When I was 16 years old, I moved out of my biological parent’s house and into my great aunt’s house. My oldest brother and my great uncle were already living in the house. My great aunt and my oldest brother picked me up from the Pottstown public library steps. My great aunt took me to the store to get personal hygiene for me and to get new clothes and new bedding for my bed. One time, I was having really bad abdominal pains and I would be on my bed crying from the pain. The pain got so severe that my great aunt and uncle took me to the ER. The hospital took a CAT scan of my abdomen and it turns out to be that I had Ovarian Cysts on the left side of my ovaries. My nurse asked my great aunt and uncle to leave my hospital room and once they were out of the room, the nurse asked me if anyone sexually touch or sexually did anything to me. I hesitated at first but then I said yeah, my father did. The nurse asked about the details of the experience and I told her everything. She wrote everything down that I told her and she had my great aunt come back into the hospital room. I told my great aunt that I had something to tell her and I told her about my sexual abuse from my father. My great aunt started to cry and she said if she knew that was happening she would’ve gotten me out of my parent’s house sooner. That is how children and youth got involve of my case all because of my ER trip.
The next day, my great aunt and uncle took me to the Pottstown children and youth building and I had a meeting with one of the caseworkers there. I told them about my abuse of my parents and siblings, I told them how my mother wouldn’t let me take a shower or any personal hygiene, I said how I was force to stay in my room all the time and I wasn’t allowed to go outside, and I told them about how I was force to do all of the chores in the house. The caseworker wrote all of the things I told them and they said they had to get Berks County involved too because some of the abused happened in that county too. So a week later, my great aunt took me and my oldest brother to Berks county Children and Youth. I was put into a room with a camera in it and a female caseworker was in one chair and I was in a chair across from her. I told her about everything that happened in my house and about my older brother sexually abusing me too. She wrote everything down and this interview took about an hour to do. I had a lot of mental and psychical things going on with me and I didn’t have health insurance for part of it because my parents moved to Tennessee without telling anyone.