Hey guys, just thought i would give an update. as i mentioned earlier my mother all but forced me to 'admit' that the church is undeniably good, and now she has it in her mind that i still have a chance of coming back to the light. i cannot open up to my family at all because of the outrageous things they are always telling and doing to me, i've learned my lesson from opening up enough to tell them that i didn't want to be mormon anymore. i have too many memories of the the mistreatment i received on a regular basis as a small kid mingled with occasional abuse, that along with the complete mormon bigotry , the brainwashing and indoctrination of my entire family, and the complete lack of intimate connection with anyone had thrown me into a depression that has involved mood swings, cutting, and an obsession with pornography and alcohol. by the way, i'm a fifteen year old male. any advice/ help would be appreciated.

I wish I could actually do something to help. I have a good friend who pretty much lived in my bedroom while I was on my mission to get away from some similar sounding stuff.

Do you have somewhere you can go? Just having a sanctuary has been helpful to me in the past

i want to leave the house completely and get rid of my entire past, but im afraid because i have so few options then. i had one friend offer to let me stay with his family if things got too bad but that was a long time ago so i dont know if it still stands and the whole self dependant, living on the street thing doesn't exactly appeal to me. all i know is that i need a way out, soon.

My advice is play the game while you don't have other, better choices.

Go to all the classes and study what they ask you to study. And then ask really hard questions. Maybe you can make a big enough pain in the ass of yourself that they'll ban you from your ward?

Seriously, it's like acting. Just go along to get along and as soon as you can, get the hell outta there.

That's what I did.

just switched to my account so this is still TONA. i'm just looking for advice, if anyone has experience with leaving home or anything like that, please help me.

You are fifteen now, which means that you have about three years until you are a legal adult.

It is time for you to begin doing something which is going to be difficult, confusing, and sometimes disheartening (because you're going to feel out of sync with your age peers):

You have to begin figuring out plans (plural, so you can switch from one to the other fairly easily, if necessary) which you can put into action the day/week/month you turn 18.

You have to think, VERY seriously, about how you are going to support yourself AS AN ADULT---an 18-year-old adult. Most people in our society get a "bridge" period (this, among other important things, is what post-high school education is about---it is a time when you can try out different adult personas until you find the ones that are really, truly, naturally YOU). You're not going to have this bridge, so you have to do some serious thinking, and DOING, right now so you will be ready for your 18th birthday when it comes.

RIGHT NOW, if you HAD to, what would you choose to do as employment for all of your adulthood. (Disregard the fact that many adults change their careers during their adult decades, because right now, you should be mainly concerned with that first job and career, because this is what you are going to have to depend on for your financial livelihood.)

Can you get some kind of job (hopefully paying; okay if you're donating time, too) in the same field---where you can get to know people who will learn to respect you and will be willing to mentor/befriend you when you reach 18? Start by going around to the places where those jobs are, introducing yourself, and telling them that you are a high school student who is thinking about that job, or field, for your adult career, and would they give you advice about education, etc. Ask about how people get into that field. Ask about what education is needed. You're not really doing this for the actual information as much as you are doing it to make CONTACTS---personal contacts with people who can help you out from now until then. Along the way, you can ask if they have an apprentice program, or a volunteer program that you can be a part of. If they don't, VOLUNTEER to create such a program at your high school with people who are interested in the same, or related, job/career. By the time you do graduate from high school, you will have a number of people who will hire you, or help you get scholarship money, and will give you recommendation letters to your college of choice, virtually guaranteed.

Make certain that everything you do is related to your future 18-year-old ability to earn a survivable income from. Choose your courses and your extracurriculars with your 18-year-old, beginning adult, self in mind. Yes...this is likely going to cut down somewhat on your high school fun, but it will make you a MUCH happier 18-year-old adult starting on Day One of your legal adulthood.

Keep scholarships, test scores, AP's if you can use them, in mind in EVERYTHING you do. (You might also see if you can go to your local community college to take the courses which will be required in college, and which will ALSO count as high school credits. Where I live, in California, high school students can enroll in community college courses and get dual college/high school credit---but you have to be willing to do the work conscientiously, if you decide to take advantage of this or something like it. It means cutting out a lot of "hanging around" high school time in favor of studying the French Revolution for your Western Civ college class...but down the road, you could possibly wind up with an Associate degree virtually right after you get your high school diploma. This could cut TWO YEARS off of your eventual college education requirements. Don't do this unless you're going to work for A's, but if you DO do it, it would not only make your 18th birthday more secure than you could even envision right now, but it could also be a good excuse to avoid a bunch of church-related time-wasting---after all, you are a COLLEGE student now, too!!!

Important warning: If you decide that you want to do one thing as your adult job/career, but you get into it and decide that it is not for you, regard that as time well spent and change to the OTHER thing or things you either already know about now, or will learn about when you're actually in the adult world. I once got a cushy job in a major advertising agency...and learned in less than a week that for me, advertising was about the worst fit imaginable in life. I put in my notice by the end of that first week and started looking for another job in a non-advertising capacity. I once wanted to be a politician too (and I won a City-wide essay contest saying exactly this), and I know now that that would have been, for ME, an even WORSE fit than advertising was!!! :D

Every adult has these kinds of stories to tell...you're just having to begin learning these lessons at the age of 15.

Many Americans have done exactly the same thing..."having to be an adult" at age 15 used to be pretty common, and it is still necessary to many of your peers.

It can be scary and daunting and depressing to have to figure out what to do when you're young and you don't yet know a lot of things that you will learn in the next few years, but it CAN be done---and countless Americans have done it in not only earlier generations, but in your general age cohort too.

I wish you all the best.

Whether you know it or not at this moment, you CAN do it!!!

P.S. Begin getting your legal papers together. Collect your birth certificate, your Social Security card, your passport (if you have one). As you get new credentials (diploma, transcript of school records, etc.), add them to your personal legal document collection. When you turn 18, you should have you own collection of legal papers in YOUR possession, and ready to take with you should you need to move immediately. (Sometimes parents try to keep these things hostage. Begin now to collect them, and this won't be a potential problem.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2014 04:27PM by tevai.

Thank you, I will definitely be looking for ways to secure my future post-mormonism.