Leaving Safely

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Leaving safely

Hello,
Thanks for posting on our NRS bulletin board.
It sounds like you have had a sad and difficult time this past year or so with the death of your boyfriend and the divorce of your parents.
Have you looked for support through counseling or grief therapy?
Part of our services at NRS is to provide referrals to our callers and to those who post on our bulletin board. By speaking to you on our 1-800-Runaway 24hr hotline we can search by your city and state for a suitable referral. Since you are contacting us through our bulletin board we can provide some national numbers as possible resources for more help in coping with your situation.
We will list them at the end of our reply to your post.
You say you are 16 and will be 17 in January and planning a trip for the summer.
You’re planning to return but would like to know how much money, cloths, etc. it will take to survive.
Unfortunately we cannot give you definite and specific answers to these kinds of questions.
Have you thought about speaking with a travel agent?
Where do your parents fit in these plans? Have you made them aware of what you want to do?
If you have not told them what do you think their reaction will be to your leaving?
Having to cope with being ADHD must be very challenging for you. Though you see your grades as average they seem quite positive. What seems to be making it more difficult to have social interactions with your family? Is it the divorce? Have your parents and you talked about one another’s feelings concerning the separation of your family?
You are trying to deal with two difficult life experiences at once we certainly understand that you may feel somewhat overwhelmed. Have you allowed yourself time to grieve for your boyfriend?
It sounds like you have a friend who may be concerned about you.
Is there anyone else you can confide in? Perhaps there is a relative you feel close with.
Is there a teacher or a counselor at your school you can talk with?
One other thing you talked about was the feeling of strain being put on the relationship between you and your family. You went on to say it was still a good relationship.
Would you be willing to look at that as a positive start to reopening the lines of communication?
You and your friend are correct in being concerned about your safety. Many homeless and runaway youth fall prey to being sexually exploited.
We hope you will be aware of your surroundings and safety should you choose to leave home.
We appreciate you taking time to share your feelings with us and hope you are able to make some sense of things. You are welcome to call our 1-800-runaway 24hr hotline and speak with one of our crisis liners.
Here are the national referrals we spoke of earlier.
Families Anonymous
1-800-736-9805 (10am to 4pm)
The National Greif Recovery Institute
1-800-445-4808 (Not 24hrs)
We could possibly give you more referral options by knowing your city and state.
Just to let you know we are confidential so please feel free to give us a call once again at 1-800-Runaway.
Take Care,
NRS

Hello. My name is Wire, and I want to leave home this summer.
Over the past year, I have had to deal with the death of my boyfriend, my parents getting divorced, and with depression. I have ADHD, and that, combined with other issues in my life, has adversely affected my grades, putting me in a A, C and mostly B range. Recently, however, it has gotten a lot harder to function as part of my family.
For me, social interactions have always been difficult. I am unable to recognize facial expressions, so communication is difficult. Now, however, it has been becoming harder for me to deal with normal social interactions. I see how this hurts my family, and knowing that I will never be able to understand them hurts me too. Our relationships are good, but strained.


I am 16, 17 in January. I have 400 or so dollars which I will be putting in my own account this summer, and I want to get a job to earn more until school lets out in the summer. I don't want to go forever, just for one summer, and come home in the fall. It frightens me to stay, because if I do, I think it would be that much harder to be accepted after colledge. After colledge it is a nonissue, as I am going to leave the country to walk across asia.


I want to know, how much money will I need? and is there a place I could leave things like cloths where the police wouldn't find them? Could I spend the winter hiding supplies for the summer, things like bottled water, cloths and personal hygene items like soap? Also, I have very violent cramps, and take claratin and two inhalers for allergies. If I buy large sizes of these, like a 400 pill bottle of motrin, or if I have a first aid kit with things like Asprin, a prescription inhaler, cough medicine, a coagulant for cuts, vitamins or other over the counter drugs, could I be arrested for Possesion?


How can I strech a few hundred dollars? is it OK to go to the Asian market and buy things like dried beans at 69c a pound and then eat things like that, or will beans make me sick if I eat them every day? How can you cook when you are on the move? Should I get a little gas stove for like 20$ and then pay the 3$ for gas once a week, or risk being seen with a campfire? I plan to move around within CT's State Parks, as they are less regulated and I am unlikely to be recognized like I would be in a city. Would I be safer from murder and rape in the woods because there are less people? Or should I try to make it in Hartford's Underground? I don't plan to break any laws, but I don't get why people seem so offended by runaways who make a honest living on their backs. Is this somthing that's up to me to decide my feelings on, or could selling sex cause me to lose job prospects in the future? Would my parents ever need to know? And can you explain how prostitution hurts me as long as I use protection and am discrete? I don't really get what's so bad about it, but one of my friends made a big fuss and told me to ask you. So, there it is.
Thanks, Wire.