Award winning truth cuts through the haze,
confronts the darkness in these end times days.
A single match struck against the fear, hope ignites, drawing redemption near.
Can you feel the trembling in the ground?
A buried heartbeat making sound.
We all live in Dead America, but the dawn's creeping across the Panorama.
This dead awakens, change begins, from broken places, hope unpins.
Yeah, we all live in Dead America.
One healing spark starts the pyre, burning brighter, taking it higher.
Today we're speaking with Adriene Caldwell, she is the author of
Unbroken: Life Outside The Lines.
Adriene, could you please introduce yourself?
Let people know just a little more about you, please.
Absolutely.
First, I wanna thank you, Ed, for having me on your show.
It's a privilege to be here with your audience and with you.
I am Adriene Caldwell, I did write a book, it's Unbroken: Life Outside The
Lines, and it's the story of my life from early childhood to early twenties.
And this will serve as our trigger warnings, uh, as well
as a foundation for who I am.
So during that time, I was either the witness to or the victim of sexual assault
of a young girl, the drowning death of another child, emotional and physical
abuse, extreme poverty, mental illness, homelessness, horrifically abusive foster
care, bulimia, drug and alcohol addiction, pedophilia, death, suicide, and incest.
So there is not a lot that I can't relate to in one way or another.
I have during that time, well, my entire life, uh, the, the hits actually kept on
coming even after my, my early twenties.
I don't include it in the book, there, there may be a book two out there one
day, not sure, but, um, yeah, my, my life was hell and I made it through.
And I'm on the other side of it, and I, I am writing my book, I am sharing
my story for anyone out there who is feeling just lost and alone, and,
like, nobody understands what they're going through and nobody can relate.
I, I wanna put myself out there, uh, to, to kind of be a, a beacon, if
you will, if that doesn't sound too snobby, uh, or pretentious, really.
Um, if I can go through everything that I went through and end up with
this amazing life that I never in a million years could have imagined
for myself, then you can make it to.
It is possible.
It's hard, it's brutal, um, it, it is a struggle, but you can go
from just surviving to thriving.
It is possible, and I want to put that out there.
So that's, that's kind of me, that's what I'm doing.
Yeah.
It's, it's fascinating, you know, the content that you put out
there, it, it's just in your face.
You give reports, you give notes, you give the inside look at the
reality of going through the system.
And really, I'm fascinated about your, your, your unique experience
going through that system.
Could you tell us more about what you perceive of the systematic failures that
you witnessed going through the system?
Absolutely, the failures were epic.
I, I'll start by saying that my schizophrenic, physically
abusive mother, uh, my last beating was with a wooden dow rod.
The thing you hang your clothes on in the closet.
That was my last beating from her and I've never had a nightmare about her.
However, the woman that I was placed with when I entered Children's Protective
Services, the foster mother, um, and in my book, I refer to her as TBFH,
The Bitch From Hell, um, I've had nightmares about her my entire adult life.
Including within the last three months, I've had nightmares about her.
Couple of statistics that, that I, I like to put out regarding foster care, and
this is, this is very close to my heart, um, in most states, I, I can't say all, I
don't know for sure, but in most states, when you're a ward of the state until
you're eighteen, you're able to attend any public, state, in state university,
and they waive your tuition and fees.
And now not only do you get to go to college for free, they actually help with
your room and board and your meal plan.
There are funds allocated to that.
So, and it doesn't have to be university, it can be a vocational program.
Go to, go to school for cosmetology, or electrician, plumber, what have you.
And less than three percent of kids turning eighteen, getting out
of foster care, less than three percent take advantage of that.
And that's just, just such a missed opportunity.
Another, another stat, um, prisoners, one in five, roughly twenty percent
of our US prison population, one in five are former foster youth.
They've been in foster care, one in five prisoners.
And, um, finally, seven out of ten females will have had a child by the
time they're twenty-one years old.
Seven out of ten.
So not only are we failing our children, these children that, that have been
entrusted to the public, to this state for their welfare, not only are we
failing them, we are setting their children up for failure as well.
By not ensuring that the eighteen-year-old goes to vocational school or the
college, by not ensuring that, that they're gonna have tangible life
skills, so, so that they can have a profession and, and not rely on, on
the already strained and broken social safety net that's meant to be in place.
It's there, but it is so flawed, um, it, it failed me epically.
My foster parent, The Bitch From Hell, TBFH.
And it's B, I, I'm just not saying that word.
Um, And I never use her first name in, in the book.
I, I never give her a name,
I, I refuse to even give her that level of control in my life.
But the foster girls, we had to sit on the floor like animals.
We weren't allowed to sit on the furniture, and we ate
separately from her family.
It was the foster parent, her two daughters and her granddaughter.
We weren't allowed to eat with them, and we had separate food,
like, they would have the steak and baked potatoes and we'd be eating
tuna casserole, hamburger helper.
We had separate dishes and silverware.
And the house, uh, and there were between four and seven girls,
uh, at any point in the home.
Uh, the master bathroom had a half bath, a, a sink and a toilet, and that was
the only toilet we were allowed to use.
The main bathroom, which we had to use to shower in, um, we were
not allowed to use their toilet.
So, and at the end of the showers, the last foster girl to, to shower
for the evening, she had to clean the tub with bleach before any member of
the foster family would use the tub.
So we were systematically dehumanized and just made to feel
so insignificant, so, just like we were, we were less than human.
We, we were certainly less than the foster parents.
And the woman, I, I generally believe people are good, they don't set out
to hurt people and, and, you know, on this hidden agenda of being mean.
But I've never been able to explain or understand her behavior.
Uh, for example, one time I was trying on swimsuits and I came out and I
showed her and she looked me up and down and said, Oh, your thighs are fat.
I'm surprised you haven't started growing up to lose weight, those were her words.
I was, while in her care, I was put on medication to treat my depression.
And for me at the time, at fifteen years old, I thought that meant that
I was defective, that I was broken.
And I came back from that appointment and I took my razor
apart and I scratched my wrist.
Um, it, it wasn't life threatening, I don't wanna go into the details.
But when she saw the marks, she looked at me and she said,
You didn't even do it right.
You're supposed to cut along the vein, not across.
Those were her words to me.
So this woman traumatized me and I was in special foster care.
I was in what's called therapeutic foster care, it's for kids
who have additional needs.
Yes, yes, exactly.
That, that's kind of crazy.
Uh, that, that, you know, in your
materials, it came up that you were faced with socioeconomic class setting
in a foster where you felt a disruption because of the separation in class.
Is this what you're referring to?
Partly, but before I went to her home, uh, I was placed with my best friend's family.
And I went from abject poverty.
When my mother, and I, and my brother, we lived in government housing,
we were the only white family out of the entire apartment complex.
And it was a very large apartment complex and just abject poverty.
We, we couldn't afford a vacuum, so my mother, we were poor, but we were not
dirty, my mother would sweep the carpet.
Everything got bleached.
But we were so poor, and food stamps don't cover paper goods, so we used
wash rags instead of toilet paper.
We washed our clothes in the bathtub and hung them up to dry there because we
couldn't afford to go to the laundromat.
We were, used baking soda because we couldn't afford toothpaste
and food stamps didn't cover it.
So, um, and, and that was just the being poor side of my life.
My mother was schizophrenic and physically abusive.
She beat me regularly and that did not impact my life negatively to the
same degree as the witch from hell.
So, um, but back to the question, my best friend in sixth grade, my brother and I,
my mother relinquished her rights and she basically released us so that we could
be adopted into my best friend's family.
And coming from never having been to a restaurant where a waiter comes
and takes your order to, you know, a five bedroom, four bath, you know,
two Lexus cars in the garage, just upper affluent, upper middle class,
um, they weren't uber wealthy, but, but they were upper middle class and in
my psychiatric evaluation, which I do include at the end of my book at the end
of Unbroken, I do include the psychiatric evaluation from when I was thirteen,
there is a quote that says basically that I am in an unfamiliar territory
in almost every situation I encounter.
So, and that was absolutely true, I did not know how to fit into their world.
And it wasn't obvious because in school I, their structure and their
rules and I thrived because it, I knew the rules and I, uh, followed them.
And, um, school was my escape.
It's how I, how I got out of the being so poor that, that we
lived off of eggs and potatoes,
you know, because we couldn't afford meat.
It was, it was my refuge from my schizophrenic abusive mother so I thrived
and did very well in academic setting.
But take me out and put me in a family system that I've, I've never seen,
a functional family, I, I don't know the dynamics of a mother, father.
I, I don't have a father, there, there's never been a father in my life.
So you, you take me out of one environment and drop me into this
environment where I have no idea what's expected of me or what to say.
And, and there were two sons in the family besides the, the girl that
I was best friends with and the nickname that they gave me behind
my back, of course, was Ice Queen.
They called me Ice Queen because whenever I was with them I was
essentially silent and it came off as if I thought I was better than
them, or, you know, being snobby.
What they didn't understand was I didn't understand how to behave,
or what to do, or what to say, I, I was uncomfortable the entire time.
Because I had never witnessed that before, I didn't know.
So,
So, uh, let, let me barge in there for a moment, if you will, Adriene.
Uh, as, as a person that's been through it, would you say the living
environment that was best suited for you, provided by the system, would it
have been in like a group home setting with other girls or through one of
these homes, uh, foster care homes with you living with another family?
Because I see there's a difference.
There would be structure that's identifiable in the group home setting,
but not so much in a family setting where you have to guess, per se, like
you're saying, what is my boundaries?
And, and it would be like you're being freshly born into the family
and you've got to really figure all of that stuff out again.
So with all of that being said, what setting would you say is the
best setting when you have to remove children from a setting like that?
That's a great question, that's a great point.
I, I had never thought about that before, the idea.
Um, we were homeless the summer after fourth grade, we lived in the
Salvation Army in downtown Houston.
And that's why when I was in foster care, I opted to go to the therapeutic
foster home instead of a girl's home.
And I, I was familiar with what it was like living in a shelter, living,
you know, uh, I was familiar with that environment and I, I thought, I mistakenly
thought that I was going to be placed in a family that was like the family
that initially took my brother and me.
And, uh, we were only with them for about a month,
it was while CPS was getting the paperwork done.
Um, but, uh, I, I thought that's what every foster family would be like.
The, the Blairs, they were middle class, working class, you know, taking in foster
kids, good people, just, just good people.
And I, I thought that's where I was gonna be placed.
But the setting question, I would've, I would've functioned better in the group
home, I think, because as you point out, there's structure, boundaries.
But the family environment is where I needed to be placed to learn how a
family interacts, how, how people, how the, the husband and wife communicates,
um, how are the children treated?
What are the boundaries?
What does punishment look like?
Um, I, I didn't learn any of that, or, well, I, I learned it,
it was just incredibly unhealthy.
Uh, I learned, uh, from, from my mother, the dysfunction.
So what really, the, the thing that changed the trajectory for my life, in
my, my junior year of high school, I received a congressional scholarship to
do a one year foreign exchange to Germany.
And I lived with an incredible host family, and it was the
mother, father, and they had a five-year-old daughter at the time.
And I, I got to see how a family functions, the engagement, the behavior.
And I went from TBFH, sitting on her floor, not being worthy of using her
restroom, to having my own room and my own bathroom, and being accepted
and invited into a family environment where I was welcome and wanted.
And I learned through that experience what a family is supposed to look
like and how to behave and boundaries.
That's where, yeah, that's where I, I learned it.
And it should have been a foster home, but I'm, I thank God I was
given that opportunity because it, it taught me how to function in society.
Which I did not know how.
Yeah.
Well, well, that, that's a major point because so many, well, you
said it earlier, there's so many that end up in prisons, you know, that
are in these group home settings.
And
I, I, I have brothers that have been through that foster care
and, you know, going to prisons.
And these, these recidivist minds, if you will, come from the
dysfunction that they've went through.
And if, if there's no way to bring light to that activity to the individual,
they may never actually get out of that.
So finding the right setting for the individual is a real major
portion of how we should be sending kids through the system.
With that being said, how do they identify or how do they place you?
What are their identifying characteristics to place the individuals?
Sure.
So, um, going through, uh, Children's Protective Services,
they do initially, uh, complete a psychiatric evaluation on the child.
Uh, it's pretty, it's customary for the intake process for that to take place.
And that's where any special emotional needs are identified and that's where, uh,
you kind of get stratified, if you will.
The, the kids with the higher needs, um, emotional, uh, physical, what have
you, they, they get segregated versus the the average foster, foster kid.
So my brother, for example, when, when we were taken in by my best
friend's family in the sixth grade, he was only four years old.
So he was able to go into the family and learn the rules, and the behavior, and the
norms, and what's accepted and what's not, because he was so young and he thrived.
Um,
and I am grateful to them because they, they took him in, they did adopt
him, and, and he was raised, he's now married, has a daughter of his own,
he, he's doing very well in life.
Unfortunately for me though, I didn't fit in their upper middle class,
perfect world, and they got rid of me.
They, they pushed me off onto my aunt and uncle and I went to live with them.
But the, how are, how are the kids placed?
The group homes exist because there are just not enough foster homes and there
are, I, I don't know the percentages, but, but some individuals treat foster care,
being a foster parent, as a vocation, as an occupation, they get as many
children as they're legally allowed to have in whatever environment that they
have, and that's, that's their income.
And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, assuming that they have,
you know, healthy communication skills and provide a safe environment with
boundaries, uh, I think it is possible for, for foster parents to do it as a job.
Uh, and for the kids to be okay.
I, I do think that that's okay.
If we got rid of all the foster parents who, who treated it as an
occupation, my God, we'd, we'd have, you know, ten, fifteen percent,
maybe less, of, of the existing.
So you, you have to look at the child, but you also have to look at the environment
that, that the child is being placed into.
So the reality is the group home, in fact, when I lived with TBFH,
my choices were a group home or, or stay there, that, that was it.
Um, I, I found out decades later that my aunt would've taken me back, but
yeah, I, I was thirteen years old when I went to live with my aunt.
I, I was very emotionally damaged just, I had been repeatedly
abandoned in, in my life.
So yeah, you have to, you have to look at the child and then
the reality of, of the situation.
I, I believe that a, a home setting, assuming all the things are in place
and as it should be, is a better environment because that foster
child doesn't know how to behave.
They haven't been raised properly, they haven't been taught, they, they
don't have boundaries, they don't understand social skills, these are
things that they have to actively learn.
And I don't, I don't know if therapy is par, par for the course, if
you will, in regular foster care.
But I had a therapist who came out every other week,
who came to the home.
So on one hand I was receiving therapy and it was addressing my depression,
my anxiety, my OCD tendencies, um, we were addressing those issues, but
I was simultaneously being abused by the foster parent and her family.
Just dehumanized and, oh, it, it's horrific what she did and how
she managed to get away with it.
I, she got away with it because there weren't any other choices.
It was a group home, which, like I said, I, I lived in a shelter,
I knew what living in a shelter would be like, or, or stay there.
And that scholarship that I, the congressional scholarship that
I received, it's, it saved me.
It really saved me.
I, I was willing to go to a country where I did not speak the language,
where I did not know anyone,
um, I was willing to do that rather than stay in that home.
Like, I found an out for me.
I remember when they were handing out the applications in my German one
class, my intro to German class, the professor, the teacher was handing
out the applications in the classroom.
And at lunch I was filling in my application because I, I was applying,
I, I knew that I, I saw an opportunity to get out of that, out of TBFH's home.
And it ended up being so much of a blessing that, that it
changed the course of my life.
I would be dead if that had not occurred, I'd be dead.
And it's not for lack of trying, the, the, I'm not dead.
So.
Yeah.
Well, uh, you know, the circumstances that you grew up in, it, it, it's a wonder
that people do survive in the first place.
And that's the remarkable thing that you're out here doing is trying
to tell people, I don't have the answers for everything, but I can
tell you there's an end to this.
And that's, that's really major that you're out voicing this
because people need that hope.
So, you know, do you really think it's, uh, about funding
when it comes to group homes?
Uh, like the foster care, do they have people come in and help the individuals?
You said it's their only income, so that that's like a business owner.
They have the right to allocate funds where they see fit, but is it allocated
in the proper ways and are these things being determined in the right way?
No, it's not funded properly.
And our caseworkers, the, the social workers out there,
um, they're not paid enough.
They're not paid a livable wage.
The burnout is incredibly high, I think it's like three to five years max.
And then, uh, they change professions and it, it just boils
down to our social safety net, you know, is, is it has holes in it.
It has major holes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I, I see there's quite a few systematic failures.
One thing, if I may, the, uh, my foster parent, TBFH, did not
work for the state of Texas.
She worked for a company that was for-profit, a for-profit company that
contracted with the state of Texas.
So, they were a for-profit company trying to make money off of this and
serving as, uh, so TBFH reported to that company, not the state of Texas
or the case worker, but to a company.
And I think the monetizing childcare, monetizing raising
our children, it's a mistake.
It, it, it's just fraught with, with problems, that it's,
yeah.
Well, if, if you're going to take it upon yourself to say, I'm here to
provide the best for your child and take the child from the home, you'd
better have that in mind, not profit.
Because it cost a lot of money to raise a child properly.
So the, the mindset behind all of this, to do things for profit is getting in
the way of healthy families, values, setting structural boundaries, there's
so much wrong with devaluing life and monetizing, just corralling the life.
And, and that's what I'm witnessing and seeing the system do in many ways
and it's disheartening and the only way to really get light shined upon
these problems is to have conversations like this that we're having today.
Is there anything else that you think that our listeners should understand about
the way the system raises our children?
I feel like we've, we've covered it well, uh, we understand that,
that the children are coming from completely dysfunctional environments.
The state doesn't step in for a minor situation, they, they, there are rare
instances where the state intervenes and, and it's not an appropriate situation.
But, but I, the majority of the time, the children that are taken into care have
experienced horrific abuse, and we are not, we are not getting them counseling
and therapy and psychiatric appointments, and we are not ensuring that they take
advantage of that tuition waiver and go on to vocational school or college, um,
we're, we're not ensuring the, that the foster parents should be foster parents,
should be trusted with our children.
Our, our children are our most precious resource and we are squandering it.
So,
Yes, I, I agree.
Uh, I agree with that a lot.
So the, the bottom line is we, we have people that are getting away with or,
I, I, I don't wanna, you know, dehumanize the people that are
helping, but there are some abusing that system and using it for profit.
So I, I wish that if, if somebody out there listening to this,
they can actually help reach out.
And the best people to find out the ins and outs are people like you,
Adriene, because you've lived it.
And I, I've often witnessed where they have congressional committees
and the wrong people are putting on, are being put on the committees.
We really need to look at that because that's where all of this is
going to be settled is through those committees, and it's gotta be bipartisan,
non-political, and it's gotta be addressing the right issues aimed at
a better life for all those children that have already suffered enough.
That's.
Absolutely, I could not agree with you more.
Yeah, so I wanna say thank you for sharing with us today.
I think this is an important topic and I think that with what you're doing,
the book, all of your podcast speaking, it, it is going to touch people.
So could you let people know how to find your book, get in touch with
you, and get involved with you?
Absolutely, uh, the book will be available on Amazon beginning March 17th, Amazon
and all the, the usual book places.
Um, I'm presently trying to get placed in, in Barnes and Noble, hopefully.
But, um, unbroken caldwell, unbroken caldwell is my website.
It's also my social handle, I'm on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
And for any of the listeners, if you reach out to me through any
of those mediums, I will respond.
And I do see the submission forms from my website, so anyone who
wants to, to get in touch, please, by all means, I, I am open to it.
And I am, my book launch, I am hosting a live stream, so Facebook live stream book
launch on March 17th, 1:00 PM and 7:00 PM.
So just a short reading, some trivia, some author Q and A, and, uh, free stuff.
I'm gonna have some giveaways.
That's always fun and you, you know, that's, that's a good way
to get people involved also.
So I wanna say thank you for being here today, and what you're doing
is very fascinating and very needed.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ed, for having me.
Again, it's a privilege to be here with your audience, with you.
I'm, I'm honored, I'm humbled.
Thank you.
Rain on Houston streets warm like childhood memories, whispered prayers in
tangled sheets, echoes of desperate pleas.
Ink-stained hands trace scars on the page, each line a battle
fought, turning pain to righteous rage, redemption in each thought.
Unbroken, rising from the ash of every fallen dream, words like lanterns
in the dark, a guiding golden beam.
For the wounded, tired, weak who've lost their way back home.
Igniting every spark until the embers start to glow.
Unbroken, stronger than the fall that tried to break your spine,
light that can't be drowned by storms or passing time.
Stitching gold into the seams where all the fractures meet.
Phoenix in our dreams with fire beneath her wings.
Weight
of silence in the August heat, cicadas hum their tune, dawn's gold thread through
broken night arrives a moment too soon.
Pages rustle like autumn leaves, truth laid bare and raw.
Hearts begin to beat again where fear had gripped before.
Oh, the night was long but morning comes with mercy in her hands,
every scar becomes a roadmap to where the healing stands.
Unbroken, rising from the ash of every fallen dream, words
like lanterns in the dark, a
guiding, golden beam.
For the wounded, tired, weak who've lost their way back home, igniting every
spark until the embers start to glow.
Unbroken, stronger than the fall that tried to break your spine,
light that can't be drowned by
storms or passing time.
Stitching gold into the seams where all the fractures meet.
Phoenix in our dreams with fire beneath her wings.
Cracks let the light flood in like rivers after rain, strength was there
all along beneath the bruise and strain.
From shattered pieces mosaics form each shard a story told,
whispered words become a song that turns the lead to gold.
Through the wreckage through the sorrow, you're still standing, see tomorrow.
Unbroken, rising from the ash of every fallen dream, words like lanterns
in the dark, a guiding, golden beam.
For the wounded, tired, weak who've lost their way back home.
Igniting every spark until the embers start to glow.
Unbroken, stronger than the fall that tried to break
your spine, light that can't
be drowned by storms or passing time.
Stitching gold into the seams where all the fractures meet.
Phoenix in our dreams with fire beneath her wings.
Unbroken, like the dawn that paints the eastern sky, begin
again, arms wide open to
the light.
Through fire, flood, and years that tried to steal your name,
unbroken light still burns the same.