Hi Latha, I think that my best course of action is to stay with my sister for the remainder of the Summer and see if the fact that I am capable of moving out and thriving clues my parents into the reality of the situation. I won't go back to being a "dependent" hanging on their ill-informe...

Hi Sam, "Bad things" can happen to people through absolutely no fault of their own. We can all suffer from so-called "Acts of God", criminal behavior, other people's carelessness, random accidents, disease, terrorism, shortages, and the affirmative acts of police or other officia...

Hi Latha, We are all formed by the experiences that we've "survived" so I can somewhat understand my parents' reluctance to bend or modify their behavior. They both had turmoil in previous marriages with spouses whom I and all of my siblings could see as being immature and emotionally and ...

Hi Sam, I was not trying to suggest that a good therapist would be able to help. But kidnapping my parents and transporting them to that therapist's office is very likely a felony in Illinois (this is, of course, a joke). They simply aren't listening to me. They say things like, "we know what w...

Hi Latha, If I were being unkind I would say that my parents don't need a counselor, they need an 'active listening' class, or perhaps a physicist to explain that 'general relativity' does not mean that time stood still for other people while they were busy doing something else. Unfortunately, they ...

Hi Latha, I'm not ashamed of anything that I or we have done . . . if I were I wouldn't have done it in the first place. And I am every bit as interested in having a sexual relationship with him as he was and is with me . . . biologically he is just slightly older than I am. So, since I am female, e...

Hi Andy, Yes, I think setting an "appointment" to have a short conversation that they listen to would be a good idea. And obviously breaking into "bite-sized-chunks" is a good idea. I was thinking about leading off with the fact that I have a partner ("boyfriend" would ...

Hi KierC, Thanks, Yeah, I would very much like to figure out how to have a relationship with them . . . an actual relationship as opposed to them supplying me with a nice warm, dry, house; decent food; a (bizarrely highly ranked) school district; good doctors; and asking me questions while ignoring ...

Hi Sam, I get why you deleted part of what I wrote . . . it was sarcasm (my second language), and I just meant to say that while my mom's ex was and is a first class a-hole, he's a verbal not a physical menace. The sad fact is that if my parents were offered $1 million dollars to give the first and ...

KierC,

I didn't want to seem opposed to sex-ed . . . just introducing the topic at 15 or 16 . . . you know, three or four years after the onset of puberty . . ..

Renee

Hi KierC, Thanks for responding to my question. I realize how fortunate I am that *this* is what is worrying me, how to maintain a nice cordial relationship with my parents . . . not where to live or worse. I come from a big blended family, a full brother two years older, two half-brothers five year...