<p>Plainjane, I know someone in the same situation. Their parent however so their child possibly leaving them as an opportunity to get their life together. The best is to talk to your mom about how you feel. Suggest programs such as AA, they are all over.</p>
<p>*saw their child</p>
<p>my parents say that if i get accepted i’ll go. but my family’s finnancial situation is VERY borderline. if you knew where my father worked, and how much he made, everyone would be very confused as why i’m even applying for FA. but we only got this job a few years ago, and previously he was making under $100k and we lived in the midwest. now we live in a very expensive area in nj, and the cost of living is much higher. we’re hoping for FA, but if i dont get it, but get in, i think i’ll still go.
the big questions is if i get into lawrenceville and peddie and peddie gives me FA or more. then we would have to seriously think about it.</p>
<p>unique6, your writing demonstrates a heck of a lot of maturity, insight and good sense for a person of any age. You’re doing the right thing for yourself and your mother, so give yourself permission to shed the guilt and pity, which are often misplaced, destructive, martyr emotions.</p>
<p>the world <em>is</em> an amazing place, even when faced with severe challenges in one’s personal life. Sometimes such challenges are the contrast needed to remind just how amazing it is. I suspect you know this deep down.</p>
<p>The very best wishes for you. You sound like a great candidate for boarding school, and I’ll bet you’d thrive. Nothing makes a parent more deeply satisfied than seeing their kids thrive, and often this thriving happens in a ‘when you love something set it free’ scenario.</p>
<p>signed,</p>
<p>a geezer/father/son</p>
<p>Plainjane, your challenges have forged you into a strong person at an early age. I suspect you will forever be just a little more mature, a little more empathetic, a little more resourceful than your peers. This will really come in handy.</p>
<p>A younger child is not responsible for taking care of an irresponsible parent, nor is it even possible, no matter how desperately one hopes, to be able to do so. The irony is that by living at home, you may be enabling your mother to behave as she does, because she believes you will cover for her. It is quite possible that the best thing you can do for your mother is to leave. Alcoholics (perhaps your Mom is?) need to hit rock bottom before they are self-motivated to start recovery. It is not possible to motivate/cajole/encourage an alcoholic from the outside. It ultimately must come from within.</p>
<p>When you leave, the best thing you can hope for is for your Mom to hit rock bottom, hope that she has a ‘high bottom,’ and hope that she starts a self-motivated recovery process. In any case, there is nothing you can or should do for her, and the severe irony is that attempts to help usually have the opposite effect.</p>
<p>The one thing you can do, is to write your Mom a letter and tell her how her behaviors make you feel and how they impact your life and ask her to consider getting help and changing.</p>
<p>signed,</p>
<p>a geezer/father/son…and brother of a successfully recovering alcoholic.</p>
<p>Are you helping your brother recover or did you let him hit the rock bottom and recover?</p>
<p>If I communicated well, you will be able to infer the path we ultimately took that is now working … and perhaps you will even be able to infer the path we initially tried that did not work. There is a chance that I did not communicate well, and that can happen. If this has personal bearing in your life, I’m happy to provide a straighter answer.</p>
<p>Thank you, ELW. Your words are insightful, encouraging, and wise. I suppose I do know that the world is a great place, and I understand that in order to truly appreciate the world’s awesomeness, you must first see its dark side. It’s the yin-yang of life, if you will. I’m waiting to finally be emotionally free, and when that day arrives, it will be glorious.
This thread is very insightful. I think a lot of applicants will have their eyes opened a bit more. There are more aspects to this admissions process than one would think, and also, everyone’s situation is different.</p>
<p>Also, I love the tact you used when you responded to pulsar’s statement! :-)</p>
<p>wow ELW your comment made my day 
thank you and I’ll try to talk to my mom about it after reading over everything I realized that if I have the oppurtunity I’ll take it and you’re right I have been covering for my mom. she needs to learn and I guess I have to let her take that risk thank you so much your comment really made me think</p>
<p>PlainJane, I agree with everything ELW has to say about your situation. I would also like to add that if you were to be accepted but you chose not to go for the sake of your mother, then you would only resent your mother for the rest of your life. Guaranteed. I wish you the best of luck with both the admissions process and your family life. Please, take care of yourself. You are young and need to remember that you can’t keep sacrificing so much of yourself for others. You need to find BALANCE.</p>
<p>AlexzMom, I can send you a PM. Your inbox is full! :)</p>
<p>Andover’s motto is ‘Non Sibi’ and the Dean said they admit nice kids.</p>
<p>Pulsar,
Sometimes letting someone hit rock bottom IS part of helping them to recover.</p>
<p>Sounds like a pretty antique method practiced by the Romans!</p>
<p>Whoops! I made a typo. I meant to say that I can NOT send you a message, AlexzMom.</p>
<p>what i was trying to say is that i feel guilty for expunging so much of my parents money and being such a financial burden. vacations are not necessary, and my family does not go on them often anyways. it would be difficult to use so much of my parents money and for them to make such a big sacrifice.</p>
<p>Sometimes the only time a person will consider a new direction is after they have hit rock bottom. And, often, even family is helpless in keeping that person from hitting rock bottom. I’ve seen it.
Pulsar, the Romans were a brutal lot. Helping somebody who hit rock bottom was not big with them.</p>
<p>It is hard to understand the brutal emotional hold that addiction can have on an entire family unless you’ve experienced it for yourself–and it’s easy to interpret the loving actions of a family as cruel or heartless. </p>
<p>A Beautiful Boy by David Sheff is the best book I know to help someone who hasn’t dealt with the ravages of substance abuse in a loving family understand why letting go and hitting rock bottom are both essential, incredibly painful parts of the process. I highly recommend it. </p>
<p>That said, I hope that those of you coming from these hard situations at home can find bs’s that give you the right amount of support and guidance–I can’t tell you what that would look like, but please, when you revisit, ask lots of questions about advisers and dorm parents and teacher-student relationships to help you assess which school will give you the mix of independence and adult care and support that you need.</p>
<p>To some extent, leaving a family member to fend for themself is brutal and selfish. Especially if you are leaving them for a luxury instead of a necessity. Boarding school is not a necessity.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>if i get accepted i will go!</p>