#i hope he realises that :/ i dont have any motivation to meet anymore bc im just a disappointment

[lovecrazedpup]

mmmm jamie moment

[mental-health-advice]

Submission about addicted parents

1/? Im the second kid of addicted to practically everything parents. My mom abandoned me when i was younger. She says she didnt and that my dad threw her out and my dad says the police threw her out for hitting my older brother. She blames my dad for not being around when i was younger and my dad says she was welcome anytime. The only time i saw her in my childhood was when i was brutally raped at 7 by one of my dads 

2/? Friends and she wasnt even there for the first two days i was the hospital. In the 4th grade my dad went to jail for doing cocaine and i was sent to live with her. She dropped me off everywhere she could. One time i was sick for a month and she never showed. She got a house and had me move in with her but consistently locked me out and after a while i just started staying a house down the road. We moved and i started avoiding the house all the time. She was gone everyday and i had to learn 

(3/?) how to care for myself. I had lice and was bullied at school for a while. My dad got out of jail and i moved in with him bc i thought it would be better. It was for a while but it went downhill. My brother gets everything he wants and gets to do nothing while im expected to do all the chores and keep straight a’s. He told me that since im 15 im supposed to care for myself and now refuses to buy me anything i need like soap and pads. He gets angry a lot and is now abusing drugs to the point 

(4/?) where hes destroying his brain. I injured my knee and i can barely walk on it but he hasnt bothered to take me to the doctors. He slapped my hand yesterday. I annoyed him so it’s not that bad though. My mom keeps trying to get in contact with me but every time i let her She ignores my opinions and puts me down. I tried to tell her how she makes me feel and she told me to stop because she didnt care what i had to say but it was annoying her. I dont think my parents are abusive, theyve just 

(5/?) bad luck but i have no clue what to do. I dont want to go back to foster care bc i now have little siblings to watch after (ive practically raised both from 5th). Please help. I have severe anxiety and i self harm and i just cant do it anymore 

Hey lovely,

I’m really sorry to hear about all of the hardships that you’ve gone through in your life already. I am giving you so many virtual hugs right now. Know that we care a lot about you and truly hope for you to get to a much better place and for you to be treated much better, as you deserve <3 

Maybe your parents have had bad luck. Fighting addiction is tough. But that doesn’t mean that their behaviour towards you isn’t abusive. In fact, it really does sound like abuse to me, or at the very least neglect. You really shouldn’t have to deal with this all by yourself though. It can be so overwhelming to think of a solution and that’s not a burden for you alone to carry. Is there anyone that you could reach out to? Perhaps at school? If you’re worried they will take action that you don’t necessarily agree with, you could see if it’s possible to phrase it more into a hypothetical story; ‘a friend of mine is in this situation’ or something like that. If you have someone by your side, you can look into the possibilities of getting out or your household together with your little siblings and finding a new home together.

I don’t know where you live and therefore I don’t know what the laws / rules are for these kind of situations. I do know that it sometimes it’s possible to become emancipated at a younger age than 18. There will be certain conditions to meet and it might not be possible at age 15, but it might be good to look into the conditions already so that you can work towards being able to become emancipated as soon as possible. 

Since it’s hard for us to give more specific advice regarding the situation you’re in, I hope I can still offer some tools that can help you deal with all. When it comes to self-harm, if you want to stop you first need to feel the motivation to do so. We have a page with reasons not to harm. I would strongly recommend you to make a list with your own personal reasons. Then when the urges to harm yourself become strong, you can look at the list and find the motivation to keep fighting against the urges. Alternatives can help in this fight. You pick a different alternative based on the underlying reason of the urge. For example, sometimes you might want to feel the pain, in which case a good alternative could be to let an ice cube melt against your skin. If alternatives don’t seem to do the trick, there also always are distractions. I would use these most often. My urges would get highest in the evening, and I’d continue to distract myself until I felt my eyes closing and I was so tired that upon putting the distraction away I’d fall asleep almost immediately. 

We also have an anxiety page series that gives a lot of information and tips on anxiety and how to deal with it. You might also want to have a look at our mindfulness page, to see if that’s a technique you’d like to learn. There are lots of mindfulness apps. 

I realise this might not be an option for you, but I do hope you can see a mental health professional for your struggles very soon. Even if the situation can’t be changed yet (which of course I hope is possible), they can still help you find healthier coping tools. And I really do hope you can look into getting out of this situation with your siblings as soon as possible. This is not a good environment for any of you and you deserve so and so much better.

Sometimes what seems impossible, is just hard. Love Pauline