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T
I'm so sorry you're going through this, Natania! I know at your age (FINALLY, thank you, LORD! it is getting better) but at your age I was really stormy and I felt similar about my mom. In my case it was completely ill-founded. In your case, you probably have some right to be asking advice. Anyway, everything seems so much harder as a teen 
. I hope you get your situation resolved, or are given the strength to bear with it. God bless you!
. I hope you get your situation resolved, or are given the strength to bear with it. God bless you!
T
I'm so sorry you're going through this, Natania! I know at your age (FINALLY, thank you, LORD! it is getting better) but at your age I was really stormy and I felt similar about my mom. In my case it was completely ill-founded. In your case, you probably have some right to be asking advice. Anyway, everything seems so much harder as a teen . I hope you get your situation resolved, or are given the strength to bear with it. God bless you!
. I hope you get your situation resolved, or are given the strength to bear with it. God bless you!
GBU too
D
Sweetie, we never break. We may bend and sway under our heavy loads, but we never break. We just short out sometimes..lol.. Luckily Jesus can fix us, no matter how many times we need it. Like Demi said, you're too awesome for anyone to hate. Your step mom is probably just jealous because you're put together better than she is.. lol
Like Demi said, you're too awesome for anyone to hate. Your step mom is probably just jealous because you're put together better than she is.. lol
Sorry, Temp. Not discouragement. Just wanted you to know it does happen, but even after that fixing happens.
I've broke about five times so far, and can't guarantee it won't happen again. Hubby's broke more often, and he is in fixing stage now. Broke isn't the end. It's more like falling off the end of our rope, spiraling head first, and then God grabs us. Then he reminds us it was never our ability to hold onto that rope. It's his rope keeping us attached to him. We're not crashing. Or we are. (I can't quite explain it, but since you're in that spot, at least I know you know and sense what I mean.) We're being put in a position where we have absolutely no choice but to rely on him.
(I'm going back to finish this thread. I've got some background in Children's Services, so I get why you absolutely do NOT want to go that way either. I'm working on some ideas of other choices, but have to read to make sure I'm not missing anything. Such as, I didn't know you've gone through FOUR useless parents/parent figures, until now. And yeah, they are useless. It's not you. It's them. And worse yet, the useless ones were the best you got. A couple of them were worse than useless. Useless would have been an improvement.)
D
Okay, so. Gonna throw out ideas to you, and see if any of them are acceptable to you. If not, I still have my drawing board. (As in "back to the drawing board.") So, if none are, don't worry. BUT if any sound like a mere "maybe," let's try and see what is needed, (wanted is going to be a really long stretch, so this might just be needed for now.)
1. You have a 22 year old brother who doesn't live nearby? How is he doing physically, emotionally, and financially? I get emotionally he's probably still going through changes himself, since it sounds like you were born in the middle of this trainwreck, (your parents plus two steps and kids of all ages says your family's structure is a trainwreck, not that everyone in it is), but is he holding his own? Does he have enough still intact to pass on love to others? And the only way you can tell from your advantage is to know how his life is going. If he can't keep a girlfriend for more than 2-4 months, he's not going to be able to help you. If he has no girlfriends, no close friends, and keeps to himself, he's not going to be able to help. If he jumps into a bed and jumps out into another, he can't help you. If he is an addict, he can't help you. If he can't keep a job for more than a few months and maybe up to almost a year, he can't help you. So, judging from what you know of his life, is he stable?
Do NOT confuse those questions with "can he financially care for you and all the other siblings." At 22, no, he can't, unless he's that one in five million and started some company like FaceBook, Amazon, or Jet.com, of course he can't financially take care of you all. That's not the question. Can he emotionally take care of you all? Because, honestly? The finances can can get help through family services, and you can kick in a bit, plus other options, so I'm not worried about the financial aspect yet. Just the emotional aspect.
Emotionally -- can he? Would he be willing to, if he thought there was a financially way to pull it off? And no judgement on him if he's not. I've got five siblings and know none of them helped when we needed it. We're either in a financial or emotional place where we just couldn't take in one another, and the youngest in my family is 30, so less likely when the oldest is only 22.
2. If not him, any sane relatives? Five out of six kids in my family became druggies, but that means one didn't. One sane member. (T'ain't me. lol) You can't look much at siblings, (since you only have one at legal age), but how about your biological parents' siblings? (Steps don't have to, and once the real parent is out of their lives, they usually don't want to either.) How far does the uselessness run in their families? Any useful people? Grandparents? Great aunts and great uncles? Many people aren't willing to take in adult family members when all hell breaks loose, but they are willing to take in the kids.
You're asking a whole lot to get someone to take in all you kids though. When Mom left Dad and then got cancer, her brother took us in. My little brother and I went with Mom's baby brother, (who was also in his 40's at the time, with four kids of his own, three teens, and his in-laws living in an apartment at one end of their house that was designed specifically for them to live there, and also the biggest of his siblings, so "little brother" was an amusing name he got stuck with.) My older brother and Mom stayed with Mom's Mom. We didn't live in the same house, but we lived within walking distance, so we stayed together after school and then my little brother and I went home to Uncle's house. Yeah, it would have been nice to live together, but sometimes that's not doable. I'm hoping you have relatives that can take in some but live close enough to each other it's like being together. Do you have any sane family to live with?
3. Church! You go. You don't merely know the pastor, he knows you and you know him. He's like an uncle to you. (He's probably the closest thing you have to a father.) He's got contacts. He knows most of the congregation. Why aren't you asking him for help? (Serious question, not an adult finger-wage saying you should.)
Most of the churches I have belonged to would take this seriously, and would find a way to bring you all out of the hellhole you live in. (And I apologize if anyone thinks I'm cursing, but she lives in a hellhole. If you got a more PC word for what she lives in, please let me know. Because that's the only word that fits the circumstances. And, judging from her background, I have no doubt that word is mild compared to the other words she has been taught and knows.) I went to a church with about 75 people in it, including the children. And, out of all those children, 20% of them were adopted from other nations because people put action into their words. It's hard to adopt American kids because Americans who don't want kids usually kill their kids before they're born. so these people went out of their way to find unwanted kids. It looked like a mini UN there were so many varieties of kids. And, even after that, you still couldn't tell which child belonged with which family, because they kept taking in other unwanted kids. So-and-so wouldn't take care of his/her children because of drug addiction, so these people took the brothers in. The one who took them in freaked when she spotted one of the boys walking around the top of the silo, so another family took him in and kept the two brothers in contact with each other. One woman had no idea that her mother wasn't her mother until she was 20. Her mother was her grandmother. Her biological mother/oldest sister got pregnant when she was 15, and rather than have the baby grow up poor, Grandma put the teen into rehab and when rehab didn't help, she raised the baby as her ninth child. (She wasn't even the youngest in the family. lol)
Church people put their beliefs into action. I strongly suspect if you gave your pastor authority to work at placing you and your siblings into a loving Christian home, he could. No adoption required. And lawyers instead of Family Services. This may well mean you and your siblings get divided, but quite often it's 2-3 kids per family placement, and you're all in the same church, so not like you're taken away. Add Bible Study/Home Meeting night, and that's twice a week minimum. Get placed in a good family and they have siblings over for dinner, the weekend, birthdays, holidays, etc. (One family gets them one weekend while another family gets them the next weekend.) I lived with my uncle for 10 months. Mom died. I and my little brother went back with Dad. My brother chose to live on his own. I was 15 when I moved in with my uncle's family. Barely 16 when I left. It is fond memories mixed in with all the obvious negative emotions, but hey. I'm still here. That was merely first break that God had to fix me up afterwards from.
You are 14. And you are right. This is only temporary. 2-4 years isn't quite as far as it seems, and if you let someone help you, then it won't be half as long as it feels each and everyday you have to go through what you're going through now.
I get it. You want to take care of your siblings. At 14, you cannot financially do that, so you'll need to find better ways of taking care of them. Placing you and them in a better environment IS taking care of them and you.
I've given three suggestions. I already have a fourth, if none of those work. But why keep going, if one of those might work for you?
Can you take any of them? And, if you do, can you live with yourself better? You only get to be a teenager once in life. You've got more on your plate than most, but accept help and some of that burden is taken off your shoulders. Better yet, you and your siblings have a shot of a more peaceful life. T'ain't winning the lottery and buying the mansion, like I'm sure you wish you could do. But, it is realistic and won't break you.
We do break. The best way to handle that is to avoid it when possible. Breaking hurts. A lot! Even worse than you feel now.
So, any of those three choices a realistic option?
1. You have a 22 year old brother who doesn't live nearby? How is he doing physically, emotionally, and financially? I get emotionally he's probably still going through changes himself, since it sounds like you were born in the middle of this trainwreck, (your parents plus two steps and kids of all ages says your family's structure is a trainwreck, not that everyone in it is), but is he holding his own? Does he have enough still intact to pass on love to others? And the only way you can tell from your advantage is to know how his life is going. If he can't keep a girlfriend for more than 2-4 months, he's not going to be able to help you. If he has no girlfriends, no close friends, and keeps to himself, he's not going to be able to help. If he jumps into a bed and jumps out into another, he can't help you. If he is an addict, he can't help you. If he can't keep a job for more than a few months and maybe up to almost a year, he can't help you. So, judging from what you know of his life, is he stable?
Do NOT confuse those questions with "can he financially care for you and all the other siblings." At 22, no, he can't, unless he's that one in five million and started some company like FaceBook, Amazon, or Jet.com, of course he can't financially take care of you all. That's not the question. Can he emotionally take care of you all? Because, honestly? The finances can can get help through family services, and you can kick in a bit, plus other options, so I'm not worried about the financial aspect yet. Just the emotional aspect.
Emotionally -- can he? Would he be willing to, if he thought there was a financially way to pull it off? And no judgement on him if he's not. I've got five siblings and know none of them helped when we needed it. We're either in a financial or emotional place where we just couldn't take in one another, and the youngest in my family is 30, so less likely when the oldest is only 22.
2. If not him, any sane relatives? Five out of six kids in my family became druggies, but that means one didn't. One sane member. (T'ain't me. lol) You can't look much at siblings, (since you only have one at legal age), but how about your biological parents' siblings? (Steps don't have to, and once the real parent is out of their lives, they usually don't want to either.) How far does the uselessness run in their families? Any useful people? Grandparents? Great aunts and great uncles? Many people aren't willing to take in adult family members when all hell breaks loose, but they are willing to take in the kids.
You're asking a whole lot to get someone to take in all you kids though. When Mom left Dad and then got cancer, her brother took us in. My little brother and I went with Mom's baby brother, (who was also in his 40's at the time, with four kids of his own, three teens, and his in-laws living in an apartment at one end of their house that was designed specifically for them to live there, and also the biggest of his siblings, so "little brother" was an amusing name he got stuck with.) My older brother and Mom stayed with Mom's Mom. We didn't live in the same house, but we lived within walking distance, so we stayed together after school and then my little brother and I went home to Uncle's house. Yeah, it would have been nice to live together, but sometimes that's not doable. I'm hoping you have relatives that can take in some but live close enough to each other it's like being together. Do you have any sane family to live with?
3. Church! You go. You don't merely know the pastor, he knows you and you know him. He's like an uncle to you. (He's probably the closest thing you have to a father.) He's got contacts. He knows most of the congregation. Why aren't you asking him for help? (Serious question, not an adult finger-wage saying you should.)
Most of the churches I have belonged to would take this seriously, and would find a way to bring you all out of the hellhole you live in. (And I apologize if anyone thinks I'm cursing, but she lives in a hellhole. If you got a more PC word for what she lives in, please let me know. Because that's the only word that fits the circumstances. And, judging from her background, I have no doubt that word is mild compared to the other words she has been taught and knows.) I went to a church with about 75 people in it, including the children. And, out of all those children, 20% of them were adopted from other nations because people put action into their words. It's hard to adopt American kids because Americans who don't want kids usually kill their kids before they're born. so these people went out of their way to find unwanted kids. It looked like a mini UN there were so many varieties of kids. And, even after that, you still couldn't tell which child belonged with which family, because they kept taking in other unwanted kids. So-and-so wouldn't take care of his/her children because of drug addiction, so these people took the brothers in. The one who took them in freaked when she spotted one of the boys walking around the top of the silo, so another family took him in and kept the two brothers in contact with each other. One woman had no idea that her mother wasn't her mother until she was 20. Her mother was her grandmother. Her biological mother/oldest sister got pregnant when she was 15, and rather than have the baby grow up poor, Grandma put the teen into rehab and when rehab didn't help, she raised the baby as her ninth child. (She wasn't even the youngest in the family. lol)
Church people put their beliefs into action. I strongly suspect if you gave your pastor authority to work at placing you and your siblings into a loving Christian home, he could. No adoption required. And lawyers instead of Family Services. This may well mean you and your siblings get divided, but quite often it's 2-3 kids per family placement, and you're all in the same church, so not like you're taken away. Add Bible Study/Home Meeting night, and that's twice a week minimum. Get placed in a good family and they have siblings over for dinner, the weekend, birthdays, holidays, etc. (One family gets them one weekend while another family gets them the next weekend.) I lived with my uncle for 10 months. Mom died. I and my little brother went back with Dad. My brother chose to live on his own. I was 15 when I moved in with my uncle's family. Barely 16 when I left. It is fond memories mixed in with all the obvious negative emotions, but hey. I'm still here. That was merely first break that God had to fix me up afterwards from.
You are 14. And you are right. This is only temporary. 2-4 years isn't quite as far as it seems, and if you let someone help you, then it won't be half as long as it feels each and everyday you have to go through what you're going through now.
I get it. You want to take care of your siblings. At 14, you cannot financially do that, so you'll need to find better ways of taking care of them. Placing you and them in a better environment IS taking care of them and you.
I've given three suggestions. I already have a fourth, if none of those work. But why keep going, if one of those might work for you?
Can you take any of them? And, if you do, can you live with yourself better? You only get to be a teenager once in life. You've got more on your plate than most, but accept help and some of that burden is taken off your shoulders. Better yet, you and your siblings have a shot of a more peaceful life. T'ain't winning the lottery and buying the mansion, like I'm sure you wish you could do. But, it is realistic and won't break you.
We do break. The best way to handle that is to avoid it when possible. Breaking hurts. A lot! Even worse than you feel now.
So, any of those three choices a realistic option?
T
1.
22 year old sister*
And no she is in rehab right now
(Last that I heard, we aren't aloud to talk about her)
2.
I've tried
My oma is too poor to let us loge with her (that's what she says)
I'm not aloud to neither are my siblings to have any contact with my father's side of the family
And my opa died
My step grandpa is said he will pass in a few months
My step grandmother has passed
Aunts and Uncles just aren't at all willing (they already have to many kids)
Sorry..........
I know I'm difficult >. <
3.
Well, I haven't gone in a while and he's on a mission trip so I can't email him.
Also, I'm scared that if I tell him and my guardians find out and nothing happens or it takes a while for things to happen I get busted for 1. Being a Christian
2. Going to church
And 3. Telling on them
Plus I'm not sure who is willing to take so many children and I'm not leaving my siblings.......
22 year old sister*
And no she is in rehab right now
(Last that I heard, we aren't aloud to talk about her)
2.
I've tried
My oma is too poor to let us loge with her (that's what she says)
I'm not aloud to neither are my siblings to have any contact with my father's side of the family
And my opa died
My step grandpa is said he will pass in a few months
My step grandmother has passed
Aunts and Uncles just aren't at all willing (they already have to many kids)
Sorry..........
I know I'm difficult >. <
3.
Well, I haven't gone in a while and he's on a mission trip so I can't email him.
Also, I'm scared that if I tell him and my guardians find out and nothing happens or it takes a while for things to happen I get busted for 1. Being a Christian
2. Going to church
And 3. Telling on them
Plus I'm not sure who is willing to take so many children and I'm not leaving my siblings.......
You can get involved during a week, too... to help with young groups programs etc... I dont know what is your church like, so this are only my thoughts.
You can also move from home because of study on a distant college, I think?
Be patient, its only few years from now...as wisebeardman said, good plan about your future will help you.
You can also move from home because of study on a distant college, I think?
Be patient, its only few years from now...as wisebeardman said, good plan about your future will help you.