Leaving my parents at 18 and terrified

[Unregistered]

I am 18 and am about to have finish a semester at a University. However, my parents have controlled my entire life, emotionally abusing me (making me self conscious and feel as if being me is why other's don't like me), and even slight forms of sexual harassment. I have tried many things to fix it and have seen many counselors and therapists. In the past 2 months I have been hospitalized 4 time because of suicidal thoughts that I have been having for years but was too afraid to tell anyone about because I was afraid of getting in trouble with my mother. They said "as long as we pay for your school and you are on our insurance, we control you", and any attempts of communication I tried making while I was still emotionally capable of communicating with them were shut down or judged with guilt tripping, mind games, lectures, or them blaming each other.

Right now, I plan on leaving school and working full time. I have housing mostly secured till the end of December and from February till June (working on figuring out cheap options for January, any advice for short term options?)?

I can barely function, however, because I love my parents. I know they have treated me poorly and I deserve to feel safe (and with them I never did). I've seen many things online justifying my decisions, noting that toxic relationships are never good ones to be in. There is no way I could speak with them, frankly it took a lot of time and plenty of distractions to be able to write about them without having a panic attack. However, I was wondering if you had any advice on how to cope, at least in the short term so I can function and do everything i still have to do in order to be a well informed, safe independent.

[ccsmod3]

Re: Leaving my parents at 18 and terrified

Hello and thanks for feeling comfortable enough to share a bit about yourself on our forum. We are very sorry you’ve had to endure so much control at the hands of your parents on top of dealing with slight sexual harassment and suicidal ideation. Please know if you begin to have any suicidal thoughts again, we’re available to listen and provide support to the best of our ability and there is also ttp://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/.

As far as a plan, it sounds like you’re seriously considering leaving school to begin working fulltime in order to become independent of your parents. We recognize that although turning 18 can make leaving home easier from a legal standpoint, it doesn’t always mean that setting out on your own is easy. In terms of temporary housing options, most of the resources in our database are for shelters or transitional living programs. If we know your city/state, we’d be more than happy to do a search.

You mentioned at the end you love your parents which is completely understandable since they are your parents. However, at this time it seems like you believe some distances is needed to protect yourself from a toxic relationship. Since you shared you’re having trouble functioning, you might find the personal wellness tracker app (available from the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance) helpful to manage your overall mood as well as emotional wellbeing. You can find more information here: http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/Page...wellness_tools. We hope this helps and please feel free to reach out to us directly either by chat or phone. Best of luck!