Life Gets Better

  By: Maurice Three years ago I thought life was terrible and it wouldn’t get better but now when I think back on it I think it is a lot better. As a young boy from the age 5-6. I was abused by my cousin Shayla because of a choice my mom made. She decide to stab her ex boyfriend to protect her children. They got into an altercation and he didn’t get what he wanted so he got mad. She had my baby sister in her hands, feeding her and he grabbed the baby he threw her and tried to grab my mom. So she stabbed him, which was pretty messed up. She and the neighbors called the cops. The cops came and took my mom. We moved in with our uncle but eventually moved in with Shayla. Her husband moved out when we moved in, so I think she held a grudge against us. The abuse happened almost every day except holidays and birthdays. Those were the days that we focused on having fun. My older sister was with us.  She got it worse. Eventually she told a teacher because she couldn’t take it any more the teacher interfered and we were put in foster care. The first year went really well. It made me feel safe even though I didn’t know what was going to happened. We were relieved to be away from the abuse, but I didn’t really know who I was anymore because I didn’t know where I was. I started reacting to my fear with anger and bad behavior until they put me in a group home. I was there from ages 10-13. It was a great place because everyone supported me. As years went on I got better at getting along with people, controlling my anger. When I was 13, I had an option of staying in the group home or joining the foster family that had my sister. But things changed with the foster parent. She was disrespectful, until she made me spend my own money on basics. What made the situation worse for me my sister moved away. When she left, everything I worked for left with her. So I started acting out again, and I changed to a new foster home.  It started out well, but he quickly became a bully. So I moved to a really great group home that help me takes care of me and the people there are really respectful of me. Because of them I am now closer to my family. I think it’s really important that people know that better is always possible because there might be someone struggling and I want them to know it will always get better no matter what. At some point in time I didn’t think it would get better. But in 2014 I knew things were going to get better because I started to opening up to people that were trying to help me. When you let people help you, you feel that people care and when you know people care you feel really good about yourself.