ks7
Aug 13, 2012, 11:41 PM
I am currently 20 years old, and my parents are currently paying for my tuition, but I have reached the point where I cannot handle the mental and emotional abuse that they have been putting me through for my whole life.
My mother is a borderline alcoholic, diabetic breast cancer survivor with what I feel is most likely undiagnosed bipolar disorder. She constantly alternates between manic states - she'll be happy and full of energy for a couple of hours, and then she will start getting angry and start yelling for seemingly no reason. Ever since she started paying for my tuition, she has constantly held it over my head by saying things like, "We're paying for school, so consider yourself our property for now". By the time I am ready to go back to school at the end of the summer, I feel completely beaten down and emotionally drained, and I tend to start having anxiety attacks when I have to come home for breaks. I have talked about it with my father, and he even admitted that he feels a huge rush of anxiety and dread every single day when he comes home from work.
The rest of my extended family avoids my parents at all costs, and until recently, my boyfriend was the only one on the outside who was willing to put up with it. He got so sick of it the other night after my parents physically stopped me from leaving the house (my father physically shoved him out of the house and then blocked me on the stairs) that he called the police and told them that I was being physically blocked from leaving, but I was just so overwhelmed and worn out from my parents threatening to cut me off that I couldn't find the courage to actually leave. They blocked his phone number so that I can't call him, and they've basically been holding me prisoner since then. The only time I've been allowed to leave is to go to work, and they have forced me to get a ride from them by once again threatening to stop paying for my tuition.
I don't want to drop out of school and try to scrape things together on my own, but I am at the point where I can't handle this anymore. I have other people that I could stay with, and I could definitely survive for a few months in relative comfort, but I feel like if I run away, I'll be destroying my long term prospects. I want to know if there is any way that I would be able to sue them for damages so that I can get out on my own WITHOUT having to ruin my chances of finishing school. I live in Pennsylvania and go to school in Massachusetts, and I feel like I would not be able to pay for housing and tuition on my own, even with student loans.
My mother is a borderline alcoholic, diabetic breast cancer survivor with what I feel is most likely undiagnosed bipolar disorder. She constantly alternates between manic states - she'll be happy and full of energy for a couple of hours, and then she will start getting angry and start yelling for seemingly no reason. Ever since she started paying for my tuition, she has constantly held it over my head by saying things like, "We're paying for school, so consider yourself our property for now". By the time I am ready to go back to school at the end of the summer, I feel completely beaten down and emotionally drained, and I tend to start having anxiety attacks when I have to come home for breaks. I have talked about it with my father, and he even admitted that he feels a huge rush of anxiety and dread every single day when he comes home from work.
The rest of my extended family avoids my parents at all costs, and until recently, my boyfriend was the only one on the outside who was willing to put up with it. He got so sick of it the other night after my parents physically stopped me from leaving the house (my father physically shoved him out of the house and then blocked me on the stairs) that he called the police and told them that I was being physically blocked from leaving, but I was just so overwhelmed and worn out from my parents threatening to cut me off that I couldn't find the courage to actually leave. They blocked his phone number so that I can't call him, and they've basically been holding me prisoner since then. The only time I've been allowed to leave is to go to work, and they have forced me to get a ride from them by once again threatening to stop paying for my tuition.
I don't want to drop out of school and try to scrape things together on my own, but I am at the point where I can't handle this anymore. I have other people that I could stay with, and I could definitely survive for a few months in relative comfort, but I feel like if I run away, I'll be destroying my long term prospects. I want to know if there is any way that I would be able to sue them for damages so that I can get out on my own WITHOUT having to ruin my chances of finishing school. I live in Pennsylvania and go to school in Massachusetts, and I feel like I would not be able to pay for housing and tuition on my own, even with student loans.