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Before I start, I’m going to warn you that this is going to be long, and I apologize. Hailey Eltzorth telling her story from the beginning to now, as best as I remember it. If anyone has similar experiences and needs someone to talk to, I am here for anyone.

When I was young, my parents divorced and I lived with my mom. Everything was great. I was a spoiled little girl who loved her mother so much. Then, my baby sitter tells me right before bed that my mom is in the hospital. She got in a car accident. I would be staying at the baby sitter’s house for a few days and I would be moving in with my dad to finish out kindergarten.

That year went by, and I moved back in with my mom. She laid in bed all day and she had a new boyfriend. He left, and I had to help my mom. My 5 year old brothers needed care, my mom needed her pills every 6 hours, dishes needed done, laundry was getting behind and we needed groceries. At 6, this was a lot to comprehend. But I did anything for my mother.

Men came and went. Until this new guy, Chris, stayed for awhile. My mom got better. She started driving again, working, and I had a more normal life. Then the second car accident happened. She needed my help again. The pain pills weren’t helping. Late at night my mom would be in the living room with empty glass bottles. I noticed she acted weird when she drank from these bottles. I was too young to understand what this was, I just new this helped with the pain. She started drinking earlier and earlier until it became an all day, every day thing. She was mad. She couldn’t handle not working but she was in too much pain to do things around the house. So, as the obedient little fourth grader I was, I picked up the responsibility. I missed school a lot because I wanted to help my mom.

Soon, I just couldn’t do anything right. I started getting punished for the littlest things. I would get dragged out of my bed at 1 am if I forgot to do the dishes at night. I stood in the corner for hours on end if I said the wrong thing to my mom. I got grounded for months at a time and was refused the dinner that I cooked that night. I liked school a lot, it was my escape from my home life. But when I messed up, I was grounded from school.

One night I got mad at my mom. “You do nothing but drink. You’re nothing but a drunk.” She didn’t like that. She chased me with a knife in her hand as she screamed at me until I locked myself in the bathroom, where I slept that night. I didn’t know this was so bad until my teacher asked my why I hadn’t been at school lately.

In fourth grade, I was placed in a foster home and later moved in with my grandmother where I stayed for a year. “You got what you wanted,” my mother told me as she dropped my brothers and I off at the CPS office.

My mother went to rehab and was determined a suitable parent. We moved back in. Everything was great, we were happy. Then, the glass bottles came back and I had the same angry mom I had just a year before. The first week of 7th grade, CPS came for a visit. They asked me where my father was. “I don’t know, my mom doesn’t let us see him or talk to him much.” The woman wrote down a few notes and left. I didn’t realize that I said something wrong until my mother was suddenly standing over me, her hand around my neck. “Good job, Hailey. You got us back in the system.” I was terrified. I got on my 3DS that I got for Christmas that year and posted on Facebook what had happened. “My mom just choked me because I said something bad to CPS.”

The same lady from before showed up at my doorstep with a few policemen. “You have 5 minutes to pack what you can, we’re taking you to your dad.”

I had a Walmart bag of clothes and a few personal items I wanted to take with me. I moved in with my dad, where my mom would leave drunk voicemails on his phone. “I’m gonna find you and I will kill everyone in that house to get my boys back.” I testified in court and my mom went to jail. I continued on with my normal life, completed middle school, and started high school.

In the middle of my freshman year, I found a bag of white powder and a straw in one of the drawers in my bathroom. I reported it to the police and when they searched my house, they didn’t find anything. We got evicted, and I moved in with my boyfriend. I was 15. I blamed myself for a lot of the things that happened to me. “If I were good enough, my mom would have tried harder to stay away from alcohol.” “If I were good enough, my dad wouldn’t have needed heroin to get through the day.” “If I were good enough, they would love me.”

I was with my boyfriend for 2 years before I broke things off because he was extremely abusive. He isolated me from my friends and family. He accused me of cheating. He would throw things and hit himself to get his way. He terrified me into doing whatever he wanted me to do. I became depressed and started cutting myself. I didn’t think I would live to graduate high school. I continued to live with his family after we broke up because I had no where else to go.

I got a new boyfriend, who I am still currently with. He and his family treat me so well. On Tuesday, June 5th of 2019, I got in a bad car accident. My car was totaled, but I had no physical injuries. The next night, my ex-boyfriends dad sent me a drunk text, “Were you wearing panties? I could stop looking at you and I was wondering, just between me and you...”

This creeped me out, to say the least. I had just turned 18 five months before. He was 41. How long had he been watching me? How long has he been waiting to say something like this? I told his wife and they got in an argument which resulted in another text. “You have until 8 am Sunday morning for you and your belongings to be off my property”

I had just graduated Friday and my graduation party was supposed to be Saturday. Instead, I was packing. I received many more texts from this 41 year old man after I left. “Adios whore, be gone forever.” “Never step foot on my property again or you will end up on a cold slab.”

I am now living with my grandma again, right next door to my dad. I start at Ball State University in August. I have a stable job and I have been making the best of the life that has been given to me. I don’t plan on going down the same path as my parents did and I have a bright future ahead of me. Despite my rough past, I have made myself a promise - I will get through anything life throws my way and I will stay strong.