Moving out, getting over the emotional guilt...
February 16, 2020 8:16 PM Subscribe
I very recently posted a question asking for advice on losing weight. Got some terrific feedback, and one thing I've been thinking about all day is how important it is for me to move out of my parent's home for weight loss (and other) goals.
My relationship with my parents is quite dysfunctional and, I've realized over the years, emotionally abusive. I know that I've needed to move out for years now, and I was at the point financially to do it about 3 years ago (albeit with a roommate, rent in my city is crazy), but haven't been able to bring myself to actually do it. My parents are immigrants and pretty quite conservative culturally and religiously on most issues, and women living on their own is one of them. I'm a little wary of writing all this because I feel like it's a bit of a cliché and it might be hard for people to understand who don't come from strict/'traditional' families or non-western cultures. But I have a tough time talking about this with my friends because it's embarrassing, but I really need to just get this off my chest. And it helps to sometimes hear from others what you're already thinking inside...
I'm an only child and parents rely on me quite a bit. They're getting on in age, dad had major health issues a few years back and so did mom recently. Every time I start thinking about moving out, start looking at places, it seems like something or another happens with their health and I just stop the process. The thing is, at least in my particular community/extended family, this is what children do. You take care of parents in their old age, and you only move out when getting married. And they do put the pressure on to get married to someone in the community, but I don't want that for myself (and I'm not in the right head space for that anyhow).
But I think living at home for me emotionally has really damaged me, and will only continue to do so. Mom also has some mental health issues, and is very codependent, has rage issues and will often verbally abuse me. She goes from one extreme to another, very very loving and kind to extremely angry and lashing out at me verbally (which hurts me to my core), and then back to kind again and acting as if nothing even happened and she didn't just call me verbally abusive names an hour ago. I don't cope with it well, and lash out as well during these heated arguments. It's a toxic mess. There's also the control issue, not being able to do things as I please, to go out when I want, the control over what I wear, etc. I know I'm much too old to be dealing with this...
But I'm really all they have. And that guilt weighs down on me every single time I even think about moving out....For a long time, I thought I could at least work towards my educational/career goals while living at home, and that way I would be too distracted to be bothered by everything going on at home, but of course that's not what happened. Everything just became too much to deal with and I eventually just abandoned most of my goals and went on auto-pilot for a few years. When I look around and see a few others who are going through similar issues, they seem to be handling it ok. But my mental/emotional, and now physical, health is really suffering. I feel as if my spirit is broken. I'm beginning to isolate myself socially as well, just because it takes far too much energy to talk to people.
I know the answer is in moving out. I know this. But I have internalized the guilt and actually believe I would be horrible/scum of the earth to leave my parents in this age. But I know I can't keep doing this to myself either. And it's just a constant battle I'm waging with myself. I'm exhausted. I love my parents in spite of it all, and I do want to be there for them as much as I can, but I think living with them for much longer will kill me.
I'm not sure what my question is, really. I just really needed to get this out, I had another argument an hour ago with my mom and just needed a place to vent my frustrations....If anyone has gone through something similar, and eventually moved out - would love to hear your story if you'd like to share. How did you eventually get over the guilt, and how is your relationship with your family now? Any other feedback on my hot mess of a life is very much welcome.
My relationship with my parents is quite dysfunctional and, I've realized over the years, emotionally abusive. I know that I've needed to move out for years now, and I was at the point financially to do it about 3 years ago (albeit with a roommate, rent in my city is crazy), but haven't been able to bring myself to actually do it. My parents are immigrants and pretty quite conservative culturally and religiously on most issues, and women living on their own is one of them. I'm a little wary of writing all this because I feel like it's a bit of a cliché and it might be hard for people to understand who don't come from strict/'traditional' families or non-western cultures. But I have a tough time talking about this with my friends because it's embarrassing, but I really need to just get this off my chest. And it helps to sometimes hear from others what you're already thinking inside...
I'm an only child and parents rely on me quite a bit. They're getting on in age, dad had major health issues a few years back and so did mom recently. Every time I start thinking about moving out, start looking at places, it seems like something or another happens with their health and I just stop the process. The thing is, at least in my particular community/extended family, this is what children do. You take care of parents in their old age, and you only move out when getting married. And they do put the pressure on to get married to someone in the community, but I don't want that for myself (and I'm not in the right head space for that anyhow).
But I think living at home for me emotionally has really damaged me, and will only continue to do so. Mom also has some mental health issues, and is very codependent, has rage issues and will often verbally abuse me. She goes from one extreme to another, very very loving and kind to extremely angry and lashing out at me verbally (which hurts me to my core), and then back to kind again and acting as if nothing even happened and she didn't just call me verbally abusive names an hour ago. I don't cope with it well, and lash out as well during these heated arguments. It's a toxic mess. There's also the control issue, not being able to do things as I please, to go out when I want, the control over what I wear, etc. I know I'm much too old to be dealing with this...
But I'm really all they have. And that guilt weighs down on me every single time I even think about moving out....For a long time, I thought I could at least work towards my educational/career goals while living at home, and that way I would be too distracted to be bothered by everything going on at home, but of course that's not what happened. Everything just became too much to deal with and I eventually just abandoned most of my goals and went on auto-pilot for a few years. When I look around and see a few others who are going through similar issues, they seem to be handling it ok. But my mental/emotional, and now physical, health is really suffering. I feel as if my spirit is broken. I'm beginning to isolate myself socially as well, just because it takes far too much energy to talk to people.
I know the answer is in moving out. I know this. But I have internalized the guilt and actually believe I would be horrible/scum of the earth to leave my parents in this age. But I know I can't keep doing this to myself either. And it's just a constant battle I'm waging with myself. I'm exhausted. I love my parents in spite of it all, and I do want to be there for them as much as I can, but I think living with them for much longer will kill me.
I'm not sure what my question is, really. I just really needed to get this out, I had another argument an hour ago with my mom and just needed a place to vent my frustrations....If anyone has gone through something similar, and eventually moved out - would love to hear your story if you'd like to share. How did you eventually get over the guilt, and how is your relationship with your family now? Any other feedback on my hot mess of a life is very much welcome.
When I look around and see a few others who are going through similar issues, they seem to be handling it ok.
That sounds like the kind of thing that is easy to believe but turns out to be completely untrue.
It sounds like an every-thursday-at-5pm support group isn’t likely in your community, but I wonder if you put some feelers out if you would find that there are informal connections between the women who are living this.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:55 PM on February 16, 2020 [5 favorites]
That sounds like the kind of thing that is easy to believe but turns out to be completely untrue.
It sounds like an every-thursday-at-5pm support group isn’t likely in your community, but I wonder if you put some feelers out if you would find that there are informal connections between the women who are living this.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:55 PM on February 16, 2020 [5 favorites]
It should also go without saying, but probably won't so I'll say it, that the responsibility for putting you a position where you're faced with a choice between two outcomes as horrible as this is entirely on your parents.
Parents are older than their children. That's not culturally dependent, that's just biological fact. Parents also choose to make their children, not the other way around. It seems to me that any reasonable person, regardless of culture, ought to conclude that parents have an obligation to help their children not die that doesn't and cannot apply in reverse.
Your parents have had decades more time to learn to manage their own mental, physical and financial well-being than you have. If they are still not better at all of those things than you are then that's on them, not on you.
posted by flabdablet at 8:57 PM on February 16, 2020 [16 favorites]
Parents are older than their children. That's not culturally dependent, that's just biological fact. Parents also choose to make their children, not the other way around. It seems to me that any reasonable person, regardless of culture, ought to conclude that parents have an obligation to help their children not die that doesn't and cannot apply in reverse.
Your parents have had decades more time to learn to manage their own mental, physical and financial well-being than you have. If they are still not better at all of those things than you are then that's on them, not on you.
posted by flabdablet at 8:57 PM on February 16, 2020 [16 favorites]
Might it be feasible to get your own place near enough to visit your parents frequently at first? If you're able to pop in every couple of days, it might make the transition easier. And you'd be nearby if they did end up truly needing you for something.
Living next door to my mother was actually pretty awesome. We got to be emotionally closer than we were when we were in each other's hair all the time.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:13 PM on February 16, 2020 [7 favorites]
Living next door to my mother was actually pretty awesome. We got to be emotionally closer than we were when we were in each other's hair all the time.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:13 PM on February 16, 2020 [7 favorites]
So they'd be okay with you moving out if you got married? And you wouldn't feel guilty about it? They won't be any worse off if you move out without getting married than they would be if you got married first. You can help them as they age without living in the same house with them. I would reassure them that that's what you plan to do and point out that if you have your own place it should cut down on tension and arguments and make it easier for you to enjoy each other's company when you're together.
posted by Redstart at 9:15 PM on February 16, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by Redstart at 9:15 PM on February 16, 2020 [13 favorites]
Redstart's advice is good, but I still recommend committing to moving out without expecting that they will ever be on board with it.
Your parents' cultural habits of mind are going to be more firmly established than yours, again purely because of the extra time theirs have had to get bedded in, so it's going to be harder for them to accept breaking them than it is for you. If you make your decision to leave conditional upon their acceptance of it, that's going to make it much harder for you to act on it.
So, acting on it is going to involve feeling like a total heel for some unknown period of time. You need to anticipate that and decide that it's acceptable to you. This will completely deprive other people - be they parents or relatives or other culturally influential figures - of the power to pressure you out of acting on your own well-considered decisions.
All that other people can ever do is manipulate your feelings about your decisions, but if you've already convinced yourself in advance that a choice is so necessary that feeling absolutely terrible about having made it is acceptable, then that manipulation becomes completely disconnected from what you're actually going to do.
posted by flabdablet at 9:34 PM on February 16, 2020 [5 favorites]
Your parents' cultural habits of mind are going to be more firmly established than yours, again purely because of the extra time theirs have had to get bedded in, so it's going to be harder for them to accept breaking them than it is for you. If you make your decision to leave conditional upon their acceptance of it, that's going to make it much harder for you to act on it.
So, acting on it is going to involve feeling like a total heel for some unknown period of time. You need to anticipate that and decide that it's acceptable to you. This will completely deprive other people - be they parents or relatives or other culturally influential figures - of the power to pressure you out of acting on your own well-considered decisions.
All that other people can ever do is manipulate your feelings about your decisions, but if you've already convinced yourself in advance that a choice is so necessary that feeling absolutely terrible about having made it is acceptable, then that manipulation becomes completely disconnected from what you're actually going to do.
posted by flabdablet at 9:34 PM on February 16, 2020 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't suggest that you decide to leave only if they accept the idea. I think you should go no matter what they think, but the more confident and reasonable and kind you are when you talk about it, the more likely it is that they will reach some level of acceptance. Don't wait for the acceptance, though, just go ahead and leave and hope it comes later.
posted by Redstart at 9:46 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Redstart at 9:46 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]
So if you got married, would they suddenly get over their health issues? ..and you wouldn't be subject to any guilt?
Going by your previous questions, it seems I'm your parents ages (late 50s) and if I couldn’t look after myself I sure as fuck hope I wouldn't make my kid (if I had one) feel like I was his/her responsibility. They aren’t elderly. They're a couple, they've raised kids and made their own decisions...you're entitled to do the same - not necessarily have kids or be a couple, but have whatever life you envision. Again, they aren’t old.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:56 PM on February 16, 2020 [1 favorite]
Going by your previous questions, it seems I'm your parents ages (late 50s) and if I couldn’t look after myself I sure as fuck hope I wouldn't make my kid (if I had one) feel like I was his/her responsibility. They aren’t elderly. They're a couple, they've raised kids and made their own decisions...you're entitled to do the same - not necessarily have kids or be a couple, but have whatever life you envision. Again, they aren’t old.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:56 PM on February 16, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Just for clarity, because it's expected that a woman gets married at a certain point, it wouldn't carry the stigma that moving out as an unmarried woman would. I failed to mention that part of the guilt in moving out is because I'm not married, and parents would face shame/embarrassment from the community for not raising me with the "right" morals because I moved out before marriage. So they've been pressuring me to get married, but I'm not ready and so I resisted. Their health issues wouldn't go away if I got married, but they'd be a lot happier (as they tell me often). So I'm guilted, actively, for contributing to their misery by choosing to not get married yet.
Yeah they're not old old (late 50s and early 60s), I think the health issues + hard labour over years + just the general unhealthiness of their lives has contributed to not great health which makes them feel like they're old.
Btw, I don't mean to make myself sound like a victim in all of this. I've contributed to this situation by not advocating for myself, for not taking proactive measures to seek out my happiness. I've just been so afraid all my life to hurt them, and I've internalized so much of the external messages I got growing up.
But as I type all of this out, it hits me hard how ridiculous it is to sacrifice my happiness/health for all this...
posted by KTN at 10:16 PM on February 16, 2020 [7 favorites]
Yeah they're not old old (late 50s and early 60s), I think the health issues + hard labour over years + just the general unhealthiness of their lives has contributed to not great health which makes them feel like they're old.
Btw, I don't mean to make myself sound like a victim in all of this. I've contributed to this situation by not advocating for myself, for not taking proactive measures to seek out my happiness. I've just been so afraid all my life to hurt them, and I've internalized so much of the external messages I got growing up.
But as I type all of this out, it hits me hard how ridiculous it is to sacrifice my happiness/health for all this...
posted by KTN at 10:16 PM on February 16, 2020 [7 favorites]
Not ridiculous at all. Merely habitual.
The work it takes to build new habits is quite hard enough without the additional burden of beating yourself up for not having chosen to do it earlier. So no, not ridiculous in the slightest.
posted by flabdablet at 10:46 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]
The work it takes to build new habits is quite hard enough without the additional burden of beating yourself up for not having chosen to do it earlier. So no, not ridiculous in the slightest.
posted by flabdablet at 10:46 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]
parents would face shame/embarrassment from the community for not raising me with the "right" morals because I moved out before marriage
If your parents have failed to spend your entire lifetime pushing back against traditional attitudes that have led to your having no better options than to to cause them distress or be killed by your own, then again, any genuine shame and embarrassment they experience as a consequence of your choice not to die is is their responsibility, not yours.
posted by flabdablet at 11:08 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]
If your parents have failed to spend your entire lifetime pushing back against traditional attitudes that have led to your having no better options than to to cause them distress or be killed by your own, then again, any genuine shame and embarrassment they experience as a consequence of your choice not to die is is their responsibility, not yours.
posted by flabdablet at 11:08 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]
I think a lot of this advice comes from a cultural background that under-estimates how strong the cultural messages and pressure to conform to expectations on both you and also on them. Yes, many women do follow those rules - and there is also strong pressure not to talk about how miserable they might be while doing it.
From your response, it sounds like you realize this pressure on you to win your parents love and approval by being a good daughter according to their standards is so powerful it really makes it hard for you to what you know is best for you.
It sounds like you know you want to move out but are struggling to do it int eh face of your parent's disapproval. I think it would really help to find some external voices to support you in this and to balance out all the negative messages from your parents (and the voices in your head that learned from them) Maybe a therapist, a support group or just a circle of girlfriends. It is so hard to do alone - find some supporters to remind you of what you really believe.
posted by metahawk at 11:18 PM on February 16, 2020 [9 favorites]
From your response, it sounds like you realize this pressure on you to win your parents love and approval by being a good daughter according to their standards is so powerful it really makes it hard for you to what you know is best for you.
It sounds like you know you want to move out but are struggling to do it int eh face of your parent's disapproval. I think it would really help to find some external voices to support you in this and to balance out all the negative messages from your parents (and the voices in your head that learned from them) Maybe a therapist, a support group or just a circle of girlfriends. It is so hard to do alone - find some supporters to remind you of what you really believe.
posted by metahawk at 11:18 PM on February 16, 2020 [9 favorites]
My mom is Chinese and, after my dad died, she definitely expected that I'd stay with her until I got married. In fact, she and my aunts and uncles would even ask about her living with my future husband and I - basically expecting I'd never leave her side, ever. We have a very contentious relationship as well - lots of arguing and stress that just wasn't healthy for me. It's weird because she doesn't seem to think that the arguments are a huge deal, but it impacts me immensely and so I knew I had to leave that situation.
I ended up moving to a different city and I did feel a lot of guilt. There's definitely still guilt there after all these years (it's been about a decade now), especially now that she's getting older. Even still, I don't regret it. She wails about how her family can't believe her children just left her, but the fact of the matter is our relationship improved significantly after I left. We still have our fights but we appreciate eachother much more with the space there. I can brush off her comments way easier. Even with her laments, I can feel that she's happy with how our relationship has turned out.
I really can't emphasize enough how much I grew mentally and just as a person after moving out. You definitely don't have to move cities like I did - living nearish to your parents as someone else suggested sounds like a reasonable option. But you can definitely do this, I promise.
posted by thebots at 12:46 AM on February 17, 2020 [21 favorites]
I ended up moving to a different city and I did feel a lot of guilt. There's definitely still guilt there after all these years (it's been about a decade now), especially now that she's getting older. Even still, I don't regret it. She wails about how her family can't believe her children just left her, but the fact of the matter is our relationship improved significantly after I left. We still have our fights but we appreciate eachother much more with the space there. I can brush off her comments way easier. Even with her laments, I can feel that she's happy with how our relationship has turned out.
I really can't emphasize enough how much I grew mentally and just as a person after moving out. You definitely don't have to move cities like I did - living nearish to your parents as someone else suggested sounds like a reasonable option. But you can definitely do this, I promise.
posted by thebots at 12:46 AM on February 17, 2020 [21 favorites]
I wonder if it would help to think about it in the sense of putting your own oxygen mask on first? Like, if you leave now, you'll be able to get yourself to a healthier place emotionally, and you also will likely be able to build a better relationship with your parents if you're not in that dysfunctional dynamic all the time. You say you're worried about them getting older, but it sounds like this situation isn't going to result in you being in a healthy enough place physically or emotionally to be a good support to them later on.
posted by geegollygosh at 6:08 AM on February 17, 2020
posted by geegollygosh at 6:08 AM on February 17, 2020
I think that in this instance focusing on the imagined outcome (your parents freaking out) as opposed to the process of achievement (you getting your own place) is adding to feeling overwhelmed. You already know that for your own sake you should move out- otherwise this AskMe wouldn't have been posted.
But what can you do to ease your way out and exit as smoothly as possible?
First, save as much as you can from your job. Second, work on bolstering your boundaries and independence by spending, incrementally, more time away from home. So you took a 20 minute walk on your own last night. Take a 25 minute walk today. Claim you're spending more time at the office and instead go to the local library and research housing in your area or even cultural/religious support groups that sound interesting to you; come home half an hour or 45 minutes later than usual. İncrementally pull away over the period of a few months. Just make yourself as scarce as you can from home in general and push the boundaries of what's expected of you. Nobody can hold you anywhere you don't want to be- that's your legal right as an adult. So take agency over where you are, where you chose to be.
Keep your plans under your hat. Don't say anything that will tip off your parents, which will lead them to finding new ways to waging psychological control over you.
Once you've found something you want to take - and this is months down the road- place your security deposit down, move out the majority of your stuff as discreetly as possible, and then tell them. But it has to be like, when you have a new place lined up, have the key to your new place.
I'm sure there are other women in your community who have had to make similar tough decisions as you and maybe you could find some as roommates! İt could be an adventure.
I'm proud of you.
posted by erattacorrige at 6:34 AM on February 17, 2020 [11 favorites]
But what can you do to ease your way out and exit as smoothly as possible?
First, save as much as you can from your job. Second, work on bolstering your boundaries and independence by spending, incrementally, more time away from home. So you took a 20 minute walk on your own last night. Take a 25 minute walk today. Claim you're spending more time at the office and instead go to the local library and research housing in your area or even cultural/religious support groups that sound interesting to you; come home half an hour or 45 minutes later than usual. İncrementally pull away over the period of a few months. Just make yourself as scarce as you can from home in general and push the boundaries of what's expected of you. Nobody can hold you anywhere you don't want to be- that's your legal right as an adult. So take agency over where you are, where you chose to be.
Keep your plans under your hat. Don't say anything that will tip off your parents, which will lead them to finding new ways to waging psychological control over you.
Once you've found something you want to take - and this is months down the road- place your security deposit down, move out the majority of your stuff as discreetly as possible, and then tell them. But it has to be like, when you have a new place lined up, have the key to your new place.
I'm sure there are other women in your community who have had to make similar tough decisions as you and maybe you could find some as roommates! İt could be an adventure.
I'm proud of you.
posted by erattacorrige at 6:34 AM on February 17, 2020 [11 favorites]
You can give your parents face saving excuses: the commute is too long and you are living with a female roommate, who has xyz acceptable characteristics (hi-b, student, Muslim, etc)
Give them a way to sell it to their peers.
Enroll in a part time degree program (even if it is one class a semester). Now you have even less time to commute.
posted by perdhapley at 10:31 AM on February 17, 2020
Give them a way to sell it to their peers.
Enroll in a part time degree program (even if it is one class a semester). Now you have even less time to commute.
posted by perdhapley at 10:31 AM on February 17, 2020
It sounds like your parents are about the same age as me and my husband, so let me give you some advice from a parent's point of view.
They want you to be a mature, reasonable person who makes sensible decisions. They want you to fit in and be liked. They don't want people to judge you negatively or think you're weird. So if you can present your decision as something perfectly reasonable and normal, they have a big incentive to buy into that way of seeing it. They probably won't buy into it instantly, but over time they may, because they don't want to see you as a foolish person who has done something bad.
You can say, "You probably won't like the idea of me moving out on my own because where you grew up, that wasn't done. But I'm sure you realize that at this point in time, in this city, even among people of our cultural background, it's not a big deal for a woman to live on her own. A few old fashioned people your age might judge me for it, but no one under forty would. Honestly, I think I might get as much negative judgment for not living on my own." I think it's fine if this is an exaggeration of the actual level of acceptance in your area. Remember, they want to believe your choice is okay as much as you want them to believe it. This is the place to throw in anecdotes that support your claims, if you have any. ("My boss was surprised to learn I was still living with my parents" or "Most of the single women I work with live on their own.")
You can go on to say, "Of course, I'm not going to just mindlessly do whatever most people around me are doing." (They want to hear this, because they're worried that is exactly what you might do.) "I'm not going to start [doing thing your parents disapprove of that you don't want to do] even if everyone around me is doing it. I love you and I want to take care of you as you get older. But we've been fighting a lot and that's not the kind of relationship I want us to have. I think we would get along better if we weren't on top of each other all the time. So I'm moving out."
This approach isn't guaranteed to work. You do have to be prepared for the possibility that they will never approve of your choice. But if they don't, it doesn't mean you're a bad daughter, it means they're bad parents. (Or less than ideal parents, anyway, but of course we all are. You don't suddenly get the power to act correctly in every situation when you give birth, unfortunately.)
posted by Redstart at 11:19 AM on February 17, 2020
They want you to be a mature, reasonable person who makes sensible decisions. They want you to fit in and be liked. They don't want people to judge you negatively or think you're weird. So if you can present your decision as something perfectly reasonable and normal, they have a big incentive to buy into that way of seeing it. They probably won't buy into it instantly, but over time they may, because they don't want to see you as a foolish person who has done something bad.
You can say, "You probably won't like the idea of me moving out on my own because where you grew up, that wasn't done. But I'm sure you realize that at this point in time, in this city, even among people of our cultural background, it's not a big deal for a woman to live on her own. A few old fashioned people your age might judge me for it, but no one under forty would. Honestly, I think I might get as much negative judgment for not living on my own." I think it's fine if this is an exaggeration of the actual level of acceptance in your area. Remember, they want to believe your choice is okay as much as you want them to believe it. This is the place to throw in anecdotes that support your claims, if you have any. ("My boss was surprised to learn I was still living with my parents" or "Most of the single women I work with live on their own.")
You can go on to say, "Of course, I'm not going to just mindlessly do whatever most people around me are doing." (They want to hear this, because they're worried that is exactly what you might do.) "I'm not going to start [doing thing your parents disapprove of that you don't want to do] even if everyone around me is doing it. I love you and I want to take care of you as you get older. But we've been fighting a lot and that's not the kind of relationship I want us to have. I think we would get along better if we weren't on top of each other all the time. So I'm moving out."
This approach isn't guaranteed to work. You do have to be prepared for the possibility that they will never approve of your choice. But if they don't, it doesn't mean you're a bad daughter, it means they're bad parents. (Or less than ideal parents, anyway, but of course we all are. You don't suddenly get the power to act correctly in every situation when you give birth, unfortunately.)
posted by Redstart at 11:19 AM on February 17, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
I think living with them for much longer will kill me.
So, if the options are being the horrible scum who is alive or being the honourable child who is dead, my advice is to upgrade being the horrible scum into the "acceptable" category.
If you're alive and your circumstances are such that you're likely to remain so, then you can work on fixing feeling like horrible scum, possibly by offering your parents such support as your newfound distance from them allows. The other option offers no such opportunity and is worse for both you and your parents. If their state of mental health is parlous they don't need to be organizing your funeral.
posted by flabdablet at 8:44 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]