Raised with pessimistic single mother who did not provide support?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I’ve been born and raised with a mother who’d “never wanted me to be born,” and “be glad if I died or never existed.” </p>

<p>In the recent years after my older brother had gotten into an Ivy League school and left, my mother has treating me like !@#$. She provided rides and support for my brother, but now she claims that she’s given up on me after an incident where she visited South Korea for business inquiries. All she left me with was money for food, and I was all alone. </p>

<p>Since I was a little kid, I struggled with self esteem and confidence; whenever I got the courage to think positively about my future, my mother would find loopholes to knock me down over and over again… I just really need psychological help and I don’t know who to reach out to. No one I know is going through the same situation as me and it just really sucks. </p>

<p>What are some ways to cope with this?? Rooming with people I know after college? I’m really scared for my future; I know I won’t have a guaranteed well-paying job that’ll cover my life expenses, and I know my mom won’t help me, either.</p>

<p>I basically omitted all my chances to the Ivies, except the sibling legacy thing, which won’t even do me good, since I don;t have any extracurriculars this year, and my grades aren’t ascending as I expected them to. </p>

<p>It’s to the point where I don’t even see the point in living anymore, but my brother has always supported me to keep living on and to try to work hard. </p>

<p>I was planning on attending university in-state, but a part of me wants to wander to a community college (specifically Evergreen State College) to start off a new life. However, I am very concerned about my finances, and although I come from a nearly poverty-stricken family, I feel that my GPA and future SAT score (I haven’t taken them yet as a junior.) won’t help at all. </p>

<p>I just need a fresh start without my mother pressuring me to not succeed…</p>

<p>Supposedly, she wants me to suffer as she and my brother did, but that obviously isn’t working out for me. She does not listen to what my counselors have to say, and just stomps on me every day. She expects me to give her money when I can’t even work, and tells me that she wouldn’t even care if I died… :(</p>

<p>I transferred from a competitive school to my zoned school because of these issues, and in hope to resolve them, but obviously my mom doesn’t want me.</p>

<p>Are there any opportunities that will allow me to start off in a new atmosphere without negative thoughts boggling me down? The fact that I’m her only daughter and that she really hates my existence just adds up to my depression and anxiety. I can’t even focus on my schoolwork, and I just want to be at peace.</p>

<p>Also, will I be able to tell my interviewers this??</p>

2

<p>Maternal depression is a real thing that has known to have negative effects on children.</p>

<p>You need to try and focus on your school work so you can get the grades to have more choices about where to attend college. I hope you find someone to talk to in real life.</p>

3

<p>For your SAT and ACT testings, use the thresholds for full ride merit scholarships listed at <a href=“http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/”>http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/&lt;/a&gt; for your target scores, so that your college funding will not have to depend on your mother’s money or cooperation on financial aid forms (which can be used as a lever for abuse or control by her).</p>

4

<p>Let me offer some guidance about college since the family dynamics are so out of my reach: there are two kinds of financial aid. It sounds from what you say that your dad is not in the picture and your mom doesn’t make much money. You have two FA options, then. One is what @ucbalumnus suggests: huge merit scholarships approaching or exceeding full tuition; of these, there are the automatic ones and the competitive ones. These can be found by going to this url: </p>

<p><a href=“Links to Popular Threads on Scholarships and Lower-Cost Colleges - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Links to Popular Threads on Scholarships and Lower-Cost Colleges - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;

<p>Anything less than full tuition or thereabouts won’t help much because it will still leave you with a balance that you cannot pay.</p>

<p>The second kind of FA would be need-based. Here the aid a school gives you is dependent on a) your parents’ salaries and assets (if your Dad is not in the picture you can get a parental waiver), and b) how wealthy the school is (often a measure of how hard to get into a school is). Some schools promise to meet 100% of need; this means that after the school determines what your family can pay based on salaries and assets, it guarantees to meet the rest of the cost of attendance. So if such a meets-100%-of-need-based school determines your family can pay $10,000 in each of four years, it agrees to pay the balance. Here’s a list of those schools:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2013/09/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need-2014”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2013/09/18/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need-2014&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You can see that both the merit-based and need-based schools expect you to have some pretty excellent grades, standardized test scores, and extracurriculars. But you can also see that some of the schools, like Alabama, Temple, Trinity, Carroll, Aquinas, are not the toughest to get into. </p>

<p>You need enough aid to pay for all but about $8K of the costs of attendance each year. You can make up that $8K by saving 3-5K from work year-round and the rest by borrowing. You can only borrow $5500 your first year and $27K for four years. You should be able to pay that off if you leave school and acquire a $40K/yr job; it won’t be easy but it can be done. </p>

<p>Perhaps it would help to start thinking that there’s a way out of the situation you find yourself in at home and that way out is to get the best grades, test scores, and ECs. So far, you’ve been mostly a victim of your home, but there are ways to assert your independence of that home and scrape your way out. Focus on moving into college and out of your mom’s house one day at a time. It sounds like your mom has a distorted view of who you are, so don’t listen to her when she degrades you–she may be ill, and you certainly wouldn’t take the word of any other mentally ill person as gospel truth. Reach out to guidance counselors, friends, friends’ parents, aunts, and teachers for support just as you reached out to us.</p>

5

<p>The Evergreen state college is not a community college, but a regular undergrad instituition. They even have a few graduate programs.</p>

<p>It’s very unfortunate that your mother is taking out her problems on you, Even though being a single mom is one f the toughest jobs out there, that doesnt mean it is ok. Does your high school have a clinic with counselors where you can get support? There are many programs aimed at assisting low income students.</p>

6

<p>Kiwi, there’s a lot of helpful information for students on the QuestBridge website. Here’s a link to the timeline for juniors and seniors.
<a href=“QuestBridge | Applying For College”>http://www.questbridge.org/for-students/applying-for-college&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And here are a couple of CollegeBoard links for you.
<a href=“https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/make-a-plan”>https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/make-a-plan&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“Applying to College – BigFuture | College Board”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools; (a safety must also be affordable)</p>

<p>Community college, as you mentioned, is another option by itself or looking toward transferring to a 4 year institution later. If you’re in Washington State, taking classes through the Running Start program might be of interest. Your guidance counselor or one of your teachers can help you determine if this would be a good fit. </p>

7

<p>It sounds like you are dealing with too much for a high school junior to be expected to cope with. My suggestion is that you, tomorrow, make an appointment with a school guidance counselor or simply show up tomorrow. Tomorrow is Thursday. Show up or get an appointment for Thursday. If you have to call for an appointment tell the person on the phone it is essential that you can see the counselor today (Thursday). I will tell you more in a little while. But there is great hope for you to have a much better tomorrow so write back here and let me know if you can see the school guidance counselor tomorrow.</p>

8

<p>once you tell me if you can see a guidance counselor I can tell you how to proceed.</p>