Hi there
Thank you for your letter it sounds like you’re having a really tough time at the moment and it’s good that you’re writing to get some support. It sounds like the way that your mum started treating you after your Gran's death was really frightening for you and when you tried to write letters to tell her how you were feeling to try and get it to stop it didn’t work and she carried on being horrible to you.
I think that you were really brave to try to talk to your mum about how she was making you feel. No-one has the right to hurt you either physically or emotionally and I’m pleased that you feel safe now.
It sounds like spending your first Christmas away from your family has perhaps been particularly tough for you even if at times it had been really bad at home.
You say that you feel that you deserve to be punished and don’t deserve a new happy life. It doesn’t sound to me like you’ve done nothing wrong and you have every right to be safe and happy. Even if you had done something to upset your mum she had no right to hurt you and do things like strangling and punching you.
You say that you’re finding it scary to talk to the staff in the young peoples housing – it sounds from this like you’d perhaps really like them to know a bit more about how you’re feeling. You mentioned that you’re worried that they would rip letters up or hurt you like your mum used to. I can understand that the way you’ve been treated in the past has left you frightened to do this, but the staff where you are, are there to help keep you safe and perhaps the more they know about how you’re feeling the more they may be able to support you.
I’m wondering what you think of the staff there and how they’ve acted towards you so far and whether there’s perhaps one person there that you feel more comfortable with than others who you might be able to give a letter to if that’s the way that you find easiest to let them know things.
You say that you feel like giving up and that you don’t know how to make changes to feel happier. It sounds like you’ve been through a lot of difficult times and have had to strong to get through them. Perhaps when you’re finding things really tough you can think about that. ChildLine is always here to support and help you. You can talk to a ChildLine counsellor any time that you want to about things, either by calling on 0800 1111 (all calls are free and don’t show up on the bill) or by using the 1-2-1 chat (it works a bit like MSN messenger). Perhaps you could talk through with a counsellor what you might like to say in a letter to the staff and how it might be for you to give it to them. If you decide that you don’t want to do that, that’s ok too.
Take care,
Sam