Help???

[Mei-chan]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

 

[Mei-chan]

Hello,

I don't want to give you a sob story but I don't want to leave anything else out as well.

First off, when I was five years old, my mother died and I had to go live with my father for 9 months. In those nine months I was starved, beaten, molested and much more horrors. After those nine months, my grandparents gained custody of me and my older brother.

Things were okay at first until I reached the age of ten. My grandpa grew sicker and sicker and my grandma grew crazier. She was sweet and considerate when I first came to live with her, but over the years is seems as though she is bipolar or has split personality disorder. She constantly picks fights with me and enjoys setting up situations where she could punish me. She lives on superiority and drama. We've fought several times over the years and especially about my sexual orientation. She's grounded me and threatened me, even going as far as to tell me that I'd be raped and killed if I didn't stop with my "gay talk". I am bisexual by the way, not sure if that's of any importance.

When I became a freshman in high school, I became very suicidal. She thrived on my depression until the school got involved and forced her to have enrolled in therapy.

After about six months of therapy, my grandma forced me to unenroll myself. (By this time I was a sophomore and had a boyfriend). My grandma on several occasions threatened to have a restraining order placed against him so that I wouldn't be allowed to see him. I'm not allowed to leave the house besides to go to school. I'm not allowed to have friends, learn to drive, get a job and so on. During my sophomore year, after a threat of my safety, I called the DCFS and got them involved. They told me my options were to live with my mentally/emotionally/verbally abusive grandma, to live with my alcoholic/drug addict/physically abusive father or be put in foster care to experience more horrors.

I gave in and decided to stay where I was. My junior year came around and my grandfather died. My grandma grew more senile and my uncle who lives with us became violent and has made threats to hit me and even kill me, and told me if I were ever to get pregnant, that he'd beat me to induce abortion.

And here I am, 17 years old and 5 months. I live in a town with fewer than 2000 people, and our one and only police department is only open one day a week, and we only have one police officer. I've called several times on the nonemergency hotline in order to get some answers but they never pick up. I've been told once a year ago by my guidance counselor at school that the police wouldn't force me to go home if I chose to leave, but that was in a different county, not my county as I go to school in a different town. My want to know my options for where I live or if at my current age if I could just leave under certain circumstances.

There is also a slim chance I could be pregnant at the moment and I haven't felt safe in my home for years and the feeling is increasing. Once again, I'm 17 years old and 5 months, and I live in Madison county IL. Can I or can't I leave home without being forced back into it?

 

[justalayman]

You omitted the state you live in. Without that there can be no answers that mean much.



Never mind. I see you wrote illinois in the last paragraph. I stopped reading long before i reached that the first time, since you hadn't posted your state where the question was originally posed to you.


Anyway, you are a minor until you reach the age of 18. You can be forced to return home if you runaway before your 18th birthday. Whether the police wil be aggressive or not given your age is not something that can be answered.


Is there some reason you have not reported the uncles actions to the police or contacted child protective services?

 

[eerelations]

And foster care isn't always a horrorshow. While I have certainly heard/read a few horror stories, I have also heard/read some good foster care stories. In fact, I had two friends in high school who were foster kids and their experiences were quite positive. (One actually got along absolutely GREAT with her foster Mom and considered her to be her BFF and confidant - I wouldn't be at all surprised if I learned the two of them still spend a lot of time together - and the other got along with her foster Mom fairly well but had some fights with her - usually over pretty minor stuff, like the state of her room - often pretty execrable - and staying out past curfew etc.)

And later in life I had a coworker whose mother (bio) took in abused/molested/drug addicted foster babies/newborns and rehabbed them so they were adoptable. Bet those now-adult babies are real happy they were in foster care at one point in their lives!

So you never know, foster care might have been a good choice for you.

 

[LdiJ]

And foster care isn't always a horrorshow. While I have certainly heard/read a few horror stories, I have also heard/read some good foster care stories. In fact, I had two friends in high school who were foster kids and their experiences were quite positive. (One actually got along absolutely GREAT with her foster Mom and considered her to be her BFF and confidant - I wouldn't be at all surprised if I learned the two of them still spend a lot of time together - and the other got along with her foster Mom fairly well but had some fights with her - usually over pretty minor stuff, like the state of her room - often pretty execrable - and staying out past curfew etc.)

And later in life I had a coworker whose mother (bio) took in abused/molested/drug addicted foster babies/newborns and rehabbed them so they were adoptable. Bet those now-adult babies are real happy they were in foster care at one point in their lives!

So you never know, foster care might have been a good choice for you.

And still might be for the time you have left until age 18.

 

[eerelations]

And still might be for the time you have left until age 18.

Agree. A good place to stay with some nice people? Always excellent, even if only for a short time.