This is a copy/paste of another time I shared here on reddit, under an alternate account that I used for my less-than-fun stories, and emotional support types of subreddits. Never told this story in full, so here's me being kinda brave for the first time, I suppose.
Long, sorry.
So, I was basically being physically and emotionally injured by my mother since before I can remember. People informed me in recent years that I bore bruises and scratches on my arms as soon as I learned how to speak. At age five- I said to my grandmother alone one day:
"You know, I'm a lot older now. Mommy's a monster, and she can't hurt me much longer."
I was wrong about that last bit, but that quote scared the hell out of everybody, yet not enough to do anything.
Nobody noticed bruises, and she was excellent at keeping it that way. On the days that my scratches and bruises were too bad, I was kept at home 'sick.' Several holes in the walls of my home had the uncanny shape of my head. Hell, I didn't know I was treated abnormally until middle school. I knew how badly I wanted to die, but I didn't know that other kids loved their mom. I dreamed of running away, of being an adult, nice and safe, far away. Not that I was able to do anything about it to receive help, for fear of death if she found out I tried.
As if she could telepathically sense my desire to run away in the middle of the night, she drilled it into my young brain that "Children who run away, get sent to kid jail."
For me, I just wanted to survive. I always tried to herd us kids towards survival as well, telling them how to say what she liked to hear, and how to satisfy her to make it another day.
But they liked to have me be beaten just by framing me for anything. I don't get why, even now.
One night, my dad came in after my mother was asleep and asked me what I thought about him getting a divorce from my mother. I was like “Hell, it’s not like I have anything to lose if she kills me for it.” So, we decided to keep it a secret, while the papers went through. He filed, and got it almost all done, and then decided to get us out of the house when he broke the news to her. If I’d been in there when she found out, He took a Pastor from his church, as a witness in case things got bad. (They did.) She began to physically corner both of these grown men, making threats, claiming rape, etc.
After a few weeks, it seemed to sink in to her. The divorce was done. She’d see and get to beat me 50% of the time. (joint custody.) Yet that wasn’t enough- after a few weeks into that new mandatory visitation routine, one day she came to my middle school, and told the front office that I had to be signed out, due to a “family emergency.” When the teacher told me to go get my backpack from my locker and go down to be signed out, my mother told me my Grandfather had had a heart attack. Then she stole my phone, crammed it in her purse, and sped off in the car with me. I was so sure she’d bought a gun to shoot me with like I knew she wanted.
When the rest of the town was frantically searching for me (and my two, very okay-with-this-siblings) after I'd been noticed missing, She hauled me off to a women's shelter, where all of the words out of a woman's mouth are true ones.
Everyone who had been looking for me asked neighbours, and family friends if they’d seem or heard anything. The neighbours all said something to the effect of "Well, Have you check the lake for their bodies yet?"
I was kept at that shelter for a week. All the while I'd been telling shelter staff that I was being kidnapped, and that my mother was doing this for revenge. Nobody believed me. I was just some punkass girl with delusions. My siblings remained silent, until asked if it was true. They told them I was a liar.
Anyway- kept there a week, until my mother had to go take a shower, but left her purse in the closet of our assigned bedroom. Mistake. I wait for the water to run, and lock myself in the closet. I turned on the phone, and called my grandparents. Maybe because it was the first number I saw, I guess. I let them know that I was alive, and what shelter I was in. I hung up, but not quickly enough- because I didn't have time to turn the phone back off when I got caught. This gave my mother enough time to use her Sith mind tricks on the staff, and bolster their drive to "defend us from her murderous rapist ex who would be there soon." Staff take their positions, & alert everybody to lock the doors. (Great. /s )
As expected, my grandparents and father arrive, with a police officer, for mediation and safety. The officer was sent in, because my mother told the staff that my father and grandparents were evil, and couldn't be allowed in under any circumstances. The officer took me into a room, away from my mother, and everybody, while my father and grandparents waited outside.
He asked me a series of questions- did my mother beat me? Yes, she's insane, please let me leave this place. Who do you want to live with, your mother or your father? My dad, he's not violent.
The guy leaves the room, and I follow suit. He chats with a few women, walks out of the shelter, to the family's car, where my grandparents and dad are waiting. I discovered later that he told them that I wanted to live with my mother, and that they had to leave now. He lied to them. And I never found out why, or who this officer was. Cars drove away, and that night, my mother called a friend outside of the shelter. They took us to her home, and planned their next move. The woman who aided in the second kidnapping at the request of my mother, told me
"I bet you didn't think you'd meet someone with as much spunk as you, did you, girl? I'd like to see you try and escape this one. If you get that idea in your head, just remember, it'll go on your permanent criminal record."
I didn't know if that was true or not, but I didn't really give much of a shit. The same night, they threw me in the back of a van, and drove me to a second shelter, in another city.
They maintained that I was delusional, my father was a criminal offender, and my mother was a poor beaten woman. This one was a high-security place, though. 8 foot gates surrounded the shelter.
Then, one night, my mother couldn't keep her good behaviour anymore. I told her that I was going to call the police again, and she started to beat me while my siblings watched. I screamed. A staff member burst into the room and found me cornered and crying, and my mother standing over me about to hurt me again.
This resulted in a "meeting," in private with my mother, and then, they sent me back to her room that night. Yup, yet again, even when they saw it happen- I was still given back to her. I informed a woman in a neighbouring room, that I was going to steal a cellphone or die trying. I know, that might've hurt my chances, but I was like 15, and becoming reckless. But, I saw my chance after a few more days. I stole a phone from the front desk, and called my father this time. I told him my location, and once again, red alert in the shelter. I sat there smugly on the counter, because even if it was gonna be a rinse and repeat of the last time- at least I got to see these women run around like chickens with their heads cut off. My dad wasn't allowed into the gates, so it was a lost cause. But, it turns out, that when your parent removes your from school and society for enough time, it becomes "Parental kidnapping," and you can get in trouble for that. So, she called her lawyer to see what she could do. He told her that she was dangerously close to that deadline, where she'd become an "official," kidnapper. With ONE. DAY. left until she would've had a warrant out for her arrest- she had to let my dad and grandparents come pick me up and take me home.
Even after all that, The law didn't do anything to protect me, even after all of these lies and violence coming from my mother was nearly brought out into the open. The guardian ad litum and the lawyers still demanded that we honour the "mandatory visitations," even though I told them personally, what was happening. So, I had to spend weekends getting the shit kicked out of me, still. Except this time, my siblings were seen as perfect angels, by my mother. The focus was 100% on me now.
I had always dreamed about having called the police, or having ran away from home. But, I never had the courage to until like 2 weeks into these reinforced visitations, I think it was. She shoved my youngest sister down the stairs one day, and I guess I just felt that I had nothing more to lose. There was a fresh mark on her knee, and she was crying. what's the worst that could happen. I calmly called 911, and the mandatory and unsupervised visitations were ended when they led her away in handcuffs, while she bumbled and stuttered about how this was all a big mistake. She never saw the inside of a cell, however. Nope. Not enough evidence, and I was the only one who'd talk about what she'd done to the Guardian ad litum, or the cops. The cops even lied on her behalf on one occasion, I guess maybe they all just backed that one cop up.
I was now supposed to live with my dad, and siblings, even though they really didn't care where they lived. My mother was evicted from the old house, and we moved back in.