(The Author is back from the dead.)
Hello.
I'm a fifteen-year-old that's been having a bit of trouble with my father and stepmother recently. For the past five years, my stepmother has been verbally abusive and in some cases physically abusive. However, I've never really been able to get proof of this until recently. I've dealt with the DHS, CPS, and the police on several occasions and I've also been to a group home for fifteen days as well as JAG.
Last summer, I visited my mother, who I hadn't seen for about ten years previously, and things were really smooth and everything was great. We had a good time, and the only thing we really had disagreements or arguments about were subjects like civil rights, gaming, etc. The trip that was originally just going to be for the summer ended up extending until early December, when I flew back to my father and stepmother, where things immediately started going downhill.
My stepmother's been trying to claim I tried to kill her then-unborn child at one point, they've been trying to put me in mental hospitals, and overall they've been blaming me for just about everything that goes wrong in the family, when they're the ones being abusive and aggressive, both verbally and physically. There were a couple times where I'd be beaten and I'd have a few marks left over, but I've never had a phone or camera to take pictures with, and my stepmother put me in online school so I don't really have any friends I can go to for pics. Even then, I just felt overall bad about it, as I didn't want to crush my parents like that, I really just wanted to get away from them and live with my mother (who lives out of state).
Eventually, I had enough of this. I had been contacting my mother for months at that point, just to chat about things. I ended up telling her at one point about my problems with my folks here, and she's been working on petitioning for custody for several months now, trying to gather as much legal advice/information as she can. At one point I contacted her about some markings I had on me, feeling a bit hopeless because I didn't have a camera. She said she could talk to a friend who lives in the area, which she did, and said friend was able to take pictures of the injuries and email them to both my mother and myself. A day later (or later that day; one of the two) my parents kicked me out then called the police on me for running away, yet they had given me the address to a youth shelter, where I lived for fifteen days (great times, I tell you). You see, I had also stolen one of my father's thumb drives to put the pictures on, which I took with me, as well as a scrap of paper with my mother's number, another scrap of paper with the youth shelter's address, a scrap of paper with the directions to the address, and a hair tie. It was about ten o' clock at night when I was kicked out, I ended up getting lost, so I slept in an alley (or tried to; it was cold). The next day, I retraced my steps and went the right direction, and ended up at the administration building by about 5 PM, bright red from being sunburnt. They drove me to a youth shelter, and the next day, the police came and asked me some questions. I told them everything. There was a bit of confusion as to whether I 'ran away' or got 'kicked out', I gave them the thumb drive, and they took pictures of their own. My mother had already reported the incident to CPS, and another CPS report was filed.
Anyway, ever since I got back, my parents have been trying to claim that I did the injuries to myself, saying that they weren't there that morning. They were, and by the time the pictures were taken (3 PM), the wounds were noticably healing. My parents found out who took the pictures, did some research on them, and called the police on them, saying that they were the one that inflicted the injury. They've also pressed charges on my mother, from what I hear, for 'plotting against them'. They've also been trying to convince me that my mother hates me, that she abandoned me, and that she tries to cheat her way out of child support, when I know for a fact my mother has been trying to pay child support, she's just been having some issues, with neither of the parties living in the state that child support is going through. My grandmother has also tried to get into the situation, but due to some misunderstanding, manipulation (on my grandmother's side; shame), and a really bad joke, she's been cut out of my life, with plenty of legal threats against her. Since CPS has been involved recently (funny, my stepmother tried to call CPS on me at one point), my father and stepmother have been avoiding answering the door or their phones, purposely trying to avoid CPS.
So what should I do? My father and stepmother are claiming I'm the problem (and their word is always heard over mine), my mother is out of state, and CPS is being ignored (not to mention most of CPS are just money-hungry child-snatchers anyway; not saying they all are, but a good amount). Any advice?
Thanks in advance,
Jaxom
tl;dr my father and stepmother have been verbally/physically abusing me, saying I do it to myself, and cutting out anyone who claims otherwise, including my mother, who wants to petition for custody of me. What should I do?