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On March 23rd 2008, my brother, my best friend Mitch and i all decided to do the unthinkable. We were in a youth homeless shelter in Mid- Michigan awaiting sentencing for probation violations. It was Easter and i remember that day so clearly. We had been talking to my mother all day about how sick we were of the life we had been living. Living with an abusive father i had reached my limit.

I was 17, my brother 14 and Mitch was also 17. Mitch had also reached his, for he was in a very similar situation. That’s when we decided, after dinner we would take off and run away to Florida. With my mothers help (she no longer had custody of my brother and i) we would make it, and we did. But not for long, on the way there we had been getting tons of phone calls from police and investigators, threatening my mom to bring us back safely or she would be spending a good amount of time in a women’s prison.

My mother didn’t budge, we made it Florida,  we were finally free, well at least that’s what we thought. our time spent in Florida was clouded by long nights of drinking and partying with people we had just met. we stayed with cousin Teresa in saint petersburg. we thought we were safe, but we didn’t know for how long. We knew we had amber alerts out for us, the US Marshall’s were looking, there were Teletypes and everything you could imagine. The cops were looking, and looking hard.

On the way to taking my cousin to work one day my mom was pulled over. I remember sitting on the porch with Mitch when 3 cop cars and a US Marshall’s SUV came screaming their way up the street, and i knew it then. There was no use to run. Our time had run out. We were told to get our things and that we would be awaiting trial in a few days.

We stayed in the JAC (Juvenile assessment center) over night and then we were shipped out to Clearwater to go to their detention facility.  we had went to Court and had been released. But my mother didn’t come to get us. We had felt like all hope was lost, and that we would be stuck in this detention facility forever. Had our own mother forgotten about us? And why hadn’t she gone to jail as well. 

We came to find out that my mother had headed straight back up to Michigan right after we had been taken, she was waiting for us there.

we had to go to court again. We were scheduled to go to Miami that night to be taken to a new detention facility closer to the airport. We would be flown out the next day to go back to Michigan and await a trial there.

We went to court and we were all sentenced. Mitch served only 11 days. But my brother and i had a lot  heavier of a sentence. I was to go to a placement facility in a town i had never heard of with all girls for anywhere from six to nine months. My brother was sent to the opposite side of the state for nine to eleven months.

 Throughout treatment i learned more about myself then i could of ever imagined. i was a bad girl going in, with a drug problem and a bad mouth and impulsive choices it would seem i was going no where before i went to the campus. But the court and my probation officer seen so much more in me. they had faith and believed that i had this great potential. and they were right.

Ive been out of placement for a year next month. and it saved my life. don’t deny help, take it in with open arms. I learned how to cope with situations, i got sober, i gained so many skills. i caught up on credits, and now am graduated from high school and well on my way to college this fall. Running away and getting locked up changed my life, in so many ways. it was a long 7 months i spent in lockup and in placement. but every second was worth it.

It took me losing all my freedom and my choices to really appreciate life. I look at things differently now. My thinking has changed, and thats made all the difference.

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