I have recently found myself in the position to become a guardian to a 13 year old boy (man?) My nephew is in a bad place right now. I know becuase that used to be me. His mother has problems, serious problems. She is psychotic and has a very short fuse. So basically she's been mistreating him , beating him, neglecting him his whole life. He told my mother the other day that he was planning on saving up money to get away from her. He said he was going to get a train ticket and just dissappear. This really hit me hard becuase I remember the same words coming out of my mouth at that age. I didn't have a "good" upbringing by any stretch of the imagination. Basically I grew up just like he is growing up now. But he doesn't get to have a dad, so he has it worse. The interesting thing about this is our tormentors are the same person. My sister. She is 6 years older than me so was always bigger, always knew more and always found ways not to get caught abusing me. Including threatening to kill me. Which being a little kid I fully beleived and later on as an adult I come to realize that in all likelihood she would have carried out her threat had I said anything about the things she did to me. This woman has 3 kids. That's scary. The other two are children of her most recent "boyfriend" and are so far being protected by him from her abuse. But J (my nephew) doesn't have anyone.

It's a big decision to take on an almost grown kid who already has some issues. But I can't stand to see her ruin another person's life like she almost ruined mine. What she did to me I will probably never get over. I'm getting better. But I still backslide and sometimes I get so that I hate being alive and I can't stand to be around people or talk to anyone. Even though it's over and even though she cant' hurt me anymore, it still affects me. It shaped the person I am today. I'm constantly fighting it. I have to keep telling myself that I'm not useless, ugly, stupid... Some days are harder than others. I think J feels the same way. But maybe it's not too late for him. And he's so smart too. He's so much better than I was. He's an A studaent. He plays 2 instruments. He's great with little kids. He doesn't do drugs. He's not in a gang. He deserves so much better. I think I can give that to him. I hope I can. We're going to see him again in couple weeks and see what he says. He told my mom he wanted to go far away. Oregon will be pretty far. She can't just drive on over whenever she's having a bad crank trip and mess with him.

I hope she doesn't put up a fight. I will fight back, hard.