At the age of 16, TikToker Caitlyne (@caitlyne91) was forced to become a high school dropout. Her mother also kicked her out of the house after she dropped out.
In January 2008, she was back at school after winter break. Suddenly, she was called down to the office. Her mom was there, and she told her to clean out her locker.
She had just unenrolled Caitlyne from school. She decided that Caitlyne should get her GED because this school wasn’t right for her.
Of course, Caitlyne was in hysterics. It was her second semester of junior year, and she was on the cheerleading squad. She kept saying that she wanted to go to school, but her mom said that it wasn’t a good place.
“Mind you, my sister is in the ninth grade at the same school, and she was not unenrolled,” Caitlyne said. “But me and my other sister, we were both in 11th grade, got unenrolled. Made no sense to me. My sister ended up finishing the school and graduating from there, whereas we were not allowed to go.”
Later, their mom dropped Caitlyne and her other sister off at a GED testing center. They attended night classes for a couple of weeks and then took their GEDs.
As soon as they passed the GED, they had to move out. Their mom expected them to enroll in college in the fall. Caitlyne wouldn’t be turning 17 until the end of July.
She and her sister, who had just turned 18 in February, had to look for an apartment to live in. Their mom got them a nice, three-bedroom apartment that they could not afford. They were now responsible for paying the rent. Their mom said she would take care of everything else.
Caitlyn worked 70 to 80 hours a week at the movie theater. Her sister did the same at her job. Meanwhile, they were supposed to be going to school and trying to figure everything out.
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“We don’t know anything,” she said. “We don’t have anything that we need. Turns out my mom was not, in fact, paying any of the bills. We had no water, our lights got turned off, and we did end up getting evicted from this house, so we ended up having to go back with her.”
However, her mom refused to let them live with her again. She had them live in a camper with a broken window until November, until they found somewhere else to live.
In between the apartment and the camper, they managed to live in a little duplex. But they got evicted again because their mom never paid the bills. She would show up to their jobs on payday to collect their checks so she could “pay the bills.”
After the camper, their mom found a trailer that was 45 minutes to an hour away from everything. It was basically in the middle of nowhere.
The place was cheap because someone had been murdered in there. They lived there for about six months. They didn’t have a car, so they were relying on their boyfriends to get them to and from work.
Once they got evicted from the trailer, they moved into a duplex located five minutes from their mother’s house. Her sister, who was now 19 years old, was doing her best to pay the bills.
Eventually, Caitlyne decided to move in with her now-husband, who had also been helping to support them. Her sister moved in with her now-husband and got married shortly after. Finally, they were no longer getting evicted and had some stability in their lives.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
