“See my calendar?” Chelsea asks. “Everything is different colors. It's motivational. I think the more color you can add in your day, it's really hard to have a bad day.”

Chelsea’s shiny personality bubbles through the Zoom screen. 

“I think one of my strong suits is I always knew how to be optimistic,” she said. “I knew how to be upset alone. I think that's why it was harder to figure out who I was, because I felt like I was just putting on mask after mask.”

Chelsea is currently working two part-time jobs while attending college full-time as a social work student. 

“It's been a rollercoaster,” she said. “I started out believing that I was never going to be good enough for college.” 

Chelsea was homeschooled by her adoptive parents, who chose a G.E.D. as her path to completing high school. 

After high school, Chelsea worked two or three jobs while living at her adoptive parent’s home. She was the oldest of six kids and was given the responsibility to “other mother” her siblings. She would wake up, get her autistic brother ready for the school bus and be at work by 6 a.m. Chelsea worked for a family-owned pool company, and during peak season, she would work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., riding along to each property in the company car with other employees. 

Chelsea said, “I would go to work, come home, and then I would either make dinner or finish dinner depending on the time. My mom would clock out, and I would be in charge of everybody. [I would] make sure the house was clean, and all the chores were done. If they didn't do the chores, I had to do them. Put [the kids] all to bed. Make sure they all had a bath. Then, I would leave to go to another job. It was like I had children, but I didn't have children.” 

“I did all [of this] for three years,” Chelsea continued. “Then there was one day my mom was like, ‘You don't do anything for the family. I think it's best if you find somewhere else to live.’” 

“I paid my parents rent to live there,” Chelsea said, “I didn't have an allowance. I did everything as the older sibling. I paid my own phone bill. I paid my dad for his car. All of that stuff. And then, I got essentially kicked out.”

It was a painful year between when Chelsea was forced to leave her home and when she started college. She stayed with different friends and did a lot of self-examination and exploration.

“I thought by leaving my parents' house, I was going to find who I was, but it made it worse,” Chelsea explained. “I went through my whole life [thinking] my biological mom didn't want me, because if she did, she wouldn't have failed every drug test. And now my adoptive parents don't even want me. So that's two for two. In my head, it created a lot of doubt. Am I really capable of doing something? Am I capable of being loved?”

“My mom and dad have always told me, ‘You're not going to be able to go to college. You're not smart enough for it,’” Chelsea said. “If my parents are saying that, then it's probably true.”

It took the support of her now-husband to change some of the false beliefs that Chelsea has about herself. He convinced Chelsea to go to college, which she attributes to helping her find herself. 

“It really helped, having him as a support system,” Chelsea said. “I've learned to be independent; I've learned to be self-sufficient and rely on myself,” Chelsea said. “It's amazing knowing that I have somebody who cares about me, who wants nothing but the best and to laugh and enjoy life with me. I've had to learn to let him be there. It's the fact of knowing that you don't need help with this, but you should take the help it's offered.”

As a social work major, Chelsea has unlocked layers of healing that she didn’t expect to through her studies.

“I stumbled upon a few articles [on] imposter syndrome,” she said. “And I'm like, ‘Oh wait, that sounds like me in a nutshell.’ I started doing a lot of research on the aftershock of foster care. I'm not a normal person, but I finally felt normal.”

Chelsea also learned more about the policies that had affected her as a child. She understands now why she wasn’t placed in the same foster home as her brother. Chelsea was placed in a home with all girls, so a boy could not be placed there. Her brother was also considered a “leveled” placement, and she was not, which made it more challenging to place them together. 

As part of a foster care placement, the state determines what level of care the child needs – basic, moderate, specialized, etc. These levels are determined by factors such as the child’s behavior, developmental abilities, and medical needs (DFPS - Service Levels for Foster Care, n.d.). Then, a child is placed with a family that has been licensed to foster children at that level.

She also better understood the termination of her parents’ rights as her legal guardians. Her mom had to sign over her rights completely, or else they would have been terminated by the court. But Chelsea’s dad only signed over his rights to her foster family.

“If the family fell through or I got put back in foster care for whatever reason, [my dad] automatically gained his rights back and he could take me,” Chelsea said. “I'm now in contact with my dad, and he's nothing like my mom said. I had to go through feeling like I wasted years of hating him because I didn't know.”

As Chelsea is learning more about herself, she is also learning more about what she wants in a career and in her relationships.

“I always put work first over everything,” Chelsea said. “It didn't matter what was going on. I also felt the need to be 200% better than anybody else, because I felt like I had to prove that I was worthy to have the job and be recognized by anybody.” 

Now she feels more confident in herself and more comfortable setting boundaries. Chelsea identified what boundaries were needed to have a healthy relationship with her adoptive parents, and now they are closer than ever. She also set boundaries at work by communicating her needs for work-life balance. 

While Chelsea is ready to prioritize life outside of work, she values having strong, positive relationships with her colleagues.

“When you work with your friends [in] a family environment, I feel like your job just goes out the roof amazing,” Chelsea said. 

“When my manager or supervisor tells me I'm doing a good job, that means more to me than anything else,” Chelsea continued. “I think I perform better knowing that my manager and I are on the same page and that we genuinely care about each other, because I care about people.”

When Chelsea got into a car accident, her manager told her to rest and to not come into work that week.

“Hearing her say that was big,” Chelsea said, “because I'm constantly feeling guilty [that] I should have been there or I should have done that. She genuinely cared about me.”

The next big step for Chelsea’s career is to graduate with her bachelor’s degree this spring. 

“I'm really excited to graduate,” Chelsea said. “When I graduated high school, we never made a big deal about it. I didn't have graduation pictures. I didn't have a graduation party, none of that. So, my husband has been like, ‘You're going to celebrate. We're gonna go really big.’” 

Chelsea’s husband is good at going big to make celebrations as fun and colorful as Chelsea.

“[For my birthday], he made a paint slip-and-slide,” Chelsea said. “When I saw it, I almost cried. He bought white shirts for all of us. We put paint all over this huge tarp with some water. We went slip-and-slide in paint, and it was the best thing ever.” 

Chelsea knows that her graduation is worth celebrating, and she knows that she has or can find the support she needs to reach her goals.  

“For me, I feel like [graduating] is a real accomplishment,” Chelsea said. “I've gotten here. I've had people behind me, but I'm able to finish something that's big like this and beat all the odds.”

“I've had important people in my life say you're not gonna amount to anything,” Chelsea continued. “And I'm showing everybody that I'm made for more. Because I know that I am. I think everybody is made for more, even if that means you need to be your own support system until you can find people to get in your corner.”

“I could have given up a long time ago, when college wasn't working out,” she continued. “Instead, I sought help. When I finally listened to my advisor and did what she recommended, then I started succeeding. But I had to take off my know-it-all cap and put on my teachable hat. I try to find one good thing in a day. And if it's a bad day, then I try to find multiple things that went right. Whether that be [that] I took a shower today, or I got to work 10 minutes early or I made somebody smile.”

Chelsea’s final advice:

“Don't take life too seriously,” she said. “You gotta have fun. You have to get an ice cream cone sometimes at three o'clock in the afternoon. Live a little bit.”

And Chelsea is planning to do just that, as little by little, she accepts that she deserves to celebrate, to eat ice cream, and to get back some of the sparkle and happiness that she puts into the world.