Runaway: Life on the Streets the Lessons Learned

It is my intention, through my book, to try to relate to teenagers the pain, suffering, and sadness a runaway child feels after reaching adulthood. The teenager who takes to the streets, and experiences what I describe in my book, both the good and the bad, will forever remain sad, lonely and in a state of total distrust of family, friends and spouse. As an abused teen, living in a Florida orphanage, I had to always walk a very strict line. Any variation from that "line" and I knew I would be thrown away, discarded like a piece of trash. My caretakers made sure that I did not forget it. That is the one thing for which I will never forgive. The reason for this lack of forgiveness, on the part of all children, is that they will forever feel undeserving of love, devotion, and equality. I made a choice when I was a young teen. I thought I was choosing the lesser of two evils. Life on the streets had to be better than the life of hell that I was living at home. Boy was I wrong in that decision. The horrific experiences that I suffered at the hands of those I met out on the street caused five failed marriages in my life. Because of those experiences, I also remained almost totally friendless for years, mainly because of my distrust of all human beings. However, most runaway teens (if they live) will eventually succeed in life, but only because they rule and structure their lives with their thought processes rather than with their emotional processes. A wonderful human emotional process lost and destroyed forever, by life on the streets. What a terrible way to have to live for the remainder of your life.