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Shitty situation (Girls + Parental abuse)
Captain Awesomeftw
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So there's a girl I've been seeing. We randomly met at the drive through at Zaxby's, I had just started wearing rock star makeup that day and she gave me her phone number. We've been talking for a few weeks now. We had plans to go out tomorrow, and she's telling me that she might now be able to make it because her mom hit her with a leather belt and she's got bruises all over her arms.
Yeah.
I told her to be smart, take pictures of the bruises, and stay the hell out of her mom's way. But I have only seen this girl once before. I don't want to get sucked into drama like this, but Jesus, I'm honestly not sure what if anything I can do to help. I am definitely thinking this needs to be platonic from here on out. She doesn't need more complications, and that's too much for me to deal with on an intimate level like that.
She's underage. Just barely as much as I hate to be the joykill responsible adult, I don't know if I need to be calling some kind of authority to intervene on her behalf. Of note- Her parents are divorced. This happened with her birth mother, who is remarried. Her birth father also lives in town, he's remarried too. She has a younger sister to consider as well. She'll be of age shortly anyhow, but if I break her family up further getting her mom hauled off or whatnot...
God this whole situation just sucks balls and there's no two ways about it.
Advice needed.
Yeah.
I told her to be smart, take pictures of the bruises, and stay the hell out of her mom's way. But I have only seen this girl once before. I don't want to get sucked into drama like this, but Jesus, I'm honestly not sure what if anything I can do to help. I am definitely thinking this needs to be platonic from here on out. She doesn't need more complications, and that's too much for me to deal with on an intimate level like that.
She's underage. Just barely as much as I hate to be the joykill responsible adult, I don't know if I need to be calling some kind of authority to intervene on her behalf. Of note- Her parents are divorced. This happened with her birth mother, who is remarried. Her birth father also lives in town, he's remarried too. She has a younger sister to consider as well. She'll be of age shortly anyhow, but if I break her family up further getting her mom hauled off or whatnot...
God this whole situation just sucks balls and there's no two ways about it.
Advice needed.
Captain Awesomeftw on
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I think the best you can do is say "If your Mum is hitting you, do you think that's normal? Do you need to talk to anyone?" and give her the phone number of a councellor.
It's way too complicated and private for you to wade into; it will only hurt you in the process, and probably make things worse.
Good on you for caring enough, a lot of people would just go "this is way too much baggage" and stop returning her calls, but you need to be hands-off I reckon.
That would be a decisive "no." Refer her to child protective services.
I do agree with Lewisham in terms of keeping in mind that you're not actually responsible for the girl's well being. You're doing this because you're a human being and it'd be hard to live with yourself if you just let this go without even giving a bit of a hand but you've got to be careful how far you step into the... uh, well shitpile. You're better off doing like Lewisham said, ask if she thinks it's normal and then provide any information (helplines or such) that can be better at advising her. Try not to give any personal advice (i.e. you oughta tell the cops) because although you've got a pulse on the situation, you really don't know the whole picture so that could get troublesome.
Whoah there, you got that one backwards, sir.
I've alredy decided not to get involved with her. That's just common sense.
The question is do I have a moral responsibility to see that whatever family services agency gets involved here.
EDIT: And for what it's worth, both job and apartment are settled now. Still broke though. :P
Probably not. If the entire extent of the abuse is superficial shit like that (abuse is fucked up, but there's "bruises on arms," and then there's "being starved"), and she's going to be 18 soon, she's probably better off if you don't report it. Hell, for all you know, it was a one-time thing (again, still fucked up).
What it comes down to is "is the abuse bad enough that sticking her into the foster care system will be better for her than her staying with her parents?" At this point, unless you have reason to suspect sexual abuse, or physical abuse beyond that, the answer is probably "no."
Yeah, it's a shitty system, etc., etc., but as Thanatos said, maybe the other options are even worse. Maybe she got hit because she was selling crack, and her mom freaked out- no, not advocating child abuse, just saying don 't know whole story.
Give her the number of a hotline in your area and you'll still have done a lot more than most would have.
Google image search "dave navarro" and you'll have an idea.
However if you do want to be the responsible adult I would recommend just like mentally supporting her through it, mabye trying to convince her to talk to someone or something.
Bare in mind that getting too deeply involved in these situations is like doing brain surgery with a chain saw, it's very messy, very hard and never gets the desired results.
Good luck.