Battle #1

It was Saturday afternoon, two days after I had left my mom’s house and my mother was still unaware of the fact that I wasn’t going to come home. She had come by my dad’s house to drop off some money because I told her that I wanted to go shopping for back to school clothes with my dad. When she came up to the door I opened the door and saw her with an envelope of money just standing there. I walked up to her, gave her a hug, and took the money. I slowly backed into the house and kept my gaze locked on my mom. I then said “I’m not coming home on Sunday”. She replied, “Yes you are.” Again. With this whole back and forth thing. I really did not get it. Did she think that she was going to convince me to come back home if she told me that I was going to enough times? Because that was definitely not the case. She finally asked for my dad to come out after we did the whole back and forth thing about 10 times. They had a conversation and it consisted of something along the lines of she expected me to come home on Sunday and that I am going to school over by her house. She then left and I went into my room where my friend was waiting for me and I just sat on my bed and started crying. Or was I? I couldn’t cry because she was there. I attempted to get something out but it just wasn’t working out so I just wiped what I was able to get out off of my face and continued on with my day. When my dad came into my room he told me that I should keep the money for an emergency just in case something happens because he had already paid for my back to school clothes. In my mind, what I heard was, “You should hold on to that money just in case you need to run away because something bad happens in court and you are forced to go back to your mothers house”. Then I continued on with the rest of my weekend. I went to church the next day and when 10 o’clock rolled around I knew that it was time for me to go out and face my mother; and sadly because it couldn’t look like my dad was forcing me into this and doing all of this for me, I had to face her alone. So I went to go and get my brothers to hand off to my mother and we all walked out together. I had several supporters on each side of the church building waiting for me and supporting me from afar and waiting for me to fight this battle and come back inside. She accused me of throwing a tantrum because I wasn’t getting what I wanted. She also tried to scare me into coming back home by saying that she called the police and they said that she could file a report against my dad and she said that she would. In that conversation I tried to explain to her that this place by my dads house, these people, my dads house in general, its my home. Her response to that was “No it’s not”. That almost killed me. Can you imagine having your own mother tell you that? Telling you that the place that you feel most comfortable is not your home? Well I had my mom tell me that and it almost crushed me. I was so happy when I was able to leave and go back into the church building because I did not want to be anywhere near her. When I went back in I couldn’t help but start crying. That was one of the toughest things I had to do, standing up to my mother. I had about a dozen people waiting for me when I came in. My best friend was in the mix of these people and when I saw her I went up to her, hugged her and just continued to cry. When I did that she didn’t know if I was laughing or crying because she had never seen me cry. I have tried to be so strong in all of this that I hadn’t let anyone see in my vulnerable state and crying. I didn’t want to bother anyone with my problems. When I finally let go my bishop took me into a room and started asking me what she said and telling me what I should do. I don’t remember much of that conversation but I do know that my bishop has helped me a lot through all of this. That was the end of Battle #1 but I can tell you that after that my mom did not make the situation easy on me at all…