tips for running away from home, from someone
who did that:
don’t tell your abusers what you’re up to;
they will put their energy into sabotaging you, for example, I was fairly
clear about intending to move out, and my parents took great effort to convince
me that it’s absolutely impossible for me to survive on my own, tried to take
away my money by any means necessary, even getting me to sign a contract with a
bank so i wouldn’t be able to access my money in there (luckily i didn’t put any
of my money there to that scheme failed), and in the end they tried to convince
me that any money i made freelancing will be stolen before i ever see it, and
tried to prove that the money doesn’t even exist. it didn’t stop me but sure
made me a lot more miserable than i should have been
don’t let your abusers know where you are,
they will try to get to you; i ran away after an extreme violent outburst my
parents threw at me, there was death threats, injuries, broken mobile phone i
tried to use to film the violence, door taken away from my room, it was enough
for anyone to get the hell away from a place, and when my mother found out my
first hiding location she came to tell me that i have to think about why all of
that was my fault. again, making me a lot more miserable than i should have
been.
first few days (weeks) you’ll be in state of a
shock, especially if you’ve been unsure if you’ll be able to get away; i
couldn’t determine if i could function at all after escaping, my head was
spinning, i had breakdowns every other day convinced that i’m about to die, it
was due to the heavy brainwashing that made me believe that i was dead if i
were to run away, there was no way to escape the fear and the torture of it, I
hope not everyone is brainwashed this way but I do see a lot of people doubting
if they have what it takes to go thru life without parents, and the answer is
yes you do, you got it all.
your abusers will react in the way that will
hurt you most; i know of some parents who aimed to injure their run away kid by
pretending they could live just fine without them, like the
child was a nuisance to their life and they were better without it, and in that
case it was the most hurtful and cruel thing they could have done, since the
child slaved their life away for the sake of acknowledgment and attention from
parents. In my situation however, my parents kept acting their entire life like
i was a huge burden and worthless waste of space, and it made me feel like if I
were to run away they would let me be and pretend I never existed, and I would
be free. However I was wrong. They contacted my friends, parents of my friends,
entire outer family circle and anyone they knew to be in contact with me to
make me feel guilty for leaving and tell me i was wrong and should come back,
they found the person who sheltered me and convinced even them to tell me to
return (this was the person who saw me after the violent attack, while i was
shaking and out of my mind with fear, they saw me hide under the bed constantly
convinced i was about to be killed, and this person was still convinced by my
parents that i should go. back. to that.), they made their friends add me on
facebook and request information about my whereabouts until i had a panic
attack and deleted facebook, they kept on finding means to contact me and storm
me with guilt and shame even after i cut every means of contact i knew, they
still sometimes barge into the house of my friend demanding to get in contact
with me, demanding that letters, food, even money be given to me that they
leave there (it took me a while to figure out they would never ever give me
money for the sake of my survival, but would absolutely use money to control
and sabotage me) - all you can do is in any case, to be ready for the worst. Be
ready for whatever you fear the most they would do - because they will do that. Make plans of resistance, plans of keeping yourself safe thru it, plans of retreat and safety if what they do makes you suicidal.
when you’re free, the trauma symptoms will go
berserk at first; your entire system is experiencing protection from abuse for
the first time (protection is abusers not knowing where you are or how to get
to you), and this means you’ll finally be free to actually feel all the fear,
panic, pain, anger, exhaustion, torture and everything else your body has been
holding in all this time for the sake of surviving with abusers around. After I
settled in my hiding place, I could barely get up for 8 months, panic attacks
were almost daily, i couldn’t sleep from how strongly i felt i was about to be
killed and punished for escaping, flashbacks and nightmares wouldn’t stop,
chronic exhaustion and chronic pain were so bad I could barely move, it was
draining my life energy just to make food for myself, and i could often not
leave the place and go outside at all, and would get anxiety attacks around any
kind of people. Only tip I have is to not feel guilty for resting. Don’t feel
guilty for taking your time to recover, you need it, what is happening to you
at this moment is recovery from a war, that lasted all of your life. You are
wounded and tortured and you need rehabilitation and as much rest as you can
get. I know it doesn’t feel good to just lie about and not get anything done, I
know the guilt of not being productive, but lying down for almost a year made
me feel shameless about resting and taking my time. It also helped me realize
that causes of my chronic pain and chronic exhaustion were all the things i was
forced to do against my will, basically anything abusers forced me to do,
anything school related, and anything i was doing for well being of others and
not myself. Resting allowed my natural will to do things to awaken, even though
it took long, I now don’t have to force myself to move anymore, i can get up
without thinking about it, doing things i want to do makes me more energetic
rather than exhausted. So, no more doing things against your will, for anyone.
you will slowly find out just how much your
abusers lied to you about the world. and trust me they lied to you a whole
fucking lot. you will find out all the threats they made were empty, all their
opinions and insults sent at you baseless and imaginary, all the doubts they
planted into your mind, will start sounding ridiculous and stupid. A lot of
abusers try to make their children incapable of making their own choices and
fighting their battles and gathering knowledge about the world, so they would
always feel like they can’t do anything on their own, and would turn to their
parents for guidance, however, abusive parents while making choices and
guidances for you, only thought about themselves and whatever is convenient for
them, and not for you, which by default, makes you the person capable of making
better choices, because for the first time, choices would be made for you, by
you. Control over your life will feel good once you realize it’s not hard or
scary, but gives you the power to do what you please, without having to respond
to anyone.
there will always be people who will try to make you doubt your decision and blame you and take your abuser’s side, those people are wrong, and they are your enemies. From this point on, anyone who tries to make you doubt your decision to save your life is an enemy. Nobody should ever try to make you doubt if you could have done anything else but pick yourself up and save yourself from abusive environment. You can absolutely decide that those people are scum who would have you dead for their convenience, and turn your back on them.
I don’t have any financial advice, because i
only ran away after earning enough money to not end up homeless, and I just did
it by freelancing over the internet, which is something my abusers didn’t expect
me to be capable of, so they failed to sabotage me on time, they however did
make sure to throw abuse my way every time i was doing good and achieving
something, but i stubbornly kept working until it got me out.
Conclusion: running away is fucking hard, you
lose your family, in some cases all of your relatives as well, you lose your
heritage more often than not, your use your security and backup in life, your
life just ceases to be what it was and turns into something completely new. You
gain: yourself, your freedom, your life, your sanity, your health, your
personhood, a chance to heal and recover, a chance to experience life as it should have been. Absolutely. Worth It.
This statue was found in the Karnak Cachette in 1904. Thutmose III who reigned ca. 1479-1425 BC was the sixth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, became a local world power because of his foreign campaigns. He considered one of the greatest ancient Egyptian conquerors. Now in the Luxor Museum.
This is a big, giant list of Youtube tutorials that will teach you all the basic life skills you need to know in order to be a functional adult. There are a lot of important skills that aren’t included in this list, but this should be enough of a basic guide to get you started and prevent you from making a total mess of yourself. Happy adulting!
If there’s ever anything you want that isn’t on this list…youtube it. Everyone always comments on my handiness, but everything I know comes from an old guy and his iphone.
“The being who patiently endures injustice, and silently bears insults, will soon become unjust, or unable to discern right from wrong.”
— Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (via philosophybits)
