Still in Winter Break; Still in Waiting 

We have until January 2nd, until the dining hall opens. Don’t know if open for limited hours, as it was before it closed December 21st (to give the staff time to enjoy the holidays). 

So since December 21st to today and until the 2nd, we have eating out of a grocery bag provided by the school (not literally, but more food than the “grocery bag” for Thanksgiving break, thankfully). 

It is difficult to budget how much food you should intake in a single day, while also making sure that you have food that lasts a little more than 10 days.

Maybe one of the reasons why we have been sleeping so much /sar. Less hours awake, less food to intake. The sooner we are until the dining hall opens. (I hope that it is not open for limited hours, it might be, which sucks. We have been waking up past 3pm, but breakfast at the dining hall opens at 8am and we need to make sure that we get more than one actual meal in us). 

And it really feels like we put ourselves in this situation…

We wouldn’t have to worry about food intake if we were to have just sucked up and went to our parents or paternal grandmother’s house for this winter break. We could be full to our stomachs and round in our cheeks if we just sucked up and went home. 

But they either abused us in the past or proving to be a pest in the present, some are both. 

When we called our friend a couple of days ago, I think what we said to them was “We might not be getting presents this year, but at least we are not being abused.” Lovely mindset.

Either presents or abuse.

(We didn’t put stuff on a Wishlist nor were we requested to by our parents (one of the consistent ways that they showed affection /sar) so no presents, unless stuff gets shipped. And they also wanted us to visit them on Christmas…) Didn’t want to put stuff on the wishlist because we are already trying to be financially independent from them. Why would we go and ask them to purchase more things for us when they are spending $18,000+ on a college education (and we are not upholding our end of the bargain, their words not ours).

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We have been watching DIY “how to make your own clothes” videos, and… it looks like a nice project but IT LOOKS FUCKING EXPENSIVE AND WE WORRY ABOUT MONEY FOR FOOD.

(Also thought, “maybe these people don’t have abusive families which is why they are able to afford it”) which might be an insensitive statement, I don’t know. 

Think that we want to work on projects, but with trying to manage the stress and fear of the future. There doesn’t seem to be enough time.

It’s not like we are afraid of the future. More so. that it is hard to see things turning out good for us. 

Because our tuition is due January 5th, and it STILL doesn’t look like our parents have paid for it.

We have to wait until January 2nd until our contact at the Financial Aid office to get back to us about our tuition concerns. 

Haven’t even asked our parents about this yet, because we are waiting on the Financial Aid office, and don’t want to deal with our parents bullshit.

No word for them since Christmas day saying that they “miss us.” (Mainly our mother and brother sent us those texts, father hasn’t sent anything since his email on Christmas Eve telling us “It’s time to come home” which we didn’t respond to.) 

And our paternal grandmother’s text saying that we have poor communication skills and can’t keep that up if we want to be treated as an adult. (We told her what she needed to know when we called her. AND We don’t need her permission on how to be an adult).

Teachers have told us time and time again “You have so much potential.”

We have potential… but that is used primarily on survival.

Or, “You are going to great things in your life.”

How about the great thing that we are doing is working our ass off to finally live a life in which we are not being abused. 

How’s that for wasted potential?

(To be clear: we are physically safe from our abusive and toxic family whilst on campus, but they have shown up on campus once, and we probably only can stay on campus if tuition gets paid. Doesn’t mean that we are free from their “abuse” even if it is not directly harming our body, but harming us through text/phone call (paternal grandmother, did so because she said it’s easier for her)/email. 

There are also thoughts of “What about if we don’t live on campus?” 

Though consider what we have now while being on a college campus:

•  A bed to sleep on. 
• No worries about electricity or running water.
• (When school is in session) a meal plan which takes care of the food concerns.
• (And beyond the basic physical needs being met), we also get the chance to grow either by classes of thing of interest, friends and campus resources that make us feel less alone. (We haven’t done theater in previous school years, yet we did a theater and dance class this past semester).

If our college tuition gets taken away from us, we will probably try our hardest to not move back in with our abusive family. 

Either that means applying for independence for FAFSA, great but the catch is that it is complete independence from our parents and we still are dependent on them for finances (like car insurance), health insurance. Though the good thing is that we have been told that the school’s wellness center might offer insurance, though we haven’t followed up on that yet. (and other things that we are probably dependent on our parents for, but don’t know what at the moment).

Or, live in our car/go to a homeless shelter (still haven’t called the Domestic Violence hotline to see what our rights are).

Oh, and for the homeless shelter one… “Let’s see where they are now… a homeless shelter. Such a waste of a college education.” (a rant not an insult).

And we have been told by our case worker that a college education will be beneficial to us because we will get better high-paying jobs that will offer insurance and other bonuses. But jobs without a college education we might need to work multiple jobs to be financially comfortable.

This body is only 18.

I don’t think that we ever had the chance to be frivolous in our life.

We were always the goody-two-shoes for our own safety.

Barely a year into “adulthood” when we should be enjoying our last few years as a teenager until we turn 20. 

Yet the prospect of reaching 20 seems impossible. 

We will probably survive to get to 20, just how will we live?

Sometimes think that we should have taken a gap year after college (so that we wouldn’t be as stacked as we are now), but we wouldn’t have gotten to experience the good things from college thus far. And a gap year would probably mean spending more time with our parents which would be unpleasant for us. 

It feels like we are mourning a life that was taken from us. I wonder if that ignores all the good stuff that we experienced in our life, but we are mostly shaped by the bad stuff that continue to happen. 

If someone were to ask me what I am grateful for, I would probably just say that I am grateful to be alive. 

I just want to stop waiting for things.

We are still waiting for this break to be over.

Still waiting to hear back from this therapy place.

Still waiting on to stop waiting for things to happen to us.

Still waiting, still waiting, still waiting.

I just don’t know what to do with ourselves besides distract ourselves for as long as we are awake.

Can’t do much of anything if there is nothing to do.

We would be just working to work.

Of course there are things to do, but it is hard to not upset our anxiety.

Push through the anxiety and the stress and the flashbacks that come with. Push through, push through, push through. All we seem to be doing is pushing through.

One of our friends have told us that they don’t know anybody else who has to work as hard as we do to keep a college education.

Our parents set up a college fund for us since this body was a baby. Yet that only looks promising if we be an obedient child and play nice with our abusive family. Some of our abusers.

We have been told by people on here and the discord that “You can’t pick fights with narcissists, they will find a way to make it all about them.”

But we have quieted and quieted this need to explode because we want to explode at people who can take everything away from us.

We want to scream but are afraid of the consequences that will happen, because we have seen the ways that our mother has reacted to our older brother would throw tantrums when we were younger. That is what the consequences of anger look for us. Getting sit on until you mellow out. Or leaving the room to cool-off only to be followed by one or both of our parents, making home feel like a trap with no escape and your parents were not people that you could confess things to without being punished (or more things that I am not allowed to share/know or we weren’t aware of what happened). 

  Maybe that won’t happen here.

But we have been open with people on our floor that we (at least) have trauma. Some people were on our floor the day that our parents showed up on campus.

Doesn’t meant that everything is perfect on our floor, but at least it gives us an alibi? 

Though with having neighbors who we could hear through the walls, ceiling, and floors. We haven’t had much opportunity to be loud without fear of being heard or disturbing people in another room and might bring attention towards us. (funny how some things don’t change).

I think that we have more to say. Maybe make different posts. There doesn’t seem to be a limit on the number of posts one can make. 

Though not all of us might not like the idea of public posts, I like the chance to do this because it shows proof of existence for a couple of hours. “Want to know what we did? Look at this blog post). Not blaming any of us for any reasons. We have our own reasons for doing things. 

I am glad to at least be given this chance to write.

(Also be a blog post in which it can be a rant without little to no editing, speaking as someone who has experience or knows of our experience with college-level writing class. The revision process was a bore).