Bryce Christopherson

 

By Marshall Bauer|Unaccompanied Youth

Bryce Christopherson, now 22, has lived on his own since he was 17 and a junior in high school. 

Bryce moved out after a series of disagreements with his parents came to a head, which was near the end of his junior year. 

“There were arguments that led up to it in previous months, weeks, and stuff like that, and then there was just one blowout day where things got rough,” Bryce said. 

“I eventually told my parents how I felt, and they weren’t accepting of it,” he said, “To make living situations easier over time, I just kind of left.” 

Bryce Christopherson. (Photo by Joe Ahlquist)

It was at least a month between the day he left and when he next spoke to his parents. 

For the next month or two, he lived with his aunt and uncle, but decided to leave there as part of a mutual agreement that it wasn’t for the best. 

Bryce had no idea where he was going, but due in part to pride he refused to go back to living with his parents.

He ended up staying in a trailer house with a friend who was a couple years older than him for the next few months. 

Bryce turned 18 a month into his senior year, so he figured that he was on his own, but his school didn’t see things that way. 

“The first time I talked to my parents after I was gone for a while,” Bryce said, “I had to call them and tell them I was getting in trouble at school, even though I was 18.”

Bryce Christopherson, 22, smokes a cigarette outside of his work. (Photo by Joe Ahlquist)

Bryce ended up getting expelled from school with three credits left before he graduated for an incident that involved him smoking marijuana off school property, but during the school day. 

“I was an A/B student all throughout high school, was involved in acting, was there two hours early for school Monday, Wednesday, Fridays for a jazz choir ensemble, involved heavily in everything and they didn’t want me to step foot inside the door of their school until I had a diploma in my hand,” he said, “which was crazy, because the only way they offered me to finish it was to pay a bunch of money to do online school, and I obviously couldn’t afford to do that at all at the time.”

“That was a pretty rough conversation to have with my parents after not talking to them forever and trying to prove myself as being stable on the outside,” Bryce said. 

After being expelled, Bryce lived with his girlfriend until he was able to save up enough money to move to Red Wing, Minnesota. 

Bryce got into another situation involving marijuana, which lead to him getting placed on probation for a year, and also led to him getting his life turned around. 

While in Red Wing, Bryce went to treatment, and while there met a teacher at an alternative school in Red Wing, Tower View alternative school.

“He let me skip this year and a half waiting list to get in the alternative school, which is actually the only way I’d have been able to graduate with my diploma before I was 21,” Bryce said.

During this time, Bryce’s relationship with his parents was repaired in a big way. 

“I did 3 classes in two and a half weeks and finished it up, and when I was doing all of these positive things, my parents were definitely supportive of it and knew I was doing all of these positive things and I started talking to my parents a lot more,” he said. 

Bryce’s relationship with his parents is good now. He visits them often and they talk regularly, but it took almost three years to get to that point. 

 “I don’t even think my relationship with my parents would be this good if I’d have stuck around,” he said. 

One negative Bryce feels came from living on his own so young involved the opportunity to go to college.

“I do see that if I’d have had that blatant opportunity to go on with higher education without jumping through all of those hoops, I probably would have went further along,” he said. 

“I struggled through it,” Bryce said. “I still am very proud of myself for how I did do it and I accomplished it.”