I can remember what it was like being a teen without two parents or even one around all the time. I had to grow up on my own and often people and other teen agers with two or one parent around to guide me and my sisters was really rough. Even counselors who came from really nice secure families as teens could not relate to me. I was one of those teens who were labled as a bad teenager when in all actuality as God has pointed out to me I just had bad problems that many teens, teachers, and counselors never experienced at my school. If they had they would have seen the bruises on my body from either parent who had raised me as a child or a teenager. My mother had drug problems that were given to her by a psychiatrist who thought the answer to everything was in a pill and my father had a problem with dealing with stress he learned from his father who had a problem dealing with life and used alcohol to help him cope.

      I was singled out, abused, used, talked ugly about, lied about, and treated badly by everyone because I never told anyone what was going on at home. My group of teenagers who have to deal with physical, mental and emotional use are much more likely to drop out of school, run away, commit suicide, have drug/alcohol problems, have aggressive behavior and/or mental or emotional problems because no one can relate to them and only call us bad children and teenagers...not children and teenagers who have bad problems or help them because they have never been there. This is what I have to say to those of you who are suffering and experiencing what I experienced.

      You can choose to tell someone, seek out help, stop hiding what is going on at home because what is being done to you or shown to you is not love or even caring because your parents have too many problems or had too many to understand what love really is. If you cope and make it it will get better as long as you keep on trying and do not give up. It is your choice to not go from being the victim to the victimizer. It is your choice to learn on your own or with help what love and caring really is. This world is not easy but the choices you make can just make it that much harder and worse for you. I have been on both sides. Though I did not enjoy being abused I have learned that I prefer to be abused than to be the abuser in a relationship that I got into with a guy. I finally got smart found some friends who helped me get away from that sick individual and I like that the best. It is really difficult to understand when the people who are suppose to teach you what love is only teach you what hate and abuse is because their lives were so warped also. But I learned I am not a bad person, I am not insane to be unhappy because of what is being done to me, I am not an ugly person because of what has been done to me...and the people who chose to ignore the bruises on my body when I went to school and labled me as a bad person were actually the people with real problems. I have as a substitute teacher/daycare worker helped more than one child who was abused even if it meant I had to turn in some adult who was the abuser.

     Just because someone is in a position of authority does not give them the right to treat any young person wrong...It is against the law and if they were being right they would have no reason to hurt or abuse a young person be it adult, teacher, student, child, peers, boyfriend or girlfriend. Remember whatever you seen done to another person that person will eventually do to you. A person I knew stole from someone else and eventually stole from me. A person I knew who picked on someone else eventually did it to me. No one needs to associate with someone like that nor condone that behavior either because it only reinforces such behaviors. It is your choice you can walk away, run away, tell on whomever or be the fool like they are and be a part of the abuse. Even though often I did not want to do anything because I knew how abusive uncaring people tend to stick together and I would be the odd person out I had to be able to live with myself and sleep at night and my conscience bothered me too much to not do that. So I guess I should be glad I have the experience to be able to say hey this child who has been burnt with cigarettes by his parent need help when other adults were too afraid to do anything or did not know enough to care but became a part of the abuse cycle for this child because he was acting out/acting up because of the abuse he was subjected to.

     Stop a minute and think if something seems wrong do like the other teenagers did when I turned in a girl to the office for throwing a desk at me. Her friends when she left for the office told me they were afraid her parents would beat her at home. I was so concerned about keeping order in the class and keeping her from hurting anyone else I had not conciously recognized the bruises on her arm from where her parent had grabbed her and beaten her probably the night before. But after they brought this to my attention I made sure to tell the counselor at that school. If anyone is ever being hurt be sure to make someone who can make a difference aware of it..and keep trying until you find the right person to help.

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