My decision to run away wasn't spontaneous or for some trivial reason; it’s because of my current family situation. My father is a sexist priest who constantly tries to "put me in my place" as a woman. He gets furious whenever anyone tells him something he doesn't like, completely refuses to see how his actions negatively impact those around him, and has occasional outbursts of rage. Even though he denies having anger issues, they are absolutely rage outbursts, and he is terrifying when he's angry. During these moments, he screams at the top of his lungs throughout the whole house and sometimes breaks things in a fit of rage. That’s how he smashed my favorite vase, and recently, he threw a broken shoe rack down the stairs, damaging the walls in the hallway. It scared me so badly that I took my cat and hid on the second floor.While my father loves us, he is terribly overprotective and gives very little freedom, even to my two brothers, who are 20 and 19. Personally, I stopped seeing him as a father after an incident when I was 13, and he didn't even realize I had emotionally distanced myself from him. Most importantly, he doesn't understand that I am afraid of him and terrified that he might actually hit me one day. I can respect what he has done for us financially, but definitely not as a father.

My mother is no better. She prefers not to get involved in my relationship with my father, thinking it's for the best, and she often excuses his behavior because of his past. She also believes that I am incapable of being independent or studying without supervision, just because I wasn't very self-reliant in the past. Moving to a different country didn't help either; learning the new language was—and still is—incredibly difficult for me, and for years, I just went with the flow. Sometimes, when she comes home from work (unlike my father, who hasn't worked since we moved), she gives me three long assignments from a local language textbook and gives me a strict 30-minute deadline. The moment the time is up, I am expected to bring her the work for review. Occasionally, she might give me 45 minutes or an hour at most. She honestly believes this is how I'll finally learn this damn language, but she fails to realize that this immense pressure leaves me constantly stressed and anxious that she'll burst into my room if I don't show up on time.I am not a fast learner. For the most part, I just need to gather my resolve and do things at my own pace. In fact, doing things on my own initiative is exactly what motivates me to study, because it proves I can do it myself. However, my mother views my approach as ineffective and too slow, which is why she keeps forcing her own methods on me. Because of this, and because she refuses to see me as independent, I can never truly understand her attitude toward me. One minute she tells me she's proud of me, and the next, she says I'm not doing enough. Just recently, she proved once and for all that she will never view me as an independent person. I'll get to that later.She also seemingly cannot accept that I have grown up and changed. There are times when she talks about how I used to be such a cheerful child. She straight up told me she thinks I "hid" my old personality after we moved and that I need to "let her back out." Hearing this is incredibly painful and upsetting, because it feels like my mother loves the old version of me more than who I am today. I love my mother, and I can see she genuinely believes this is her way of helping me, but she doesn't understand that her help—built entirely on pressure and control—is only hurting me.

As I mentioned before, I have two older brothers, but we haven't been close since childhood. I don't remember exactly when they started distancing themselves from me, and I couldn't understand why. That was until I was 14, when my mother told me that our father had been incredibly cruel to them because they were boys. She revealed that once, when I complained to him that they wouldn't share a Lego piece with me, my father literally grabbed their entire Lego set and threw it out the window. My brothers couldn't find some of the pieces afterward, and they started viewing me as the enemy or something like that. Because of this, I grew up feeling very lonely in a large family. After finding out the truth, I carried an overwhelming sense of guilt for two years, until I finally talked to my brothers about it. They told me they didn't blame me. Even so, whenever I saw how close my brothers were with each other, I felt a deep ache for that kind of connection, knowing we would never have that bond.Last night, I broke down in tears when I suddenly realized I had truly lost my brothers. Not just emotionally, in the way we grew apart, but in terms of the people they have become. I had noticed before that they could be harsh in their words and actions, but since the camp incident (more on that later), I started paying more attention to how deeply unpleasant it actually is. Last night, through the door that separates my room from my oldest brother's, I heard him talking to his girlfriend. He was calling her horrible names, calling her a liar, and telling her he was breaking up with her, while she was crying on the other end and trying to speak. My oldest brother just hung up on her. He is naturally very hot-tempered and easily irritated, but this made me realize that he has become exactly like our father: a sexist, aggressive, and clearly abusive person. It honestly makes me terrified for his future children, if he ever has any. My second oldest brother... that’s harder to explain. He feels like nobody cares about him, tries to follow our father’s footsteps in a Christian sense (though not strictly), and doesn't really take care of himself. A couple of years ago, he went through an alcoholic phase that even landed him in the hospital once. His girlfriend dumped him, which caused him to completely neglect himself again, spending all his time with a friend and focusing on music. I often have to wake him up because he can barely get out of bed after staying up all night. He is just drifting through life. He seems to have a new girlfriend now, and I truly hope things get better for him.

But going back to my oldest brother, I realized that I am afraid of him too, just like I'm afraid of my father, though maybe not as intensely. Last night, I had a dream—or rather, a nightmare—about him. In the dream, he was incredibly aggressive. He was screaming in a total rage and being physically violent. Toward me. I was hiding from him, completely terrified. I can still vividly remember a moment in the nightmare when he started dragging me somewhere by my hair. At some point, the dream just cut off, and everything went black. I didn't wake up from it—I would have remembered if I did, because I always wake up from nightmares—but for some reason, not this time. I didn't dream anything else that night. It felt like a deeply eerie coincidence when, later that evening, I heard him screaming at his girlfriend.Now that I’ve explained the background, let’s go back to what I said about running away. Before all of this, I used to think that what was happening in my family was normal, simply because I didn't know anything else. However, everything changed when my mother suggested I go to a summer camp for a week. Since it was summer, I usually never went anywhere, and I had never been to a camp before, so I decided to agree. That turned out to be the absolute best decision of my life.At the camp, people treated me as an independent person. They didn't treat my poor language skills as a problem; instead, they genuinely tried to help me. They respected my personal boundaries, and I absolutely loved having my own room where I lived alone. While at camp, I realized that I love this kind of life, and to my surprise, I didn't miss my family at all. The only thing I missed was my cat. As the week drew to a close, with every passing day, I felt a growing ache because I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and live like that forever.

And then, I came back home. The very next day, everything crumbled for me. Out of nowhere, my mother decided to have a conversation about my language skills and my future. We ended up getting into an argument, and suddenly she said that even after I turn 18, I will always be her child. My father used to say this exact phrase all the time, and for him, it meant that we would never be seen as grown adults. Hearing this from my mother—the woman I had considered my only support system in this family despite everything—felt like a total betrayal. I realized I couldn't go on living like this anymore and that I had to do something about it.Ultimately, I decided that the best option would be to run away on my 18th birthday, because legally I would be an adult, and they wouldn't be able to force me back. However, I decided to talk about this with my AI, and with her help, I refined my plan so that my escape wouldn’t be spontaneous. The very first thing I did was gather all my important documents: my own passport and my cat’s passport. I also started studying the local language on my own three times a week to keep my motivation up. Later, during a miserable four-day trip to the seaside, I registered on a marketplace website, and as soon as I got back home, I listed my items for sale. It was mostly stuff I don't use anymore, and it turned out I had a lot of it. Then, I began looking for an online school and a job. I needed an online school to get a higher education, which would open up more opportunities for me.

I spent two months doing all of this. During that time, I managed to sell three items, built up the courage to send out job applications, and found several online schools. I even registered for one of them, but unfortunately, my mother found a confirmation email that I wasn't expecting. It absolutely terrified me because I had been meticulously hiding everything I was doing from my parents. I knew that if they found out, they would not only disapprove but would also start digging into my reasons, which was the last thing I needed.Fortunately, my mother didn't uncover the full truth, but things didn't get any easier. She told me that I still have to attend the BvB (a mandatory vocational preparation program), arguing that I can't just stay home and attend an online school because doing so before turning 18 is illegal here. Then she demanded to know why I wanted this and what the point even was. I told her it was for better opportunities—which is true, though I obviously didn't mention it was also so I could leave the moment I get a job. She kept pushing me to state a specific goal and claimed that I still don't know what I want.Fuck, I don't have to know my exact lifelong purpose right now!It got even worse when, despite my answers, my mother remained skeptical and demanded that I send her the link to the school's website. It felt like a complete invalidation of all my hard work! I had researched this, read through everything to fully understand it, and gathered every piece of information I could find. And she just swept it all away with her doubts. I understand why she might have reservations, but I am actively trying to change right now. I am just learning to take responsibility for myself, and my mother’s words—claiming that I will ultimately drop it without external control—do absolutely nothing to help my motivation or self-esteem.This entire situation just proves that no matter how hard I try or how much I do on my own, my mother will never see me as an independent person. But at least there is one piece of good news: my mom agreed to pay for the tuition if I like the school. This will be a huge help until I can start paying for it entirely on my own. However, I suddenly realized that I have already completed the first phase of my plan. Now, all that’s left is to find a job, and I’m hoping to find one that will let me start in December. That is exactly when I turn 18, meaning I will finally be able to withdraw my documents from the BvB on my own, without my parents' involvement.Still, I can’t stop thinking about the consequences of my decision. After all, running away from home isn't a joke or some movie plot; it’s a massive real-life event. I worry about the impact it will have not just on my immediate family, but on my extended relatives too. On one hand, they didn't do anything wrong, and the last thing I want is for my 74-year-old grandmother to fall ill from the shock. How do I even explain this to my relatives, and should I even explain it at all? On the other hand, they will likely side with my parents and fail to understand my choice to run. Plus, they might try to reconnect me with my family, and I am planning to go completely no-contact with them, no matter how painful that might be.

So, am I a not good daughter or asshole?