by Hope-Lynn
(Ohio)
Hi, my name is Hope-Lynn. I am 15 years old, and I am in foster care. The reason I'm in foster care is because I was being abused by my birth mother's boyfriend and her. When I was 4 and ½ my birth mother accused my birth father of molesting me. After that accusation, my younger brother, 2 and 1/2 at the time and I went into foster care. My birth mother had to find another place for her and my younger brother and me to all live. My brother and I were in foster care for 2 and 1/2 years before she got us back. I remember her telling me one time that if my brother and I both got taken away then she wouldn't get us back at all. After we lived with my Nana, my birth mother found a friend and her name was Candy. She had 3 kids of her own. At about the age of 7and 1/2, my mother, my brother, and myself all moved into Candy's house next to her adopted dad, who soon became my mother’s boyfriend. After about 2 years or so, my Aunt Candy's house was no longer a safe house, and we had to move out. The house had mice, rats, cock roaches, and things like that. We (aunt candy, her 3 kids, my mother, my brother, and I) eventually moved in with Dave (Candy's adopted dad). Candy and her 3 kids eventually moved away to North Carolina. Within that first year that they moved out, Dave decided to have a little thing called PT- it stood for Play Time, and this "Play Time" was not your typical "Play Time." What happened in the "Play Time" was that him and me would do sexual things, my younger brother and my mother, my mother and Dave, My younger brother and me, my mother and me. I was about 8 or 9 at the time when it started. At the age of 10, I became very violent and angry towards others. I went to juvenile detention at the age of 10 from domestic violence towards family. I then went into foster care, and from foster care into Berea Children's Home for 9 months, and from there into an all girl's group home in New Philadelphia for about 5 months, and then in March 2010 I went back home with my mother, my brother, and Dave. My mother worked a lot at this point, and within the first 6 months I was back home, while my mother was at work, and my brother was either in bed or off doing something else, Dave started the "Play Time" again. My mother knew what was going on, cause sometimes on her off days, she was involved, and didn't do anything about it. I was also in counseling with someone who came to my house every week. I wasn't able to tell her what was going on because there were cameras in the room where we would talk or they (mother n Dave) were in the room. My mother and I are kind of alike. You look at her, then at me and you see that I'm her child. I look like her in the face. My mother liked to beat on me physically and emotionally. Dave’s abuse was sexually, and emotionally, and sometimes physically. Dave did hit my brother a couple of times when I wasn't around, and he tried to keep me and my brother away from each other, but my brother and I always talked. On June 12, 2013, I had just gotten back from the gas station at about 7:59 pm, and my brother was already asleep in his room. So Dave and I went to go get him some cigarettes. When we got back home I asked him if I could go down the street to visit my friends, he said yes, be back at 8:30. I didn't have a phone or a watch, so I wouldn't know what time it would be. After visiting my friends, I went and talked to my neighbor JoJo, and as we were talking, she brought up the sexual abuse topic, and she told me that everyone on the block knew what he was doing to me, but they couldn't do anything without me telling them the truth. Since she already knew what was happening. I couldn't keep a secret from her any longer. After talking to her, I went over and saw my other neighbor Miss. Connie. I told her the truth and she started crying and said that she wish that she had knew earlier and that I shouldn't of had to go through that for 3 years, but I told her why I went through it for 3 years, I was protecting my brother and my mom, cause Dave said that if I told anyone then he would kill my brother and hurt my mom, then he was coming after me. After I was done talking to Miss. Connie, I went back inside, and he heard me come in and asked, where have you been I told you to be back by 8:30 and its 8:45, and I said, "How am I supposed to know the time, I don’t have a watch or a phone." Well I went upstairs after that, and I didn't know that he had texted my birth dad (I went with my birth dad every other weekend). The next morning Dave had a doctor appt. and my brother and I had to go with him because there was no school that day. It was June 13, 2013. When we came back from the doctor's there was a detective and a social worker from Stark County Children's Services. They wanted to talk with Dave and so my brother and I went up to our rooms. After a while my Dave came up to use the bathroom, and he knocked on my bedroom door first and told me that they were going to ask me n my brother questions about abuse and sexual abuse and not to say anything about abuse, and when he went into the bathroom, I said to myself, "Dave, I don't care what you say, what you have been doing to me, ends today!" At about 11:35 i heard my mother and she was crying and throwing a fit like a 2-year-old.My neighbor, Mrs. G came over and took my brother and I back over to her house. At about 11:55, my mother and Dave came over before Mrs. G took us to Children's Network for interviews. At 12:00 my brother, me and Mrs. G left her house and headed to Children's Network. When we got there, they interviewed me first then my brother. Mrs. G had to leave at 1 because she had a dr. appointment and the county worker that was there, got Mrs. G's number in case that she didn't need to come back. My brother and I were there from 12:05-6pm. At 6, me and my brother’s old county worker came over and got us, and took us back over to Children Services. The worker, me and my brother all left Canton, Ohio at around 6:30. The worker took us to McDonald's for dinner, because we were headed to Akron Children's Hospital, because i had to get a medical exam done, and then when we got there, I was in the room watching t.v. when they said that they were going to do a physical on my brother. We (county worker, my brother, and I) didn't get to the foster home that my brother and I would be living at until 10:00pm on June 13, 2013. My brother and i have been at the foster home for 5 months now, and we are happy and healthy, and right now we have no contact with out birth mom, and Dave. I overcame the abuse that i went through, and it has made me stronger than ever, just like Kelly Clarkson says in her song What Doesn't Kill You, Makes You Stronger, well that’s what happened with me. I thank God for helping me pull through the abuse that I went through.