Frustrated with life/home situation, vent/rant time...

Throwaway account for reasons. Largely venting over some significant struggles I’ve been dealing with lately. Brief note: Not diagnosed ADHD/ASD but highly suspect a combination of both at this stage in my life. Also I will apologize and warn for liberal use of curses in some spots.

In my late 30s here and honestly most of my adult life has felt like I’ve been consistently ~10 years behind in just general life/mental/social development and have been acutely aware of this lately. On top of that is the whole mess of childhood emotional neglect/parentification/lack of proper raising leading into a significantly anxious adult who has had to pretty much learn everything (and I’m talking more about general living life stuff) on his own and struggling through it with almost nonexistent support networks and social anxiety/ineptitude.

Recently had a bit of a spat with my mother. These are nothing new unfortunately. Doesn’t happen often. But it’s usually the same song and dance. Life gets too much for me, shit has been bottled up because my needs are never met/boundaries respected and I just don’t bother to talk about shit because of this. Finally it boils over and I melt down and it often shows up as anger (not directed at anywhere in particular, just frustrated and upset at life in general). And my mother with a lack of emotional maturity just escalates the issue with her own anger which just causes a feedback loop where I get even more angry and it starts redirecting towards her. But never anything physical. What’s worse is that while it still sticks hard in my head after the fact, my mother often goes back to acting like everything is normal within a day or two.

This recent time was the same situation but with how life has been lately, I felt something ‘snap’ so to speak in my head. I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself the past couple months looking inward and trying to make sense of myself and actually label shit I’m dealing with and this last spat honestly just accelerated a lot of that and pushing me towards wanting to make meaningful changes in my life.

But I guess that’s where the crux of my current frustration is at: So I own my own home. To make a super long story short and brief: I’ve been living under the same roof with my mom and my brother most of my entire life aside from a few TINY breaks. The last 15 years have been rough in particular because that was when I first got into the job market and began making my own money. And in much of that 15 year span, often I had to go into debt to keep things afloat because of my mother’s lack of financial competence. One such case gave me an extra $5k of debt because of some stupid BS she intentionally did that put me in some deep trauma because of a random debt collector court summons out of the blue for something I was not kept in the loop on. Fast forward a bit and I make inroads to improving my own financial situation, still carrying a ton of debt but holding things together and keeping my credit in decent shape. House we were essentially ‘renting’ from a relative I bought when it was offered and took on that on my own. Fast forward a bit more and my job situation improves financially (not mentally, sadly) and I get to a point where I’m more financially comfortable, I’ve taken on all the bills 100% myself and making progress to pay down my old debts and be free and clear other than my mortgage. That’s kinda where I’m sitting at now.

My frustration in all of this is I’m coming to the realization that I finally gained my own independent streak in the past ~5 years or so and with all the shit going on recently I’m realizing I need my own fucking space and start living my own life if I want to make any improvement. I’ve pretty much been making myself small and people pleasing (ESPECIALLY around family) my whole life and have masked to hell and back under my own roof. It’s gotten to the point that my own bedroom is my only safe space anymore (that and my car, but that’s a whole different thing...). On top of that, she still thinks of the house as hers to control and I get no chance at input on anything. She just does things without asking. We’ve collected 5 animals over the years that I never formally agreed to and areas of the house have turned into litter boxes and chores not kept up on that just constantly adds to my stress daily. Superfluous/unneeded purchases constantly that could be better spent getting her own finances in order.

When I’m out of the house away from her I often feel a big relief and am able to start feeling ‘normal’. And I do try to spend as much time as I reasonably can out of the house but the lingering thought is always in the back of my head that I do need to go back home at some point.

Unfortunately while my mother is largely able bodied and can still work, she’s still taking minimum wage-ish work and doesn’t have a ton of skills to rely on other than driving. And with her financial situation, she can’t support herself in this current economic client. My younger brother in his late 20s hasn’t held down a job either and has his own mental health issues that I can empathize with. So all in all it feels like I’m absolutely stuck. I don’t want to just kick people out and be like ‘good luck!’ because of my good conscience. But that just makes me even more frustrated and internally angry to think about.

It’s honestly so frustrating every time I think about it. And while I’ve never really had suicidal thoughts (other than the very rare ‘if I just randomly didn’t wake up tomorrow’ kinda thought), it feels like that has slowly started to seep into my brain lately and it honestly scares me and mostly because it feels like I have no ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ that I can perceive.