Not sure if this was asked but does your father and or family members back in your father’s country know what’s going on? Maybe you need to speak with your father? I don’t know but maybe your mother wants the money and doesn’t want to spend it on college. But it’s strange she won’t fill out fafsa… Is she an alien or does she have citizenship? Something doesn’t make sense and I don’t know if your explaining the whole story. I know it’s complicated. But someone doesn’t just wake up and want to kick you out the next day. There has to be more to the story.
The only option I can see for you is the military. Once you get out, you have a full GI Bill, and you’re legally independent from your parents. In your situation, I think it would be well worth the sacrifice.
Thanks everyone for you comments! 
The new updated situation is that:
I’m staying at someone’s house for a few weeks, and I MIGHT have a solution to housing if I go to school at San Diego. I’m getting a job of course.
I know most of you said don’t go to school yet, I want to at least try because the semester starts end of Sept and if it passes I can’t go back, so I want to keep my options as open as possible. If before school starts I concretely decide not to go to school, I can always just call them and cancel it.
I am able to get my mom’s financial information now, but is that even of help with the semester starting at the end of September? They still won’t cosign any loans though.
Probably I will start a new thread for this as it’s getting too long and the situation is a bit different
Again thanks for so much help !
I’m glad you have housing and are trying to get a job. That’s great. Don’t try to go to college yet. You can’t afford private loans even if your mom would co-sign. I don’t believe she’d qualify anyway, but that doesn’t matter. You can’t deal with school until you have a job and secure housing. You can ask the school to defer for a year and see what your finances look like next year.
Did you get your social security card and birth certificate? If you don’t have a driver’s license you can use those to get a photo ID at the DMV. You’ll need them to get a job too.
5 pages of “no way you should consider school at this point” and you’re still considering it. Never mind.
An AA in CS? Get a job in CS. A good employer will pay night school tuition. This is a slam dunk decision. Option Two … Join the military. They will maximize use of your AA. Incredible opportunities in DoD for younsters. Don’t acquire debt!!!
Few ways of getting housing:
- Find a friend who would allow you to stay for few weeks (I think OP said it wasn’t an option, but she is living with someone now)
- Look for a job. Once a job is secured, look to share an apartment on Craigslist (credit check may not be required)
- Be a live in nanny for few years to save up money for an apartment.
I am guessing the mother doesn’t want OP to work because she doesn’t want the father to stop support.
BTW - when I was a senior in high school I was also kicked out of the house by my parents. I was lucky to be taken in by a teacher. I applied to an in-state and was given full ride plus stipend back then. I worked after school to help with food and my own spending money. I had a plan of how I was going to pay for school. It wasn’t my top choice, but it was free. I eventually went back home and my father wanted me to go to a private LAC (my top choice) instead of instate public.
OP - You do not need to go to school this year. Take the year to figure out how you are going to be independent from your parents. Find out options in funding your college, and I think it should be outside of your parents.
If looking for an apartment on Craigslist try to speak to the person a few times to feel them out. If possible go with someone to look at the apartment and during day hours.
Please stop suggesting that OP join the military. Why would anyone who read this entire thread think that would be a good fit?
@RandyErika Even though I suggested it at some point if it’s a choice of being homeless or joining the military… Then I would choose that… I. Couldn’t even imagine my kids overnight having to find housing, job, food.
I’m glad you have housing, that’s a great first step. Unfortunately, given the situation you described, I wouldn’t be surprised if your mother begs you to return. If you have other options, don’t do it. It sounds like she has developed what is called a co-dependent relationship with you. She needs for you to need her. It’s possible she assumed that without her information you would give up on the idea of college and remain with her. Please keep an eye on her - the way she has treated you in not fair, but she may feel like she can’t survive without you - as quickly as everything has progressed recently, she might have been in denial, thinking your time to leave wasn’t really approaching that quickly. Please watch out for her - but set boundaries, and keep your own needs above hers. Let your sister and your father know what it happening, so maybe one of them can arrange for her to get the help she may need. And don’t be afraid to seek counseling for yourself (yes, on top of everything else, because it will ultimately make everything else easier to handle). You have not had the type of guidance a teenager deserves - not from your parents, and because your mother isolated you, not from the other adults that should have been in your life.
OP is 18-years-old and her mother monitors her correspondence, pretends to BE her to interfere with her relationships with people, and will kick her out if she even looks for a job. It’s not her responsibility to take care of her mother and to even attempt to try right now could jeopardize her ability to gain her independence.
Okay so final-ish update, I was able to contact my dad, and he said that the money was mainly intended for me and he will stop sending money to her if I don’t go back. But he won’t send it to me directly because he doesn’t really know me or trust me. He says if I go back he’ll pay for college and rent, at least this year. I called my mom and told her and she said fine. So most likely I’m just going to go back to my mom and go to school.
is this the best thing to do? I will have to be under isolation ( no job, no friends) and her verbal abuse for another 2 years, I’m worried I’m digging a hole deeper and deeper for my mental health because every year I feel like I’m getting crazier and crazier having a breakdown. But that might be better than being homeless and stuff so I’m still thinking about it. 
- 2 years because UCSD accepted me as a transfer
Is there a way that he could pay UCSD directly the amount he was planning to send to the mom?
Probably, but for rent and stuff he has to send it to my mom. I don’t have any bank account or anything.
Your mother knows your dad will quit sending her money when you leave, so she has no motivation to help you become independent. If you go back without a job, how will you get out? If your dad does pay for school for a year (and there are no guarantees that he’ll actually do it) you’ll be a year farther from any friends you currently have. You may end up with nowhere to go.
Why don’t you tell your mom that you’ll only return home after you get a job? That will at least buy you some time. You have a place to stay for a few weeks, so make use of the time and go get a job. Get two if you have to and save as much as you can. Then try to find someone to share an apartment with. Until you can support yourself, you’ll be under your mother’s control.
You’ll need your social security card and birth certificate to get work so go home and get those, but DON’T tell your mother that you’re going to get them. She can withhold them to try to force you to return home. As soon as you get a job, go open a bank account. You’ll need your ID for that too.
Have you contacted a battered women’s shelter? I think that may be a good idea. They can offer you perspective and advice that we can’t. I think returning to a verbally abusive situation with a parent who won’t let you work and keeps you isolated is a mistake. Spend every day looking for work. Make that your full-time job until you get one.
If you can have that much influence over your father with one phone call then he really feels obligated to see this through and for your success. But the comments he made about not knowing or trusting you are very telling. You need to build a relationship with your father. Once he gets to know you as a person and not just a check number, this could be pivotal for your future. Maybe he can come visit or you go there (round trip ticket only though).
Also… You could ask him to put in the money to a 529 or similar account then you can “only” use it for college, books, computers, room /board/meal plan related to college. The college could draw from the account or something like that. I would get advice first about this. This way you can’t take it out for a vacation or buy a car etc.
I would also explain to him that if your mother will fill out the fafsa forms with your help, it is possible that it could save him a lot of money. All cultures know saving money is a good thing and shows you care and how mature you are.
Your mother needs to know that you will have school projects and that means you need to work together with others on projects ie :having friends.
Does she ever give a reason why you can’t???
Call/email the social work mental health people at your school now. Explain the situation and get help and advice. Same with financial aid… I wouldn’t give up on this. Maybe there is some loop hole to be considered an independent?
Her reasons for isolating me are complicated so the following explanation is just for people’s curiosity if you want to know, since everyone seems to be puzzled by it but still helped me very much. Thank you! :
She grew up in asia, and her parents never paid attention to her, so I guess she learned to deal with that by taking pride in her independence and how she can figure things out without anyone’s help. I guess that’s the biggest most immovable part of her ego, because she never listens to anyone. Coming to a new country, you really have to follow what other people tell you to do, try to accept the ideas of the country, etc. She insists on doing things her own weird way. I could go on and on about how she literally cannot do the most basic stuff nor get along with anybody. So you can imagine if she has a kid, she’d try to have full control of them to do things exactly how she wants. It actually went pretty well on the outside, I had many accomplishments as a kid and was pretty bright. Being a kid, I really just wanted to fit in with everyone else. If you’re an adult and want to do things your own way, that’s fine, but a kid being in that situation is painful. Not being able to fit in everywhere, not understanding why your mom can’t just do this and do that, and having the face the consequences of being so weird. Parents getting into arguments with everyone because she can’t follow basic ideas/rules, the embarrassment of that. No kids wanting to talk to you. Also in order to do those accomplishments required lots of background work, and training with my mom. That’s a whole nother hellhole. Somewhere along the way, I developed a lying problem towards my mom, some of it is my fault, some of it I think is symptom of the situation. I think it’s because that’s the only way the have a little bit a freedom with her, as reasoning is not an option. This caused her to not trust me on anything, which I admit is my fault and I really shouldn’t have done that. Because of the un-ordinariness of how my mom raised me, I was not developed properly I guess internally, and that stuff starts to come out as the kid gets older. Thus, I started to go a bit downhill, and that just caused my mom to think she needs even tighter restriction on me. So her lac of trust for me and her idea in her head that it was because of her control that made me achieve whatever she wanted is making her constrict me even more.
The reason I really feel like I need to get out of this is that since I lacked a lot of the normal parts of growing up, if you’re young it’s normal to not know how things work but as you grow up it becomes more and more inexcusable. I have some weird internal problems that I need to fix, and being in this situation is making it worse. And I don’t want to be stuck like that forever. Going out on my own, even if it’s hard, at least I’m out of this crazy bubble where nothing makes sense.
There’s more too it, it’s a strange situation, but this hopefully makes some sense. I’m probably gonna have to delete this later on lol, this is getting too specific.
@Knowsstuff My father has been clear to note that he does not want a relationship with me, only wants to send money. Me being out on my own is dangerous, so he insisted that I be with my mom. Abuse isn’t really a thing in Asia I think so he doesn’t really think much of my situation with my mom (who’s Asian as well.) He said he was paying for college/rent in the first place, my mom just never told me. IDK why she’s so secretive about financial stuff to me.