I am currently living under my mother’s custody, yet my twin and I would really prefer to live with our Father who has joint-custody of us. We are currently 16 turning 17 this May yet we’ve been physically and mentally abused by our mother ever since our parent’s divorce which was back in 2006. Our mother has been arrested once for abusing us because we reported it to CPS back in 2014. Yet after our father has fought for having full-custody at the time of her hearing, the judge decided we would be safer with our mother, even though we had bruises and scars showing her years of abuse. They sent her to therapy in hopes of her changing, but she never did. She still mentally abuses us and would hit us but would try not to leave any evidence of it. Our father has remarried in 2009, and our stepmother has been very nice to us and treats us like if we were her own. Mind you, she has a daughter who is 3 years older than us and we see her as an actual sister. Our mother would use us against our dad, and she would constantly talk bad about our step mother and step sister. She has also lied to us about why they divorced, and would try feeding us lies about how our dad wouldn’t pay child support or would claim that our father doesn’t love us. Yet we visit our father during christmas, spring break, and summer times and he would prove her wrong. Our father also has recently told us the truth about their divorce and it was the same reason as to why we want to leave her. We are too afraid to tell our mother that we want to live with our dad and step mom because we know she would potentially hurt us. We do have a younger sister who is 13 at the moment but our mother never abuses her at all, and the reason for it is because she might not be my dad’s child. Our mother use to cheat on our father all the time, another reason for their divorce, yet she would lie and say our dad would cheat. We live in Florida, and when we mention our abuse to teachers or adults no one would believe us nor has CPS helped. Our father and step mother really want us to live with them because of what our mother is doing. My father has been to court many times to gain full custody on us but our mother wouldn’t let him, it’s as if she is using us against him. We understand that we would have to leave our school friends behind, but honestly that’s a sacrifice we can live with, the thing we really can’t live with is our Mother. We’ve thought of running away to Texas to live with our father but we’ve heard of the consequences and don’t want our father to get in trouble.