This is by far the most bizarre post I’ve received so far, but with reports from war-torn Blackistan coming out daily, I can’t say I’m surprised. I also have to admit that I have absolutely NO IDEA how to help this poor girl, but the least that I can do is post it to see if any of you have anything to lend. The writer understands this story is fantastic, so she agreed to post a photo of herself along with the email to prove she’s real.

So…here it is.

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Hello Chris,
I’m nineteen years old living in Alabama. The reason I’m writing to you is because recently (because of your blog) I’ve started to transition my relaxed hair to natural. From day one my mother has had a problem with it. I even had to ASK HER PERMISSION to stop getting perms (at age nineteen!). Yesterday we had a huge argument about my hair and today she told me that she is making me go to the hair salon and get a perm. She said that if I dont get the perm I CAN FIND ANOTHER PLACE TO STAY. She’s kicking me out of the house if I dont get a perm. I am in tears right now and shaking as I type this message. I dont have any family to stay with and only have a little over $350 in my account. I literally dont know what I could do.

I’m contemplating signing up on a couch surfing website or something and leaving home, but I truly dont want to go to some strangers house to sleep on their couch. It just seems unsafe to me.

I know the smart thing to do would be to just get the perm and stay at my house, but I honest to God cannot take living in this house anymore. I’m nineteen and she will not allow me to make ANY decisions on my own and just uses the excuse that “everything she does for me is for my own good”.

Even if I do end up getting the perm tomorrow, I still feel that I need to leave this house as soon as possible, but I’m not in college and I make minimum wage. Do you know of ANYTHING that I can do that would allow me to leave my home and live somewhere else in exchange for labor. I found a website a while ago that allows you to travel the world and stay at different places for free in exchange for doing work, but I cant remember the website.

Chris please I’m desperate to get out of this prison. I love but my mother but I think the best thing for our relationship would be wide distance.

Please respond as soon as possible.

p.s. I know that you probably get a ton of emails that sound like BS, and i’m aware that mine sounds sort of far fetched, but please believe me. If you need any kind of proof I can provide it in the form of a picture or something.