I don’t know how to really word this, so I’m sorry if I’m all over the place, but like, even longer story short: my immediate family (mother, father, brothers, and myself) has been (sometimes violently) stalked and harassed by my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc) since before I was even born. As a result of this my mother has been extremely protective of all of us, but lately I’m starting to notice/realize that she’s kind of. Not been going about it the right way. At all.
I’ve never been allowed to leave the house by myself. Even now I’m not, at 20 years old. I graduated from high school two years ago and have been stuck in the house ever since, exceptions being when I go out with my parents to help them shop (they’re pushing 60 and late 50s respectively.) One or two times I’ve tried going on walks by myself (after telling my parents AND leaving a note) and every time my mother has either gotten in the car and taken me home (admonishing me for not following “the rules” and being “unsafe”) or has sent my older brother to “retrieve” me or “watch over me.”
My mother and I frequently argue about my weight/diet (she insists that I’m perpetually on the verge of diabetes/heart attack even though I exercise regularly and am a vegetarian), and any time I bring up getting a job she becomes defensive, insisting I should focus on going to to college. And any time I bring up going to college she blows me off, saying “we’ll talk about it later” (we never do.) Or, since we are constantly on the verge of moving out of our house, she tells me I should focus more on cleaning and packing and getting ready to leave since we might not even be in the area in a month’s time and thus getting a job/starting a class would be a waste of time and money.
Whenever I try to approach her about me being permitted to go out by myself, it either devolves into an argument or her giving me a lecture about how dangerous it would be. (If not because of our family, then because I’ll “get snatched off the street (snaps fingers) like that.”) I’ve even tried talking to her about maybe setting up a paypal of my own so I can work at home, and that ended just as poorly.
The other day we had an argument about cleaning or something just as petty and it somehow led to her telling me to stop arguing with her or she’d “drop me to the ground” and that i’d “regret this”. I relented, and then after a few hours she was laughing and chatting like nothing had even happened. She’s had moodswings like this before, but she’s never threatened to actually hurt me like that.
I keep feeling like this is my fault, and that everything would be so much better if I just knew the right things to say or if I just worked harder or something. But there’s a part of me that’s finally getting a little bit louder, screaming at me that this isn’t right or healthy.
I have my own savings/checking account (with a whopping $20 to my name,) a debit card, and my state I.D., but that’s about it. I don’t know where my social security card is with any greater certainty than it’s “somewhere in mom’s filing.” Eventually I want to move out, but right now I don’t have a job or the means to get one. I don’t know what I should do. I suddenly feel like I don’t know how to do anything at all, really. I might be able to ask my father for help in setting up a paypal account, but that might lead back to my mum finding out and a whole ‘nother fight (only worse because I “avoided her” by “using my father against her”.)
So. Yeah. Uh, help? Please and thank you!!
