I was raised in an extremely Christian household. I never saw my dad as he worked all the time, and my mother gave all of her attention to my sister. my parents never "understood me." (they explained this to me later in life) I knew I was gay at age 12, but it took years for me to come out because I figured my parents would disown me or send me to straight camp. once I got to high school I started wearing jnco's, bondage pants, spike bracelets, chains, etc (it was the 90's) I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. I found a safe place there. my parents could call me fat, yell at me about my grades, protest my choice of clothes, or ignore me altogether and I didn't care. my mom found out I was doing drugs and sent me to a Christian psychotherapist. obviously I couldn't take her seriously. I started making up pseudo religions just to piss my parents off. I was extremely destructive and constantly got iss at school. I started staying out late. it got to the point where my mom said "I guess if you're going to be home later than 3am, just let me know." they pretty much gave up. I knew I wanted to go to college to get away from them, so I picked up my grades a bit in my last 2 years of high school and got into college. my drug/alcohol use continued until I was 27 (with brief periods of trying to get clean but failing) I'm 30 now, I'm in grad school and I have a healthy relationship with my parents. all in all, I turned out ok. I'm not sure what my parents could have done... maybe if they showed me that they loved me. probably. probably if I knew that they loved me for who I was, and accepted me the way I was instead of letting me know I was a disappointment all the time it would have made a difference.