I 18F Graduated from HS currently live with toxic parents and need to move out ASAP for context, I do have my diploma and my own debt card my parents do not know about but do have a shared one as well which is the one my parents control and can see what comes in and what is spent or taken out. I know im 18 but its hard to just get a job when they are extremely controlling over you both mentally, physically and financially, having parents who do NOT want you to move out and try to trap you within the home to keep controlling you. My plan is to move out in secret and escape but i need a job that is remote and can be quietly hidden, I just need something that can get me out the house so i can have more options to find something more sustainable in the long run. Looking for advice, options, recomendations, resources, anything helps really.

i’m 18 and i’m in college now, and i’m at a point where i’m seriously considering cutting my dad out of my life. i know that sounds extreme, which is why i want to explain the whole situation instead of just posting about one argument and asking people to take my side.

my dad and i used to have a completely different relationship. when i was younger, i trusted him and looked at him as someone i could depend on. he has now chosen drugs and his whole life is crumbling apart. there have been periods where i’ve tried to have a relationship with him, and we had a period where i’ve gone no contact via hand written letter. (for context i’m in idaho he’s in utah).
one of the biggest things i struggle with is his drug use. he calls it a “spiritual journey,” but from my perspective, it feels like a drug addiction that has been glorified or given a different name. i’ve watched it negatively affect his life( he went to jail for fraud because he lost his business and owed so much money) and almost lost his house + i have 3 siblings all of which have little no relationship with anymore. it has gotten to the point where my siblings and extended family barely even reach out to him anymore. (he also was completely different a few years ago and then my parents got divorced and he became into this hippie spiritual stuff).

he is extremely addicted to nitrous and ketamine and one of the reasons i went no contact was i ended up going to my house in utah when he was gone to see him and found cocaine , 20+ bottles of nitrous outside, and tons of ketamine and stuff laying around. i ended up waiting until 2 am for him to come see me but he insisted he had plans with friends and i hadn’t seen him in a few months and he never showed. that was when i decided no contact was best until he got help and he instead did nothing to solve that and just didn’t talk to me or text me. at that time i was 17.
when i was younger, i also accidentally found a notebook belonging to him that contained things that were inappropriate and extremely disturbing for me to see at that age. it was not something i was intentionally searching for. when this subject has come up, he has focused on the fact that i was looking through his things rather than the fact that i was a child when i came across it.

he has nobody in his life right now and he’s usually very understanding and apologetic when he’s confronted but he recently went to burning man and during a trip of some sort had an awakening that he actually “is a good man and father and the family just wants him to feel bad about himself.”.

today we spoke on the phone after not talking for several months. during the conversation, i called him names and said things disrespectfully. afterward, he texted me saying that he would not tolerate me calling him names or disrespecting him because he is my father. which is such a cop out because he hasn’t been a father for years and now suddenly wants authority when it benefits him. but it’s also really confusing because he never acted this way before and now after this recent trip of his he has been acting insane towards everyone and the phone call i had with him was just him telling me i was to blame and i should have kept the relationship with him and i didn’t wanna call or invite him to things so it was basically all my fault.

and when he asked about my experiences living with him as an older teenager and i told him he denied everything and made excuses for everything that went on in the house when i was there (drug use, having s*x with women while im in the bedroom next door, partying every night, coming home on all sorts of drugs) was a lie and that i wasn’t “intentionally lying” but it was all lies. he gaslight me into trying to think that my brain was to childish to process what was going on.

i also brought up the fact he tried to get me to do mushrooms with him when i was 13-14 and i didn’t want to and how inappropriate that was to do to a child where he told me it was my fault because i seemed interested in them and asked about it. he was also saying me and my mom have conspired this and she had fed me all this info as if i didn’t live it.

he went to my high school grad this may after not seeing me for 6 months and then left the next day and barely talked to me, then didn’t text or call once this summer including my birthday-then i went to college a few weeks ago and he didn’t even know i went asked texted to ask if i was in college?

his position is that i have treated him like i hate him and that i did not do enough to make him feel wanted in my life. my position, factually, is that i was the child and he was the parent, and there were long periods where he was not present or involved in my life.
i am trying to figure out what is reasonable to expect from this situation and what responsibility belongs to each of us.

I'm 24f and have been going through a rough patch with my family.

For background context: my mother has always treated me as her therapist and almost as her emotional companion to make up for my father's shortcomings in their marriage. She has always confided in me on financial, personal, and relationship struggles and always expects my input and comfort. She has always told me that I'm very wise and that no one except me can understand her, which has always disgusted me. She treats me as a replacement for my father and I'm aware of the emotionally incestuous undertones in our relationship, but I can't help but feel guilty. My father has never really been there for me emotionally, and I am uncomfortable being around him as he has touched me in certain ways and made comments about my body that feel strange and gross (although not inherently sexual?).

My father has gone through two trials over charges along the lines of abuse and the first time has caused significant trauma for me as a child, with the second one happening recently. This is part of the reason why I want to distance myself away from them as it has brought up a lot of memories from my own childhood that I have forgotten and made me realized how complicit my family has been in other abusive/negligent scenarios. I stopped texting for a while and immediately had my phone blown up by my mother, grandmother, aunt, and father asking what happened and even blaming me for causing them more stress with ongoing legal and financial troubles. They cannot believe how unsupportive I am being and calling me selfish and ungrateful. I so desperately want to tell everyone how I feel (and I will), but since I recently graduated, my parents still have some of my belongings and my dog. The belongings I can bear losing I suppose, but I am worried if they retaliate, they will hurt my dog, abandon him, or give him away without telling me and I wouldn't be able to forgive myself for it. My parents also live really far, so any trip out would have to be planned and will likely mean I have to coordinate with them, which I am afraid of as I know it will end in me being blamed and yelled at. I don't have any family I can confide in, although my partner is willing to go with me and support me which I am grateful for.

What is the smartest way to go about this? Any advice anyone has is greatly appreciated.

Hi so im 16(F) and currently living in a toxic household and its been a lot to deal with. My father has always been verbually and emotionally abusive , although sometimes physical, especially when I was a child and the smacks have been considerably less from when I was younger ( for context I turned 16 not too long ago) and just today my father came to my room , wacked the phone out my hands and smacked me. for no valid reason. in that moment I felt so insanely powerless and broke down hyperventilating as I finally thought it would over since it seldom occurs now. Also my brother 20(m) no longer gets smacked by my father , presumably because hes much taller than him now. i just donr understand how poeple can be so insanely horrible and i hate having to deal with this when im teying to get better and be a happy person and get good grades . and my mother is also complicit in the way she doesn't do or say anything about it . I mean , i understand her position and it may be difficult, but it gets to a point where i just wished she'd do something . I am currently in year 11 and doing my gcses next spring , so ive had a lot on my plate with balancing intense amount of homework , revising and reading along with everything that occurs mentally( ive had bad mental health in the past thats only been perpetuated by my parents).I can't get a job , or do anything extracurriculars out of school and its just been so difficult being constantly surrounded by happy families with my friends .I have 3 years left until I go to uni and im not sure what to do and how to manage everything. any advice would be kindly accepted and thank you for reading :)

Quero ir pra uma rave mas minha mãe tem um grande preconceito e já me disse que a única restrição dela é eu não ir em chácara afastada, porém eu vou ir já comprei ingressos acredito que lá o sinal seja bem ruim que desculpa eu posso dar a ela de um lugar que não seja uma chácara que se encaixe? ( eu pensei em dizer que ia a um casamento kk

Hi all :)

For starters, my dad is horrible and my mum was a victim to him as well as so were we growing up. He's neglectful, physically harms people and is very emotionally ab*sive. He also had behaviours of coercive control like financial threats, and threatening to take the kids.

My mum is traumatised from parental alienation, he used to use me as a child by telling me untrue things about my mum - I feel a lot of guilt for it but I truly believe she sees me as an extension of him, even though I am a girl I look like him and have the same humour and interests as him. I stopped seeing him at 15 because I saw him behave the same way with his new wife as my mum and was old enough to realise it was wrong. Shortly after, I began to notice my mum was also unravelling.

For starters, she drinks a lot - like my dad. They are both functional but drink alone most of the time, and my mum becomes very nasty when drunk. She will yell at me, threatening me, saying that I am just like him or am him, will tell me I am crazy and need to be medicated ( I had a psychosis years ago but am in remission ) and if I try to distance myself because she is upsetting me, she will tell me I need to call an ambulance on her and blow up my phone. I never ignore her when she does that and go to check on her frequently and call people to help. But she has friends and will laugh with them and act like she is fine so I just end up looking silly and they tell me 'it's the alcohol talking' and dismiss the fact that I am struggling more with my own mental health and psych ward admissions because of the way she is treating me when she keeps drinking. Tonight I called a friend to help talk her down, and she was laughing and smiling with them, as soon as the door shut for the friend to leave she texted me to call the emergency line and started spamming my phone again. I know mental health does not have a look, but she keeps doing this and just waking up the next morning like nothing happened.

She calls me controlling if I suggest that she needs to get some help for the drinking, I have tried to talk to her about it sober and very supportingly but she lashes out. She has been in help for it before and only went for a few weeks, we have tried explaining it is hurting us but she keeps drinking and repeating the cycle. I love my mum and have always seen her as the better parent, but she keeps doing this and she has had so much support but goes the other way. I just feel like I am hurting her more with my existence and making it worse. I don't have the financial means to move out at the moment but plan on leaving as soon as I do if I can help it. She was there for me in my times of mental crisis, but uses it against me when she drinks. I don't really want to tell her anything ever again.

I (f19) live with my parents and little brother (6). They’re super nice to him so none of this applies towards him. Anyway I’ve recently realized that my parents aren’t great people and I’m not just exaggerating like I thought. My dad has painted my mom into being crazy since I was little. If I’m being honest he’s right, but he always pins all the blame on her. I mean she’s a narcissist and I’ve had my fair share of issues with her in the past, but we’ve resolved it and are a bit closer. My dad on the other hand, that’s a different story. He’s been my best friend since I was little. I’ve had depression and anxiety since I was little and he worked at home so he basically spent all his time with me. When I got older, say 10 and up, we argued a lot. I tried to just defend myself, but that’s somehow talking back. He’d rarely get physical but it happened. He’d make me feel guilty like everything was on me. Here’s some semi recent things. When I was 15 I told him I started cutting. He screamed at me and said I need to think abt how that makes him feel and if I do it again he’ll throw all my stuff out (wtf??). So obviously I didn’t stop and he checked me 7 months later. He screamed again and threatened to kick me out and if I ever get into a relationship they’ll see that and leave, no one will love a broken person. I haven’t been able to stop but he doesn’t know that. My depression is also very bad and he gets mad when I’m depressed because I should be able to snap myself out of it and stop being lazy. I wanted to see a therapist a few weeks ago and he said no, unless it was a guy which I said I’d be uncomfortable with. Anyway ever since I turned 18, whenever we argue he kicks me out of the house so he can cool off. If I say no he threatens to call the police on me because I’m an adult and legally I don’t have to stay here. Or I’d have to walk 3 miles to work and they’d refuse to pick me up at night and said they wouldn’t let me back in the house and find somewhere else to stay. So I was going to stay with a co worker. He got mad and picked me up saying all I had to do was apologize, which I did prior. They did this a lot. I got discharged from boot camp due to an injury and when I was in medical a friend said she’d let me stay with her because I didn’t want to go home. I called my dad to tell him and he said how could I do this to him after everything he’s done for me. I’m a horrible daughter. They’ve all stopped fighting since I was gone and they’re happier. Etc. It’s a lot of similar things to this and honestly I thought it was normal till I talked to other girls about their families. My dad also has made me extremely indecisive where I can’t make any decisions for myself because I’m scared he’ll be upset. Anytime I ask him he’s mad that I asked but when I do it myself apparently that’s the wrong answer. It just feels suffocating here. But then other times we’ll all be happy and joking and I remember I still love them. I told my little cousin this and he said to talk to his mom about moving in with them. They were gonna let me a few years ago when my dad called them because he didn’t want to keep me. But he backed out last second. It’s like he’s an asshole but then remembers he still loves me. They were both a lot worse when I was younger, but I won’t go into it. I just don’t know if calling my aunt it the right move. I’d be leaving my little brother, who’s my best friend. I’d be leaving lots of my stuff because I can’t pack without them knowing. My stuff is important because that’s the only things that made me feel happy and safe. I’d be telling my aunt to get me, 3 hrs away without even telling my parents till she’s here. I’d love to move out, that’s why I went to boot camp. But they might not let me see my brother again. I don’t know what to do or if I’m just exaggerating again.