Most people have suggested a great many things besides "leave". There are so many other things that you can be doing while living with her to make your life more fulfilling.

It's good to see that you're starting to look inside at yourself more. That's a great step and will be an ongoing challenge for you, because it's so easy to just look outside of ourselves and blame others/situations/luck/etc. So keep that up!

Going with what Rose just said about your job - you work from home right? Once you're done the project you're working on, it would probably be helpful to try and find a job outside of the home, to give you some more space away from your mom that's YOUR space where you can be interacting with other people.

And I thought in the Roger Ebert post it said that he just didn't tell his mother about the relationships he was in.. so thus didn't do anything like moving in with his partners or anything. That's still very much a possibiliy. You do not need to tell your mom every aspect of your life.

Which is clearly something that's been hard for you to do and your mom thinks she is entitled to know everything about your life. Which is why I earlier in the thread suggested that you just stick to "I'm going out. I'll be back later" when you leave. She'll get angry and throw some fits because she won't know what you're doing, but she can and will get used to that. Hell, you could go out and get groceries and you still don't have to tell her that's what you're doing. Once that's more established that you have a right to go and do things without her permission, it'll be easier to do things that you want to do.

You can still find happiness and indepdence while living and taking care of your mom.