In the foster homes, there were a couple of challenges that I think most people don't really consider. One of the biggest was the constant moving. I was being placed in a new home every few months, which meant switching schools, adjusting to new caregivers, and living with a rotating cast of foster siblings. It was deeply destabilizing. I entered the system when I was 3 years old. At that age, children are already vulnerable—still developing emotionally—and completely unprepared for the kind of extreme uncertainty that comes with being taken from your home. The day the social worker removed me from my mother was traumatic. But then, being moved from the first foster home to the second was just as hard. By the time I reached the third, fourth, or fifth home, something changed: my emotions just shut off. It wasn’t something I chose. It was my body’s way of protecting itself—a kind of automatic response to prolonged stress and trauma. In retrospect, it was a form of PTSD. You learn to blunt your feelings because staying emotionally open in that environment is too painful. From an adult’s perspective, it might seem simple: we’re feeding you, housing you, keeping you safe. But from the perspective of a small child, it felt terrifying. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I didn’t know these people. I wasn’t forming relationships. There was no mother, no father—just strangers, temporary homes, and a constant undercurrent of fear.