I'm (16F) living with my mom, step dad, and brother (15m), and need to decide if I should take action against my mothers emotional abuse. She's been married to three different men, and her last husband had two younger kids, who we lived with for five years. During the marriage she was occasionally physically abusive, hitting my brother with the large metal hook on a dog leash, throwing objects at me, shoving/slaming my head into the side of a car, and many other instances. At the beginning of the marriage she was fine, but progressively got more mentally abusive, and eventually leading up the the physical abuse I described. She got divorced a little over a year ago and has started to become more and more emotionally abusive, recently threatening to beat my brother with a hammer. I'm scared she's going to become physical again, but I dont have any proof to back it up, and the actual physical abuse was so long ago that I'm worried it won't hold up in court, and if I was to try to bring social services into the situation, she wouldn't lose custody of my brother and me, and the abuse would get worse because of me reporting it. She's also done things like isolate me from public school and got rid of any contact with my peers for a year, and won't let me learn to drive or apply for my permit despite being 16. I've been told before by adults that she's just strict and I should just wait until I'm 18 and then move out, but I'm worried about what will happen to my brother if I move out and he's still here? Should I try to report her to child protective services?