For some background here i (18F) was adopted when i was 12 by my paternal grandfather and step grandmother. They’ve raised me and my little brother (16M) since i was 7 and he was 5 , when we had got taken from our bio dad. Things were never great but my little brother and i had definitely seen a lot worse.

Fast forward to around the time the adoption was finalized and i was going through a really hard time mentally. School was my safe space. home was hell. i was obsessed with losing weight so i wouldn’t eat but my adopted mom still always called me f@t and told me i needed to cut back , for context ive never been f@t. at the age of 18, im 4’11 with a petite frame and have never been over 130 lbs. They liked to call me a wh0re and tell me i was gonna be “fast in the ass” bc my mom had me at 16. they cut my hair so that i “wouldn’t be attractive” (to not be “fast” like my mom) and was always told growing up that nobody would ever love me (this still causes issues in my relationships and friendships). i wasn’t allowed to have any friends and when i did make any friends my adopted mom would find some reason for me to not hang out with them anymore (she legit told me i couldn’t be friends with one girl bc her mom was a single mom) they would hit us a lot but we kind of just put up with it.

aug 2019. i was in 7th grade and i told my adopted mom i had been feeling very sad lately and didn’t know why (i didn’t know i was depressed or what depression even was bc mental health was never brought up) and she told me i had nothing to be sad about and was “exaggerating for attention” so i let it drop and that honestly didn’t help.

nov 2019 , i tried taking my life for the first time in my closet with a blade from a box cutter razor i found downstairs months prior and had been using to SH. my little brother walked into the closet and seen me and he ofc went and told. i had a quite bit of blood loss but my adopted parents didnt seem bothered enough to even pretend to care. my adopted dad shrugged it off as he went outside to smoke a cigarette and my adopted mom ran water over my cut and wrapped it up. she made me clean my blood up (which im not mad about bc i wouldnt wanna clean sb else blood either)

immediately after i was done cleaning i was told to get in the car we were going to get food so we go get food and she makes us also go to hella different stores and i ended up passing out in majority of those stores from the blood loss. i was punished for “staying up all night” (why else was i “falling asleep” while standing, right?)

after abt a week considering my cut was deep and done with a box cutter razor that hadn’t been cleaned (don’t judge me i wanted to d!e the last thing i was worried abt was dried up bl00d) it ended up getting infected. (i ended up having to take antibiotics when it was finally looked at and got told i should’ve came in for stitches)

since it was winter time tho i was able to cover it up with hoodies and long sleeved shirts. except for in gym class. in my district they make us dress out for gym in middle school to prepare us for highschool. so ig sb seen and reported it to the school guidance counselor cus i got an ass whooping from hell when she got home from work that night for “letting family business be known to the public” (we were always told that what happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors)

dec of 2019 i met a senior at the highschool and being in seventh grade i didn’t realize how weird it was that a 12th grader wanted to date a 7th grader but i just felt like i was special bc nb else had an older boyfriend just me. so anyways he asked me to sneak out with him. i had never done that before but being young and immature , after awhile of hearing “if you loved me you would do it” i gave in. so i snuck out with him and we went to the park but he ended up r@ping me and when i told my adopted parents the next morning i was called a wh0re and much more. i didn’t go to school that day bc my adopted dad was taking me to the doctor.

they never once asked if i was okay or if i was hurt. just immediately told me i was lying abt being r@ped bc i had gotten pregnant. (i wasn’t pregnant this is just what they belived)

we go to the dr , dr confirms im not pregnant and that i have trauma consistent with assault.

to this day they still haven’t asked me who or how or anything. they still think im lying.

before we left the dr i was asked to fill out a mental health questionnaire and the results to that questionnaire deemed me high risk so i got taken to the mental hospital

from dec 2019 to march 2023 i was consecutively in different mental hospitals, residentals, and group homes (and with my occasional law breaking, about 6 months out of that time was in a juvenile detention center)

in march 2023 i ran away from the group home i had ben staying at for almost a year at that point when i moved in with my brother and was kept there the whole time against my will but technically i was “on the run”til jan 2024. when i got out that house in jan 2024 i was sent to live with my adopted parents once again (one thing i didnt add is that i was a living walking breathing nightmare while i was in those treatment facilities. anybody who has been in any of the four will tell you it will change who u are. ur not looked at as human by the staff they looked at us like paychecks. i have so many stories of staff doing more to traumatize us kids than they did to help us but bc my behaviors were so bad they couldn’t find anywhere else to take me that’s why i had to go back btw) but i thought ill be 18 in a year and ik i dont wanna be here a minute longer than i must so i got a job and started saving.

i bought my first phone that i paid for and kept turned on with my own money. everything i owned (shoes clothes makeup perfume hygiene products) was bought with MY money that I worked really really hard for.

work was the only time i was able to get away from them. i used to come in early and stay late. i would call on my days off and ask if i could come in (i worked at a burger king so we always had call outs) my managers would just let me sit in the back office so i wouldnt have to be home if my hours were to high.

after about a month of living there, her and my little brother got into a really big argument bc he was eating at the table where he normally eats and she for some reason wanted him to eat downstairs (i was not home for this i was at work this is just what was told to me by my brother) he refused saying he wasn’t in the mood to be around people and just wanted to be alone but she wasn’t having it. she then goes to the kitchen and starts closed fists punching my then 15 year old brother in the face and he never once hit her back but she busted his lip pretty bad to the point that he stayed up for me to come home so he could cry in my bed and talk to me abt it.

i took pictures and sent them to cps but when they asked him he said he got scared and lied and said he fell.

after that i couldn’t look at her the same so a lot of arguments occurred.

one night abt a week after that fight with my brother she randomly comes into my room at 2am to ask me if ive stole her phone. i asked her why would i buy and pay for my own phone if i was gonna just steal hers? i was then told to give her my phone for talking back and said that i was grounded but i refused bc i paid for my phone and told her i will gladly give u my phone if u give me the money i paid for it but that just made her madder so she went and got my adopted dad (yes at 2am) and they came into my room and yelled at me for like 10 minutes for me to give them my phone and i kept repeating the same thing to them everytime until my adopted dad told me if i didn’t give it to him he would beat it out of me so i told him go ahead and do it. so he hit me and i wasn’t hitting back at first because he is still my biological grandpa at the end of the day. but then my adopted mom jumped in so i did start hitting back. once i hit back they called the police.

i got locked up. even tho it was self defense , it was two people’s word against mine. i got locked up and was locked up from the end of feb 2024 til may 2024. while i was in detention i obtained my GED and got accepted into esthetician school at an academy abt an hour away. the whole time i was locked up , i called every chance i could and never got any answer. i was found guilty but bc i had behave the whole time i was in the dhome, got my GED, and got accepted into school i was allowed to leave the dhome on probation.

because returning back home was obviously not an option this time i was sent to an independent living program which brings us to why im thinking abt suing.

so my DSS worker picks me up from the dhome with all my stuff that was supposed to have been packed. i got in the car and saw one bag. ik i didn’t own a lot since everything i owned i bought with my minimum wage job and still had a phone bill, my part of rent, and food to buy with those checks but i worked a lot and had made a lot of money so i knew i would have at least 3 bags but when i asked my DSS worker she said that’s all she was handed so i was like idk maybe they packed tf out that bag. but i get to my brand new apartment and open the bag and find a single a sock, a pair of underwear, 3 pairs of sweatpants, 2 blankets, and a fitted sheet. no shoes, no shirts, none of my hygiene stuff none of my other bedding, NOTHING.

so ofc i contact my DSS worker and inform her and i also let her know that my adopted mom should have about $400 that belong to me from my last check at burger king before i got locked up (the only way i was allowed to get the job was if i got the money sent to her bank account) so my DSS worker tells me she’ll talk to them. they claimed that’s all that was in my room and that they had already given me my last check. i wasn’t too worried abt the check idk y but i wasnt.

turns out they let my cousin go in my room while i was locked up and lied to her and told her i said she could go in there and take wtvr she wanted bc my new house wasn’t big enough for everything (i was still in the dhome and independent living wasnt on the table at that point) so she goes in my room and takes practically everything (everything in the bag was all she left…yeah, she even took my underwear)

everytime i bring it up to them (im only in contact with them bc of my brother) i get called ungrateful and selfish bc they gave away a lot of freedom and time and money to take care of me and my little brother and they’ve spent more money on me then i did on anything in that room.

so aita if i sue them to replace everything they gave away and for everything they’ve put me through as a kid or am i really just being ungrateful and selfish and overreacting?