A little back story on my life, I am a 19 y/o female who came from a paycheck to paycheck home. Parents divorced when I was young, father hadn’t worked since the start of Covid (6 years) and my mother works a good job, my stepdad (not officially) also works but not as great of a job. I am graduating from community college in 7 days as I did college in replace of my senior year high school (class of 2025). Now here’s the problem. I was accepted into a large state school because of my gpa and have several scholarships to help me along my way, will still have items out of pocket but I have a good job offer, however, I signed an apartment lease with a few friends I met through a lease needing to be covered post on Facebook. I have 0 friends in my home town and only have one friend that I currently talk to online. Because of this lease I signed, it is a 12 month lease, and what is a big chunk of those 12 months? Summer. I have thrown the idea that I want to stay there over summer so I can work and be around a community of people I know and have friends with rather than come back home (1.5 hours away) where my mother and stepdad work all day and I have no friends, won’t have a job, and will be wasting about $1400 on rent in the meantime. My mother and stepfather don’t like this and get mad every time I suggest it. A recent threat is that if I stay over summer then they will help me with nothing, no food or rent. I am planning to work over summer and will more than likely have money for food, but it’s the message that really hurts. I am an only child and my mother had a really bad relationship with her mother her whole life, as my mother has said in the past, “I am the light of her world and I am all that she has”. So, should I stay home over summer, coming away from my friends, job, apartment? Or should I stay there, enjoy my wings being spread, in a community that I’ll have been in for a year, a job, and an apartment to call my own.
To clear some things up. Threats have been made about kicking me out of the house or full on cutting support. As I said above, my father hasn’t worked for 6 years and he lived with his father (my grandpa) in a home I can only describe as a hoarders home. I love him but I cannot live with him again as living with him made me extremely depressed and unstable in my life. My mother and father went through a rough divorce when I was 7 and I was put on a 2-2-3 schedule which led to me having mental health issues throughout my life. I fully moved in with my mom sophomore year of high school after I gave my father an ultimatum, so my mother is definitely high on her horse that is me being at her home 100% of the time. As for my job, I don’t have the job yet, however, I will have one secured through my college and scholarship. So even though I don’t have that yet I still have that solid ground of that job/extra money.