Yes, Your Parents Have You Trapped (but you can escape)

If you're a teenager or young adult feeling trapped by your parents, guardians or whoever you live with then I hear ya!

You ARE trapped.  You can't always make decisions, do what you want or live how you want to.  And I get that this can cause extreme stress, frustration, anger and even depression.  I mean who wants to live in a prison when they haven't committed a crime?

Right?

I understand.  I sympathize with you.  And I've been there too.  Not just as a teenager but as an adult dependent on an abusive spouse, who had me trapped in way worse ways than when I was a kid.

Well guess what.  You can escape.  You can live how you want, make your own decisions and do the things you want to do.

How?  But plotting your break to freedom and taking steps to make it happen.

And the first step is to realize that the only person who can fix your situation is YOU.  Others won't help you.  Or if they do you'll just find that you've gone from one prison to another because you'll now be living under their rules instead of the rules you lived under before.

So the solution is to take control of your life and start planning and acting in ways that will get you what you want.

It sucks.  And it can be hard.  But it's also amazingly freeing and once you figure it out it becomes easy and even fun.

So how can you accomplish this?

If you're almost out of school and of age (18) then you can start looking for places to live, either alone or with roommates.  You can list your options and also the pros and cons of each.  Living alone is more expensive but living with others causes a whole set of other problems.  Once you know what you want to do and how much it will cost, you'll know if you can reasonably do it or not in the near future.  And if not then it's time to find income sources to support you.  Because as fun as freedom from parental tyranny is, it also requires that you pay your own way.

If you have a few years to go then it's a good and a bad thing.  Bad because unless you have someone else you can stay with you have to deal with the parental units a bit longer and good because you have longer to save money to get out as soon as you can.  In the mean time start paying attention and figure out what makes the people you live with happy.  You don't have to buy into their line or agree with them.  But you are plotting your own freedom so you may consider playing along at least a little to make your life easier.  This also usually has the side effect of getting them off your back, which is a good thing.

Finally, and this is very important, you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself honestly if you are part of the problem.  This may piss you off but that's ok.  Part of the price of freedom is being honest with yourself.  So if you're being an ass then you need to admit it and do your part to get along with the people you live with.  If not (and I know there are truly abusive and terrible situations out there) then you need to look into alternatives.  You can talk to a school counselor or social worker if you need to.  Maybe even ask to go into foster care if your home is truly dangerous.  You may be able to stay with friends or relatives.  It could be that everyone could benefit by taking a break from each other.

The point is that you CAN escape.  It may take a little time and it will take effort on your part, but you can live how you want.

PS Running away or getting into trouble on purpose won't fix your problem.  It may grant you a few days relief but it's not a good idea long term.  Be smart, be calculating and plot your escape.  You cna do it!

It’s ok to be pissed off – you are

I get so sick of people telling me to not be pissed off at the world!

If I'm pissed off, I'm pissed off and the worst thing you can do is tell me that's not ok.

It is ok!

It's fine to be extremely pissed off at the world, a person, a situation or even yourself.

Anger is a completely normal human emotion and if anyone tells you otherwise they're not only lying but doing you a huge disservice.

So be pissed up. Get mad.  Get furious.  Scream and shout at the world.  Beat things up.  Write hate mail.  Rant and rage.  Be ok with being pissed off and also ok with expressing that!

I mean it.

But......

It isn't ok to harm others in the process.  In other words, destroy your stuff, not someone else's.  Beat yourself up, not someone else.  Write hate mail but don't send it.

And use your anger to get things done.  Anger is a great catalyst and when channeled the right way it can kick your butt right out of your mood and cause you to rampage through the world, shoving everyone and everything out of your way as you stomp through and get a shitload of stuff done.

In fact the reason anger often turns to rage is that people get frustrated because they feel like they have no outlet for it.  Turn that into action.  Massive, passionate, huge, life changing action.

Become a one man riot and everyone will get out of your way, leaving you to you'll get stuff done.  Then see how you feel.  A lot better I bet!

Those flippin hormones

I swear hormones have caused so many problems for so many people, including being a major cause in them ending their lives!

Hormones are part of the biology of who we are and as such we have to deal with them.  It's a human thing.

But....

OMG can they get out of whack!

At any age, not just puberty (which is what a lot of people will tell you).  From the minute you're born hormones are at work, balancing (and unbalancing) your physical body.

They're not just internal either.  They're affected by what you eat and drink, how much sleep you get, internal and external stress, the air you breath, toxins and chemicals you're exposed to, other people, and a whole lot of other things.

They can make you blissfully happy or crush you with extreme torture and pain.

And they can make you feel suicidal, when otherwise you may not.

If you want to die it's very important to look at hormonal causes, and fix those first.

I can't tell you how to do that because it's different for everyone but here are some things to look at:

• What are you eating?  Change something and see if you feel better or worse.  Over time you can figure out what foods trigger you and adjust your diet accordingly.

• Are you getting enough (or too much) sleep?  Or are you sleeping at the right or wrong times.  Try different amounts of sleep and schedules to see if it makes a difference.

• Are you drinking or taking drugs?  Change it up or stop all together to see if if changes your mood.

• Same with smoking.  Regular cigarettes can do all sorts of things to your physical body, including mess with your hormones.

• Figure out what's causing you stress and try different ways of dealing with it, or see if you can remove yourself from the situation.  More on this later and it can change your life.

•  Research supplements that may help.  Talk to a doctor of course but go for natural options if possible (food is medicine too... see above).

Can you think of more?  Add them in the comments.

The important thing is to realize many things can affect your hormones which can totally mess with your life.

Distraction Can Keep You Alive

When you want to die it's easy to spend all your time thinking about it, feeling it, and imagining doing it.

As I've said before, what you focus on grows so the more you do this the more you're going to want to die.  Maybe to the point you actually do it.

In order to buy yourself some time and also take a break to see what else might be going on in the world, try some distraction.

Not just any old distraction but distraction specifically meant to occupy your mind and body for a little while.

I used to do it in the way of giving myself an assignment, like watching every single episode of a series in order, going through every Popeye's Chicken drive-thru in a 50 mile radius (yeah weird, I know), solving every crossword in a book and so on.

The reason you assign something rather than just looking for a random distraction is that it forces you to focus on something other than dying.  As you go through the assignment, you may also find that there's a feeling of accomplishment in getting things done, which may cause you to decide to get other things done.  It may also cause you to tell your friends you're too busy for them because you have to get chicken legs all over town.  Ha!  Just think of their faces when you hit them with that :)

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Another type of distraction that works is anything that makes you laugh.  For me this includes watching funny videos and YouTubes, reading and sharing jokes, and hanging out with people I think are funny.  When you laugh it releases different chemicals in your brain, which temporarily sets aside the "I want to die" feelings.

The trick here is you have to genuinely be amused.  No fake smiles while you're internally suffering or rolling your eyes.  Try different things until you find what works for you.

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A final thought on this.  Don't distract yourself with work or obligations.  All you'll do is get grumpy because you don't want to do them.  Do something fun, or if nothing seems fun then something you think might be fun.  And keep doing until you find something that actually IS fun!

Life is Fatal

It's true.  None of us get out of here alive.  Someday, somehow our bodies are going to quit working and we're going to leave this planet.

The question is.... what will you do in the mean time?

Yeah I know it kind of sounds dumb.  It did to me when someone first asked me that years ago.  I think I said something like "I hate this place!  All I'm doing is getting through and waiting to die!"

I really felt that way.  But over time I decided that I may as well fill the time with "something" other than just waiting.

And I started doing just that.  First it was little stuff like looking up old TV shows I hadn't seen in a long time and songs I liked but hadn't heard in forever.  Then it was making some of my favorite foods (I used to love to cook but lost interest at some point).  Then I took up knitting again... for a day.  Not interested in that anymore.  Then drawing.  Liked that for a while but then lost interest.  Then surfing the net to learn new things.  That was fun.  Then I started trying what I'd learned.  Then I started going places I'd heard about.  Then this. And that.  And this other thing.

Over time life became interesting and I no longer thought so much about wanting to die NOW.

"Someday" was good enough, and it might be good enough for you too.  And who knows, maybe in the interim you'll be able to have a few adventures.

So remember... life is fatal anyway so you may as well do something while you're waiting to die.

Where is your head?

An often overlooked fact is that we create what we focus on.  I don't mean "create" as in making things materialize out of thin air.  I mean create as in our reality is very much the result of where our head is.

The more you think about something, especially if you're dwelling on it a lot and are very emotionally involved, the more it will appear that your life is like that.

People who are paranoid see everything as a threat.
People who are very sick have a hard time feeling healthy.
People who don't trust anyone will see criminals everywhere.
People who feel ugly see everyone else as more beautiful than them.
People who say everyone cheats will see people cheating all over the place.
People who think everyone is dishonest will get cheated or swindled.
People who want to die will see the world as harsh and cruel, and a place they don't want to be.

By contrast, people who enjoy life see the world as fun and exciting.
People who are trusting see people as honest.
People who are healthy see others as strong and vibrant, with illness and disease being anomalies.
People who love life can't even understand why someone would want to die.

Are they living in different realities?  No.  Same world.

In our world is love and hate, trust and deceit, honesty and lies, loyalty and cheating, ethical and criminal minds and so on.

But because of how the human mind works, we tend to notice things that reinforce our point of view and filter out things that don't.  Furthermore we tend to make up stories about what we observe to support what we believe.  Funny thing the human mind :)

So as an example, if someone believes everyone cheats, he or she will see cheaters everywhere.  Every relationship they have will end up with their partner cheating, and they may cheat themselves because "everyone does it."  Except it may not be true.  I was in a relationship once where I was absolutely loyal yet I was accused of cheating regularly.  Nothing I could have said or did would have changed my partner's opinion.  He could only see the world that one way which meant to him, everyone cheated.

Same with wanting to die.  When you want to die it's very hard to think of reasons to live.  In fact the mere idea of living can make you tired.  At least it did me.  But now that I don't want to die (yet), the idea of wanting to die seems rather silly.  I have moments where I wonder how I could have ever thought that.  Change of perspective.

Think about this a while and see if any of this makes sense to you.

Religion made it worse for me

I used to be very religious.

I was very involved in my Christian church and religion, teaching Sunday school, attending multiple Bible studies and church groups, taking theology classes, volunteering a LOT of time, tithing, and so on.  I knew the Bible better than the church leaders did, and often found myself in disagreement with their teachings.

When I wanted to die, as part of the help I looked for I turned to the church and was told to "pray for deliverance from my sins."  I was made to feel guilty, inadequate and very less than human.  It didn't help one little bit, and it wasn't until I threw all religion out the window that I began to see a light in the tunnel of my very long depression.

I'm not saying religion caused it.  It didn't.  But it definitely added to the problem and did nothing to help my situation.

As my life changed for the better, I began to notice that a lot of people who want to die (whether by their own hand or not) are ensnared in their religions like I was.  I also noticed that if they made the escape from this prison, their lives began to get measurably better.

This is something to consider if you are feeling like death is the best option to you and you're very into your religion.  Take a step back and ask yourself these questions...

1. Are you afraid to talk about your suicide or death thoughts with your church leaders or members of your church?
2. Do you feel judged or belittled by them?
3. Do you believe that you'll go to hell if you take your own life?
4. Do you believe that you'll go to hell anyway, because you're a terrible person?
5. Do you feel weak and unworthy, like nothing you do is good enough?
6. Do you pray incessantly and feel like no one is listening?
7. Do you beg for forgiveness and only get more and more miserable?

Now that I have escaped the hypnosis of religion, I can see things a lot more clearly.  Without a church to tell me I'm a worthless sinner in need of their forgiveness and mercy just to eek out a living on this miserable planning, I began to see life entirely differently.  Here are just a few of the things I realized:

We are NOT born guilty and there is no such thing as original sin!  In what universe does this even make sense, and yet churches have been shoving it down people's throats for centuries.  How can anyone be guilty just by virtue of being born?  Really?  If you never change one other believe, then wiping this fallacy out of your mind will still have an immediate and positive impact on your life.  YOU are just fine the way you are.  Even if right now you're miserable, it doesn't take away from your value as a human being.

Religion has a vested interest in keeping us in a state of guilt and shame.  If you wanted to control people what would be a great way to do it?  Hold the keys to heaven and hell.  Over the centuries religion has done just that.  If you're born a sinner than what can you do but spend your entire life groveling at the feet at those who hold the key to your salvation - the church leaders.  With this power they can control you as well as take your money, time and labor.  See?

Right and wrong are not written in stone.  Not even on certain tablets with 10 rules to live by.  Right and wrong are very much products of different cultures, situations and periods of time.  What I learned is that eventually we all have to develop our own personal code of ethics and decide for ourselves what is right and wrong for us.  This is living in integrity and being true to who you are.

The Bible is a terrible book and the God of the Bible is a vindictive, evil being.  Yes I know these are very strong words and you are free to disagree with me.  But before you do I suggest you read the Bible with an objective mind.  What would you think of the God of the Old Testament if you read some of the stories not knowing they were part of the Bible?  When I read them in that light, I realized that the God of the Old Testament is very busy smiting, raping, murdering, and destroying many people.  If that God were a person he'd be guilty of so many crimes he'd have to live forever just to serve all the sentences!  The New Testament isn't much better, with Jesus giving what I consider to be very bad advice.

I could go on but I don't want to argue with anyone.  These are simply my experiences and kicking religion out of my life was instrumental in me leaving my desire to die behind.

By the way if you're Christian and questioning things here are some resources to check out.  I came to my own conclusions way before these were available but they're full of very good information:

The Skeptics Annotated Bible dissects the bible and points out a lot of contradictions and nonsensical information.  It's a real eye opener.

A really cool chart showing contradictions in the Bible.  How can you believe in a book that is so full of conflicting information:

This website does a great job of going into great detail about why many of the stories in the Bible, including the Jesus stories, aren't even true.  Jesus Never Existed.

PS I'm not atheist.  More on that later :)