H
holyrood
Guest
RedBetta, I can relate in every way to your post.
At 18, the summer after my freshman year of college, I was suicidal after 6 weeks back at home, from the criticism, negativity, swearing, yelling, and finding fault with everything I did. Like you, I was the kind of daughter parents ought to have been grateful for–I stayed out of trouble, had good friends, got good grades, had talents I used, was going to college and paying for it on my own, never touched drugs, cigarettes, or alcohol.
The breaking straw for me was when my car got caught in flood waters–like dozens, even hundreds of others that particular, very rainy summer–and my dad chewed me out at length for stupidity, and how I should have done this and that to avoid it.
Had I thought too hard at the time, I would have concluded I couldn’t afford to be on my own. However, enough was enough. My mental health became my first priority. I drove back to college, and started paperwork to be declared legally financially independent of my parents so I could get aid on my own income, rather than theirs. I paid every cent I had to cover my next semester of college, and worked 16 hours a day between two jobs for the rest of the summer.
I was declared financially independent, based on affidavits from relatives, and was able to get the aid I needed to finish college on my own. I have never regretted it, although it was a very, very difficult year.
I would strongly suggest you look into any possible way to get out of this situation. I say this having been there and knowing what it was doing to me.
If you read the post I posted today, you’ll see that as I near 50, my parents are not changed. So, while some people may feel that ‘oh, my mom is so mean’ is normal 19-year-old, I disagree. The older my kids got, the more I realized how I would never say and do to them the things that had been said and done to me–and it was really when I began to understand just how *off *my family situation had been.
I can look back and say the only real regrets I’ve had are that I kept giving them second chances. I forgave, re-established a relationship with them over and over–and found my father throwing me on a bed, trying to choke me when I was 23, with my young children down the hall. I moved across the country for many years and thought they’d done some introspection and changing. I moved back, and things started right up again, including threats from my then-71-year-old father to come to my work and cause trouble, and my mother smearing my character to people at my church.
My father, too, tried to tell me what to major in. I made my own choice and have never regretted that, either.
I don’t know your family background, but the only places I’ve been able to make any sense of my parents’ (and now siblings’) behavior is in looking at adult children of alcoholics and narcissistic parents. I read these forums, blogs, and stories, and it’s like they have watched my entire life and wrote about it. You might want to do some reading in those areas and see if anything resonates. I’m still looking for a forum for adult children of narcissists.*
At 18, the summer after my freshman year of college, I was suicidal after 6 weeks back at home, from the criticism, negativity, swearing, yelling, and finding fault with everything I did. Like you, I was the kind of daughter parents ought to have been grateful for–I stayed out of trouble, had good friends, got good grades, had talents I used, was going to college and paying for it on my own, never touched drugs, cigarettes, or alcohol.
The breaking straw for me was when my car got caught in flood waters–like dozens, even hundreds of others that particular, very rainy summer–and my dad chewed me out at length for stupidity, and how I should have done this and that to avoid it.
Had I thought too hard at the time, I would have concluded I couldn’t afford to be on my own. However, enough was enough. My mental health became my first priority. I drove back to college, and started paperwork to be declared legally financially independent of my parents so I could get aid on my own income, rather than theirs. I paid every cent I had to cover my next semester of college, and worked 16 hours a day between two jobs for the rest of the summer.
I was declared financially independent, based on affidavits from relatives, and was able to get the aid I needed to finish college on my own. I have never regretted it, although it was a very, very difficult year.
I would strongly suggest you look into any possible way to get out of this situation. I say this having been there and knowing what it was doing to me.
If you read the post I posted today, you’ll see that as I near 50, my parents are not changed. So, while some people may feel that ‘oh, my mom is so mean’ is normal 19-year-old, I disagree. The older my kids got, the more I realized how I would never say and do to them the things that had been said and done to me–and it was really when I began to understand just how *off *my family situation had been.
I can look back and say the only real regrets I’ve had are that I kept giving them second chances. I forgave, re-established a relationship with them over and over–and found my father throwing me on a bed, trying to choke me when I was 23, with my young children down the hall. I moved across the country for many years and thought they’d done some introspection and changing. I moved back, and things started right up again, including threats from my then-71-year-old father to come to my work and cause trouble, and my mother smearing my character to people at my church.
My father, too, tried to tell me what to major in. I made my own choice and have never regretted that, either.
I don’t know your family background, but the only places I’ve been able to make any sense of my parents’ (and now siblings’) behavior is in looking at adult children of alcoholics and narcissistic parents. I read these forums, blogs, and stories, and it’s like they have watched my entire life and wrote about it. You might want to do some reading in those areas and see if anything resonates. I’m still looking for a forum for adult children of narcissists.*
