But that’s over 15 years gone. =) And I’m migrating to Australia to boot!

So I got out, after enduring 6 more years.

As to the local authorities. I remember when we called the cops, they did absolutely nothing. Heh.

Still, I hear it’s better in other places, and you guys are affirming that, and that’s good!

Get in touch with the authorities, and your local Department of Children & Family Services (name my differ in different states) will investigate and get you out of that situation. They will also do their best to help your parents clean up their act. Sometimes, all it takes is a wake-up call from the authorities for the parents to learn to *not* treat their children this way. Sadly, though, sometimes they don’t change. Your local social workers will be on top of the situation, though.

Get help ASAP!

…and what if you’re 12, and scared, and your family is abusive, and you have no relatives who will take you in, no support, no nothing?

You do what you can to survive, you make your plans, and then, when you’ve grown old enough to be employable, you put them into action and get the Hell out of there.

But Bear…

…where I’m from, that means being a victim for at least 6 more years.

You wrote a great post, as always – but when I read that it made me a little sad inside. Sometimes life just … doesn’t give make the choices so simple.

I am reminded of a time when I was driving to pick up breakfast for the family and my nieces and cousins were in the car. This was in a 3rd world country where the police are extremely corrupt. A police officer told me that he wanted to haul all of us (including my 4 year old niece) to the police station for questioning unless we would pay a fine(bribe) for driving with an international license. If I were alone, I would have said haul away and called up his superiors and gotten him fired, but because my niece was present, I couldn’t do that and I meekly paid the bribe.

I’m delighted to hear that you’ve taken action and that my impression of you as a person of integrity has been upheld. I’ll be glad to take away the moral that cynicism isn’t always right and I should try to extend a bit more trust.

That is why I’ve been as patient as possible, coaching him on how to play in groups, being the tank so I can make sure we’re at the same pace, that sort of thing. It’s a long road to max level, and god bless Blizzard for LFR, because the honest truth is most raid teams won’t give someone nine years old a shot, but in the role of DPS, yes, I hate to break it to you, but a nine year old can do just fine.

I think it might crush a few egos that are adamant that DPS is very, very hard work, but most DPS players don’t fully utilize their utility. They focus on straight DPS maximizing abilities, or in other words, stuff to make thier logs look better.

We did two more totally random Heroic Twilights again tonight, an End Time followed by a Hour of Twilight.

Alex consistently performs at the 12k level. Not so great, until you take into account he has an iLevel 333 two handed sword.

In the first run, End Time, we had a Shadow Priest as DPS. The Shadow Priest had never been in the instance before, ever, and pulled, I wish I was kidding, 4k DPS. I truly think the player was trying their best, but I believe it was that mythical player who does not know what addons are, does not read MMO Champion, doesn’t know what an Elitist Jerks spec is, and in short only knows what they have figured out in the game. 4k DPS, and I was very, very patient, reminding to recover mana, recommending they stay out of melee range all the time on Murozond, and at the least don’t stand on top of me and bring the glowing circles of pain on top of the tank, etc. When faced with that, a 12k DPS player who does every single thing right, assiduously follows skull targets and kills fountains of light is a prize.

In the second run, we had a rogue who was on top of the charts with 20k, posted recount and cheered their DPS, and as soon as the first boss was dead and we had started the run with Thrall through the groups of adds, went afk saying “BBL, food is here” and left us to kill ALL the trash without them. Reappeared 4 seconds before the timer would have let me kick them, as the second boss dropped down.

Two runs, two situations where I’m thinking, really, the key is to be patient, work with them, play with them, and explain why it helps the group to do things a certain way, and be prepared to explain why some people are just so damn bad.

I would’ve tried for the vote kick first – let that idiot sit through another 15 mins of queue time – if the kick had failed then you could’ve dropped group. at least you tried before having the 30 min debuff