spit,
this response to your post is different from the other ones. this post is called "tough love." you see, i lived your life over half a century ago. i stayed with my abusive family because i thought that it was better than living on the street, taking drugs and dealing them, and/or becoming a male prostitute. i was also determined to go to college and felt that i needed my birth family to help. as it turns out, they didn't and i paid my own way through college by working up to six jobs at one time to pay my way.
this was my reality. i fought everything and everybody. back then, there were no school counselors or social workers to help people like us. we just made it on our own - or didn't.
i hurt so badly that i took mr. spok from star treck as my model. all i had to do was to live without emotions. i can tell you from my experience that tamping emotions down just leads to a volcanic explosion. and i DID explode big time.
there were those who told me to "get a grip on myself." you and i both know that such platitudes are less than meaningless.
any professional caregiver has as their first obligation to put themselves and their belief systems in suspended animation and to deal with the problems of their client in terms of the outcomes that the client wants. if your social worker (a "professional") told you to quit school, get a ged, and support yourself, she missed her first commitment, to you, for you to finish school and, hopefully, go to college. she was just as abusive as your family. report her? maybe or maybe not. this is your decision and your alone. just like suing my birth family for the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse was my decision and mine alone.
am i sorry you had an abusive childhood? who didn't? the cleaver family only existed on 50s tv. and "father knows best" was no different. when some conservative tells me how wonderful it was in the 50s and 60s and how we had to get America back to that greatness, i want to puke my guts out. they didn't live it or they were living in a well-healed dream world. blacks had no rights. jews were often discriminated against - ivy league schools had maximum quotas for jews. blacks need not apply. police sometimes took a suspect in an alley and beat the suspect into a coma with his (women couldn't qualify to be a cop) nightstick, claiming that the suspect was "resisting arrest." no one ever questioned it no, my fellow sufferer, we have all been abused. like my wife tells me, "suck it up and get over it."
help? h*ll yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i have been in therapy most of my adult life (i used to want to send my birth family the bills). like you, i was first diagnosed with depression. i tried committing suicide at least 15 times until my 20th birthday. and a few times from then until now. i can tell you from my experience, you can live through these dark times. you can grow and prosper. remember: living well is the ultimate revenge! and i am enjoying my revenge immensely.
i hope that this diatribe helps you at least a little. i am a survivor and, believe it or not, so are you.
warren