Golden girl,
Because of many troubles at home (I can't even begin to explain), I was taken away and put in an orphanage at age 10. I was separated from my siblings and was moved from orphanage to orphanage, mainly because I needed "special care" due to severe back injury as well as malfunction of my organs, caused by starvation when I was about 9. (don't worry, I am 42 now and completely fine).I spent 4 years in orphanages, then was put in foster care for about a year. My foster parents moved out of the country and could not take me with them because of legal issues. (my mother was "wanted" for endangering my life and for kidnapping, she fled the country and I was not allowed out of the country until they would find her). So I ended up in orphanage care again. I ran away from the orphanage at age 17, not because it was bad there, but because I just wanted my own home. Although there were ups and downs, in general I must say that I was always treated well at the orphanages. Of course it was not, and would never be "home", but I did not experience, nor did I ever see the horrors some talk about (like being beaten up or abused), none of that ever happened to me or to any of my peers. To this day, I am still in contact with two of the caretakers who worked at the last orphanage I was at. Those people were all nice and caring and I have no complaints at all. What i did see was a fair amount of kids who could not accept the fact that they didn't have a mom or a dad, and they would be constantly depressed and often get themselves in trouble. As they say, negative attention is better than no attention at all. In an orphanage, it is very important to understand that you are on your own and that such places are often understaffed, so you can't expect the same attention one would have at home. There was a time when I felt sorry for myself and thought that I had lost my childhood. But thinking of it now, I played and had fun, just like everyone else. Different is not necessarily bad, it is just what it is... different.