I have two things to say to you, having been in a situation similar to yours at your age, and both of them are probably very hard to hear.

The first is that you made a choice to be there NOW. You didn't have a choice when you were a child, you get who you get for parents, but once we become adults and choose to go back to an abusive environment or where our abusive parents are, we need to look at why we made that choice. I imagine that you will say that your other choice would to be homeless, but that is your feeling, not the reality. You have other options: there are domestic violence shelters that you would be eligible for services from, there are temporary living situations that can often be found on message boards for sublets, roommates, house sitting, pet sitting, etc. There are emergency loans available and many people ask others, friends or family, to offer them temporary shelter. I know that you are working towards your independence, but the point is, that you made a choice to be where you are. That is not to say you "deserve" to feel bad or that you should be blamed or shamed for making that choice, but I think it would move you forward to acknowledge that it is your own agency that put you in this position. I don't look down on you for choosing physical comfort over staying someplace that is not your home. I don't look down on you for not making the effort to find another place to stay, I would imagine you had limited energy for doing so. But it may be worth examining why you did not make other choices, why you cannot walk away from the economic advantages that your parents offer you, from the privilege of their wealth. Because I think until you answer that question for yourself, you're always going to be hooked into them for a little bit longer.

I am not the only person who walked away from his family of origin. I have since met many people who did it far younger than I. I read recently that Wolfgang Puck was 14 when he left home because his father constantly told him he would never amount to anything. I was a couple of years older than you, in graduate school, that my parents were paying for. I went to the financial office and said that I needed to pay for school myself because it was dangerous for me to continue to allow my parents to pay, and what did I need to do to make that happen. I did not want to end up with the large student loans that I did or work as hard as I had to to support myself, but I put my own emotional security, my own emotional health and the integrity of living my life with respect for myself first and foremost, above and beyond anything my parents could financially provide for me. And living without fear, whether I was in their home visiting or just being aware that they could theoretically come visit me at any time, was also well worth it. I could not begin to really heal until I cut the cord with them. I doubt that you can either. As long as you use them to support you financially, you create a dissonance in your mind about what and who is right for you. It fosters hate and it will poison your other social relationships.

Second, many trauma victims return to the same bad scene over and over because they are "re-enacting" the trauma and trying to make it turn out differently. It seems to me that you might be looking for someone to rescue you from the hellhole of your parents' house, so you keep going back hoping that will somehow happen this time. But your T can't rescue you, and it seems like you isolate yourself from others who might be able to assist you in getting away. Again, I think that examining your reasons for returning, and not just brushing off the question with "I have to, or I'll be homeless" is useful.

The other thing that occurs to me-- I would rather be homeless, no question about it, rather than subject myself to my abusive parents' home and control. I suspect that would be true for other people as well. Some things are worth being homeless for, and for me it is far worse to subject myself to emotional abuse, fear, and increased PTSD symptoms than *risk* that I'd be homeless. But I'm a fighter, and I would not be homeless for very long. I would do whatever I needed to do to take care of myself without depending on others to rescue or support me.