Paranoid families

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zanzae
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possum wrote:
i got an "i expected so much more from you", and a dissapointed shake of the head, followed by 20 minutes of silence, during which i vacated the area
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I get that feeling from my mom a lot.

she doesn't say it but I know she's thinking it.

I usually counter things like that with "where the hell have you gone in your life, literally and figuratively??"
 
well, now I've hitch-hiked across the country, and took trains with a bit of hitch-hiking on the way back. Then I told my parents I'm moving into a tipi in the woods. I don't know if they're really surprised by anything anymore. They just seem concerned. At least I'm not getting crazy lectures anymore :)
 
This is a really good topic, by the way.

When I told my mom I was riding trains she freaked out and started buying all these really bad train documentarys with herion addict hobo's and started saving news stories of derailments and stuff.

When I told her I was hitchhiking, for some reason she was happy that I wasn't riding trains.

When I went bike touring she was esctatic. She didn't understand that the shitty highways I was biking was probably the most dangerous form of travel.
 
i got an "i expected so much more from you", and a dissapointed shake of the head, followed by 20 minutes of silence, during which i vacated the area
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my parents make me feel like i am ruining thier lives. i dont really know what to do most of the time except not talk to them, and thats probably not healthy.
im sick of hearing the words "Youre only 16" and "You dont have enough experience yet" and "You're going to end up in a ditch and we'll have to come identify your mutilated corpse."
and its like uhhh, thanks for the support guys, i am fully aware that i am only 16 mom thanks for telling me again. why dont you let me know when you think i have enough life experience, that would be much appreciated.
mostly i just dont talk.

i feel like every time that something bad has ever happened to me i have gotten that sick lower gut feeling that something is wrong beforehand. and when i notice that something doesnt feel right i stop what i am doing and nothing bad happens for the most part. i guess i put a lot of trust in my intuition or instincts or whatever. of course that wouldnt stop me from getting run over by a car, or hit by a plane or any uncontrollable shit like that, i guess.
 
i've had worst things happen to me in a home then on the fucking streets. i hate bing a housie, but after getting caught and put into a foster home, that's nothing i never want to fucking go through again. my parents just say "please, PLEASE finish highschool, your throwing your life away, what are you going to do when you get too old" and shit alike. you'd think that the fact that im the one doing it, and im not even scared, would ease em up a little. i havnt really talked to my dad about it at all. we rarely talk. he doesnt understand at all. and my mom is just psycho. my step dad understands more. he did alot of trainhopping and camping and hiking and hitching in the 70s, so we can relate more. he understands why i do it, and respects me for it, and supports my views and all around is just a guy who knows more and has done more than anyone i know, so for him to give me the O.K., really means alot to me. i tried talkin to my step mom about it once and she is so absent minded, she says "i think the only way you can live for free is in a convent"

guh huh

i got alot of shit from my peers too. everyone said "why would you run away? did you even have a reason? why dont you just go back to your mommy and daddy?"

people can be such dumbasses.
 
my dad couldn't give a shit what i do and where i do it as long as it doesn't give him a bad name... so i made sure to give him one.hahaha iv'e always had alot of freedom and it sure as hell didn't come free.
my ma actually just bought me a bus ticket back home (yes i cheated) just cuz i wanted to come home she's an awesome woman who struggles to understand and bring meaning to my choice of life even though she was a straight A student who never partied. she sits wide eyed and tight lipped when i tell her my stories iv'e told that poor lady things that no mother should ever have to hear. she takes it very well considering the trouble iv'e gotten into. im so grateful for this woman and truely wish there was more moms like her (don't get me wrong she truely is a butcher knife wheelding physco bitch...litterally). love ya mom
 
i dont like the term "runaway" i like the term, "young adventurer"
 
my folks worry, but are supportive. I'm really lucky. back in the day, my dad used to hitchhike across the city (sketchy, in my opinion) to get to football practice. dude was 15 years old and did this a few times a week for a couple summers.
 
yeah my mum is super supportive too. I started hoping and hitching when i was in the states, so it was easy to tell her all my adventures, she was keen to hear what i was up to, so took it really well. Then came back to Aus and carried on the lifestyle and she just kind of laughs it off now i guess. She knows i'll be as sensible as i can, take precautions etc Plus shes a lawyer so just makes jokes like 'yeah hun, thats great, have fun, and call me when you need me to bail me out'

I think she's just really happy knowing that i tell her most things, and she generally has some idea of where i am. When i head off on a trip she says 'dont get arrested... oh, thats fixable... just don't get aids'. haha, shes a trooper. Of course shes a mother though, and will always worry. I can understand that, but she doesnt let it hinder my travelling freedom, so we respect eachother and can communicate well.
 
My parents were less than supportive when I brought my trainhopping boyfriend home and told them that (after a month of knowing each other) we were moving to Portland and were going to start trainhopping. This is, of course, after getting arrested for some illicit activities including illegal substances and money changing hands. Win some, lose some. It's a great fucking story and I wouldn't change a thing.

Anyway, they never expected anything like that from me, and, being an upper middle class white chick with overly controlling parents, a free ride to college, a taste for freedom and a love of privacy, things didn't go as planned. My ex-boyfriend is now heartbroken because the fear my parents had for our future was incredibly contagious, and the relationship I had was long distance. It's too bad, too, because it would have been so romantic.

Sometimes I wish they will lighten the fuck up and be chill about the ridiculous things that I do. Sometimes I feel as though I am ridiculous and they are right. Most of the time I just try to keep my mouth shut and remember that their ideals, history, and lives are so completely different than mine that we exist on separate wavelengths. They'll never understand the appeal of this lifestyle, the wonderousness of drugs used in moderation, or the amazing life stories I've had so young. The only thing that really fucking pisses me off is when my mother makes some agist comment about how she's had more life experience and I'll understand one day. Married to her highschool sweetheart and three kids before 30. Been to Europe on holiday and through a hurricane. Some life experience. Now she talks to me about traffic patterns for at least 20 minutes every day, or says "Allie, know what would be a great idea?..." and then continues to tell me about some entrepernurial opportunity she has cooking in her scatterbrain that will never happen. It's sad when you think of your own parents as pathetic, but that's what has happened.
 
yeah, i call my family occasionally and i'm disinclined to tell them about my lifestyle. it's sad but they just can't handle the fact that i'm a squatter. they know what i do but pretend i'm "normal". but thats really a syndrome of the times.
 
my folks were at first pretty shocked ("how are you getting there?", me: "shrug", "you're not planning on HITCHHIKING are you!?"). needless to say when my pops was my age he was hitching across the country so i know he doesn't have too much room to talk. so after they realized they couldn't do anything about the fact that yes indeed i was planning to hitch hike they were more alright with it and even shared some crazy ass stories of their own with me. some of the sketchier ones spooked me a bit but i figured they were still alive and kicking so i might as well go out and adventure as well. when i got back safe and sound and had only good stories to tell they loosened up a lot. i suppose i have been blessed with unusually understanding parental types but all it took for me was deciding that they weren't going to change my mind and they respected that..
 
Hmm. Explaining to them that hitching is your preferred method of travel for this, this and this reason, that you are going to engage in this mode of transport for said reasons, and whether or not they respect it they can;
a) have pleasant exchanges with you when you call to touch base, or
b) not know whether or not you are safe because it is too miserable for you to talk to one another because of this conflict.
... I nipped this one right in the bud when I took off from Wpg (age 17) and called my mum from Vancouver a couple days later to explain that I was doing some travelling. Not too much can shock them anymore, so it's all good. Very blessed to have the folks I have.
 
Now I've gotten to a point that's better with my family. I tell them that I dumpster dive, hitch-hike and ride trains. My mom's pretty ok with most of it, but my dad's the one who's a little more worried (surprising, because he did a bunch of hitch-hiking when he was younger, and hopped a train once). My mom picks up hitch-hikers when she's car-travelling, and my dad flies and stuff a lot now. My dad still isn't telling his parents (my grandparents) what I'm doing, though his sister (my aunt) knows and is pretty ok with it. I haven't talked to my cousin at all since she exploded at me...she doesn't change her mind much either. Such is life, everyone has their own reactions. I love hearing other peoples' families' reactions!
 
its really interesting to see how relatives respond to this subculture they have never been exposed to. My mom expresses pure shock, and amazement. she wouldn't last a day sleeping under a bridge and living off of dumpstered pizza. all my relatives on her side pretty much dont care, and think im a nut bag. dads side doesnt talk to me much, they think im crazy too.

a few weeks after i had ran away i was on the busy tourist street in denver smoking and playing the drum, when a man in a business suit comes up to me and hands me a phone. i look at him as if he is crazy, and then realize i know him, but can't quite remember. Turns out he had called his wife, my aunt, and gave me the phone. i was really scared, and surprised he didnt alert the nearest authority. and at that moment i was with some older 30's ish lookin guys while my boyfriend was off doing something or other, and i got an email from my step mom saying they knew i was with older men and to take care of myself.

they thought i was fucking whoring myself.

>=(
 
Labea said:
its really interesting to see how relatives respond to this subculture they have never been exposed to. My mom expresses pure shock, and amazement. she wouldn't last a day sleeping under a bridge and living off of dumpstered pizza. all my relatives on her side pretty much dont care, and think im a nut bag. dads side doesnt talk to me much, they think im crazy too.

a few weeks after i had ran away i was on the busy tourist street in denver smoking and playing the drum, when a man in a business suit comes up to me and hands me a phone. i look at him as if he is crazy, and then realize i know him, but can't quite remember. Turns out he had called his wife, my aunt, and gave me the phone. i was really scared, and surprised he didnt alert the nearest authority. and at that moment i was with some older 30's ish lookin guys while my boyfriend was off doing something or other, and i got an email from my step mom saying they knew i was with older men and to take care of myself.

they thought i was fucking whoring myself.

>=(
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haha... sorry, but i could really picture that situation and it seemed comical... im sure it wasn't at the time tho.
 
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