[porcelain_pain]

About a month ago I agreed to move back into my parents house after dropping out of grad school, going through a hard breakup and needing a career change. For some reason my mom convinced me that this would be a good idea and I am suddenly realizing how bad of an idea it really is. I am 25F, and I have a brother who is 23 and a sister who is 20. My brother moved back in a few months ago, and my sister hasn't moved out. So it will be our entire family living at the house again. Growing up, my parents were extremely permissive/indulgent, and we never were disciplined or learned boundaries. We were spoiled and never learned any real life skills, such as chores. It was absolutely agonizing for me to learn basic adult life skills once I moved out on my own.

Our house is extremely dirty, messy, and cluttered. There is absolutely no way to get anyone to clean up after themselves because my parents 'gave up' years ago when they realized that they couldn't all of a sudden expect us to know how to clean after they never taught us or disciplined us. Being one of four others in a house, I can't keep the house clean all on my own. My sister hibernates in her room whenever she isn't at work, surrounded by so much mess that she can not see the floor, and it's starting to resemble a hoarding situation. I have tried to have talks with my family regarding the mess to try and work out a system but no one cares AT ALL. It's absolutely filthy but I just get told I'm overreacting.

We were constantly rewarded and given gifts and money for no reason other than my mom wanting to win us over.

My mom is in denial of everything and is extremely defensive when I try to bring up anything. My dad's only role in the house is to bring in money and be the 'family clown'. He can't have a serious conversation to save his life. He talks to all three of us adult children like babies and has never once expressed any sentiment resembling a feeling or emotion. Growing up, I was the child with 'issues' who my mom always worried would turn out like her late sister, who struggled immensely and recently died of a drug overdose. My mom's method of dealing with her worry was to read my private journals and e-mails. She did it several times from the time I was 12. The last time she snooped was when I was 22 (!!!) where she read my emails and found out that I do nude modeling (which I enjoy) to make money. This just feeds her worry and now she always expects me to have 'open and honest conversations' with her. Sorry mom, you've invaded my privacy and broken my trust my whole life so I don't know how you think that I feel safe or comfortable opening up to you. I was upset the other day after getting into a fight with a friend and she came in my room trying to comfort me and touch me. I absolutely can not stand her being in my space that way. It makes me feel so uncomfortable. She told my dad about my modeling and he's never once brought it up even though I know he hates it and worries about it all the time. He constantly nags me about my finances but won't have a real conversation. The most serious conversation we've had was when I was 12 and my dad found out I had kissed a boy - he came into my room and yelled at me saying that I'm supposed to grow up to be a singer and shouldn't be doing this ****. That was it.

To be clear, I do not need anyone to tell me that my parents did what they did/do 'out of love' - I am completely aware of that and I do love my parents, I just don't trust them.

My parents both came from alcoholic homes and I am starting to understand the dysfunctions that are being passed down. I feel sorry for them and I know they had rough lives. However they haven't done the work to make sure those dysfunctions don't get passed down. I have MDD, GAD, BPD and OCD. I am tired of people telling me to "tell my parents how I feel, they'll understand". No, they won't. They're in denial and have been their entire lives. It would be absolutely disasterous to try and have this conversation right now, especially since I am still working through/realizing a lot of things (I had no idea that any of this was important until about a week ago once I started researching). I can't share my art, music or poetry with my parents because it's too personal. I posted a poem to my Facebook page a few months ago, and my mom called me asking me to explain to her about the content of the poem and how it reflects my feelings (she worried about a line where I wrote about walking amongst the train tracks, which is a spiritual activity for me and not a suicidal one). That was the last time I posted any of my work publicly like that. I get berated for being so 'distant' and for not sharing, and up until recently I thought it was all my fault for being so emotionally closed off and distant. I also felt like I was 'ungrateful' for not wanting to be close to my parents because they 'did so much for us' (i.e. spoiled us and never instilled discipline).

I have a plan for how I am going to get out of my parents house ASAP, so I don't need advice on that. I would really like, however, if anyone who can relate to my situation could comment with their own experiences and reflections, since I am still trying to wrap my head around all of this. I find it hard to find anything online that I can relate to, because most peoples horror stories about their families involve authoritarian and over-strict/outwardly abusive parents, and I almost feel stupid for complaining about my family.

Thank you to anyone who reads this.

[kaliope]

no i cant relate as i come from the opposite household as you say. i am sure someone will come along. i just wanted to commend you on recognizing the problems of your household and having a plan to get away from it. you sound like you are on a rather healhty path from a pretty messy place. good luck and take care

[A Red Panda]

I can relate to at least some of this.

My mom has also always invaded my privacy - she even went through my garbage. She used to ask my friends personal questions about me if I brought a friend over during highschool - the second I was out of the room she'd start. So, I stopped bringing people over. To then get bothered about why I didn't bring people over.

She also is angry that I do not open up or tell them anything - and why would I when she's broken my trust every single time I ever tried? I also get called ungrateful, selfish, etc etc. I spent a lot of time feeling that way, but it's really a result of how I was raised actually.

I also frequently get told that I'm overreacting... if I bring up anything at all. And my mom's also gotten mad for us not doing "enough" or "anything" when we're there - but she never let us, and each time I go to do something when I'm there, I get yelled at for doing it! It's a lose-lose situation there.

I had to go and live with them for a few months when I was 27. It was horrific. But that was due more to my brother than anything else. So, I can relate to the huge desire to GET OUT!

My mom is also a child of an alcoholic, and I know she's had a rough past. Her solution seems to have been to try and avoid it and rigidly control everything in her life (so, I do have the overly-strict family structure that is different than yours... but some of the behaviours were quite similar).

[Trippin2.0]

I had the never taught me to wipe my own butt issue, so I had a rude awakening when I had a baby at age 19! Good lord I had a rough time adjusting to taking care of a whole human, when I never even had to lift a finger to take care of myself!


I actually called my mother out on that one. Told her I was terribly short changed and that I felt crippled as an adult. I honestly felt behind in my development when I compared myself to my peers, and in a way, I was.


Was also quite confusing to me because the 4 siblings before me were raised with responsibility and shyt...


Maybe she just got lazy by the time myself and my younger brother arrived...