Ever been a runaway/throwaway (or know any today)?

[Pix]

I'm mostly asking out of curiosity, though I must admit I feel strange in that for all the horror stories of growing up I encounter on the net, that in 15 years in which not a single year passed that I didn't encounter someone describing terrible abuse and other horrors growing up I've only recall one (here on GS) who ever said they'd been a runaway or throwaway (not counting those who were only out for a couple of nights or had another home to go to so weren't on the streets).

The first time as a runaway I joined with several others in the big city, and found many of them had a circuit of cities they roamed. It's rather complicated to explain, but the point is that there were many of them. And I've come across stats that say there's about a million kids on their own on the streets at any given time and roughly 2 million runaway each year in the US (this last includes those that go back home fast, assuming that's an option for them, but still), and given that the number of kids 12-17 in the US is in the tens of millions (at least for my age, and while it was higher for previous generations, I believe they had more kids on the streets as well--the late 60s and early 70s were infamous for it), that's comparable to kids the same age known to be sorely abused at home in which many people on the net talk about in their adult years in recovering from it. Of course, other countries add even more people who may come from such a background.

I can't imagine it's the degradation that silences them given that I've encountered enough online who talked about sexual abuse AND being a prostitute (as an adult), and not all runaways/throwaways resort to turning tricks (if so many weren't kidnapped and enslaved for that purpose then I'd think it would be less than there is).

The cynical part of me says that virtually no one will admit to it because it has a bad rep, like it's something a bad kid does on one's own who deserves what they get while other victims of abuse are seen as people deserving of sympathy (never mind that most run/throwaways were abused at home). I hope that's not the reason as that's just sad to me. But the alternatives (that most die or wind up imprisoned or otherwise in lives where they don't share the same luxury of time as I have) is even more disturbing to me (especially when I wonder whatever happened to the kids I used to know.)

And as someone who has volunteered with the homeless, I've seen a surprising number of homeless adults with iphones and even laptops that they use to surf the net. Which also makes me wonder, how have iphones and social media changed how runaways operate? Anyone know? :confused: (I won't ask how you know, I'll just be glad for an answer.)

Btw, I don't need details (though I don't mind them), I'd just like to know that there are other survivors who get OL but choose not to dwell on it (or at least talk about it). I do recall that many of the kids I mixed with who ran away or were thrown out of their homes were gay/lesbian (heck, that includes me, but that didn't have anything to do with why I ran) and it sounds like that's still the case.

Contacting me by PM is also fine, and I know very well that the laws and such for dealing with kids on the street suck (which is why I don't volunteer with organizations helping runaways, who are in a different boat from most adult homeless, as I know I'd probably end up breaking the law as well as the rules of the organization to help someone if I did as well as get frustrated about those I couldn't help--and "hardcore" runaways wouldn't trust any such organization anyway, at least not more than once).

Also, it's not like I'm wounded by it, I genuinely am asking out of curiosity (though I do worry about other street kids I used to know), and an author interviewed me for a story he's doing featuring runaways/throwaways, but I couldn't tell him how social media and iphones have changed things today. One way I can make myself feel better is remembering when I was a kid on the streets to contrast with all I have and enjoy now, it always makes me feel a little better, and often a lot better. mile:

[MikeW]

Interesting thread topic, [MENTION=14705]Pix[/MENTION]. My second partner, Thomas, had been a runaway in his youth. He'd left home at 16 (near Chicago) and lived on the streets in Miami and New York. Yes, he was a prostitute and to hear him tell it, he mostly enjoyed it. He had a ton of interesting stories to tell. I was such a "good kid" (more or less) compared to him, I was fascinated by his tales. About age 19 or 20 he went back home, became a born-again Christian, got married and fathered three children. THEN he went through yet another transformation and reverted back to a lot of his former (teenage) behavior. His wife divorced him and remarried. THEN he sort of pulled himself together yet again and when I met him (he was 36, I was 46) he had a white-colar job and appeared, on the surface of it, fairly "normal". But, over the few years we lived together, both his mental and physical health increasingly deteriorated (he was HIV+, I'm - ).

I really did love the guy. Hard to explain why as he was difficult in a lot of ways. But one thing was for sure, we had a very strong, passionate relationship... and this led both of us into some very deep places in ourselves. The thing that I finally figured out was that, as intense and passionate and even "good" as it was sometimes, we were also re-injuring one another. I didn't know it was possible for two people to love one another so much, and to be so WRONG for one another at the same time. Neither of us wanted to hurt the other. But we did. Just by being ourselves, we did.

I've never been clear how much his living on the streets had to do with it all (whether it was more a symptom or a cause). But I don't doubt that it made him the kind of person he was in a lot of ways.. fearless for one thing. Definitely "intense".

[Beaux]

My dad was physically abusive when I was a kid. I left home at 17, but I would have left sooner if I had figured out a way to do so. My dad and I have a better relationship now days, since he had a heart attack and is trying to "get right with God".
~Beaux

[Pix]

I was mentally abused my stepfather since I was 10, he tried to hurt me too but I was too fast every time. I only wish I hadn't run one time and let him catch me then I would have evidence of the abuse. Only me and my sister know. I was homeless at 17.. again when I was 20 and again when I was 24, I camped alone in woods and stayed in crazy people hostels in England and Wales. . I might be homeless again sometime, sometimes I want to be. I was thinking about it right before I logged on to gs. Just have fear about people in the city and ghosts in the woods.

I don't know how it is in the UK, but here in the USA it's very hard to get the system to respond to evidence of physical abuse, at least once kids are in their teens.

That has a bit to do with why I ran away the first time (I ran away twice, second time at 16 and not seeing anyone back home until I was about 22). My BFF at the time was raised by a violent alcoholic. One day she came to school with her face all bruised and a patch where her father had ripped out the hair from her head, and she thought this time no one could say she was exaggerating. We went to the counselor (though we'd heard from other kids to go to a specific one but the office secretary made her see another because of her grade) and I wasn't allowed to stay. That counselor, either evil or a mind boggling idiot, thought what was needed was "communication" and tried calling her father! :eek: Luckily, the father had let his phone bill get overdue again so the call couldn't get through so the counselor called her grandparents instead who yelled at him for being so stupid as to try to call the father.

Nothing happened, and after that she was not about to go to the system for help again. She felt she'd dodged a bullet the first time (and she may have literally been correct given that her father had a gun as well as poor impulse control). So when she learned she was going to flunk the grade she was terrified of her father and chose to runaway instead, and she talked me into coming with her (I loved her and I was resentful being made to live with my mother just so she could get the child support for her addictions--btw, when I went home months later, I found she hadn't reported me missing for fear of losing her child support).


On the streets I met others from abusive homes and foster homes, but those in foster homes were typically there because the family they were born into were dead or in prison for drugs or some such, not because the system took them away over their having been abused.

One even loved her family and held bitter resentment toward the system for sending her entire adult family to prison for drugs and then splitting the kids up and putting them into foster care, hers being so abusive that she about went feral (all the while she's told her original family was no good and blaming her original family for her current condition which made her hate them all the more for adding insult to injury) and got put into a special home that essentially turned her over to an exceedingly cruel sexual abuser when she finally ran to the streets. She'd just turned 14 when I met her.


Some could say that was just Texas, but I've read it's about like that everywhere in the US. And when someone tried to get help for an abused kid in California it took 6 WEEKS for CPS to even send a deputy out to the home who was sent away because the girl by that time had been sent to some "treatment center" (where felony abuse becomes legal under religious exemption laws) and was told that it normally took about 6 MONTHS...unless the abuse is constant then it would be real easy for any evidence to disappear in that time!

One of the worst news article I read of was a girl returned to her dad as a teen after the father received counseling and the California courts wanting to keep the family together. He murdered her for having reported him as an abuser almost immediately after the cops dropped her off. :frown:

[matty7]

I did run away but got returned....then got a kicking for my troubles lol learned that wasn't my best move so I used to stay out all hours instead - I thought everyone lived like that though as a kid

[Cobalt]

Never ran away or been kicked out but after a long while of passive aggressive behavior from extended family I've decided today to just pretend like they all died. They won't care I'm sure, I've never meant anything to them anyway.