ahaha hello please i need lmk friends

PLEASW uhhh i draw and have at least mediocre head cannons and okish Aus

So this is kinda important I guess

Some of you may or may not know, my parents kicked me out last November. I, being a minor and unable to legally live on my own without emancipation, which I have no real basis to request, moved in with this family I’ve known for about 4 years. I used to go to their home for respite (please just google it I’ve been going to respite places since I was 7 and I honeslty have no idea what it is) so they know me pretty well. I’ve noticed a lot of various different things, though.

First of all, how they treat my mental health. I have a lot of issues with my mental health and behavioral control due to some unsavory things happening in my childhood, and sometimes those things come up and me, having been on meds for so freaking long and finally getting a say in whether or not I wanna take meds, I don’t take meds (although I started one about a month and a half ago and so far it’s mostly positive results but that’s not the point). My mom, if I couldn’t see the point of getting out of bed to go to school, would try to call the police for truancy. Also, if I needed to come home because I just couldn’t be at school, she’d have me do extra chores around the house as a sort of punishment for my “bad behavior”. My mom, for those of you who don’t know, is going to college to be a therapist and work with kids with mental health issues, by the way. My people (that’s what I prefer to call them. It’s simple enough so that I don’t really have to explain it), when I can’t see the point of getting out of bed to go to school, just let me be and check in every once in a while. I just have to text them that I’m taking a mental health day so they can call in to school and say I’m ill, which is frankly the truth. If I seem to be stressed or cranky, they don’t say, “why are you so cranky” or “jeez you woke up on the wrong side of the bed” and then push me to talk about it and proceed to tell me my issues are invalid. They say, “hey, I see that you seem to be upset. Would you like to talk about it?” And if I say no, they say “are you sure” and if I continue to say that I don’t want to talk about they tell me that they’re here if I need anything. They don’t push me to join the family and then say something like “nice of you to finally be a part of the family”. They make it known that they would like for me to be downstairs with them more often and when I’m downstairs, if I’m in a cheery mood they say “wow i haven’t seen your shining face in ages” or something along those lines.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the things they notice. Whenever we get fast food, I prefer Burger King (the bacon king and onion rings and a root beer with no ice) and they order for me and remember that that’s what I prefer. They noticed that after the third time we went to Burger King. And if I don’t come along and they get fast food, they always know what I like from various restaurants (most importantly no ice in my drink). They know I like Swiss rolls but not the little Debbie brand, the off brand stuff from the local grocery store. They know I love spam and try to keep it in the pantry (although it’s expensive and it’s understandable when I eat it all). They know I like the music I like, and when they go to a thrift store and they see a CD I might like, they’ll buy it. I have an avenged sevenfold cd (even though I don’t really listen to them that often), a good charlotte cd (actually my favorite cd from them), and an all American Rejects cd (again, favorite cd from them) that they bought me without my knowledge. They also know that I prefer medium t shirts and I love the color green (I literally have green hair). If they see a shirt at the thrift store (I love thrust stores btw) that they think I might like, they’ll get it. When I needed a new pair of shoes, they saw a pair of converse at a thrift store that was my size and they just got them. They were in good condition too. They know the things I like and notice the details. My parents know my favorite color but still somehow refuse to accept that I like the rest of the stuff I like and need better bras than Walmart bras and that I fit into medium shirts and not XXL shirts (although those are nice for sleeping). They don’t realize that I’ve lost a lot of weight and when I need new pants it’s sweatpants that are absolutely massive on me and are still too big when I have them tied. Sometimes my people will play a fall out boy song (they’re my favorite “emo” band but not my all time favorite band) kinda loud downstairs and see how long it takes me to shout the next lyrics after I realize that it’s fall out boy (I actually have freakishly good hearing when it comes to music but like everything else is like what no im like deaf).

Another thing that I’ve noticed that’s different between the two households is conversations. My parents are super conservative Christian parents. I’ll show my mom a meme and she’s like “well how do you think that makes that person feel that they’re like that” or ill tell a story about something or I’ll be really excited about something and they just look blankly at me or give halfhearted responses. Here, if I’m excited about something, people here get excited about stuff too. We all like different things but also like a lot of similar things. Like, if I wanna talk about my favorite beauty bloggers, I can talk to the person in the room next to mine. If I wanna talk about books I can talk to my roommate. If I wanna talk about video games I can talk to the guy down the hall. If I wanna talk about music I can talk to the youngest bio daughter (there’s ten people in my house btw as opposed to the four and occasionally five if my sister was home from college at my parents house). There’s always people to talk to about stuff. One of them was talking to the three year old the other day and I walked downstairs to get some water or something and I just heard her say “can you say DEEZ NUTZ” (keep in mind the person closest to my age is like 23). The baby was chewing on a toy potato and one of my people was like “hey look it’s you” and another one called me a breadstick so now they call me “carbohydrate” and the conversations are always nice and lively.

I also have a lot more freedom here. If I want to hang out with friends last minute, sure, just let me know where you’re going. If I wanna hang out with my closest (and longest) friend even though he’s a guy, sure, that doesn’t matter. When I decided that I wanted to stop taking birth control (I was only on it because I was on a shit ton of meds when I first got my shark week so it turned into shark month due to all the hormonal imbalances and whatnot and then I stopped taking meds and it’s all regular now) they said “okay just if you ever decide you want to get back on it because you want to do the stuff just let us know”. They let me have friends and do stuff last minute and go out in public to places and like be like a teenager in a book. My parents would freak out if I wanted to hang out with a boy, even with parental supervision and/ or in a group environment (excluding my dnd group but that’s cuz my DM is my best friends cousin and my parents love my best friend). If I wanted to visit a friend, it had to be planned a week in advance and they had to have met that friend beforehand. They had parental restrictions on my computer that banned any websites that were inappropriate for anyone under the age of ten (I’m 16 with a maturity level of a 30 year old for the most part) which made it nearly impossible to do my homework. They encouraged my wanting to do the arts (music, acting, and like drawing art) but if I needed new guitar strings (they’re like $5) they said no or if I wanted to paint they said no because “last time you got paint everywhere” which wasn’t true. If I need guitar strings here, yeah sure, just do a bit extra chores to like “earn the money” or whatever (basic stuff like cleaning the bathroom) and if I want to paint just make sure I clean it up after. Earlier this summer (technically it was still during school) a popular amusement park about two hours from here had its openening weekend and one of my friends asked if I could go and my people were fine with it, I just did a lot of extra chores. We had a two hour car drive, me and this girl who’s my age, and we picked up a couple of her friends and all four of us went to the amusement park without adults. It was kinda weird.

Anyway that got kind of unorganized but my point is:

When I lived with my parents, I was anxious, depressed, and almost always angry.

Now that I live with my people in a more “caring” environment, I’m happier and less stressed and angry, although my anxiety and whatnot still flares up occasionally.

If the people you’re always with are good to you, you’re probably going to be in a better mood and have better physical/ mental health.

If the people you’re always with aren’t all that good to be around, you’re likely to have worse mental/ physical health and be in worse moods.

That was a lot and I apologize but that was really important for me to say that. Also I’m not trying to come off as ungrateful, my parents tried at first but this past year hasn’t been that great for any of us and everything slipped. And whatnot.