Well, if something happened to her, I'd sell all the stuff and have enough money to move. (hope that doesn't sound too... um...hardened). I'm not attached to her in that way. I just can't see any resources.

I know there are more issues than that - but that is the main one. Ok, looking at your other questions...

"But, what is it really that keeps us all from starting our own lives, at some specific point in the relatively near future? What would you have to give up, for a while, to get away? Would it be worth it in the long run?"

ok worst case senario - i could call an abuse shelter and tell them... what? I'm not hit. Sometimes I am afraid of getting hit. That i am emotionally abused? then i'd take up a bed that could go to someone who IS getting hit. If i went in, (and I've worked in one before and honestly my 3 hour shifts were TOO LONG to be there, i hated it) i'd have even less privacy than i do now, not be able to take hardly any of my stuff, not keep my fish or cat, and have even MORE rules than i do now. blah.

I suppose a deeper issue is that when it comes time for me to move (aka I have they money) my mom will fight me again and tell me all the reasons why i can't go and why i will fail (we've gone through this countless times) and why i can't leave her and "what am I supposed to do?!?!?!" yelled at me very angerly. and i sense that even when removed from the house I am still expected to care for her financially because "That's what families do".

Mom talks with/of me in terms of her always getting equal halves in anything i get; food, clothes, money, a vacation, a trip for school... you name it. she seems to think of us as conjoined twins. Despite that i have fought her all these years for my OWN boundaries, she still holds these ideas. How does one change the mind/beliefs of another that won't be changed? Just walk away? Not have contact with someone that I've been emmeshed with, entertwined with?

I suppose in a way it would be like cutting away a malignant tumor that is twisted around my intestines. Actually, i mentioned intestines because I do seem to have a hard wall or mass there that I am afraid to have checked out at my dr apnt tomorrow afternoon (among *other* exams needed that I keep trying to refuse).

Wow - I am having a body reaction from this post - in an area I try to pretend doesn't exist, lower than the intestines. It is causing a lot of pain and discomfort and rather feeling... ummm.... s*xual. Part of my boundary work with the mom. even tho the dad was the perp, the mom was sorta also in a weird way and she was always outwardly more sensual with me than the dad.

When she is in a good mood, i am supposed to be. When I am in a bad mood, she gets into one too and then yells at me. You wrote "but isn't it scary to have your mom controlling your life for the rest of your life, or hers? " yes... it is and she has even haunted my nightmares even with us both being adults in the nightmare, where this same body pain happens (but 100 times worse and I wake up unable to scream or move).

"Independence and confidence are needs, and being prevented from getting those needs met is pretty serious low-nurturance. It's crippling. "

I never saw those as needs. Interestingly I had had both until ... well I'm not sure when. I had them "in the world" and now i barely have them anywhere. It is crippling. I never knew just how much living with mom would cripple me. Like a giant weed taking all the nutrients from the soil.

ok that pain is getting unbareable @_@