TLDR below


I'm nearing university and sometimes I feel unfortunate I have to learn at a university near home, since it means I either stay at home or rent a dorm/apartment for a very expensive price since we live in a central city.

There's another university somewhere afar from where I live where renting a dorm is cheap, however the disadvantages are the dorms are guaranteed for only a year so you have to get along on your own afterwards; and the fact that university is more competitive.

My goals in life are still a little uncertain, but I think of working in a field of Mathematics/statistics and working on my music as either a hobby or career.

Whenever I am home, I feel pulled to the ground. My parents have controlling patterns such as discouragement of negative emotions (one-sided), my father manipulates a discussion to transmit a hidden controlling message (for instance, I talked to him about that same competitive university I mentioned, he told me he didn't go there not because he wanted to run away from his own parents, but because the 1# (mentioned) university had a similar major as the 2nd one had. Took me time of brooding to suspect he manipulated the story, since I remember he told me about that story once, saying he really wanted to study at that far university and told me his parents didn't let him go there since they wanted him to stay close to them).

My therapist is too patient with the subject, as my time is crucial as I need to make a last resort decision before the new year.

TLDR: Main point - I don't know how am I gonna figure this out...
On one hand, I feel a toxicity in the family. On the other hand, I'm thinking of self-idealization life with music and math. On the third hand, something feels bad about home. I get often irritated from my parents on one hand but on the other hand they're valuable resources such as food and money. Yep, I use them mostly for materialistic needs, since this is what they've mostly given from themselves. Emotional energies are their weakness.

Please help me figure this out if you can.
I just don't want to feel this bitter and pulled-down anymore... I think my father is somehow doing this and I don't know how or why...

[Sometimes psychotic]

Apply to both and make the decision that seems right...personally moving away from home at college age really helped me grow up and actually appreciate my parents.

[Sunflower123]

Originally Posted by Sometimes psychotic

Apply to both and make the decision that seems right...personally moving away from home at college age really helped me grow up and actually appreciate my parents.

I second this....personally I'd go to the university that's farther away. I moved out and away from my family when I was 18 due to the toxicity. Good luck and best wishes.

To be honest, I feel very uncertain about moving out on the other hand.
Financially I have less things to worry about at home regarding food and chores. Not that I mind doing them in general, but I'm worried about not having time for music if I go to a dorm or apartment for instance, where I may have to work a part-time job, and then consider a different place to live in.
My father rents 2 apartments his own parents used to have until they passed away, and my mother told me they are primarily kept for us when we want to move out.

I really wonder if moving out to a place of my own will make me feel better, and how much I can get along with some issues regarding home. It's hard not to feel stuck at my type of city - it's a high social-economic city, mostly silent and generally people are doing their own business there.

I want to find a place ideal for my psyche, where I can be productive financially, improve my social life and improve my musical skills. That is my wish

Update - got irritated by my father.
I was voluntarily helping prepare dinner a bit, and was preparing potatoes for baking.
I cut them and my father commented I am a professional, to which I irritatingly replied "No, it's nothing".
After putting the potatoes in the plate and watering some flowers with the water left in the potato pot, I returned to find my mother refining the cut potatoes, which made me a bit angry inside. Afterwards I was to put some oils and this is where my father got annoying.
He said "well done", to which I had no reply. He then signaled a "you missed a spot, make sure you put the oil there, too" by pointing his finger around that spot, when I was just getting started. I just irritatingly said "ok, ok, cut it out", to which he responded by wandering off like a stay-at-home hulking zombie.

This REALLY irritated me - he's saying I'm a professional over nothing, and instructing me over nothing. It seems my parents have horrible expectations of me, which is really insulting.

When I just returned to my room, I impulsively started the process of signing up for the 2nd far away university (I didn't do anything afterwards since it was an impulse). Does it mean something? Does it mean I truly need to get away from home? I'm talking about the impulse here.
What do you think?

http://www.controllingparents.com/Signs.htm

[Rose76]

I think going away to college and living on campus is about the healthiest thing a young person can do. I did it.

A problem you have is college is waaaay more expensive than when I was your age. I financed the whole thing myself, and it didn't leave me with huge, enormous debt. I paid it off in a few years.

A bigger problem you have is you are not all that independent. So it would be hard for you to do without all the help at home. When I lived in a dorm, I literally knew what it was to be hungry some weekends. But it was still worth it to be out away from home.

Your parents seem to kind of want you dependent. Your father is keeping up a spare apartment for one of his children to move into . . . someday. That's the craziest thing I ever heard of.

If you really want independence from your parents, you can find a way. What's hard, I think, is that you are pretty conflicted about what you want. To get anything in life, we have to give up something. I think you are having trouble with that concept.

Originally Posted by Rose76

I think going away to college and living on campus is about the healthiest thing a young person can do. I did it.

A problem you have is college is waaaay more expensive than when I was your age. I financed the whole thing myself, and it didn't leave me with huge, enormous debt. I paid it off in a few years.

A bigger problem you have is you are not all that independent. So it would be hard for you to do without all the help at home. When I lived in a dorm, I literally knew what it was to be hungry some weekends. But it was still worth it to be out away from home.

Your parents seem to kind of want you dependent. Your father is keeping up a spare apartment for one of his children to move into . . . someday. That's the craziest thing I ever heard of.

If you really want independence from your parents, you can find a way. What's hard, I think, is that you are pretty conflicted about what you want. To get anything in life, we have to give up something. I think you are having trouble with that concept.

My father gives those apartments out for rent right now, so they're not just kept there.

As for the bold, this was spot-on.
I don't have anything certain to say about this, but I'll tell something which happened today.
Today I got up with a very refreshing feeling I've hardly felt.
Went out of my room and said the good mornings to my father who was in the opposite room.
Went downstairs and he asked me how was work, and then threw one of his horrible attempts to be funny by randomly asking if the manager was strip-dancing and was mimicking a randomly horrible unrelated dance. I irritatingly and gently told him to cut it out. From there I've been having a horrible gut feeling until now which ruined my previous good feeling when I woke up.

[Rose76]

You truly have my sympathy, Obsidian. Your parents would drive me nuts, if I had to live there. Your father, this morning, was beyond lame. I have no trouble seeing how that ruined your morning. You seem to make an honest effort to be courteous toward your folks, and you get mocked in return.

If I were you, I'ld be hanging my fervent hopes on getting out of that environment. Just stay calm and work on a sound plan. If you can go away to a college where you don't live at home, that would be a tremendous opportunity. Living away from home would educate you in ways just as important as what goes on in classrooms. Another four years with the folks, and your capacity for self-directing your life may be impaired beyond fixing.

Looking at this and your other threads, you strike me as a person who makes a sincere effort to think of others and be fair. Meanwhile you got this father playing with your head and looking to push your buttons. My father was kind of like that, but I think your father is worse. Here's the trap your vulnerable to being kept in. Your parents are people of means. So they have things to offer you materially. That tempts you into staying under your father's thumb. It's hard to give up comforts you're accustomed to having.

It comes down to what price you're willing to pay for the chance to be your own person and run your own life . . . to have some little space, even just a dorm room, where you are captain of your own little boat and have boundaries that insulate you from overly intrusive parents. I say: go for it! Yes, run away from that home, as your father characterizes it. Some of your emotional issues - like 99.9% of them - come from being way too close to the folks. You need room to breathe.

Apply to that out-of-town college. Don't talk about it with them. I announced to my father that I was going away, after I got the acceptance letter and had the financing all figured out. He was furious and vowed to give me no help. (My mother quietly encouraged me.) My father got over his resistance. (He claimed everyone who went away to school got hooked on drugs and became promiscuous. I didn't.)

Okay, so you'll have to do your own laundry and your diet may be beans for supper now and then. There'll be some loneliness. But you'll be able to take real deep breathes like never before. You'll have less time for lavishing on your music. But you'll never have the capacity for mature creativity, until and unless you emancipate yourself. Your folks are hindering you. They're using you to meet some need of their own in a way that's hokding you back. Get out of there.

[BrowseAfterMidnight]

I'm in a similar situation. I want to move out from my toxic home... except for me, my mother is the toxic one and she tends to belittle me and give lots of unwanted advice, ranting for hours at a time.

I'm in second year of university/college. When choosing my uni, I decided to listen to my mom and go to the one close by while living at home. I don't know if it would have been better for me to move out then, but probably yes because I still want to move out now and our relationship has not gotten any better. In fact, staying at home and having to commute for 3 hours a day has been a hindrance. I prefer to study on campus, but staying there after dinner time meant I had to either buy expensive food on campus, stay hungry until I am home or forego studying on campus altogether. My social life could have been better if I lived on campus too.

Now it's too late to transfer to the university I would have wanted to go to because my grades are not as great as they were in high school. I am still thinking of moving out for next year, however. I am pretty settled on finding a room to rent in a couple of weeks when summer classes start. I am certain it will do me good in terms of my mental health, independence and feelings of fulfillment.

Originally Posted by Rose76

You truly have my sympathy, Obsidian. Your parents would drive me nuts, if I had to live there. Your father, this morning, was beyond lame. I have no trouble seeing how that ruined your morning. You seem to make an honest effort to be courteous toward your folks, and you get mocked in return.

If I were you, I'ld be hanging my fervent hopes on getting out of that environment. Just stay calm and work on a sound plan. If you can go away to a college where you don't live at home, that would be a tremendous opportunity. Living away from home would educate you in ways just as important as what goes on in classrooms. Another four years with the folks, and your capacity for self-directing your life may be impaired beyond fixing.

Looking at this and your other threads, you strike me as a person who makes a sincere effort to think of others and be fair. Meanwhile you got this father playing with your head and looking to push your buttons. My father was kind of like that, but I think your father is worse. Here's the trap your vulnerable to being kept in. Your parents are people of means. So they have things to offer you materially. That tempts you into staying under your father's thumb. It's hard to give up comforts you're accustomed to having.

It comes down to what price you're willing to pay for the chance to be your own person and run your own life . . . to have some little space, even just a dorm room, where you are captain of your own little boat and have boundaries that insulate you from overly intrusive parents. I say: go for it! Yes, run away from that home, as your father characterizes it. Some of your emotional issues - like 99.9% of them - come from being way too close to the folks. You need room to breathe.

Apply to that out-of-town college. Don't talk about it with them. I announced to my father that I was going away, after I got the acceptance letter and had the financing all figured out. He was furious and vowed to give me no help. (My mother quietly encouraged me.) My father got over his resistance. (He claimed everyone who went away to school got hooked on drugs and became promiscuous. I didn't.)

Okay, so you'll have to do your own laundry and your diet may be beans for supper now and then. There'll be some loneliness. But you'll be able to take real deep breathes like never before. You'll have less time for lavishing on your music. But you'll never have the capacity for mature creativity, until and unless you emancipate yourself. Your folks are hindering you. They're using you to meet some need of their own in a way that's hokding you back. Get out of there.

Right now I have no one to move out with, and dorms are limited in numbers around my country. Apartments are only cheap if you live with other people, which is very OK by me, but I don't have anyone in my area who goes to university, other than someone who's already in it, yet has no money to move out.

[Rose76]

How do you think all those uni students sharing apartments found house mates? You think they all were neighbors and childhood friends?

You got to get up to where that university is and put out ads and read local ads. You said that it was possible to get a dorm room, maybe, at least for the first semester. That's what my nephew did. After he got on campus, he came to know people he ended up sharing a house with. You got to be willing to take a chance . . . to make a leap of faith. If you need all the little ducks in a perfect row before you make a move, you're going to stay right where you are.

Part of why your father razzes you so much is because of your timidity.

Whether you move out or not isn't really the issue. The issue is you asserting autonomy. It could be possible to do that, while living with parents . . . for some people. I don't think it will be for you. (Or you would have done that already.) You need actual geographic space between your folks and you, so that umbilical cord can finally be cut. At least that's my impression.

In post # 1, you said that dorm rooms are cheap and guaranteed for one year. So there you go. Arrive on campus as a dorm resident. Then network around to find potential housemates. There will be others in the same boat you're in. Are you afraid no one will like you enough to take you on as a housemate?