Can I leave an abusive household?

[Guest]

I’m 17, soon to be 18 in November. Unfortunately, I live in Alabama where the age of majority is 19. My mom is verbally and emotionally/mentally abusive and has been for s good chunk of my life. She’s threatened to beat me to “knock some sense into you”. Many times. She’s threatened to sell me off as a child bride when I was 13 or so. She’s called me a dumb **********. She takes care of me by providing me clothes, food, and shelter, but she disregards everything I say and constantly tries to pick fights with me. I’ve told her before she’s being hurtful and asked her “Would it be better if I hadn’t been born?” and she’s mocked me for saying that. She constantly does that and disregards my mental health, ignoring the advice of elementary school teachers to take me to a psychologist/psychiatrist and thinks mental illness is a joke, fake, and just someone being lazy.

My question is if I can leave a situation like that and go stay with friends or something else. I know CPS doesn’t do much in situations of non-sexual and non-physical abuse.

[ccsmod4]

I’m 17, soon to be 18 in November.

Hello,
You mentioned experiencing emotional abuse which may be reportable against a parent or guardian.
Please keep in mind you by no means deserve any type of abuse, emotional or otherwise. Unfortunately, emotional abuse is often harder to provide evidence for compared to physical abuse which is often what CPS relies on when conducting an abuse investigation. That being said, you might consider documenting any of the verbal abuse etc. by us of video or audio recording the events. We can’t be 100% sure what the outcome will be if your local CPS decides to open a case based on what you share. Sometimes CPS decides to remove minors from the home and other times they offer services such as family counseling or mediation instead. The only way to know the outcome might be to reach out to them directly and if you’re ready to do that we are here to help you through that process.

Reaching out to Child Help USA at 1-800-422-4453 or www.childhelp.org may help to get a better understanding of what may happen before and after a report is made.
Leaving home would be your decision to make. You might consider contacting the local police non- emergency number to get some clarification on the laws for leaving home at 18.

If you would like to talk more about your situation, please contact us at 1-800-Runaway(786-2929) or www.1800runaway.org (Live chat).

Be safe and take care,
NRS