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Hi, I’m Chloe, I’m 15 and I live in Stroud. Last year I was having a really difficult time.

My mum just didn’t seem to trust me. I know I like to have a good time with my friends and we do have a drink sometimes, but we don’t take drugs and we’re not stupid.

It seemed no matter how hard I tried to tell my mum this; she just wasn’t listening to anything I said.

I felt so angry and I did some crazy things like staying out all night without telling her or staying with friends for weeks on end.  Sometimes all I wanted to do was run away and disappear forever.

Then Mum started trying to send me on all of these courses about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. When I refused to go, she took my phone away and grounded me for months at a time.

I started lying about what I was doing and who I was going to see, just so I could get out of the house.  Our relationship totally broke down and there was no truth or trust left between us.

It was horrible. And I felt so lonely.

I felt like mum was trying to fix me rather than understand me like she was going overboard all the time because she didn’t know what to do with me.  Then one day almost, suddenly, things started to change. Mum went on this parenting course at The Door called “Triple P”.

The person running the course helped her to see things from my perspective as well as her own. They gave her some ideas about how to start speaking to me again and how to react to what I was doing more constructively.

I think as she started to behave differently at home then so did I.  Almost overnight we stopped all the shouting and mum stopped accusing me of things. Instead, we started to talk more and began to solve some of the problems we were having.

It was like we’d stopped turning the volume up on our anger.

We started to talk about what I was getting up to with my friends and how I could stay safe away from home and out at night. I think this made mum feel better about me going out with my mates.  I shared some of it with my friends too and it’s helping us make better decisions about what we get up to.

Things were getting better at home,  but I still felt like I wasn’t living up to the person that mum wanted me to be; I started lying again to cover up for when I was going out with the people she didn’t like.  

She must have realised because she signed us up for more support from The Door called Family Face Time. I must admit, it’s been really useful we share the same mentor, and meet with her on our own and together on different weeks.

Lying every day had become pretty stressful, and in sessions, I was able to get my point of view across to our mentor. I really felt like she was listening and took the time to understand us both.

We learned how to compromise and began learning what each of us needed to do to be happy.

Mum asked me to reduce the risks I was taking rather than just cancelling my social life. And I guess I helped her by being more open and telling her the truth.  It somehow seemed easier now we trusted each other again.

Thanks to The Door things between me and mum are much better now; we have a laugh and spend more time together. I even have my friends around to our house sometimes!

We still come unstuck sometimes but thanks to The Door we can talk about it now. And I know it’s because she cares about me not because she’s trying to fix me.

Home isn’t lonely anymore and I’m so grateful to the team at The Door for all their support and help. I don’t want to think about what would have happened without them.

Every year The Door helps hundreds of young people and their families like Chole and her mum. This Christmas help Keep The Door Open for families like Chloe’s by making a donation at https://www.thedoor.org.uk/christmas where your donation will be DOUBLED by local businesses. THANK YOU!

Chole’s Story – Christmas Challenge 2021

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