Hello everyone. Just to begin I am 17 years old and I was born in Virginia. I lived in Virginia for 17 years and I am a gay male. The town in Virginia only has 900 people and is typically really conservative. There is nothing to do around the area. If I wanted to do anything such as go to the mall, I would have to drive 45 minutes to Kingsport, Tennessee. That mall isn't very big anyways, so if I wanted to go to my favorite stores, I would have to drive an hour to get to that mall. Overall, it is a very rural, boring area and there is nobody to have a potential relationship with where I live. Everybody that is openly gay is like i said, in Kingsport or Johnson City. Anyways, during the summer I visited my grandma in Tampa, Florida. I have always loved Tampa and cities in general. I visited for a week and she told me I could stay and come live with her to complete my senior year of high school and then go to college. (I would like to go to University of South Florida in Tampa). I immediately took her up on the offer. I moved down here to Florida during the summer and loved everything about it.. I was nervous about starting school, but I fell in love with it instantly. The people are so amazing and are so accepting with me being gay (my family back home knows, but my grandmother and her husband here in Florida do not know). I love the friends back home, but the ones here are pretty freaking amazing. Anyways, I love everything about it. However, I immediately began having conflicts with my grandmother. She is a very conservative woman along with her husband. She complains (behind my back, not to my face.. I just hear her talking on the phone when she doesn't realize I can hear) about me living here and how I am apparently "lazy, don't want to work, don't like going to school, full of anger, and ungrateful". However all of these are not true! I LOVE going to school now. It is such an amazing place and it's just amazing. Also, I recently just got a job at Hollister. She isn't happy with the idea of working at Hollister. Instead, she INSISTS on me working at McDonald's instead. Personally, I do not want to work at McDonald's! I would much rather stay at Hollister (my first shift is on Monday at 4:30) and enjoy going to work everyday. Today, she forced me to put in an application and attend the orientation on Monday at 3:00.. I will still be going to my first shift at Hollister though. I want to work. I just don't want to work at where she wants me to. This is only the beginning of everything. She is trying to dictate everything I do. I am unable to hang out with friends or go ANYWHERE without them because she "is afraid of me driving and somebody wrecking into me, getting her into a civil suit". This brought the idea of bringing my mom's car down here with me on my own insurance so I can go do things. However, I know deep down that I will not be able to do anything. She already stated that "I am not allowed out after dark, she prefers for me not to have anyone in the car, and I have to tell her everywhere i"m going". This means dating would be out of the question. I heard her last night talking to my aunt about me. She had no idea I could hear her though. She was talking horrible about me to her. She said that "she is done with me. I am so negative in life and I don't want to do anything. I hate everything and I expect everything to be handed to me on a gold platter." These things don't bother me though because I already understand that she is two faced. She does this to everybody when she doesn't get her way. I know I may sound like every other teenager dying to have some freedom, but it's seriously killing me not having any freedom at all. I am a VERY happy person and will enjoy working (at Hollister). However, I get NOTHING my way and it's really ridiculous. Her husband doesn't help the case any because he thinks he knows EVERYTHING about college and is talking her into making me do more things such as taking the ASVAB (this is not required for anything. It is a military aptitude test to see what you would be good in) and the ACT (I plan on retaking the ACT. However, her dictating that I WILL be taking it again just discourages me). It is a continuous cycle of making me do things. She doesn't understand that I am a GREAT student and I know what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. I am a very independent person. This brings me to mention her complaining about my classes.. In the very beginning, she wasn't happy with the classes I chose. Coming from Virginia, I meet all the Florida graduation requirements except for 1 more english class and 1 more history. This year I took AP Literature and Government. These will take care of my requirements. The rest of my classes were going to be electives. However, I decided that I would take Physics because I LOVE science. She insisted that the rest of the classes be another math class and a sport class. I did not take another math because I am already ABOVE the requirement for all Florida colleges for math. I have 4 years of Math and they require 3, so I am above the requirements. Also, I am not a sporty person. Being a gay individual, I wouldn't feel comfortable being in a class full of straight men and a few girls to be criticized every day of my life for something I DO NOT want to do. She wasn't happy with my response of "I don't like sports and I don't want to take it", so of course she complained about it (behind my back) to everyone and got really mad at me. I am doing excellent in my class choices this year. I have all A's and 1 B. She is REALLY mad because of the 1 B. That B is in Physics. I feel like I'm not good enough all the time. It's so annoying to have to ALWAYS be criticized by her on everything I do. Overall, it's like I can't do anything except come home and sit on the computer all day. I can't do ANYTHING because she won't let me drive or take me to the mall. The only thing I can do is go to work. My dad (her son) has even commented that she has never seen her be this mean. My entire mother's side of the family hates her because of the way she is acting over the whole car situation. My aunt was willing to help me get a car if my grandma would pay the insurance. My aunt found a car, but my grandmother wasn't happy with the car because it was in Virginia. She wanted my aunt to buy the car down here, but it was more expensive. My aunt couldn't get a secured loan to get the car down here, so my grandmother immediately took it as my aunt wasn't willing to help. If everything isn't her way, she isn't happy. She is a horrible wife to her husband because she has tape recorders hidden when he is talking on the phone and she reads his email without him knowing. She also looks through his phone when he is gone. It's just horrible. She threatens (behind my back) to send me home that she can't stand me and everything. She also stated yesterday to my aunt that "one day I'm going to come home from school and everything is going to be packed and I'll be leaving". I really love the place here and I love my new friends and the area. They're so amazing and accepting. There is so much to do with them, but no way to do it with HER around. I need to make a decision. I can either stay here in Florida until the end of this year and go to college at USF (if I get accepted). This means i would have to deal with her for 9 more months and listen to this. No freedom, friends, or say in anything I do. Just go to school and work (MOST LIKELY AT MCDONALD'S because she WILL dictate where I work or threaten to send me home because I'm "ungrateful"), and sleep. OR I can return back home to Virginia where I know everyone, but there is nothing to do. I will have to go back to being in the middle of nowhere and being single until I graduate. I would then go to East Tennessee State University in the fall and live on campus. I would have freedom and can do pretty much everything I want (I am responsible. I have never drank, did drugs, or smoked, or broken any laws. I choose friends wisely) However, I wouldn't be able to do anything because there is nowhere to do it. In the end, I'll never win. I just really need help making this decision from an outside point of view. I'm sorry for the really long post, but I had to make sure you get the full picture. (Everytime I say something to her about it, she IMMEDIATELY thinks I'm attacking her and get's REALLY mad at me and won't talk to me much and just talks about me behind my back) Anyways, thank you for all your answers!
Well... you're in a difficult situation. I think, if you can stomach it, that your best bet is probably to stick it out in Florida, finish up your degree, and get out on your own, in a college dorm or whatever other arrangement you can make. I don't think it makes any sense to try and talk to your grandmother, because it doesn't sound like she has any interest in having an authentic conversation with you. I'll throw one other possibility out there that you may not have thought of: If you're only a couple of credits shy of graduation, and are self-motivated, nearly every state has independent study high schools where you can work, mostly on your own, with guidance from your teachers, and finish school at a much faster pace than normal if you're willing to put in the effort. You can, for example, earn a full year's credit in a given subject in a month or two if you work 2 or 3 hours a day at it. And you graduate with a regular high school diploma. Another option is to take the GED test (offered in all 50 states.) This used to be considered inferior to a high school degree, but if you then immediately enroll for a semester or two at a local community college, and do well, then you'd have no problem transferring to the college you want to go to. The idea of both of the above is, you'd be out of high school and able to go on to college a lot quicker, and that would make it easier to get out of your grandmother's house and her various judgments and lies about you.
I like your ideas; however my guidance mentioned that I could do the early graduation. The only issue is that my grandmother doesn't approve because it would involve me being home more. If I did go to a community college, there wouldn't be any dorms to live in because the community colleges around here do not have dorms. I am not financially stable to live out on my own and since I am only 17, I wouldn't be able to get an apartment without somebody signing it with me anyways. I would do the GED thing, but I would much rather go directly to a 4 year university and live on campus so I wouldn't have to live anywhere near her.
