At the age of 6, I had a highly traumatic experience where a medication was forced on me (to the point of 3 or 4 doctors holding me down) without my consent. I was screaming and doing everything I could to get away, 'my parents' (aka abusers) were standing there and watching. On the car ride back I told them that if they tried something like that again I would run away, and I meant it. Also, if I had had the ability to go somewhere else at this time and be away from them for good, I would have, but I literally had no options. I'm pretty sure I told a doctor, but my parents talked him out of it, and talked to it and said, "x, you have to stop that! Do you know what will happen if you keep saying that?"

It is twenty years on now, and the rest of my experience with them has been as abusive as I would have expected. They forced me to go to public school for 13 years, over my repeated explicit and implicit objections(after a time, when you realize there is no one to cry for help to, you stop trying). I remember when I was around 8 and it was a Christtmas break, and I was crying, saying, "Idon't want to go back!", and they said "I know", the implication being, "I know, but too bad, because we're going to force you." The 13 years there were like a fever dream of awful misery and trauma. I was also yelled at to go play with psychopathic neighborhood kids, forced to play a sport/do an activity that I didn't want to (I would pray for rainouts), yelled at about grades, and generally just extremely emotionally abused. 

Around the age of 13 I found a cool blog which talked about some fascinating concepts like lucid dreaming. One of the first articles I read there was called '10 reasons not to have a job'. I loved it because it talked about the misery of being forced to perform labor for others for a low page, as opposed to activities like writing books or blogging that allowed one to explore one's passion while earning an income. I spent a lot of time trying to make this kind of thing work, but it was pretty difficult when I had the albatross of school and parental dictatorship hanging over my head. At some point my parents heavily pressured me to get a job which I really didn't want to do. When I did it made me miserable and had a significant negative impact on my life. 

I came out of my youth experience absolutely bleeding and traumatized, and in need to major healing. Instead I was faced with continued pressure, now in the form of 'figuring out how to support myself'. I did a semester at a nearby urban college (living downtown), was miserable and moved back with my parents after the semester. They continued to put pressure on me to have a job and otherwise, and after about six months heavily pressured me to attend what was called 'wilderness therapy' but in reality was another bootcamp-like experience, in which I was forced to call my name every 10 seconds while going to the bathroom, eat the amount they told me to, show them my toothbrush to confirm that I was brushing my teeth, and more. We were also not allowed to speak to each other outside of earshot or staff. Failure to comply with all of the dictates led to a 'consequence'. The only way I was able to communicate with my parents was through a weekly letter that they read together with my therapist (should have been a major red flag), and I implored them to pull me out, but of course they did not listen. My only other option was to 'walk out', meaning literally walk hundreds of miles out of the field with a staff, while they tried to convince me to stay the whole time, and the therapist tried to convince your financial sponsor to cut you off when you made it out. So yeah, that was a great experience, definitely what I was looking for. 

I was in that program for 12 weeks. Near the end it was revealed that nearly all attendees were to attend an 'aftercare' program of 12-18 months. I was 'afforded the luxury' of being able to choose between two programs, and I chose one in Idaho. The only upside of this experience was that it was my first experience of actually being able to live away from my parents, but it was otherwise miserable like all the rest. At the end of what was called 'phase 2' of that program I moved into a nearby apartment, but was really miserable living alone (and still in desperate need of healing from trauma). After about 5 months I once again moved back in with my parents.

In late 2017 I actually met a girl that ended up becoming my girlfriend at a group therapy experience. She was the one good thing to ever happened to me, and the only person that I had ever been able to actually relax and have a good time. However, I cannot say that the time of our relationship was 'happy', as the pressures and misery of still having to live with the abusers was a huge weight to deal with. Of course they couldn't lightened up at all about pressuring me or yelling at me in recognition that I had finally found someone that brought me a little happiness, because that's how they've always been (abusive).

My girlfriend and I ended up moving into a place together in January 2021, but I was only able to make that work by using student loan money. While we were there I made some bad decisions monetarily and otherwise, and ended up, you guessed it, having to move back in with my parents about three months ago, and the relationship ended. 

So yeah, good times. I am essentially back in the same position I have been in my entire life, in desperate need of healing from trauma and desperately wanting/needing to be away from these psychopaths', but having no way to accomplish that. Woo hoo.