Runaway Testimonial

(Posted by Eva, '12)

Here is another story that I wrote based off of a call I received:
I have been living since my grandmother since I was two years old. I am now seventeen. Life at my grandma’s isn’t easy. She’s taken care of seven other kids on no money, there are bills to be paid and we can’t pay them, and I think they are going to start cutting off utilities. So when I heard that my mom was out of jail and had settled down, I decided to go and live with her. I didn’t discuss this with my grandmother, I just decided to go. I used all of the money I had saved to get a bus ticket (my grandmother and my mom live across the country from each other). Things seemed to be going pretty well at my mom’s house. She had married and my step-dad seemed like an ok guy. But then I made the decision to come out to my mom. I had been out back at my grandma’s and wanted to be out here too. My mom seemed to take the news ok and it looked like things were going to work out. But then my step-dad started yelling at me, calling me “fag” and the like. I could deal with the verbal abuse, but when he started to hit me I had to leave. I lived on the streets for over a week. I couldn’t go back to my mom’s house because my step-dad was there and I didn’t have any money to get back to my grandma’s. I finally ended up in a Greyhound station where I saw a poster for the National Runaway Switchboard. I called 1-800-RUNAWAY and after talking with them they helped me get a free ticket back to my grandma’s house. I learned something from running away: even if life at my grandmother’s is hard, at least she loves and accepts me and at least it is a place where I feel safe.