Say Something — Teen Neglect, Abuse, and Exploitation

The Normalization of Teen Neglect and Abuse, and What You Can Do

My name is Holly and I am 14 years old.

I will go home to an empty apartment tonight because my only “present” parent will be out at the bar and selling dope.

I will eat vegetables out of a can for dinner, maybe some budding, if I’m lucky. I won’t complain about it.

I’ll sit on the phone tonight, with other teenagers, for as many hours as I can. I probably need adult guidance, but I don’t have any. So that’s better than being alone.

I’ll get up tomorrow and I’ll get myself ready for school. I’ll go to school and have a “real meal” for lunch. If I’m lucky, it’ll be Taco Tuesday. I like Taco Tuesday. On Taco Tuesday, if I can be sneaky enough, I’ll hide two other taco shells under my plate, in the lunch line. I can’t pay for them because I only have a free lunch on my account. But usually, the lady isn’t looking. If I can get two extra shells, I can divide the meat and toppings between four shells, instead of two. Then I can get full. On Taco Tuesday, I can get full enough that I don’t get too hungry at dinner time.

After school tomorrow, I’ll walk home, by myself. My mom might come home long enough to get ready and leave, or she might come home and sleep in her recliner all evening. I hope she leaves, so I don’t have to deal with the snoring and episodes of her waking up.

I’ll have a trip, next week, for the show choir. I love show choir. It’s been my life’s dream, since I was little and saw the Swingsations perform, for the first time. I finally got up the courage to audition, and I got into the Lefemms. But I have to do really well this year if I want any chance of being a Swingsation next year. The only problem is, I can’t relate with any of the students who are in show choir. They live in a completely different world than me. I am an outcast. I blame them, but it’s really not their fault, it’s hers. But I don’t know that yet. I think my home life is completely normal.

I’ll go on my trip, as nervous as I’ve ever been in my life — my first competition. But I won’t have any friends. When the bus stops for food, I’ll just go in and use the restroom, because my mom didn’t give me any money for meals, like they asked for in the information packet. I’ll be really, really hungry. I’ll smell the McDonald’s and see everyone eating nuggets and drinking soda, but I will just sit there with my thirst and my hunger.

I’ll start to get sick on the way, out of all the times in my life to get sick. It will be freezing cold, and I won’t have a blanket. I won’t have any money to buy cold medicine, chapstick, or Kleenex. But my lips will get chapped from cold and dehydration, and my nose will get chapped from the coarse bus toilet paper on my runny nose. It will start to burn really, really bad. It will feel so dry and burn so bad that it makes tears in my eyes. I will try using some of the condensation, on the almost freezing-cold window, to soothe the pain of my nose and lips. But that will make it worse. Way worse. I will be so sick, by the time I get to our competition, that I won’t be able to perform. My nose, my lips, my chest, my throat — it will all be burning. My voice will come out in a coarse rasp. I’ll beg my mom to come get me, but she won’t. Instead of performing, I will sit in my hotel room and cry. Alone.

This will be my last trip with the show choir. When I go back, I will give up. No matter how hard I try, I won’t be like those other kids. That’s just the way it is. I will suffer immensely trying and still fail. That, I had proven more than once. And since I’m giving up on show choir, no reason to care about school.

My name is Holly and I am 15 years old

I’m miserable, but I don’t know why. It’s probably my fault. I hate my mom, but I don’t know why. I’m probably just a hateful person, that’s what she says anyway.

I want out but I don’t know what I want out of. I want help, but I don’t know what need help with. I want to scream, but I don’t know what to say.

I’ll cut my knuckle tonight with a piece of broken glass. It will slice right through, to the bone. I’ll lie and say I split it punching the picnic table. No one will take much notice. I will need stitches, but my mom will use some butterfly bandages, to avoid taking me to the hospital. It’ll heal fine, I’ll just have a scar for the rest of my life. But emotionally, no healing will occur.

In a couple of weeks, my mom and I will get into a fight and I will finally “stand up for myself”. She will back me all the way into my closet, then when I have nowhere else to go, I will attempt to push her away from me. This will result in her throwing me on the ground and straddling me, holding my wrists to the ground, while she yells in my face. Flecks of chewed crackers will fly into my eyes and mouth. This won’t be the first time my mom and I have had a physical altercation, but the spitting of chewed crackers in my face will put me over the edge.

When she finally leaves, I will turn Eminem on full blast and lock my bedroom door. I won’t know how to open a screen, so I’ll cut it. I’ll look down from my second-story window and wonder if I can make the jump without breaking something. I’ll know my chances aren’t great. But I’ll jump anyway because jumping is the only other choice I’ll have. With either a final stroke of luck or the brilliance of the human body, I’ll land perfectly — despite having no idea how to land properly. Then, I’ll run.

I’ll run as fast as I can, in whatever direction I’m facing. I’ll run and run until I reach a park. I’ll try to use the pay phone, but I’ll have only one quarter. After one fruitless call, I’ll have no way to call for help. I just need to find a friend who will come get me. I’ll sneak to a garage at a nearby house. In these days, a lot of people will have phones in their garage. But before I make it, I’ll see my mom, in her blue 1985 Chevy Corsica. I’ll hide in the bushes, but somehow she’ll see me. She’ll sit in the middle of the road, blaring her horn. Eventually, I’ll come out and get in the car.

My mom will finally have a meeting with other not-so-involved-in-my-life adults, about what to do with me. They will decide on a solution and that the problem is me needing mental help. They will put me on medication and check me into the psychiatric unit, at the hospital. I will get to go home, but instead of regular school, I will go to outpatient treatment at the psychiatric unit. The medication will turn me into an emotionless zombie and worsen my issues with food, weight, and feelings of emptiness. I’ll start smoking a lot of pot.

I’ll meet a guy, while I’m going to outpatient therapy. He’ll have friends. They will be a lot older than me, in their early twenties, and live out of town. I’ll start talking to him on the phone. He will say he and his buddies need to find a lot of pot, but can’t find any. I’ll tell my mom because she likes pot. She already let me start smoking it too. She’ll be eager to help them buy pot, so she can pocket the sweeter end of the deal. She’ll even make the hour drive to get them, and bring them to our house. She’ll get alcohol too. But she’ll have all the fun she can with them, and be ready to go to the bar. She’ll leave me there, intoxicated, and with two male strangers who are both drunk and high. I’ll consume so much alcohol that I barely make it to the bathroom, and can barely hold my head up to get my vomit into the toilet. As I hold onto the toilet, for dear life, praying for god to make it stop, thinking I’m gonna die, I’ll feel hands begin to help me hold my head up and hold back my hair. He’ll bring me a cup of water. Eventually, I’ll stop heaving. The man will take my shirt off because it will be covered. I won’t be able to move, at this point. He will pick me up and carry me to my bed. I will think he’s taking care of me, and it will feel like one of my parents is carrying me to bed from the car, like when I was little. But he won’t tuck me in. Instead, he will rape me. This will be my first time having sexual intercourse. The next day, when I try to mention it to my mom, she will look at me in disgust and say “Well, I saw you kiss him!” I will then blame myself, and tell no one, for the next 20 years.

My name is Holly and I am 16 years old

I’ll move out of my house because my mom will let an old vagabond crush parole there, who is being released from prison for severe domestic violence. I’ll try to go out in the world and build a family, but I won’t know how. The next ten years of my life will be a living hell, that I’ll barely get out of it alive.

There will still be time because I’ll still be a child. But no one will come. No one will do anything, and just like the years prior, no one will say anything. I’ll be one of the lucky ones, and some ten years down the road, I’ll find a different life. But most aren’t that fortunate.

My name is Holly and I am 37 years old

I’ll publish a story today, from the perspective of my younger self. I’ll do it that way to drive home the point that there were so many times that there was more time. There were so many signs, so many red flags, so many opportunities for a adult to intervene in the mess that was my young life.

In all those years, all those issues, all those red flags, all those adults surrounding me, no one said ANYTHING.

It took me a decade to actually realize what happened, that it was wrong and that it wasn’t my fault, but the next realization hit me the hardest. I still struggle with it, to this day.

Why?? Why didn’t anyone say anything? Why did they leave me there? Why? There were so many adults. Why didn’t they even just ask me what was going on, or even elude to the fact that I was being neglected, abused, and exploited? Why did no one tell me this wasn’t normal?

Not one adult around me ever asked me how life was at home, let alone gave me even an incline of the idea that it perhaps wasn’t okay. Not one. Well, I take that back. My aunt threw fits regularly, but the rest of my family acted like she was crazy, and convinced me she was. She was literally the only one who ever said anything at all — all those teachers, all those cops, all those community members, all my “family”, all those other parents — no one said a word.

Now, I am 37 years old. No one can give that 14-year-old me a tissue, on the bus, or share a fry with me at McDonald’s. No one can ask me, at the age of 15, why I was crying out for help. No one could come to get the 16-year-old version of me, because I was still a child, who needed a safe home. But there are other 14-year-old Hollys, eating veggies from the can right now.

Other teenagers steal an extra taco shell so they can be fed. There are children, right now, contemplating how to eat tonight, or how to get through the night without being abused.

What can we do, you say? The answer is simple. Something. Anything.

If you are that lunch lady, and you truly see me stealing the taco shell, don’t think you are doing a good deed by merely letting my shells slide. Pull me aside and ask me why I’m doing it. Tell someone. Mentor me. But do something, anything. I don’t know that you notice. I don’t know that I’m supposed to be fed better, I don’t know how I’m supposed to be cared for, I don’t know that there are resources out there that can help me if I only reach out. I know nothing but what I’ve been taught by my guardians. Please, help me.

If you’re an adult, on the school trip, notice me. Offer me food. Or maybe even just an ice water. Perhaps just a quick chat. But notice me. Let me know that I exist to “normal” people.

If you’re a parent, with kids leading a healthy life, tell them about kids like me. Let them know that not all kids go home to love. Explain how different my life is how the system is flawed and how it’s not my fault. Encourage them to have empathy for me.

If you are a family member or an adult who is otherwise connected to my life, stop telling yourself I’ll be okay. I’m not okay.

If you work in law enforcement, stop covering for my family, and vindicating yourself by saying it’s so I don’t end up in the system. Or there’s too many kids. Or there’s nothing you can do. Do something, anything, to tell me that this life isn’t right. The system may be undesirable, but it gives me a much better chance than leaving me here. Please, don’t leave me here.

I am not a lost cause. It’s not too late. It’s not “none of your business”. I’m not an adult. I need help, and I’m a kid.

Someone, please, help me.

Written by Holly Kellums © 2023

Originally published at HollyKellums.com, Authors Original Image