So I should start out by saying that my case was an actual abuse case, that was over looked by DHS, and my situation was overlooked by many adults, workers, therapists etc., and does not mean it is necessarily what is best for everyone. So because my story has an eventual happy ending, think about all things at play in your situation before getting human services involved. It is a very long, drawn out, and difficult process. But also very worth it if you are actually unsafe from yourself or others in your home.

My story starts out with a beautiful wonderful mother, who took me trick or treating, paid for tap dancing lessons, and sent me to camp. I had what most would call a good life. My grandparents were very involved since they knew my mother had a history of mental illness, and they just wanted to make sure I was taken care of properly. It wasn’t until my grandfather, my mothers dad passed, that the abuse started. I was 10. It started small, with unusual punishments. Things like 2 weeks grounding for not finishing dinner, or if I was a few minutes late getting home, I wasn’t allowed to watch television for a week. And slowly, she turned into a very angry, bitter woman. Telling me I was a ‘little piece of shit’, and not holding me or telling me she loved me much at all. My grandmother picked up on this, and became the affectionate woman role in my life. She bought me my first training bra, showed me how to braid my hair, and snuggled me at night when I had sleepovers at her house. When she passed, is when the real abuse began. I was 12. My mother told me when in fights, that I was worthless. Undeserving of life. She begged me to kill myself, and on a few occasions gave me knifes to ‘take the burden’ off of her. She told me she didn’t want me anymore, and begged me to run away. I was cunt, bitch, slut, disgusting, anorexic, and whore. One day, I was being ‘extra bad’, and my mother told me that my grandmother gave herself cancer, to die so she didn’t have to be around me anymore. That’s when I self harmed for the first time. I was only 12, and broke a CD, and scratched at my skin. My mother then became psychically abusive, smacking me to the ground, pushing me into the wall. She didn’t hit me hard, and only a few times for whatever reason. She once pissed in my bed, and made me sleep in it because I spilled ranch on her sheets. The emotional abuse, various strange punishments, and random beatings carried on for a year. Then at 13, it became unbearable. It was when I started high school. She said things like she hoped men in my class raped me, that the kids hated me, and that I would get killed on the way home from school. By this time I was severely self harming, probably needing stitches on several occasions. My mother became aware of this, and let me do it. She didn’t care. She didn’t try to stop me. She laughed at it, actually. It was when I took 20 aspirin, thinking I would kill myself with that small amount, that someone became suspicious. The nurses at the hospital called DHS, and the investigation began.

My mother did not hide who she was from them, but denied the severity of her anger. She would yell at the workers when they would ask her how she punished me, how I emotionally was doing, and if she felt she was fit to care for a mentally ill daughter. I kept quiet through the whole process, as I was scared to leave my home. It wasn’t until one afternoon that my mother bruised my cheek and eye with a very hard smack, and I broke down and admitted everything that they removed me from the home. I went to a youth services shelter, and awaited court to determine where I would go. They decided residential treatment. For those who don’t know what that is, it is where underprivileged and abused kids, who need rehabilitating, go to learn how to become normal adults. They are taught life skills, and are in daily therapy to overcome the trauma each faced. I ate there. I slept there. I went to school there. It is there where I started family therapy with my mother. Unsuccessful I should mention. She would cuss, and yell in front of our therapist. She blamed me for everything. Yet begged me to come back home. It was after 4 months in the treatment center, that the courts and my psychiatrist decided I would not be reunited with my mother. They found a foster family for me, and I met them in May, and was in their home in July. I’ve been started supervised visits with my mother. She started to become less abusive, and more manipulative. She would guilt trip me into extra visits, staying longer, calling her when I wasn’t supposed to. She also tried to brainwash me into believing that my foster parents were bad people, and that the system was out to get us. She routinely and said that I had just never gave her a chance to be a good mother. She claimed I was stupid for believing all those things. She was ‘just angry’. I decided to attempt to have a relationship with her. Family therapy, visits. It was only because I matured, that they felt I could handle an unsupervised visit. We began unsupervised visits, and they went well for awhile. But her mind games of course came back. I was hurting her by not visiting enough, or when I started working by not giving her money. She stated I just needed to forgive her, and stop holding a grudge. She was sorry, and I need to get over it because the abuse ‘wasn’t even that bad’. I’m 20, living on my own, and still receive these guilt trips. She is constantly in the emergency room, for things like headaches or stomach aches to gain my sympathy. She continuously wants help with her chores, errands, and appointments and I ‘don’t love her’, if I say no. She tells me she just wants to kill herself, because if I don’t love her, there isn’t a point in living. I have to constantly after 7 years of being removed from her custody, handle her selfish ways. Handle her childish behavior. Take care of her before myself. Every day, I wish when I had the choice to have a no contact order, I’d have taken it. But, I give the shirt off my back to everyone, even my emotionally abusive and manipulative mother. I just pray one day, I have the strength to cut the ties like I should have 7 years ago.