Hi, I'm 18 and I've spent all night in the midst of an emotional breakdown and researching running away. I realized that 18 y/o's are allowed to just leave so this isn't really a legal issue, nor do I really consider it a family problem (regardless of my mom, which you will soon read), I just didn't see a section on this forum to be able to post this anywhere else. With all these thoughts on my head I am unable to sleep and I figured I may as well ask the important things to try to give me some peace of mind.
While it is legal to move out, I have no place to go or stay. I have no income of any sort. I have no skills, job experience, or anything. I am a second-semester community college student. I have maybe $300 to my name in cash and wouldn't be able to survive all too long. I was just wondering what I should do if I was absolutely determined to leave.
Maybe it's best to talk a bit about why I want to leave. I have a very rough past history with many things. I had an emotionally abusive (and sometimes physically abusive when I was younger) mother for some time. I had depression for most of my teenage years and struggled with suicide. Maybe half a year ago I escape an abusive relationship where I was a victim of sexual assault. Now I am in college in classes that I just cannot handle with a mom consistently encouraging me to go find a job and all the stress has just been building up. She wants me to try accounting yet I've been failing the same math class for the past five years. I have one close friend left and she is halfway across the country. I am alone in a life that has been becoming more unlivable every day. I used to cut, I used to do drugs, I used to consider running away for completely different reasons. But I've never felt so...enclosed. It feels like there's a wall that I'm soon to hit where my life is just going to go to ********, where my mom will catch on how bad I am doing in college (no matter how hard I try, and yes, I try. I've been doing math for the past 6 hours) and simply make me get whatever low-paying job she can so that I can support myself under her house. I don't want to support myself and live with her. I am an a very big introvert when it comes to people I don't know and people who have hurt me. And as mother-like and kind she has been in life, she's been just as bad. Yet it's not just her. My entire life has grown year by year into a more stress-filled place that has gotten devastatingly worse in the past few years. It's a stress I want to escape. I don't want to be me anymore. I just want to leave, I want to live a different life, a live where I'm happy. And I just can't take this anymore. I am extremely underweight for my age (And very malnutritioned. I live a very unhealthy lifestyle). I am afraid that if I do try to escape this life and find myself on the street (which I know I will) I will find myself robbed and starved very quickly. I just don't know what to do. But I do know I would not tell anyone if I were to leave. I'd simply leave.
Is there a place to go? Am I on my own? I'm in New York and all I've found are youth shelters..but I don't qualify as youth anymore. Maybe some place to help me reinvent myself? Find a job in something I can actually do? Find affordable housing on whatever salary I may make? I've actually lived a very spoiled life monetary wise and because of that I know literally no basic life skills. So plan in my head could be a deathwish for all I know.
I think what I am trying to say is... I need some advice, some information. Where can I go? What can I do? Am I right for wanting to leave? Just...some advice....please.
While it is legal to move out, I have no place to go or stay. I have no income of any sort. I have no skills, job experience, or anything. I am a second-semester community college student. I have maybe $300 to my name in cash and wouldn't be able to survive all too long. I was just wondering what I should do if I was absolutely determined to leave.
Maybe it's best to talk a bit about why I want to leave. I have a very rough past history with many things. I had an emotionally abusive (and sometimes physically abusive when I was younger) mother for some time. I had depression for most of my teenage years and struggled with suicide. Maybe half a year ago I escape an abusive relationship where I was a victim of sexual assault. Now I am in college in classes that I just cannot handle with a mom consistently encouraging me to go find a job and all the stress has just been building up. She wants me to try accounting yet I've been failing the same math class for the past five years. I have one close friend left and she is halfway across the country. I am alone in a life that has been becoming more unlivable every day. I used to cut, I used to do drugs, I used to consider running away for completely different reasons. But I've never felt so...enclosed. It feels like there's a wall that I'm soon to hit where my life is just going to go to ********, where my mom will catch on how bad I am doing in college (no matter how hard I try, and yes, I try. I've been doing math for the past 6 hours) and simply make me get whatever low-paying job she can so that I can support myself under her house. I don't want to support myself and live with her. I am an a very big introvert when it comes to people I don't know and people who have hurt me. And as mother-like and kind she has been in life, she's been just as bad. Yet it's not just her. My entire life has grown year by year into a more stress-filled place that has gotten devastatingly worse in the past few years. It's a stress I want to escape. I don't want to be me anymore. I just want to leave, I want to live a different life, a live where I'm happy. And I just can't take this anymore. I am extremely underweight for my age (And very malnutritioned. I live a very unhealthy lifestyle). I am afraid that if I do try to escape this life and find myself on the street (which I know I will) I will find myself robbed and starved very quickly. I just don't know what to do. But I do know I would not tell anyone if I were to leave. I'd simply leave.
Is there a place to go? Am I on my own? I'm in New York and all I've found are youth shelters..but I don't qualify as youth anymore. Maybe some place to help me reinvent myself? Find a job in something I can actually do? Find affordable housing on whatever salary I may make? I've actually lived a very spoiled life monetary wise and because of that I know literally no basic life skills. So plan in my head could be a deathwish for all I know.
I think what I am trying to say is... I need some advice, some information. Where can I go? What can I do? Am I right for wanting to leave? Just...some advice....please.
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