Dear Auntie,

I graduated a year early from high school and have subsequently finished my first semester of college. When I was trying to graduate early, I was only getting 2-4 hours of sleep a night because I was taking nine classes, all AP/dual credit courses, and my only elective was marching band. When you sleep, your memories are categorized about three hours in, well, usually I was getting less than that and so (I think because of that) I only have maybe 10 memories from my childhood now. And they’re all bad, like from times when I was whipped by my dad.

It’s like I don’t have any relationships with my family anymore, it’s like I don’t really know them, except for bad feelings about them, and few memories with them. What makes it even worse is, I just returned from my first semester of college, and every time I do the slightest thing wrong, I get threatened with having to pay them rent or them to take my laptop away (that I paid for) and I am still a minor with a minimum paying job, so I can’t exactly rent my own place. My mom will sometimes ask me to do something, say the dishes, and I will do them. Then she’ll freak out at me and say “you didn’t sweep the floors, sweeping the floors and wiping the tables is part of doing the dishes”. And she changes it every-time. Just yesterday she got mad at me because I didn’t make dinner. I was at work until 6pm and she didn’t ask me, and it wasn’t even a pre-existing request for me to make dinner. I just don’t understand her expectations.

My dad lectures me all the time about how I need to exercise. I’m not really a working out going to the gym type of person, but I am a healthy weight, I’m just not “fit.” I kind of want to start working out, but I don’t want him to know because he’ll shove it back in my face because I’ve never been that person in the past. I don’t really feel like I have a nice relationship with my family anymore, and I really don’t want to be around them. But, I can’t stay up at college because I need to work and earn money. I’ve had chronic migraines my entire life, but whenever It flares up to be really intense where I’m throwing up and need absolute silence and a dark room, my sister will play loud music on purpose and say “you ALWAYS have a migraine” and she’ll discount my pain. Just because I have had it a long time, doesn’t mean it hurts any less. When I return to college, I’ll have access to a free therapist, should I seek counsel for family issues, or is it just trivial? How should I respond to my family?

I don’t know, Sparkler. Is there any chance you could strap your entire family to a large rocket and shoot them all into another solar system?

… Yeah, okay. I suppose not.

And really, darling, this is so awkward. Here Auntie was, thinking we were about to have a fascinating scientific discussion about how the human brain collects and categorizes memorable moments! Only instead, it turns out that the most likely reason for your lack of pleasant family memories is not that your brain wasn’t able to categorize them properly, but rather that your family are a bunch of abusive clods! Assuming that your letter is accurate, the dynamic in your household is utterly, wildly unhealthy, particularly for the poor unfortunate soul who’s been assigned the role of Scapegoat Who Can Do Nothing Right.

That poor unfortunate soul being you, of course.

And that, my friend, is decidedly un-trivial. So when you ask if you should seek counseling for your family issues, the answer is a resounding YES YES YES. (And while you’re at it, see your campus physician about the migraines, okay? Those are awful, but they can be treatable.) Seeing a therapist can’t make your family better or kinder, but it can teach you ways to deal with their nastiness until it’s time to move out on your own.

And while that may not be something you can do right away, I do think you’ll want to make it a goal to do it as soon as possible, for the sake of your well-being. It’s very hard to develop a healthy outlook, and to live a healthy life, when you spend all your free time immersed in Toxic Crazy—which is what’s happening every time you go home to your dad’s haranguing, your mom’s gas-lighting, and your sister’s meanness. You’re facing an uphill battle every day just to feel like a person, let alone a happy and confident one.

But that’s why, in the interim, it’s important that you do what you can do cope and remain resilient. It’s why you’re not going to hesitate to see a counselor as soon as you’re back at school. And finally, it’s why you’re going to start doing what’s necessary to care for yourself, regardless of what your family thinks or says about it. If your sister won’t respect your need for quiet when you’ve got a migraine, get a pair of noise-canceling headphones and a white noise app and give yourself some peace. If your mom gets angry at you for not being able to read her mind, recognize that she’s the one being unreasonable, and give yourself permission to let her criticisms go in one ear and out the other. And if your dad would make fun of you for working out, that’s a good reason not to share your fitness regimen with him—but it’s an even better reason to set some hard boundaries when it comes to what you’re willing to listen to. It starts with a polite request: “I don’t appreciate comments like that, and I’d like you to stop making them.” And it ends, if necessary, with you saying “Nope, not here for this,” and leaving the room if and when he continues.

Of course, in an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to do all this work just to feel okay around your family. I’m sorry you have to. But since you can’t control their behavior, only how you react to it, this is where your power lies. This is how adults negotiate relationship with people who insist on acting like jerks. You are the one who decides what you’re willing to put up with. And the good news is, it’s possible to give yourself some healthy distance, even if you’re still under the same roof. Certainly, you can make things bearable enough to stay sane until you move out—and you can give yourself a head start on learning to set boundaries, which will serve you well for the rest of your life.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.

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