I'm wondering if either of you have anything else that you feel it would be good to say at this point

Caidyn:
I suppose I didn't talk about having this internship. I don't need to get too much into it, but the the short of it is back in 2020 I started testifying in favor of there being a youth ombuds in the state of Ohio. In twenty twenty two the bill passed. I got to go to the gala with Nikki, with Kim, and that was really nice. And then when I saw in twenty twenty five that they were hiring an intern I applied and I received the position and it feels on a larger level now, a type of full circle satisfaction that I still still sucks that I had to experience what I experienced, but I feel really grateful to be able to be doing this work at this level. I um sense it's something I'm gonna have to live with forever regardless. I'm I'm just so grateful that I get to be doing this work on this level and I'm trusted to do this kind of work.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yes, which is such a piece of redemption of that sense of not being trusted. Yeah, I can't trust myself, nobody trusts me. Actually now I am trusted. That is really beautiful. to get to this part of that story is is fantastic. Yeah, and I remember you saying that you were not the kind of person who could manage public speaking. Well I think you seem to have uh gotten over that.

Caidyn:
Yeah.

Catherine:
Yeah, which is amazing. And an absolute, absolute kudos to those people who walked with you on that journey when you weren't sure, but they invested some trust and some some energy into that.

Caidyn:
I'm just getting to witness their bravery was was so motivating.

Catherine:
Yeah, I think you've been pretty brave yourself, Caidyn.

Caidyn:
Thank you. It is it is through the bravery of others that it was shown to me that it's safe to be brave and that we'll have each other's back.

Catherine:
Yes.

Caidyn:
And I'm so grateful to have gotten to witness that and had the privilege to be around people who've who've built me up to the point where now I do feel safe going and testifying and I do feel safe going on stage reading poems and...

Catherine:
Yeah, which is incredible. Incredible. And there has been that thread of bravery all the way through your story though, hasn't there? You know, that it takes bravery to protest about the level of education that you're getting in a situation where you are not safe. It takes bravery to get somebody to bring you the DSM5 into your facility.

Addison:
I love that.

Catherine:
Yeah, absolutely. And it's just beautiful to to hear your story and and to witness the fact that you are growing so beautifully into who you are. who you always have been, who you are becoming.

Caidyn:
Thank you.

Catherine:
Yeah. What about you, Addison? Is there anything that we need to talk about before we finish?

Addison:
I just want to agree that that Caidyn's journey really is one of beauty and bravery and reaffirm that I I think going from a place of of feeling really powerless to now being in a position to look out for other kids who are in a similar position and maybe don't have anyone else in their corner is really an amazing thing and it's a really great journey to get to be a part of and witness um alongside Caidyn. One thing I would like to add And I kind of did touch on this earlier, is I found community really in disability rights spaces before I found it with in foster youth rights spaces. And I'm so glad to have you know, one foot in both communities. And I just want to lift up the work of protection and advocacy systems. That's what they're called here in in the States. And that's organizations like Disability Rights Ohio.

There's a federal law that creates one of these organizations in every state and territory and they're tasked with protecting the rights of disabled people. That includes the rights fundamentally to be free from abuse and neglect. It also includes things like voting rights, access to education, the list goes on. But the importance of of P&As, protection advocacy systems like Disability Rights Ohio is that they're granted federal access authority to be able to go into institutions wherever disabled people are. and have access to medical records, be able to conduct investigations into abuse and neglect and other rights violations.
And that way they really have a a power that's unique and important, looking out for people who are in the most isolated settings.
So I've I I now serve on a council that advises Disability Rights Ohio on the issues that affect people receiving mental health services in our state. and receiving mental health services includes being confined in youth residential treatment facilities like Sequel Pomegranate. So I I just want to lift up the work of of protection and advocacy systems, um, disability rights organizations that are really doing a lot of behind the scenes work to make sure that people who are institutionalized or people out in the community, their rights are not being violated, including most importantly, in my opinion, the right to be free from harm, free from abuse and neglect.

Catherine:
Yeah, yeah. So did you get involved in those spaces through being part of those spaces yourself?

Addison:
I've always felt uh like a closeness to the disability community growing up with disabled family members and then in high school my friends really being in the special education classroom, our school's self-contained special ed unit But beyond that, how I found the disability rights space is because Disability Rights Ohio conducted an investigation of Sequel Pomegranate. And it was at a time when I was finally finding my voice and and willingness to to speak out after so long, just kind of keeping this to myself. So I was speaking out when they were speaking out and we connected and they really brought me in and were like How can we lift up the work that you and other amazing advocates like Nikki Chinn are already doing to, you know, meet with the state to pressure the people who are in charge of licensing these facilities? to really take action against this particularly egregious facility, but also to put other safeguards in place so that Ohio's congregate care system at large will have more protections than it than it currently does. And that's an ongoing work in process. But that's that's how I found the disability rights community is because of my experience at Pomegranate.

Catherine:
Yeah. Yeah. Uh again, it's interesting how these kind of threads come through. So it sounds like the disability world was something that you already were passionate about. Before any of this happened.

Addison:
Mm-hmm.

Catherine:
Yeah. And I I can hear from both of you actually that ability to kind of look broadly across systems, across groups, across kind of circumstances and and sort of there's a real sort of ability to sort of look and think and interrogate sort of situations for people. Which is a brilliant thing to be able to do in all of the stuff that you're doing. So that's fantastic.

It's been an absolute honour. to to share this conversation with you both. So thank you very, very much for your time.

Caidyn:
Thank you for having us and seeing seeing the value in what we do. I really appreciate that.

Catherine:
I felt really very inspired by both of you And it's just been a delight, so thank you so much.

Addison:
Thank you, Catherine.

Catherine:
Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Loved Called Gifted podcast. If you'd like to get in touch, you can email lovedcalledgifted@gmail.com You can find a transcript of this podcast at lovedcalledgifted.com and that's also the place to go if you're interested in the Loved Called Gifted course. Or if you'd like to find out about spiritual direction or coaching. Thank you for listening.