Advice

Hello!

I’m Don, and this is my ask blog. I offer advice on anything, though I can’t promise it’ll work.

This blog is for helping people. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, no question is off limits.

I might miss a question if it’s asked in the replies of another post. If you think I’ve missed it, please feel free to send an ask!

This blog will handle sensitive and NSFW topics at times. Please mind the tags!

I am autistic, and sometimes I misinterpret or misunderstand questions. Please be patient with me, and try to clarify your question/questions as much as possible.

Due to my own irl life, it can take time for me to respond to asks. Please be patient with me.

This is the pumpkin toadlet. It’s so small that it has trouble jumping.

I promise if you sleep, when you wake up you’ll feel a bit better.

Deep breaths, I promise you can do this.

I have a friend that is being abused, emotionally and financially by her parents. She's doing her absolute best to move out, but currently the best she can do requires her to still be home on the weekends to work.

She is an adult in Australia, but she has basically no resources to help her get away. She knows the situation is bad, but almost all her friends (me included) are online and live far away, and we're all also broke and young, so we can't even send her money to financially help.

She just decided to quit one of her three jobs, which is going to make her abusive mother treat her very awfully, but she had to quit for her own physical safety because her boss is a horrible person who was literally working her to death (today was the first time she had a chance to eat in 48 hours, and she hasn't been able to stand after work for weeks on end). Quitting made her boss reveal that they'd edited her timecards so she wasn't getting paid for the truly ridiculous overtime she's been forced to work, and now she has no proof of it. She's been shorted at least $100.

The only bright spot is that she's moving to university in February, but as I previously mentioned, she'll have to return home on the weekends.

Anyway, it's all very bad and I want to help her, but I have no idea how. I've been googling, but it's a tough go and I was hoping you could direct me to some resources.

Thanks.

This is a difficult situation to be in. Unfortunately as I don’t live in Australia I don’t know too much about it. Here’s what I do know, based on what’s available in the US, because it might be available there too.

Student loans or scholarships could be a big help. Applying for financial aid could help a lot to. There will be more resources at her university, so looking through those and speaking with someone who can help her find the best options, could help to.

I’m sorry I can’t recommend anything more specifically, I just don’t have enough knowledge on Australia, other than things that can be googled by anyone.

Bringing up a complaint to corporate and possibly suing could help to, though I don’t know how far she’d get without proof. If she’s tracked her hours or they’re logged in an automatic system, that could be proof someone higher up could look at.

I really want to be a good friend but sometimes I feel like I would be so much happier if I just ran away and stopped talking to everyone (which I can’t because I’m still in highschool..) so..

You aren’t a bad friend. It can be very stressful to be dragged into something you aren’t ready for.

A good thing to do here might be to set some boundaries. Tell your friends what you’re willing to help with, and what you aren’t. Tell them when you’d rather not be involved, and ask them to respect that boundary.

If they get upset at you for doing things, clarify. Why are they upset? What can they expect from you in a situation? It’s not fair for them to expect you to read their minds.

The fact that this creature exists brings me great joy. I hope it brings you some joy to.

Sometimes I go onto google maps and zoom in and out and just look. Look at what humanity has done. All over the world we built lil houses and lil businesses and we live in them. Every day we go in them and do things. Millions, Billions of houses all around the world, all cause a couple humans worked really hard to make them.

It’s amazing. And it helps a lot.

Every person makes a difference.

Every person is important.

You matter.

Don’t give up.