Welcome to Gaia! ::

I would let you stay at my home till you got better..
I know how hard it can be with the coping.. it took me over a year to stop all my self harm.. but I did it. But I don't think I did it for the right reasons.
I was just so tired of people yelling at me for it that I stopped.

Hopefully, you'll find your reason & itll be a good one.
-hugs- feel better dear.

If you are a minor, go to the Child Protective Services, it will get out of of the YMCA (which suck, I know) and into a youth facility of some kind. It won't be great but, it will be better.

Aww, I'm sorry about what's happening to you. Truly I am.
Do you have a friend you could live with until you turn 18? I knew quite afew people who did that.

i hope things improve for you soon smile like someone previous suggested, if you are a minor, you can try contacting a child protection agency. like recovering from drug addiction or alcoholism, you have to do work toward it the best you can and possibly find a hobby or something that can take your mind off your self-harming. like i said before, i really hope things get better for you smile

I've been in a homeless shelter before, and it's really ******** hard to get out of. I stayed at the Salvation Army in Lexington, KY on two occasions: from May 2007 to Sept 2007 (when I was pregnant, showing, could not find a job- couldn't even stay there with my guy because we weren't married at the time), and again from June 2009 to Dec 2009 (after coming back from a spring trip to Florida to find out I'd been fired in my absence, thereby was unable to keep up with rent.)

I can't speak for the YMCA, but it sounds a lot like what I went through. People didn't seem to care that they were homeless- they just wanted that next free meal. It was shitty. Not only were the residents a drag to be around, they were backstabbers that brought every little scrap of info about others that they thought they could use to the superintendent (who was uber Christian, not that that is always a bad thing, but in her case it was).

I was not allowed to wear black clothing, which was most of what I owned, because the sup considered it to be "demonic colored." I couldn't wear band tees, which made up most of the rest of what I owned, because they were "distracting." I couldn't wear my jewelry because it depicted "inappropriate themes" (a yin yang and an ankh).

I could not kiss or hold hands with my husband (the second time around, when we were actually married and could stay in a room together with our kids) or touch any part of him outside of our room. Oh yeah, let's not forget the "life skills classes" they had that were required - ******** REQUIRED! As if some people wouldn't prefer being out looking for work during business hours! - or you could be kicked out into the street. Which, if you have children, means having your kids taken away from you.

They did not take down phone messages for everyone equally, which made me lose out on five different interviews total (I only found out about those by calling the places I'd applied at a few days after applying). They would not make announcements when breakfast was served, which was from 5-7am, and for those of us who were unable to purchase alarm clocks (since they also wouldn't permit cellular phones back there regardless of whether they had minutes on 'em or not) we were just screwed. Several times, my kids didn't wake me up until after breakfast, and they had to just be hungry until ******** lunchtime!

It was a nightmare, just as it was... I can't imagine having to deal with your situation plus cutting impulses. I'm not the type to put much faith in psychiatrists or psychologists, but some of them work for free, if the patient meets certain requirements as low income. Maybe you could call 211 (United Way - available in most states) for information? They have tons of lists of places that provide help to people that need it, from therapy to laundry to clothing banks, etc)...

One thing you should definitely not do is give up. It is chaos and pain that reminds us we are alive.

Consider contacting a news station. If police allegedly don't have jurisdiction (a half decent lawyer would point out that separation of Church and State only extends as far as the religion does not break the laws of the State), then putting them under a poor light or letting federal agencies hear the story might work. People usually do a lot to make things look good in front of the media. Maybe try writing to talk shows. While the odds are low, Opera's audience loves these stories and Opera has money to throw at problems.

These ideas may not work that well. The point is that they are ideas. So I hope one of these ideas work.

This seems like something Dateline NBC would do so I'd contact them quickly.

One last thing to do is to openly denounce their religion in an attempt to get out of there and be put into another situation. Social security and welfare should be available to someone like you to help you along.