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Re: How do i get out? » geri122

Posted by fallsfall on July 9, 2004, at 12:08:00

In reply to How do i get out?, posted by geri122 on July 9, 2004, at 10:19:20

Oh, Geri,

I'm so sorry that you are in such pain that you want to leave your home. I do understand feeling like you need to leave in order to live a healthy life - This is how I felt when I decided that I needed to separate from my husband. It seemed that not only would he not let me grow in the direction that I felt I had to grow, but that he was actively working against my growing. I guess that your situation is a little different because, as a child, you are expected at some point to leave home - that is a goal that you and your parents share. Your issue is with the timing of reaching that goal.

I'm glad that you have a place where you can go. I would be very scared to think that you might just "run away" without anywhere to run *to*. Let the knowledge that you DO have a place to go give you comfort and support and strength while you work through figuring out exactly what is best for you.

I have a 16 year old daughter, and when I read your post I thought about how I would react as a parent if she were to tell me that she wanted to move out.

My first question would be if we had talked about the issues that were prompting her to want to go. There are different degrees of "talking about". At one end, perhaps she would have her reasons, but I might not even know in general what those reasons were. At the other end, we could have talked about them openly enough so that she was sure that I understood her reasons, and I was sure that she understood why the situation existed the way that it did and/or my reasons to want her to stay. I'm not exactly sure where you are on this continuum with your parents. My guess is that you aren't at either extreme. Maybe you mom has an idea of what things are causing you pain, but she may not quite understand why they are causing you so MUCH pain. Maybe you have ideas of why things are as they are (i.e. your dad has a particular personality), but you may not have really explored if there are any compromises that can be made to make things better. You and your parents need to figure out where you are on this continuum.

The second thing I would want to do would be to put in a LARGE effort to clarify these issues - from both sides. I would want to know that I had done everything I could to truly listen to my daughter and try to understand why she was feeling the way she was. It is quite possible that I never really *could* understand well enough, but I would certainly want to know that I had tried my very hardest. I would also want to know that I had had a good chance to explain my views to her, and that she had seriously tried to listen and understand me. Again, sometimes it isn't possible to get to the level of understanding that you are wanting, but I would at least want to know that I had *tried my best*.

Third, I would want my daughter to talk to a therapist. Either alone, or in family therapy. I would probably let her pick which she would prefer (and she would say that she didn't want either, but this is one thing I would insist on). This step would let me know that some person who has (supposedly) knowledge of the way the world works, and how kids work, and how families work had looked at this problem. I would want the therapist to help identify what *he/she* thought would be best for my daughter (not best for me), and I would want to know that both I and my daughter had given the therapist a really good chance to help us understand the pros and cons and what other options we might have. The decision would be my daughter's and mine - not the therapist's - but I would want to have that unbiased viewpoint to consider.

I believe that there are *some* times when a teen would do best not to be living with their parents. I know that you have had a lot of pain in the last year, and that you haven't felt like your parents have helped to alleviate that pain. If both you AND your parents have truly done everything that all of you are capable of doing to try to resolve the issues, then maybe you are one of those kids who should live somewhere else even before you graduate from high school. This is a very important question, and that is why I would encourage you and your parents to try as hard as you can to be open and honest with each other.

I guess that my greatest fear would be that my daughter would have reasons that she either couldn't or wouldn't tell me. Or that I would have reasons that I couldn't or wouldn't tell her. And that we wouldn't be able to come to an agreement on what would be best for her - in large part because we weren't understanding the problem well enough. With hard problems you have a much better chance of solving the problem if you really understand all of the aspects of the problem. I would hate to be in the position where a solution to a problem between my daughter and me *did exist*, but that we didn't find that solution because we didn't understand all of the problem.

So, I would hope that you could sit down with your parents and tell them exactly how unhappy you are and what things you think contribute to this. And I would hope that you would truly listen to their feelings about the situation. And that the three of you would try to come up with a solution that was a compromise that could solve the major issues for each of you. None of you will get exactly what you want. If it was that easy, it would have already happened. Each of you will need to accept that you will need to give up some of what you want in order to get get other parts of what you want.

There is one other thing that would make a big difference to me as a parent, and that would be the details of where my daughter wanted to go instead of living at home. I would feel very differently about having her live at a friend's house where I trusted the parents, or with an aunt/uncle or sister/brother, and we agreed on basic values, than I would about her pitching a tent in a campground. You seem like the kind of kid who would not propose pitching a tent in a campground (although I will tell you that I seriously considered living in a tent in a campground for the 6 warm months when I was in college. I eventually decided that this wasn't really the best plan I could come up with, and didn't propose it to my parents). How much your proposed "new home" could provide for your safety, happiness, and education (I would be more concerned about "life education" than school education) would have a big impact on how I would think that your parents would react.

You need to let your parents know how serious you are about this. Whether you stay or go, the three of you really need to have this discussion. And I really, really, really think that talking to a therapist would really help everybody to see the situation more clearly. You might decide not to see the therapist very many times (I would probably suggest that you plan on at least 4 session), or you might decide that they could be really helpful to you and/or your parents and you could decide to see them for a long time. I really think that the situation with your parents has gotten to a point where an outside perspective could be really important.

It is so hard to talk about these things, and many times it is even harder to listen. But this course of action that you are contemplating is a very, very significant one. Both you and your parents will feel better about the final outcome (regardless of which way it goes) if you know that you really tried to understand each other.

Good luck.

 

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