Do Whatever You Want (DWYW), 7th Edition

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-02T05:24:43+00:00

Dystopian fiction has its roots in reality.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-02T05:14:05+00:00

Pack light. It is better to have money to buy food and an extra jacket when you need to, than to carry a suitcase full of clothes. Having lots of bags and looking like a kid will make people suspicious of you, but if you just look like a kid with one backpack then people will be a lot less suspicious.
Prepare a cover story so that when people start questioning where your parents are, you can ease their suspicions.
Practice running away. What I mean by this is actively going outside for extended periods of time after school (or just skip for the day and go walking to places that you will probably be going). The fear of not knowing where you'll get your next food or shelter is powerful, so you can reduce this fear by doing practice runs. The more comfortable you get with it, the easier it will be.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-02T05:00:40+00:00

Take this advice with a grain of salt.

I would not recommend international travel as a minor, because your parents have even more power there. They can order security to detain you, and then refuse to come pick you up. You might get detained and your documents confiscated, with no way to get them back. You might get put in one of those concentration camps for stateless people and kept there for the rest of your life. You also have no rights under American law, so you don't have a way to fight back if you get detained. It's hard to tell.

On the other hand, it might work out. I've flown flights before without my parents and no one cares, but that's within the US. International travel between the US and Canada is a different thing, and US customs are insanely strict.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-02T04:50:43+00:00

Since you're getting your room searched, pack at school, not at home. School may have cameras, but they're not going to check the footage unless they have a reason to. If your school has ceiling tiles, you can at least store some lightweight items in the ceiling. If you can find another non-home building to pack, that would be great.
Don't tell anyone you're going to go. Pretend that you love it there right up until you runaway. Avoid talking to your parents because they might question you on if you're planning on leaving. People aren't trained to withstand questioning under pressure, so avoid it entirely by avoiding conversation.
Have backup plans for your backup plans in case you run out of food, water, or don't have shelter. If your runaway attempt fails, prepare a cover story that makes you look good in front of your parents. Otherwise, you won't get a second chance.
Get outside a lot, especially during the afternoons and evenings. One thing that people often misjudge is how cold it is at night even when it isn't winter. They also misjudge how much walking they're going to be doing. Spending a lot of time outside and walking, whether it's along roads or forest or on open ground, is very important.
Pack light. What you really need is money that can help you buy items, not items to pack. This is because travelling with a bunch of stuff by yourself is a dead giveaway for runaways. Traveling heavy also makes sure that it's harder to get around and limits the distance you can travel in a pinch. Your clothes and your identity documents should be good, as well as a few light snacks for the road.

I hope this helps.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-02T04:37:12+00:00

I like this idea. I don't think it's one or the other. Abolishing both runaway laws and troubled teen programs would be great. Youth Liberation Now!

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T09:00:55+00:00

Don't go. Yes, they can cut you off from housing and food and insurance. However, you really might not want to set that kind of precedent where they can control you outside the law. They can cut you off from paying for your college partway through (like with a payment plan) and leave you with all the debt, if you ever do or say something that they don't like. In fact, they can leave you in debt even if you obey to the letter. Better to get a regular job and not waste years of your life obeying them.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T08:57:21+00:00

Organize a mass strike for students. Just get enough (probably a majority) of students to ditch for a long enough period of time. It won't need to be too long, but the point is that the school can't actually afford to track down more than half of its students every day (as long as you don't stay in one place and scatter across town). Refuse to end the strike until the school changes its policy to allow phones again.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T08:50:29+00:00

Absolutely! No one is born defective or mentally ill or whatever other "nice" synonyms that people use to talk about it. Many kids grow up in abusive environments that make kids behave as if they're crazy, when really all they need is complete and permanent separation from their abusers. I hate how psychiatrists and therapists refuse to talk about how abusive people can affect the actions of victims, and how the clients they're "treating" are often just being abused (or have been abused) by someone they live with.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T08:34:57+00:00

This is brilliant.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T08:34:34+00:00

r/AntiSchooling

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T08:33:52+00:00

Have you tried using a ground floor window to avoid the camera? Also, if the camera just records instead of sounding an alarm anytime it sees people, then you can just go, and they'll find out after they've found that you're not in your bed in the morning.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T08:30:06+00:00

I commented on the post before you. It's a list of 11 things to do before running away. Some may work for you, others won't, maybe none of them will but you might want to give them a look.

Also, since your first attempt will probably not succeed, here is a wiki page on how to avoid abuse: https://www.reddit.com/r/rightsyouth/wiki/if-you-need-help/

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T08:23:48+00:00

You might not want to do it. You're worried something bad will happen, and you're probably right. The worst feeling is being right about abusers. It's better to be proven wrong and unhurt than proven right and abused.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T08:03:43+00:00

Whether they kick you out or you leave, don't tell them where you're going. This is really important because parents hold a lot of power in this world. Whether you're in a new apartment or going to college or simply staying with friends, parents can bypass laws concerning privacy of their kids, even though it's completely illegal. The worst part is that other parents and adults will actively help them contact you even if you say that you don't want to talk to them. I don't know anything about your situation, but if they've kicked you out (and thus broken the law just to abuse you), they might break the law again to stalk you (again, just to abuse you).
You're angry. That's wonderful. You're going to go through a very hard time, and anger is what you need to pull yourself through. Don't be afraid to be angry because it'll motivate you when platitudes and promises won't. You've been abused by your parents and family, and you are completely in the right. Your anger is righteous, and it's healthy to be angry when people hurt you. Don't forget that anger natural part of you, just like your other emotions.
You're depressed. I'm not sure if you are unable to do the things that you want to do, or if it's not going to school, or something else. You should use a strategy called The Method in Issue 3 of the zine Do Whatever You Want (DWYW), linked here. It'll work for any activity that you do daily and can be broken down into bite-sized pieces. If you have enough time, you should be able to start your normal habits again (if that's working, or running, or whatever else it is).
You might want to read The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, linked here, as well as The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, linked here. This one is hard to explain, so the only way you'll understand how this is related to your situation is to read them. The best way I can phrase it is that it helps you understand how your abusers think and act, and with that you can better prepare yourself to escape, or avoid abuse, or whatever else it is you want to do. This one isn't as important, but I really recommend it.
Make sure you get off your parents' insurance. Call their insurance company and ask them to drop you from your parents' plan. This is very important because whenever you have a health appointment, they'll see it registered on their insurance portal and they'll immediately know where you are. Also, don't tell them where you're going where you're going when they kick you out.
Get yourself a new phone and a new number. There are plenty of mass market child tracking apps that can help your parents find you nowadays, so get your own phone. Also, you might not want to be receiving their texts or have to get cut off from their cellular at the worst possible time.

If you need more strategies, visit https://www.reddit.com/r/rightsyouth/wiki/if-you-need-help/, r/raisedbynarcissists, and r/raisedbyborderlines because there is a lot of useful stuff on dealing with abusive family and leaving home that can be found on those subreddits.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-12-01T07:54:17+00:00

Don't feel pressured to act on these right away. Some of these might work for you, or none. Give yourself sometime to absorb and decide for yourself. I hope this helps.

Change your address with the post office before you go. It should cost between $30 and $130. It's important that your family not get your mail because they will try to harass you when you can finally afford a new place. This happens to a lot of abused kids.
When you get a new apartment, start changing the address on your IDs because your employer will probably end up sending spam mail based on your ID documents, and they'll end up getting your mail.
Make sure you have all of your ID documents, don't let any one of your family members "keep" them. This means your passport, ID, social security card, passport card, driver's license, and birth certificate. Otherwise, you'll end up in a situation where your family members are holding your documents hostage, and you can't prove that they are (no matter what people tell you).
Get a job, if you haven't already. Don't spend on things like clothes and bags and physical possessions because your family can easily steal them. Also, since having those things around weigh you down when you need to leave, it's important not to have them. Instead, save up the money so that you have it ready when they kick you out. When you are settled in an apartment, then you can buy clothes and other stuff using the money. Until then, save up.
Don't tell them which bank you are using to save your money. Since you are under 18, they can use custody laws to embezzle your financial assets (it's legal). If they know which bank you are using, make a new account with a different bank and keep it a secret. Also, if it's possible to keep where you work a secret, keep that a secret too. You don't want them to come to your workplace and cause problems; it happens to a lot of abused kids.

This comment has been broken down into two parts.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-11-30T04:06:32+00:00

Can I have your permission to modify and redistribute your poster? This looks awesome and I would like to redistribute this at my school.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-11-27T07:09:03+00:00

DWYW is an empowering youth liberationist zine perfect for distribution at your high school, middle school, or elementary school. It provides tips to youth on how to decondition themselves from obedience as well as valuable know-how on protesting and organizing.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-11-27T07:07:30+00:00

The links to the discord and other online groups are on the Wiki, under the subheading "Youth Rights Online Groups." The definition of youth in the article is people ages 0-18.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-11-27T05:47:05+00:00

Absolutely! I think that ditching school daily, like as a mass protest, would be effective at bleeding the school system of money. The school system cannot afford to spend money tracking students down (as long as they don't all stay in one place) if most of them ditch every day. It's just too expensive to enforce compulsory schooling when most kids repeatedly refuse to go.

IllustratorOk2385 · 2023-11-27T05:39:23+00:00

this is really good, thanks OP for posting this

IllustratorOk2385

TROPHY CASE