Help for a Friend in Need

I don't even know if I should be posting here, but I just really have no idea where else to turn. I need some advice.

I have a friend who I met online years ago, on this little kiddy roleplaying site that we both used to be on. We've both long since stopped, but we've kept in touch over Skype and through an art site, and gradually we've gotten closer and closer, trusting each other with more information about our lives, since we were both a little wary when it came to internet friendships at first. It's been at least four years since I first met her, and during that time I've gone to visit her, I talk to her on Skype all the time, and I can trust her with anything, just as I know she trusts me.

It became apparent very quickly that her mother was emotionally abusive, but she was really good at hiding how much it was affecting her, and I'm ashamed to say that I tried to turn a blind eye to it for a long time, telling myself and her that it would all blow over and turn out alright. I just wanted to be friends with her, I just wanted to be happy, and I think she also wanted to lose herself in conversations with me, writing together and laughing and picking each other up over all of life's little stumbles.

But it's become especially apparent very recently that she's very depressed. She's brilliant, and incredibly talented at art, but everything her mom ever says to her is just to cut her down. With every step forward she takes with her life, her mom drags her two steps backwards. She was contacted by someone who wanted to put her art in a studio, but that was ruined a few days later when her parents began screaming at one another, threatening to divorce and forcing her to choose which she wanted to go with. It was a close call, but her parents calmed down after a few days. By that time, though, all the happiness from being praised for her art had gone out of her. Since that incident she's been... not herself. It's really been a long time since we've really been able to talk comfortably, since we've been able to have a conversation where she's the happy, brilliant girl that I love like a sister. She doubts herself all the time, she's lost her desire to draw, she's lost her desire to write. I realize now that it's because she's grown up in a family where her mom is incredibly emotionally abusive. She constantly tells my friend how often she's disappointed in her, how she'll never amount to anything, how she's just a burden to he family, how she's not allowed to go to Dartmouth College (where she got in, because as I said she's brilliant) because she's not good enough and that her mom' not going to waste that kind of money to send her there. Her mom already beat down her dreams of becoming an artist, and told her what she had to do as her career, that she'd have to settle for community college and do exactly what she says to do. The worst part is when I see that my friend starts believing her--she has so much potential, she's good at everything she does, but I'm afraid that she's lost all her sense of self-worth. In her worst low points, she tells me how scared she is that I'm going to leave her, because everyone always leaves her. It's terrible to hear her talk like that, but even more terrible when I know that she believes it.

I don't know if someone being emotionally abused can be helped when they're almost eighteen, because that's the time when they're technically legal adults and they can leave home and not have to live under the jurisdiction of their parents. Normally, I would tell my friend to get out of that situation as soon as possible, to go find her own way in the world, but that's just not possible. She has an auto-immune disease which keeps her financially tied to her parents, as she would never be able to afford her medical bills on her own. The doctors aren't helping-for years they told her she wouldn't make it to eighteen, but now she's right around the corner from her eighteenth birthday. Now they're telling her that she won't make it to twenty-five. I know there are days when she's really sick, I just want her to be happy, to live her life while she can, because no matter what I'm afraid that I'm going to lose her. She has days where she's sick, but she's strong and she keeps fighting through it. I know that she could live a reasonably long, happy life if she lived in a household where she was loved by her parents.

It used to be what kept her going, knowing that once she was eighteen she'd be able to go off to college and she wouldn't have to live with her mom anymore. But now her mom's made her turn down offers of the colleges that she was accepted to. Beyond making her believe that she's not good enough for them, she told my friend that she would never be able to keep up with the work there, since she has to get an infusion every other week to bolster her immune system which wipes her out for about two days. She doesn't know what she's going to do, she feels like she's running out of options, and her sickness is keeping her tied to an emotionally abusive mother.

One of the things that really keeps her going is her horses. My friend has a small farm where she breeds miniature horses which are the most adorable things ever--when I visited her, I was able to see them. She takes incredible care of them, she shows them and gets awards, and she takes care of them all on her own. She spends hours every day cleaning out her stalls, sitting with them, feeding them, taking care of them and so on. When one of them foals, she stays up all night to help it through the birthing. Even on days where she feels terrible, she goes out to make sure they're comfortable. She pays for most of their care herself, as she works at a neighboring farm an she sells most of the foals that are birthed, but her parents constantly threaten to sell them all, saying they're more trouble than they're worth, or that if one is injured or an abuse case (because she takes on many abuse cases) they're not worth keeping. I know how much time she spends taking care of them, helping her abuse cases trust people again, but her mom frequently tells her that SHE'S doing all of the work for them, that she pays for it all, that my friend is lazy and doesn't love them as much as she says she does. It's things like this that really upsets her. When her parents threatened divorce, she thought there was no way out. She'd have to stay with her mom and lose some of her horses, and also lose her dad who's sort of her sanctuary (but he's often too scared to defend her from her mom, for fear that she'll blow up at him too) but if she chooses her dad she'd lose ALL of her horses. And as much as it doesn't make sense, she tells me that she loves her mom. All she wants is for her mom to love her too. But her mom slaps her when she talks back, or when she defends herself after her mom completely slanders her. Her mom seems to have no idea why my friend is depressed and keeps threatening to institutionalize her into a psych word. As my friend says, "she has no problem lying to the doctors and telling them that she's suicidal." My friend has sworn to me that she'd never kill herself, but lately with the combination of her sickness, her feeling that she has nowhere to go, and her increasingly unstable household, I'm afraid that she's been thinking about it.

I just don't know what to do, I don't know where to turn. We're both in the US, but I live so far away from her that I can't help, or offer her a place to come when her mom gets out of hand. I'm going to college in a few months, so I won't even be able to talk to her as often as I have been. She doesn't believe that anyone is willing to help her. She says that her mom is an "incredible actress," which is more true than anyone realizes. When I went to visit her, I met her mom, and though I was wary from everything my friend told me, her mom was a perfect sweetheart, nice and seemingly loving, if a little disapproving of a lot of what my friend did. I'm incredibly ashamed to say that even I doubted how much of what she told me was true. But on a voice call over Skype, I heard her mom scream at her and hit her, I even heard her choke my friend for a few seconds just to get her point across. I was so scared that her mom was really going to hurt her. I'm afraid that my friend thinks it's normal, and I know for sure that she believes some of what her mom tells her, if not all. It just keeps getting worse, and as my friend puts it, once she turns eighteen she'll be a "legal loophole." No one will be able to help her.

I want to be there for her, but I don't know what to say to her. I don't know what will help, or if I can even do something that helps. I suggest for her to try some things, but she just tells me she's tried them once already and that it didn't help, or that what I suggest would never work. I don't know what to do to help her--is there even anything I can do? I feel so powerless, but that's probably because I am powerless. I just want to be able to make her feel worth something, to be able to shelter her from her mom, but I'm just text in her Skype chat, or a face on her computer screen.