If I was a teen who had gotten this "wake-up call" I would have been out the door and not stopped running until I got to a big enough city to stay "lost" in.
Where I would have hit the homeless shelters, the soup kitchens, and the libraries until I was eighteen and didn't have to fear being taken back--at which point I would have gotten a job, taken my GED, etc.
I would have considered taking care of myself on the streets to be much less risky to my long term life and health than one of these places, and (with an adult's judgement at 38) I think I would have been right to do so.
At 16, I could have picked the homeless shelters over the pimps. Probably would have gotten raped a time or two. Which probably would have been the lesser of the two harms. Sometimes all you have to pick between are two really sucky choices.
And I would have made it, too. At sixteen, I already knew how to find edible stuff outside--and you really don't need food all that bad when you run--it's the lack of water and the exposure that gets you, and you can handle both if you know what you're doing. I would have kept the hell away from people until I got to the city.
Of course, I was a weird kid. My family camped a lot. By the time I was twelve I'd already figured out how to actually run away and survive to get to a destination, what I'd need, etc.
It wouldn't have been *fun*---but it would have been better than getting forcibly indoctrinated into some wacky psychotherapy cult.
My parents were and are nice people, but I figured out early that in some ways they were a bit detached from reality and that I had darned well better by "the grownup" as far as looking out for my own safety.
Timoclea
