Social services should put right their mistakes(I've carried this for 40 years)

At the age of 12 my father died and i moved with my family to a new area. I found it hard to adjust and i started to miss school and get into petty trouble. Social services in Bristol entered my life! My mother was uneducated and my father was the backbone of our family. (at 17 i found out he wasn't actually my biological father).
I was seen by social workers and psychologists and it was ascertained that i had an unusually high IQ. They persuaded my mother that it would be better for me if she allowed me to be taken into care and placed in what was called a "boarding school" where i would get more focused tuition and live at the school. My mother was shown around a beautiful school in rural gloucestershire, while i was left to walk around with some of the pupils. I thought they were joking as they nervously told me about certain teachers and their perpencity to violence! I thought they were at worst, exagerations and probably just stories to "mess with" a prospective pupil. we left and i thought i would never go there, my mum wouldn't let me...

I was wrong! After arguments, tears, begging and promises i was packed off to boarding school in Dursley. Within days i was realizing what the other kids meant when they told me of the violence. All the violent teachers and housemasters had their particular form of violence and signs that they were about to use it. I was terrified but vowed not to be a victim.I quickly learned that i could defend myself with irrational violence, it bothered them. At that age and in the 80's i hadn't heard of sexual grooming or wasn't even aware really of sex offenders. i didn't realize what grooming was when it was happening to me. i knew when something wasn't right though. When i realized what the groomers intention was i became uncontrollably violent and ran away. I learned quickly that violence was my protector. but it came at a price, more violence.
I had run away from the violence when scared. At first, i would run home. My siblings would help me out. My mum on the other hand would believe social services and the homes when they said kids in care always lied about violence etc because they are home sick. After 4 or 5 times of trusting i realized i was on my own. I used violence to keep the preditors at bay. I would run away and hide out in the woods or in the city centre of Bristol where i would be exploited by the drug dealers and criminals. I became a criminal and moved from home to home. getting ever worse and more secure so the option of running became harder. After 4 years of this my only option was violence. i watched unfeeling as others were targeted just focused on my own survival. I would take anything to get high, even starving my brain of oxygen. i watched a kid nearly die doing this..
At about 16 the care system had had enough of me. I had broken out of a horrific home called Norton House in Warwickshire. I had to escape by jumping 2 floors in my pyjamas. that's how determined i was. I hid in Wolverhampton for 3 months, surviving on my wits. When i was caught the home advised me if i asked to go to prison my care order would end. Otherwise i'd be in care until 19. I jumped at the chance, not realizing the implications. As soon as i did this the care system washed their hands of me and would never help me again.
I left prison and had no family as i hated my mother for abandoning me. That began a 40 year cycle of prison, drugs, violence and despair. Condemned to a medical merry-go-round of pharmaceticals from an agency that took all of my agency away by telling me i had a disease that i was powerless over. Addiction. I spent the next 30 years on a merry go round of drugs, violence and prison however something always watched over me.
It took until i was 48 before an accidental meeting with a psychiatrist led to a diagnosis of residual ADHD and PTSD. My life changed from that day, i thank that doctor every day for taking that time with me. i was lucky, PTSD was his speciality. I had become so anxious and violent that everyone had washed their hands of me.
Knowing what was wrong with me and recieving mediaction and counselling for it really helped me. first i learned through counselling where my anxiety and violence had come from. Why did i react that way. Then i learned to try to control it. That allowed me to go outside and meet other people. That allowed me tore engage with a spirituality that i had lost track of when my father died. i learned to meditate and pray.
It's been a hard journey and i know i am still in the early stages of recovery. I was diagnosed 4 years ago. i'm still scared and anxious but I'm learning to control it.
I hope that anyone who reads this, who is maybe still in the nightmare and can identify with my story will know there is hope.
When i am better and maybe it's part of getting better?, I'm going to challenge the social services department in my area for what they did to me. they robbed me of childhood and a normal life. They called me bad and made me think it was me. shame on them....
Social services rob children of their dreams.