queerkhmer submitted:

Hi all,

I have friend named Matthew (we call him Miles) living in a rural part of Missouri. He’s a nice guy; he’s gay, a bit of nerd, and always amiable. His family is abusive and controlling. From the first few time I’ve meet him (online), he has told me stories of how his family, his father in particularly, refused to allow him to have interactions with people outside the family. He virtually has no friends outside of the internet. They don’t even let him go outside without one of them watching him! They have even threaten revoke his use of computers to prevent outside interactions. The only reason he is even allowed on the internet is to take fundamentalist homeschooling courses that amounts to nothing more than indoctrination. He’s denied proper education, denied work experiences, and he doesn’t have the ability to run away  far on his own because of how isolated his community is. He is emotionally tormented for being different from what his family wants him to be. Even his sister treats him like trash just because he’s queer. What’s worse is that he is 18 now, so his family cannot legally confine him but they still do by threatening him with financially destitution.  Here is what he wrote to me and his other online friends:

My name is Matthew [redacted], I’m a seventeen year old from a very small town in Missouri, and our reasons for doing this are varied, however, they center around two very important subjects - My family, and my school. My family, especially my father, are…not the best of people. It’s something I talk a lot about in the IRC.  My father is very controlling and emotionally abusive, some examples including his control of the internet, my inability to leave the house without their supervision, my inability to use the phone without their supervision…I would go into more detail about a lot of things, however, a lot of it has been said in other places, and I will post a knowledge base for posts with more information. On my school…I’ve posted about it in the forums before, in fact, a thread on my school was the very first thing I ever posted to FSTDT. It is a very religious school with very hilarious ideas on what an education should be. http://mychristianschoolsucks.blogspot.com/ This should give you all of the info you need on my school, at least to know how much it sucks. I’ve posted other lessons and projects in various areas, will include the thread on my school in the knowledge base. Second question tends to be ‘If you’re seventeen, how do you plan on doing this legally?’, and the answer to that is - None of this is happening until after my birthday on March 7th.

As you can tell, we have been planning his escape from his family for a while now but there has been too much financial roadblocks. With how hard everything is financially for Mile’s online friends, we have become flustered with our inability to move this project forward. He needs money to pay for rent, food, to study for the GED and find a job. He’s going to run out of state so it’s going to be a long haul. I don’t want him to run away from his home only to end up homeless or worse. If you can donate please do. Whatever amount you can contribute is appreciated no matter how small. If not, please pass this around. Here is the donation website 

http://keiro.chipin.com/miless-rescue

Thank you

♥ Queer & Khmer