De-Fooing Vs Financial Aid

[MattGrimes]

I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to best present this without a wall of text, but I will do my best to be succinct (and of course if you require more info feel free to ask).

 

So, I am 22 years old, and currently at a community college near my home town. I live in an apartment, which my parents (they are divorced) help me pay for because I am going to school. I am on their health insurance, they pay my phone bill, and also my car insurance. I haven't calculated it, but on a rough guess they pay about half of my expenses.

 

I don't particularly like them, to put it lightly, and I wish to de-foo (something that has been on my mind since I was 15).

 

My Dad more or less leaves me alone (I like him much more than my mom), but my mom shoves herself into my life and holds the money she gives me over my head. The biggest issue is that I don't want to be in college right now, as I have no idea what I want to major in or if whatever it is that I want to do will involve college, but if I am not in school she will definitely not help me pay for things (which is of course fair). I think my Dad would probably provide some assistance, but am not sure.

 

My dliemma is whether I should remain under her thumb and take the bribe or De-foo and go do my own thing. I do plan to finish my general ed (1 more year) so that I can get an AA, but after that I want to take some time off and figure out where I want to go with my life, but if I decided to take a break from school, she would no longer provide financial help. The problem is that while it's not entirely comfortable to have to deal with my mother, it is familiar and thus not risky, and also does not carry the possibility of going out somewhere and not being able to find a job, or any number of things that could go wrong, and then having to come crawling back to my parents for help.

 

I just wanted to get the advice of those out in the real world or whom have experienced a similar situation to maybe shine some light on how to go about this dilemma.

 

thanks in advance!

 

edit: In thinking about this further, and with the help of some of the first responses, I think another important question is: Do you guys have any tips of helping me to decide where I want to go with in my life/career? If I could feel comfortable diving in to something to major in college with, then that would solve the my dilemma. 

[Holo Cene]

I would stay until I was financially, mentally and emotionally strong enough to go out and do my own thing, which includes getting a job that allows you to live without help from your parents. That doesn't mean it is the right thing to do, especially with your mom looking to sabotage you, but I think it is the safest. That means a lot of commitment to self-work and to learning, because relying on your parents will always be the easy way out. 

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

Depends on how bad the situation with your mom is. I had a similar situation with my mom when I was 19 (she held the car and the phone over my head). One day I finally had enough and I left the phone and the keys on the dining room table and walked out the door. She immediately began singing a much different tune.

 

Things worked out for me pretty well without her, but I had a lot of support from a lot of different people. Do what you think is the best.

 

-Dylan

[Wesley]

I generally say that staying is fine if you need to as long as you understand why you are doing it and that you keep working on yourself during this time. Giving up your future career and life because of them would be just them screwing with your life into the future is at least how I justified it in the past.

 

However, if you are not a dependent on your parents, there is a pretty good chance that you would qualify for need-based financial aid. You may wish to look into this as the cost/benefit of a defoo may not be as much on the cost side (in terms of financial support) as you think it is.

 

Obviously there is a lot of emotional stuff during this time which can be very difficult. You should speak with a therapist about things and you ay need to take a break for a couple months from school in order to get yourself on track money-wise or emotional-wise so that you are able to focus on school again. This wouldn't be terrible and could be a better investment than school into future productivity.

 

I am very sorry that you are in this situation. It is really not a fun place to be where you feel like you HAVE to stay or your future is shot or something. I am so sorry.

[MattGrimes]

Thanks for the responses. I will take them into consideration

 

Just to clarify, the biggest issue is that I don't know what direction I want my life to go in in regards to a career, and thus would like to take a break from school after I get my AA to figure it out.  If I did have a definitive idea of what I wanted to go to college for, it wouldn't even be a question and accepting the annoyance that is dealing with my mother and being financially chained to her would not be a problem (or at least the cost-benefit would be worth it in my eyes).  

 

 

Just to provide a little more background: Up until I was about 20 I had never even considered where I wanted my life to go, and in the past year or two (since I started being interested in knowledge and science and anything really), I have jumped from every different field of study, and I think it's likely that that will continue to happen for some time. From age 15 to 20 I was somewhat interested in psychology, then at 20 I got into Astronomy (wanted to do physics), then jumped to journalism, then history, then computers/programming, then philosophy (pre-stef), then economics, and now since getting into FDR I have come back to psychology. However none of these could I really see myself doing for the rest of my life.

 

With that said, maybe my question should be more of: Do you guys have any ideas/tips on how I could figure out what I do want to do with my life? As stated above, if I could figure out something worth majoring in, then that would probably resolve my internal conflict on this.