Dear Brooke,

I am experiencing a lot of anxiety, self doubt, and confusion about my current circumstances and that fact that I wish to change them. Here are my current circumstances that are making me unhappy:

1. I live at home with my dad, step mum, and younger sister
2. I am doing post-graduate study in High Performance Sport
3. I am a personal trainer
4. I also work as a waitress in a cafe

These four things in my life are no longer making me happy and I believe they are holding me back. All of my other four sisters have moved out of home and I feel very claustrophobic living here still. Firstly, I do not have the best relationship with my step mum (i do not like her as a person and she has caused copious amounts of distress over the last 18 years and emotionally manipulates my dad so much that he is completely blind to the fact, or refuses to admit, that our step mum has been very emotionally abusive to us all.) Secondly, my dad and I have always been super close and for as long as i can remember it has been his approval that i have longed for the most throughout my life. He has a lot to say about the decisions that i do/don’t make or should/shouldn’t make especially in terms of my study and career, and i cannot stand it anymore. I know he only wants what is best for me but i feel as though my decisions are not being made based on what i truly want, rather on what i think he would want me to do.

I want to move out of home because i believe that distance is the only way i will be able to start making my own decisions without him in my ear/without me having to justify them. I want to drop out of the graduate certificate that i am studying as i no longer think it is what i want to do with my life – what i really want to do is start my own youtube channel, where i share the lessons i have learnt in life, in a cool and engaging way for an audience my age (i am 23), complete my 12 months of SCS (I just began this month) and then eventually become a life coach! I have always known that I want to help people but in the last 6 months have seriously re-evaluated the capacity in which i want to do that. All of these changes scare the crap out of me and i think i am subconsciously not making the changes because I am scared and because i have attached my identity to suffering and obeying for so long that I guess i fear i will not know who i am without these things. I love my dad but I do not know how to go about all of this and any advice you could offer me would be SO APPRECIATED.

Thank you – Mimi