My younger sister was kind, beautiful and bubbly. Until her life was snatched away at age 14, by her own hands. My sister, brother and I have been in the foster care system for a long part of our lives. Moving from place to place, some are better than others, until we entered one at age 9 for her and 11 for me. For three years, we (mostly I) experienced never ending emotional abuse. They told us the most vile things, degraded our looks, our intelligence, made us feel worthless and unwanted. It was to the point I was on antidepressants at age 12 for suicidal thoughts. I ultimately left but my sister refused to leave, because she was brainwashed by the foster parents. She thought that was the best place for her.

My sister, later on, got adopted by them. And that is where things started to go down hill. She was now trapped in the abusive household. They began to emotionally abuse her now, but her DCS case was closed, she could not move households. She reported the behavior to her school, and nothing happened. There are no official punishments for emotional abuse, only physical. They then began to take away her contact with the outside world. They restricted her from visiting us. Then they took her phone. The only way we could communicate was through her school laptop. 

Things started to pile up, and one day, I was picked up early from school. My therapist and foster mother sat me down and told me that my younger sister had took her own life. I knew immediately why, those sick people killed her, figuratively or literally. We tried to press a charge for child neglect (having a fire arm in the reach of a minor), but there were no witnesses to prove that it was out in the open.

Her name was Dymond Williams. 

I have made this petition to open people’s eyes on the effects of emotional abuse, as well as how reports of it are handled. We need all of the support we can so we can contact schools, foster care companies, and state justice offices, to show that this truly is a problem.