Help Me Survive Outside Of An Abusive Home

Hello! My name is Olivia (pictured left) and I’m 17. I would really appreciate you even just giving me some of your time to tell you my story. I had a (mostly) lovely childhood, living with my mum in a flat in London. We didn’t have a lot of money but she did everything possible to give me a good life. I was at a great school, with lots of friends and a bright future. Unfortunately, my mum died in her sleep when I was 14. She had an alcohol problem that stemmed from years of sexual abuse from her father when she was a child. I never knew this problem existed until her last months because I was always, always taken care of. I struggle with her loss every day. I moved in with my dad, who then moved me away from London into a much worse school where my grades really suffered. He has four children but never parented any of them full-time, and didn’t know how to. I was living with him and his new wife in an entirely new county where I had nobody to tell about the psychological abuse I ended up enduring for 4 years. My father ruined me. I self-harmed, developed an eating disorder, and planned suicide. He convinced me I was an unfeeling monster, and that I would deserve loving parents only as soon as I rewrote my whole personality to fit his wants. I witnessed him being violent to his wife, as well as threatening violence against my pets and myself. I ran away from home after he grabbed me in public for telling him not to act inappropriately at the site of my partner’s car crash. I told social services what he had been doing to me, and they dropped the case when I said I wasn’t interested in fixing the relationship. My social worker told me to remember that he probably acted that way because he loved me. I came back three times to pick up my belongings. The first two times went smoothly, but he came back home the last time and physically stopped me from leaving. He took two of my bags containing pictures of my mum and my school folders, and when I tried to retrieve them he physically assaulted me. I was cut and bruised. The police got my things eventually, but I am still struggling with trauma symptoms from that event. It makes daily life very hard because sometimes doors slam, or people sneak up on me as a joke, and I can’t handle those things. I’m trying to get a restraining order, but I can’t phone the charity because he cut my phone off. My journey to school has also become very expensive because I’m staying somewhere new. It has always been my dream to go to a great university and have a bright future, but at the moment I’m struggling to even feed myself, let alone pay for my train ticket (it’s £800 for the school year!!!). I don’t want these unfortunate circumstances to ruin the future I’ve always worked towards. I would appreciate absolutely anything you have to spare to help me stay afloat at the moment. Thank you very much if you read all of this!