Guilt of going no-contact

[witchcraft]

I decided to cut my dad out of my life.

As usual, there's so much to say that I don't know where to begin.

My dad was never physically abusive but he was psychologically abusive and emotionally neglectful.

I thought maybe things were changing, maybe our relationship was getting better and he was mellowing out with age.

But he is still the same micromanaging Hitler he always was. He still patronizes, condescends, and treats me like I'm stupid.

I won't write the whole chain of texts I sent him before blocking him and deleting his number, but I told my dad that he doesn't treat me like a son. He treats me like I'm an employee. I would describe our relationship as "I have paid for this and this, I get us lunch or whatever when you come over and help me; that should be enough, I am entitled to your time."

Elsewhere I already made a thread about how at the end of my rope I've been helping him move. I don't want to rehash all that.

I've been thinking about it and I'm sad things are this way. But I just can't keep interacting with him anymore. Calling my dad overbearing is an understatement, truly. And this was simply the last straw. Everything was all about him him him, and was never meaningfully considerate of me. He causes all of this stress and problems for himself and then makes them mine.

I don't feel great about how I went about it, because it screwed over his whole moving plans really good. Like: the flight he had planned for me can't be cancelled or even transferred to another person I don't think, and he has to figure out a way to get both a big trailer and uhaul full of his shit 12 hours drive away.

But the thing is, there is NO having a conversation with him. He leaves me no choice; he doesn't listen. He's always "right." The second you challenge him, he adopts this tone of voice and just manner of speaking that makes it clear you are a dumbass.

If you call him out on any of his bullshit, he instantly gets defensive. Gets all pissed off. Denial. So I really had no other choice other than continue to subject myself to being his free personal servant, or I guess going no-contact way earlier.

I feel bad because it put some other extended family in a bad, inconvenient spot. However, that's also ignoring the fact that he chose to do all of this the way that he did. He pawned all this weight and responsibility onto me as if I don't have serious issues of my own to figure out, things that I want to do or work on achieving. He doesn't respect that. He never has asked.

I'm not sure my dad knows a single deep, meaningful thing about me. And I wouldn't be surprised. My dad talks at you, makes you a captive audience however he can, makes every conversation about himself unless it's him criticizing you or something you are doing.

It has been so embarrassing going anywhere with him my entire life. Watching other people trying to be polite while seeking to escape having an unskippable cutscene with him. Feeling like I need to apologize for him, smooth things over, or otherwise compensate for his behavior and attitude whenever we go out to eat or anywhere else in public.

It has been so exhausting having him project all of his stress onto me. Either talking bad about my mom or complaining to me about her instead of handling it like an adult, like a father. Constantly bitching about his neighbors when HE is often the one at fault or making a big deal out of nothing. And you know what, even if his neighbors do suck, it's just simply not pleasant to be subjected to the same fucking complaints, the same old stories every time I reluctantly, begrudgingly go over to his house.

So I guess I just finally had enough. He won't change. I held nothing back and told him how I really feel. And I had to do it over text because he would otherwise interrupt, raise his voice to talk over me, or it would just lead to an argument that accomplishes nothing.

I told him a lot of the stuff in this thread. I told him I never want to see or talk to him again. I told him all the ways that he is the problem and refuses to see it. I told him he needs a therapist. I told him he never treats me like a son. I just told him off.

It makes me sad because this isn't the father I wanted, and I also can't fix this. There's only so much I can do. I have to be fair to myself, and I have often been guilt tripped ever since I was a child for trying to stand up for myself. So I am left with no other choice but to just fuck him over by running away and leaving him high and dry when he has all of his shit packed up and ready to move.

I told him he can figure out something with his family, or he could get a moving company (he can afford it if he can afford a 350k house, two Rolexes, 100k in cars and everything else). This dude is the quintessential penny pinching boomer, and can't comprehend how his reluctance to JUST SOMETIMES pay for extra help can reduce your stress, lower the blood pressure.

He doesn't understand he gets what he pays for. I know things are expensive, often too expensive. But if you try to get cheap, you're going to get cheap. I have seen it happen over and over again when he was hiring contractors to help him renovate his house for the past year in preparation of selling it.

Anyway I'm just rambling and completely lost the plot. I feel guilty, and this guilt has been weaponized against me my whole life. I am trying to work through whether what I've done, and the things I said in those final text messages make me a bad person, a bad son, or if this is all valid.

I'm ~25. I'm so, so fucking done managing his emotions like I did as a kid so he would leave me alone. I'm tired of his high-strung type-A Chernobyl-bloodpressure personality, exploding over the littlest things and triggering the trauma from YEARS of living in a small apartment and listening to my parents yelling at each other like children over the dumbest shit.

I don't have time or patience for this anymore. He can call me selfish all he wants, I am numb to the hypocrisy. I have suffered enough--much of it against my will and inescapable in my youth. I know what I have had to endure, I know my experience better than anyone, and if certain people in my family think of me differently because of what I have done a few days ago, so be it.

I just do not want to grow up to be like him. I never truly understood the terror of becoming a parent you despise until now.

 

[fadedghost]

So on the topic of movers... paying for movers is often something people do when they have no friends or family or close people to help out. It's almost like confirmation of "Yep, no one likes me enough to help out with this" and I say that as someone who has paid for movers.

So that having been said, I understand where you are coming from. It's awful to have disrespectful parents who refuse to be respectful and it creates a horrible catch-22 damned if you do damned if you don't situation. There's no good choice, and it sucks because disrespectful parents usually know what they are doing and just simply don't care enough to change, or that's my opinion anyway.

Talking to someone in a degrading tone is a choice, saying horrible things about other family (and just being used in this passive-aggressive way to try to hurt other family or bad mouth them) is a choice, and I think the boomer attitude is "well this is the way I am." But I think it's more than that... It's also the reality of them not caring enough to change.

I'm gay and, for lack of a better word, weird. I come across as nerdy and strange and am socially a little bit abnormal. And I am totally sure that some family would treat me very differently if I were athletic and handsome. I just wouldn't be talked to the way that I get talked to. On some level, they don't care enough to treat me with respect.

For you, it sounds like your father treats everyone with a lack of politeness and lacks social awareness, so that's more complicated. It's just awful, there's no good choice in this situation: you either keep getting treated poorly or stop communicating with a family member, which is less support and less connection. Both are sucky choices. Sorry you have to deal with this bullshit.

 

[idontlikeketchup]

Hi, I went no contact with my father in 2020, not long before my 23rd birthday. I feel no guilt towards him, but I have had to live every day with the guilt that I couldn't protect my little half siblings. Unfortunately, this was a necessary choice, as I have my own child I need to protect from him. It's miserable and depressing knowing that they are currently being abused just like I was when I was little, I just hope they know that once they're old enough to have agency of their own life, as long as I'm still here, they have a half sibling they can run away to and stay with as long as they need.
I think it's important to remember that nobody cuts a person out of their life, especially a close family member, unless they have tried every other possible option prior to that. That goes for me, and I'm confident that goes for you too. You are fully valid in your decision, and while I fully understand the feelings of guilt you're going through, I hope you someday can also feel some form of pride over finally standing up to a shitty caregiver and putting your own wellbeing first. You have many a very strong choice.
I sadly don't have much advice to give you, other than to stay strong and continue to protect your peace. I hope in time you get to a point where this decision leads to healing and provides an opportunity for you to build your life they way you want it. No matter what happens, let's aim towards being better people to the world than the people who brought us into it.

 

[witchcraft]

So on the topic of movers... paying for movers is often something people do when they have no friends or family or close people to help out. It's almost like confirmation of "Yep, no one likes me enough to help out with this" and I say that as someone who has paid for movers.

So that having been said, I understand where you are coming from. It's awful to have disrespectful parents who refuse to be respectful and it creates a horrible catch-22 damned if you do damned if you don't situation. There's no good choice, and it sucks because disrespectful parents usually know what they are doing and just simply don't care enough to change, or that's my opinion anyway.

Talking to someone in a degrading tone is a choice, saying horrible things about other family (and just being used in this passive-aggressive way to try to hurt other family or bad mouth them) is a choice, and I think the boomer attitude is "well this is the way I am." But I think it's more than that... It's also the reality of them not caring enough to change.

I'm gay and, for lack of a better word, weird. I come across as nerdy and strange and am socially a little bit abnormal. And I am totally sure that some family would treat me very differently if I were athletic and handsome. I just wouldn't be talked to the way that I get talked to. On some level, they don't care enough to treat me with respect.

For you, it sounds like your father treats everyone with a lack of politeness and lacks social awareness, so that's more complicated. It's just awful, there's no good choice in this situation: you either keep getting treated poorly or stop communicating with a family member, which is less support and less connection. Both are sucky choices. Sorry you have to deal with this bullshit.

That is a good point about movers. I would've still been more than happy to help him if he had some movers, or to prepare for a theoretical moving company.

Without going into the same level of detail I already ranted out in another thread: in the span of a single month he suddenly decided to retire, sell his house, buy a house 12 hours away across the US of A, and pack an entire house's worth of shit in the span of about 6 weeks.

So it's more like I would be willing to help, but not when you make it a chaotic hectic nightmare. And the entire time I'm trying to help you, you're venting at me about how stressed you are from your own choices and utter lack of planning, saying how you're losing sleep over this and that WHEN I AM TOO BUT SUFFER IN SILENCE BECAUSE YOU WOULDN'T CARE ANYWAY lol.

"It's just one thing after another, it never ends," he angrily laments, while I'm standing there under slept for the upteenth day in a row, when all I want is a day to myself God forbid, to return to my own pace of life, hell, my own life period. Anyway, no fucking shit it's just one thing after another. This dude has a house of boomer tools, gun cleaning and reloading equipment, copies upon copies of tools, just TONS of bullshit in his basement alone. How about a gun safe that weighs 500lbs when empty.

I'm 6'0 if an attractive girl asks, not 5'11. I weigh 170lbs soaking wet. I played soccer as a kid. I have been a depressed NEET for the past three years. No physical activity. And I'm out here trying to bust my ass and break my back, day after day of getting home at 11pm and needing to be back at 8am as if it's a fucking job. And that was *just* packing; this was so spur of the moment, pulled out of his ass, that literally nothing had been done. Nothing was pre packed. Nothing was ready. Nothing had been pre sorted or shifted through and sold or discarded. Nothing. Instead of retiring and then taking a couple months to do all of that preliminary work, he rushed everything for absolutely no reason. It's like he killed somebody and needed to pack up everything and disappear. The utterly thoughtless rush of it all is absolutely bizarre and baffling to me, until I realize that my father has always been inconsiderate of other people, and has always been unwilling to spend a singular penny for a little help.

I could simply not imagine putting him, or my brother, or a friend in that situation. It would take an unfathomable lack of foresight and simple consideration for other people. Yes, I understand family sometimes do things for each other that nobody else probably will, because *emergencies* happen. But this was just something else entirely.

I do appreciate your understanding and the kind words. Please don't take this as me arguing with you, I didn't take your comment in that way at all, I was just hoping to better explain myself here.

While I might not be gay myself, I do think I know what you mean about how your own family will perceive and treat you. I'm not a stereotypical dude. I'm a skinny white boy who is probably more suited for a goth mommy but that happens in fiction exclusively.

In seriousness, I do not feel like I belong in my family due to my nerdy, introverted and niche or otherwise esoteric interests. So I believe I can relate to what you say but for different reasons. Also thank you for helping me feel less crazy when it comes to the interpersonal stuff, the way people decide to treat one another is a choice and at my dad's age I also think he is 100% aware of what he is doing. It's just so hard to believe that someone like my boomer dad can do those things for years and years, treating other people how he does, and evidently see nothing wrong with it EVEN WHEN it's undoubtedly been brought to his attention time and time again.

 

[kittypsst]

I'm proud of you son for leaving that John behind, no more bottom bitching for ungrateful bastards.

 

[Passenger4224]

I know it was such a huge step, and I understand the feeling of guilt. Holy moly, you are strong for setting that boundary. Glad to hear an update from you.

 

[Redacted24]

Ditto here! Good on you for taking his burden off your shoulders (literally and figuratively) and depositing them on the ground and walking away.

You're a good guy, you were patient and strong, and did easy more than should be reasonably expected.

Yeah it may have made problems but... those are not your problems. They are his, and rightfully so.

He just refused to acknowledge his responsibility for them.

Well done!

 

[fadedghost]

I'm proud of you son for leaving that John behind, no more bottom bitching for ungrateful bastards.

i don't understand this comment and what it means...

Instead of retiring and then taking a couple months to do all of that preliminary work, he rushed everything for absolutely no reason. It's like he killed somebody and needed to pack up everything and disappear.

Did he move to a cheaper area?

There are some people who speculate we are getting closer to the top of a hot market... and he may have had a sudden sense of "oh shit, if I want to downsize and profit off of the housing boom, I need to do it immediately"... and honestly, he might be trying to profit off that for you, in part, if he's old and could die soon...

i'm not trying to be an asshole, and I know you feel bad already, and I'm sure her was impossible to be around and incredibly disrespectful and that's why you made the choice you did...

but the housing choice he made, the suddenness of it, the lack of psychological preparation and seeming chaos of it, may have been highly intelligent amidst the chaos. If you are in the USA, the government recently passed a federal law that's going to try to lower housing costs... I am just saying there may be some logic to what seems like madness... which doesn't mean disrespect is okay. Boomers, many of whom have had the luxury of buying homes and saving during a time when housing was affordable and a college degree or more wasn't needed for a basic income, often think in terms of money and maximizing it, and younger people are often so fucked that money math is almost pointless, because calculating how fucked you are in a spreadsheet isn't fun.

Some people are impossible, and feel like being nice and polite is just impossible, and they will do what they want... and you ultimately have to decide whether to tolerate it or not. I'm sure he's really annoying and hard to deal with, just explaining why what he did, and the disorganized manner of it, is less random than it looks.

 

[witchcraft]

Thank you everyone for your understanding and support.

Hi, I went no contact with my father in 2020, not long before my 23rd birthday. I feel no guilt towards him, but I have had to live every day with the guilt that I couldn't protect my little half siblings. Unfortunately, this was a necessary choice, as I have my own child I need to protect from him. It's miserable and depressing knowing that they are currently being abused just like I was when I was little, I just hope they know that once they're old enough to have agency of their own life, as long as I'm still here, they have a half sibling they can run away to and stay with as long as they need.
I think it's important to remember that nobody cuts a person out of their life, especially a close family member, unless they have tried every other possible option prior to that. That goes for me, and I'm confident that goes for you too. You are fully valid in your decision, and while I fully understand the feelings of guilt you're going through, I hope you someday can also feel some form of pride over finally standing up to a shitty caregiver and putting your own wellbeing first. You have many a very strong choice.
I sadly don't have much advice to give you, other than to stay strong and continue to protect your peace. I hope in time you get to a point where this decision leads to healing and provides an opportunity for you to build your life they way you want it. No matter what happens, let's aim towards being better people to the world than the people who brought us into it.

That's tough. It's commendable that you look out for them however you can and would be willing to give them a safe place if they ever need it. I am so grateful that my friend from college was able to let me stay with him and his girlfriend for a few days (and grateful to her as well). It's kind of embarrassing I even need that at ~25 but it is what it is I guess. You would be doing something super helpful for your siblings. Even just them knowing it's an option is a big thing.

Referring to your second paragraph: this this this. Exactly. It's a last resort. I didn't do this for fun. It's been 20 years of living with Hitler. I've made every conceivable excuse I can think of, gaslighting myself with "I'm sure his intentions are good; I'm sure he loves me, just doesn't know how to show it" etc.

While I personally hate it when my good intentions get badly misconstrued, one must also acknowledge that things are what they are in spite of intentions. The actions, behaviors, words, the whole relationship *is* what it *is.* There is no talking this out with my father—he isn't that kind of person, it simply doesn't fucking work. In fact, my whole life I've often had to take the nuclear option just to try and have any say in anything significant involving me. Any conversation involving boundaries or just saying "no" leads to the same old tired arguments and guilt-tripping. Every little "no" is a fucking fight. The vast majority of the time, he never even presents "no" as an option. It's "I need you to do this" or "You need to do this." That's how it's always been with practically anything and everything of import for my entire life because of him. No respect, no consideration. Pure entitlement.

I have started to realize now, when examining my own past dating relationships, that I struggle with setting boundaries because of my father. It was next to impossible. I was never able to learn how to negotiate them and set them to any significant degree because that basically wasn't allowed, it was out of the question. The worst part is that I've often been the problem in my relationships because I'm so unstable, becoming afraid of time and commitment due to him being so overbearing and domineering and inescapable. Just end up running away and cutting things off rather suddenly and harshly, and I think part of that comes from never being able to say no or to set my own boundaries for personal time and space, and the feeling that any attempt of doing so would become a fight followed by guilt.

The past few years I've cut myself out of the picture from a lot of people because I just find it easier to manage my own time and space when I literally do not have to negotiate my time and space with anybody else. I'm somewhere between NEET and hikikomori.

I'm proud of you son for leaving that John behind, no more bottom bitching for ungrateful bastards.

Thanks.

It will be difficult and I don't know if I will ever speak to him again. I guess there's no need to think that far ahead right now. My own life is a disaster and this whole debacle is just part of it.

I know it was such a huge step, and I understand the feeling of guilt. Holy moly, you are strong for setting that boundary. Glad to hear an update from you.

I appreciate it. There's honestly no other way, I can't keep living that way and having that kind of relationship with him anymore.

Ditto here! Good on you for taking his burden off your shoulders (literally and figuratively) and depositing them on the ground and walking away.

You're a good guy, you were patient and strong, and did easy more than should be reasonably expected.

Yeah it may have made problems but... those are not your problems. They are his, and rightfully so.

He just refused to acknowledge his responsibility for them.

Well done!

I hope so. It will take much more time to process and think on these things. As I've said before, it isn't what I wanted. I'm literally an idealist, a disappointed one. I understand nobody is perfect and everybody has some degree of family dysfunction but I just don't see how else this can be resolved. It takes two people to resolve relationship issues and he sees literally no issue with how he treats people, the things he does, so on and so forth.

I'd much prefer to be happy to help my dad. He makes it impossible for me to be happy to help him.

I'd much prefer to be happy when he calls. Instead, I dread it, and often ignore it, and prefer to communicate over text where he can't control the conversation, drag on a phone call for three fucking hours with him yapping at me like I'm an NPC and he's the main character for 99% of it. I don't exist to be his entertainment.

I'd much prefer for him and all of this to be different, but I can't control who / how he is, and I have no desire to continue appeasing it.

 

[telekon]

Some people try to put guilt on me for not talking to my parents. I never guilt myself. I know what they did and what happened and how I was raised. I have no reason to ever talk to them again or feel bad about it.

 

[witchcraft]

Some people try to put guilt on me for not talking to my parents. I never guilt myself. I know what they did and what happened and how I was raised. I have no reason to ever talk to them again or feel bad about it.

Thanks telekon, I think it's a really good point. I need to remind myself that this wasn't my go-to option, this wasn't heat-of-the-moment; there's a whole list of reasons, and it wasn't a decision made lightly. Ultimately it's not something that needs the permission of other people.

The past couple days I've kind of just been working on accepting that it's sad. Like, just having a father (or parents) with whom your relationship is just that bad. Nobody WANTS that lol. Guess I feel bad for what could've been, or should've been, and the fear I'd end up turning into that kind of person.

 

[volo]

Yeah, no guilt. At all. Zilch.

 

[witchcraft]

Yeah, no guilt. At all. Zilch.

One thing I'm struggling with right now is that my father would pay for stuff. That was the only clear and consistent support I got. He didn't pay for my entire college tuition, but he was willing to help with some of it.

I just don't know. It's very confusing. I'm trying to hear out the part of me that says being a parent is more than just paying for things, even helping with something big and expensive like getting a degree. While it's really important to me that I'm not just being selfish, paying for something doesn't entitle them to treat me how they did. And the reverse side is that he was always very controlling about money, he made sure he always had the final say. I didn't ask him to pay for college; the discussion at the time was simply that I'd applied to college and wanted to attend once I was accepted.

Similarly, in the past he had helped if I had car trouble. But the reality is that our relationship for many years, at least a decade, was I'd only reach out to him if I had car trouble or some similar kind of "emergency." I'd do the whole Father's Day song-and-dance because that's what a good son does. He'd reach out around holidays and I was okay with that because I only had to tolerate him for a day. Usually after making a comment like "I haven't heard from you in a while / [insert last holiday]."

Ever since I was a child, I couldn't go to him or my mother for anything else. It would've been a waste of time. Emotional neglect or estrangement has been the root of a lot of loneliness and other interpersonal issues in my life.

Now it's threatening to turn into a situation where I'm "not justified" to feel the way I do because I wasn't overtly abused, or doesn't meet some other kind of criteria by movement of the metaphorical goalposts. Like... just for an example of the top of my head: well, it's not like he controlled the degree I studied, but that definitely would've been a different story if he'd been paying for all of my tuition, not paying me based on my grades.

Then I start thinking about how people on this very forum didn't have parents who would even help them financially, and I spiral.

Then I start thinking again about him speaking ill of my mother, treating me like a messenger boy, treating me like a personal servant, treating me like a free therapist, how he talks at me, how he has made little to no effort in actually getting to know me, his regular passive-aggressive comments, his taskmastering, and the process in my head starts all over again.

Anyway, I apologize for making this about me. I'm just still trying to process this and it's not easy.

 

[Passenger4224]

One thing I'm struggling with right now is that my father would pay for stuff. That was the only clear and consistent support I got. He didn't pay for my entire college tuition, but he was willing to help with some of it.

I just don't know. It's very confusing. I'm trying to hear out the part of me that says being a parent is more than just paying for things, even helping with something big and expensive like getting a degree. While it's really important to me that I'm not just being selfish, paying for something doesn't entitle them to treat me how they did. And the reverse side is that he was always very controlling about money, he made sure he always had the final say. I didn't ask him to pay for college; the discussion at the time was simply that I'd applied to college and wanted to attend once I was accepted.

Similarly, in the past he had helped if I had car trouble. But the reality is that our relationship for many years, at least a decade, was I'd only reach out to him if I had car trouble or some similar kind of "emergency." I'd do the whole Father's Day song-and-dance because that's what a good son does. He'd reach out around holidays and I was okay with that because I only had to tolerate him for a day. Usually after making a comment like "I haven't heard from you in a while / [insert last holiday]."

Ever since I was a child, I couldn't go to him or my mother for anything else. It would've been a waste of time. Emotional neglect or estrangement has been the root of a lot of loneliness and other interpersonal issues in my life.

Now it's threatening to turn into a situation where I'm "not justified" to feel the way I do because I wasn't overtly abused, or doesn't meet some other kind of criteria by movement of the metaphorical goalposts. Like... just for an example of the top of my head: well, it's not like he controlled the degree I studied.

Then I start thinking about how people on this very forum didn't have parents who would even help them financially, and I spiral.

Then I start thinking again about him speaking ill of my mother, treating me like a messenger boy, treating me like a personal servant, treating me like a free therapist, how he talks at me, how he has made little to no effort in actually getting to know me, his regular passive-aggressive comments, his taskmastering, and the process in my head starts all over again.

Anyway, I apologize for making this about me. I'm just still trying to process this and it's not easy.

Don't feel sorry, I understand it is a lot to process!

 

[witchcraft]

Don't feel sorry, I understand it is a lot to process!

Thank you Passenger for understanding.

---

Update: Things are in a really weird place right now; it's like matters are somehow unresolved. My mom has asked me every day for the past three days if I've heard from my dad, if he's tried to call me, tried to text me. I finally told her today "No, and I don't wish to speak with him." I know that there isn't really any resolution and breaking no-contact would just mark a new cycle of the same maltreatment. The events of the past couple weeks would just be more ammunition for him to be a snide, snarky dick. There would be no conversation, I would get no say or validation, there would be no acknowledgment on his part, zero negotiating of boundaries. There'd be so much guilt-tripping and gaslighting that I can't be fucking bothered. I am convinced my father will never change and I've given him many chances and known him for over 20 years. Conversation does not exist with him. It's either an argument where he gets to win, or he talks at you.

Every single day for the past couple years I have thought about killing myself. I hate my life, and I hate the world because none of my attempts to turn my life into what I want/desire ever amount to anything. Besides a couple friends I made, university was a complete waste of time and only resulted in me having $20k in debt (and it's crazy to think I'm "lucky" that it's "only" $20k). This life is a hellhole. I hate the concept of working, I hate this open-air prison system, and I dislike most people (mainly their petty drama, lack of consideration, and inability to mind their own business). I wish I'd never been born; there's no point in living if you aren't rich, because wealth is what allows you to have the most control over how you choose to allocate your time, and the ability to take the necessary financial risks in trying to discover what you'd like to do with your life.

So no. I really don't want to be the emotional sponge for the problems my parents have with each other. I really don't want to be around my father who freaks out at every little thing and micro-manages every fucking step I take, every smallest act of my existence. I really don't want to manage either of their emotions when I'm desperately scrambling and failing to juggle my own. And I certainly don't need to hear how my dad is disappointed in me, implied or otherwise, or how he hates his neighbors. That is so, so outside my capacity to care about.

The brightside is I want to get a job so I can get out of my mom's house as soon as possible. I just want to be fucking left alone. I feel like it wouldn't be bad to work at a bank... unfortunately there are just morons everywhere, AND people like my father who spoil the general public with their negativity and entitlement. They're inescapable, it doesn't matter where you work. In fact, I've often had to work with them, and be bossed around by them. It should be a law that every public-facing position includes as part of the job description "being a punching bag for the customer."

I'm just hoping that I could find a job where my co-workers and boss would be decent, and the clientele aren't impatient and obnoxious. It just needs to pay enough for a small apartment. Not having to work any federal holidays would be clutch, and there's a lot worse than banker's hours. I don't expect having my own place to cure my suicidality but ideally it'd allow me my own peace, and make my indefinite time remaining more bearable.

I really, really hate having parents who don't understand me at all. I really hate having parents that spent my entire childhood and teen years arguing and yelling at each other. I really hate having parents who are in denial about so much of what I experienced, like trying to get me to side with one of them against the other, or treating me like I'm some kind of confidant or therapist for all of their problems. I really hate all of the emotional neglect. I hate that people in my family are going to think poorly of me, think less of me for not wanting to continuously expose myself to the same trauma I've dealt with for 20 fucking years.

Right now, I'd be more than happy with a life of solitude where I have my own space (physically and therefore mentally), time to myself, going out maybe 4 or 5 times a month with family or friends, and otherwise keeping to myself with books, games, and my own creative projects when I'm not working. I can hardly focus on this YouTube video I'm trying to make with all of this noise.

 

[volo]

Yeah, a job and moving out would be better. Or moving in with some roommates/college kids or similar.

 

[TooFarAway]

Shit, I relate to this thread so much. I've been no contact with my dad and his side of the family since May 2023, and I haven't looked back since. I still think about my dad all the time and constantly have dreams about them all, but it has gotten a little easier. I think it's just hard when they're your own flesh and blood, and the situation is so bad that you're better off without them. I hope you can find a way out of your mom's house soon. I think it will help with your healing. That's the kind of freedom I'm hoping to have soon.

 

[witchcraft]

Shit, I relate to this thread so much. I've been no contact with my dad and his side of the family since May 2023, and I haven't looked back since. I still think about my dad all the time and constantly have dreams about them all, but it has gotten a little easier. I think it's just hard when they're your own flesh and blood, and the situation is so bad that you're better off without them. I hope you can find a way out of your mom's house soon. I think it will help with your healing. That's the kind of freedom I'm hoping to have soon.

Thank you, I hope your situation also continues getting easier over time. I currently have this feeling like there's something I should do, but I'm thinking the best thing is to actually just do nothing.

I am very glad other people can relate, like yourself. It makes this situation easier to process and understand thanks to other people sharing their own experiences and perspectives.

 

[TooFarAway]

Thank you, I hope your situation also continues getting easier over time. I currently have this feeling like there's something I should do, but I'm thinking the best thing is to actually just do nothing.

I am very glad other people can relate, like yourself. It makes this situation easier to process and understand thanks to other people sharing their own experiences and perspectives.

Of course! Just give it a little more time and see how things go. It's really hard at first, even when you know you set those boundaries for a reason. You can always message me if you want. Like you said, it's always good to have people around who understand the situation.