For some reason, I rather doubt that the V.C. Andrews Mutual Delusion Society you seem to want to institute is going to doing anybody any help at all.
My advice to your friend is to be out of the house as much as possible. Preferably at a job where she can earn and save money. She should try to find a part-time job in an office - intern, receptionist, whatever. Something that could lead to an actual career.
She should choose the company by its benefits. Do they offer health care and educational benefits to their full-time employees? That way when she graduates she can move immediately to full-time work with health coverage and at least part-time college.
She should focus on earning excellent grades and preparing herself for independence. It’s a crying shame that she has to think about these things now, but she obviously is not going to get the opportunity for a happy childhood. It doesn’t mean she can’t set herself up for a happy adulthood.
There comes a time in the life of every abused child when you have to make a choice. Will I allow this to define myself and my future or not? She needs to identify and pursue other avenues of success and positive adult interaction.
She may also find an excellent support in a local religious community. If she is an atheist advise her to look into charitable or ethical societies.
If she puts half the energy into these activites that she has put into furthering the harm to herself, she will greatly increase the comfort and productivity of her independent life.
Just keep reminding her that the time will come when she has complete control over her life. What does she want to be able to do then? What step can she take today that will further that purpose?
Lord Almighty, I forgot that including the word “abusive” in a thread title was the SDMB’s Spider Signal! This should get good.
“I didn’t see anything on Skype that evening … but, still, my spideysense was telling me ‘somethin’ ain’t right’ …”
The best advice anyone here can give you is to have her talk to someone who can actually help her, especially if she already has a therapist.
The fact that her family is attending family therapy is a sign that they love her and want her to be happy. Because of this, I’d hesitate to assume actual abuse is occurring in the household.
Do you have specific details about what makes him an “abusive asshole”. Teens can be very over-dramatic. We’re all assuming the worst, but it could be something like he makes her eat at the table and go to bed at 11.
I know of a family going through some tough times and it’s because their daughter doesn’t want to follow the parents’ rules. The parents aren’t anything close to abusive assholes. They just want her to follow the house rules and do a few chores. But if you were to listen to the daughter, you would think the parents were abusive assholes. The daughter wants to move out, but how will that make things better? Any family she moved in with would expect her to follow their rules.
Get specific details about the situation and then see if anything can be done.
Man there are even other people in this thread who are skeptical as to whether any abuse is actually occurring and they are still suggesting things other than ‘OP is deluded’ and ‘girl should man up’.
Here’s a second opinion - you’re being a jerk, and I’m also sorry the OP has to put up with your posts. Budget Player Cadet, a member of our community in good standing, asked for advice on a topic that for whatever reasons, pushes your buttons. You could a) understand that this being IMHO, the OP wants constructive feedback, and considering you have none, you could decide not to bother replying, or b) crap all over the thread. The OP didn’t ask you for dating advice, nor did they ask if you believed the story. They asked for advice on resources to help a potentially troubled person. And your first remark was:
According to the OP, she may be suicidal, and to you that sounds like “a handful”? That’s pretty heartless. At least most other posters are offering some constructive feedback, even those who may have doubts about the veracity/gravity of the OP subject’s story (as, on preview, Electric Warrior has pointed out). So what are you actually adding to the discussion here?
Oh, and Budget Player Cadet, maybe you can clarify - I’m unclear on whether or not you personally know this person prior to meeting her online, since you say you used to live in her area.
Also, I’d echo Mosier’s statement - if the step-father has agreed to go to joint counseling sessions, this shows a willingness on his part that I imagine abusive adults wouldn’t normally demonstrate.
She really needs to talk to a professional one-on-one who can help her deal with what she’s going through - she can ask her family counselor privately to recommend someone. Even (or especially) in the absence of abuse, all of the issues you’ve described - not getting along with her step-dad, suicidal thoughts, self-injury, perceptions of abuse where there may be none - indicate some psychological condition that requires professional treatment.
When my brother and I were that age we had the same problem. I moved in with my grandmother, he went to live with friends.
TruCelt’s advice is gold, whether the girl’s exaggerating or not.
OK, Kimmy_Gibbler, you’ve made your feelings plain. This thread is devoted to solicitations for advice. You’ve given yours. Any more in this vein will be considered deliberate jerkish behavior. Stop it, please.
Withdrawn.
Depending on the law in her state, she may be old enough to legally emancipate. I don’t know if the law has changed, but in the year 2000 in the state of Michigan, the legal emancipation age was 17. I did legally emancipate. I did have a legal aid assist me but I paid almost nothing (it’s possible my parents had to pay fees, though.)
At the time I took this action, I was living with my Aunt and had been for quite some time. I had to provide proof that I was either paying rent or helping her with chores, that I was doing well in school, that I had future plans and a job to afford my expenses. I did write briefly about the emotional abuse of my mother and how much things had deteriorated at home, but I honestly don’t think they cared as much as they wanted to hear that I wasn’t going to end up homeless on the street.
As I understand it, the judge also heavily weighed what the parents wanted. My Mom went back and forth between deciding whether she wanted to allow it or not, but on the day of court she was just in the mood to say ‘‘I neither support or oppose this decision,’’ which I guess was good enough for the judge.
I stumbled across a website once for kids asking about legal emancipation. Rows and rows of comments griping about normal kid stuff, with a few that sounded like legitimate problems. I made a post and told them that as an absolute last resort to protect your own sanity, emancipation works. But they need to realize that it’s going to be hard, and painful, and scary, and they probably will never forget it for the rest of their lives. Personally it was the worst year of my life… but not as bad as it would have been if I had remained at home.
TruCelt’s post is spot on.
Since you are not in a position to really know if your friend is in fact suffering from abuse or is suffering from “my evil stepfather makes me wash the dishes”, the best thing you can do is encourage her to make decisions that will enable her to support herself when she can legally leave. Being there to listen to her is a good thing, but don’t let yourself get too caught up in the drama. From my experience, cutters usually don’t tell anyone they’re doing it.
My best friend in high school had an abusive stepfather. Her mother told her (after he threw my friend through a plate glass window) “I know he’s a little rough on you but he supports me in the way I like to live.”
I think this is excellent advice. Try to encourage her to take steps to be more independent. That’s what will help the most. Whether the stepfather is being outright abusive or not isn’t really the point. If it’s making her miserable to live with them, she needs to be working on a way to get out of that environment.
You seem like a caring young man, and I do give you credit for wanting to help her.
If there is any part of you that was considering it, I want to point out while we’re at it that getting married young isn’t really the best way to help someone escape an unhappy childhood home, so don’t go down that road trying to help her. She will be better off if you can try to encourage her to be strong and independent on her own.
Couldn’t that be said of us?
So much good advice here.
I understand how you could feel a connection with her because of a shared geographical location. In fact, it’s things like that that help all of us begin to connect with another person.
If she’s not ready for TruCelt’s excellent advice, I was going to suggest what somebody else said here (I’m sorry. I’ve re-read the posts and still can’t find it. Teaches me to jot down impressions as I go when I click on a thread that interests me, I guess) of going to stay with somebody else for awhile. People used to do that all the time; send a kid off to a family member to diffuse the situation while (presumeably) knowing they’d be well taken care of.
If she’s cutting herself there is a problem, whatever it may be. It’s commendable that you’re reaching out for help for her.
I also agree with the person who said, basically, “Please don’t think that marrying (saving) her is going to help.” It very rarely does, and weddings may be romantic but a marriage license is a business contract and should be treated as such.
I hope you can help her in whatever small way and become a life-long friend. You’d be surprised how many more times you’re going to feel this instensely about somebody else’s well-being.
Hey, just be careful.
It’s ‘not on’ this woman that the step father is a deusch bag, so don’t worry about him, but worry about your friends methods of handling this adversity. This lady whose your friend may leave and get over the deusch bag step dad, again its not her fault, but a myriad of new things even more difficult she will probably encounter in future, and things like cutting/depression/suicide are things about the lady she can control, whereas her step fathers sins she is less responsible for - even though he can ‘exasperate’ (worsen) these symptoms.
I would try to find a friend or someone who cares about ‘your friend’ for your friends own sake.. truly cares about her.. and then she should use that friend and someone else to talk to as a spring board to try and do new things in life that makes your friend excited, happy, etc., this can lead your friend to start new strategies to change how shes responding to this guy instead of ones that arent very good (like, if the deusch bag yells at the girl, rather than go to her room, which is a habit but becomes a cue for cutting, she has to change it.. expect the deusch bag to be a deusch, the lady just has to change her response)
Just make sure the lady is taken care of rather than the step dad. The step dad can die in an instant, all those other methods of dealing with life’s adversities (suicidal thoughts, etc) are still there…
Google Bertrand Russell or Bernard Williams ( I think even Albert Einstein was suicidal at a young man ) Many men of infinite worth (and women) started off in bad situations!
What country does she live in?
I don’t have any advice on dealing with abusive environments, but there are some good online resources for dealing with self-harm and learning better coping skills for managing stress and trauma that your friend might want to look into - http://selfharm.net/ and its linked pages are not a bad starting point.
I think you’re being a really good friend, trying to help her like this - I hope she manages to find healthier coping skills soon. I think the recommendation for her to see her own therapist, rather than just a family counsellor, is a good idea too - she has some issues that are her own if she’s self-harming, not just issues with family dynamics and possibly abusive parenting. But that site above - and particularly the self-help part at Self-Help - might help her start to work out other things she can do instead of cutting.
Last bit of advice (at least for now!): make sure to look after yourself, too. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to help someone and spending all your time and energy on them because they need it. But you need to keep your own life on track too, or else you can’t help your friend properly. So make sure you sleep and eat and carry on going to school/work, etc, and find people you can talk to about the whole situation - it’s going to be stressful for you as well, having to hear about everything going on in her world, and that’s normal. You need to find your own way of dealing with that, and talking about it to someone is the easiest and best, IMO.
Neither of these strike me as good assumptions to make.
Maybe she is being emotionally abused, or maybe she is a sixteen year old drama queen, or maybe it is some mixture of both, or something else altogether.
“Get out of the house as much as you can” is good advice whether the stepfather is abusive, or if they just don’t like each other. And “focus on your grades” is always good advice for a teenager.
Other good advice includes “don’t take everything you’re told at face value”. That includes what we’re saying as much as it does what she is telling you.
Was she hospitalized after this suicide attempt she told you about?
Regards,
Shodan
This. You might be thinking of rescuing her by finding a place for the two of you to live together, but your friend needs time to experience life as an independent adult first. Marriage and/or cohabiting requires two mature, reasonably healthy people in order for it to work. From your description your friend will need to get out of her current situation and take months or years to recover before she’ll be there. This is her struggle, and you can’t solve it for her, as heartrending as that can be.
Best of luck to you and her.