Venting feels like my life has been stolen from me

[dollangel]

I've never really been my own person. all I've ever been is my mother's emotional support dog. if I were a normal person I could've gotten to be a normal kid but instead I've been her dog, trapped in this hell house my whole life, never allowed to grow past the child I was when my abusive father died and she lost all control of her life. she hates who I am now and resents me for growing older, becoming something else, no longer fitting into the mold of her perfect little angel she had when I was little that loved her no matter what and validated her existence. now, she says things like "please don't kill yourself because of me" and then pauses for far too long before tacking on "...or at all." everything in my life has centered around her. I didn't know who I was for a very long time. genuinely, not just identity issues, but I didn't feel like I had a "self" at all. that if anything I was something else. closer to an object.

I wish I'd gotten to go to high school. I know it sucks and I would've just been suicidal anyway because of it and being who and what I am it would've been insanely difficult but I just wish I'd gotten the socialization. the humanity. to not be so stupid as I am now but I was failing school anyway so what does it matter. I wish I'd ever gotten to have someone else be at my house, or to go to theirs. to talk to other people my age. instead of taking care of my middle-aged mother by myself at age 10. struggling to scrounge together meals and do chores by myself and she just thinks it's all so funny. haha, isn't it so odd and funny that you liked to eat cold soup out of the can when you were a kid? weren't you so quirky? when it was because we didn't have clean dishes and I couldn't even access the microwave through all the filth. it was that or not eat. and she had the audacity to get so furious with my therapist when I talked to him about how I didn't like only getting to eat things like that and instant dinners and wanted, like, a fresh vegetable. fruit. things that weren't processed.

she says I'm developmentally stuck at childhood and I'd believe it. I haven't ever been able to break free from the time loop I've been in for the past decade. why would I ever be anything else? just an overgrown child. every year I get older and become more and more of a broken adult I feel so miserable. all these years taken away from me that I'll never get back. I'll never get to be a child again. never get to be a teenager again. and I never got to be one in the first place. I feel so miserable looking at stories and such about youth and what it's like growing up with friends and so on because I just can't relate to any of it. it's all so alien to me. everything about the experience of being a human being is alien to me. from a young age I've felt more like a robot or something than a person.

I don't know. I've felt for a long time that it doesn't really count as suicide if I kill myself because in order to kill something it has to be alive first. I've never really been alive. I've never gotten the chance to live in the first place. I live with the very objective reality that nothing would change if I died. no one would even find my body. she doesn't even think to check on me if I disappear for over 24 hours. despite once holding my comatose body after an overdose, she forgot entirely about the entire incident and would let me have the same drugs I used for it again. there isn't anyone in my physical life who cares about me. I'm not anything if I'm not hers. I'd rather die than be hers anymore.
I'm so tired

 

[claracatchingthebus]

I've never really been my own person. all I've ever been is my mother's emotional support dog. if I were a normal person I could've gotten to be a normal kid but instead I've been her dog, trapped in this hell house my whole life, never allowed to grow past the child I was when my abusive father died and she lost all control of her life. she hates who I am now and resents me for growing older, becoming something else, no longer fitting into the mold of her perfect little angel she had when I was little that loved her no matter what and validated her existence. now, she says things like "please don't kill yourself because of me" and then pauses for far too long before tacking on "...or at all." everything in my life has centered around her. I didn't know who I was for a very long time. genuinely, not just identity issues, but I didn't feel like I had a "self" at all. that if anything I was something else. closer to an object.

I wish I'd gotten to go to high school. I know it sucks and I would've just been suicidal anyway because of it and being who and what I am it would've been insanely difficult but I just wish I'd gotten the socialization. the humanity. to not be so stupid as I am now but I was failing school anyway so what does it matter. I wish I'd ever gotten to have someone else be at my house, or to go to theirs. to talk to other people my age. instead of taking care of my middle-aged mother by myself at age 10. struggling to scrounge together meals and do chores by myself and she just thinks it's all so funny. haha, isn't it so odd and funny that you liked to eat cold soup out of the can when you were a kid? weren't you so quirky? when it was because we didn't have clean dishes and I couldn't even access the microwave through all the filth. it was that or not eat. and she had the audacity to get so furious with my therapist when I talked to him about how I didn't like only getting to eat things like that and instant dinners and wanted, like, a fresh vegetable. fruit. things that weren't processed.

she says I'm developmentally stuck at childhood and I'd believe it. I haven't ever been able to break free from the time loop I've been in for the past decade. why would I ever be anything else? just an overgrown child. every year I get older and become more and more of a broken adult I feel so miserable. all these years taken away from me that I'll never get back. I'll never get to be a child again. never get to be a teenager again. and I never got to be one in the first place. I feel so miserable looking at stories and such about youth and what it's like growing up with friends and so on because I just can't relate to any of it. it's all so alien to me. everything about the experience of being a human being is alien to me. from a young age I've felt more like a robot or something than a person.

I don't know. I've felt for a long time that it doesn't really count as suicide if I kill myself because in order to kill something it has to be alive first. I've never really been alive. I've never gotten the chance to live in the first place. I live with the very objective reality that nothing would change if I died. no one would even find my body. she doesn't even think to check on me if I disappear for over 24 hours. despite once holding my comatose body after an overdose, she forgot entirely about the entire incident and would let me have the same drugs I used for it again. there isn't anyone in my physical life who cares about me. I'm not anything if I'm not hers. I'd rather die than be hers anymore.
I'm so tired

apply for jobs and don't tell her

as soon as you get one, start working and make sure you have your own bank account

be prepared to be kicked out possibly, look up where homeless shelters are if needed, have your stuff packed around the time she may find out you have a job

delay telling her for as long as possible, try to get your first paycheck

you can try buying a tent and sleeping bag also if there's no homeless shelters

if you have a gym membership and sleeping bag and tent, you can just keep working until you can afford to rent a room. you could also reach out to people who are renting rooms and explain your situation. research places to go now, start applying now, do it all in secret on a phone she doesn't pay for and doesn't have access to.

as soon as you get your first paycheck, get a gym membership

you do not need to be stuck there, get the hell out of there, it sounds awful, maybe you'll stop being depressed once you leave

also, i am hoping you are over 18, in which case even if she was emotionally abusive to you, and being cruelly over-protective can, in my view, be a form of emotional abuse, then you do have the option of leaving. if you are under 18, of course, you shouldn't be here and please leave. i am guessing you are over 18 and just she was so over-protective you almost have like this inability to realize you can leave.

you can do this, just look for jobs online, apply online, take anything, get the hell out of there

 

[dollangel]

apply for jobs and don't tell her

as soon as you get one, start working and make sure you have your own bank account

be prepared to be kicked out possibly, look up where homeless shelters are if needed, have your stuff packed around the time she may find out you have a job

delay telling her for as long as possible, try to get your first paycheck

you can try buying a tent and sleeping bag also if there's no homeless shelters

if you have a gym membership and sleeping bag and tent, you can just keep working until you can afford to rent a room. you could also reach out to people who are renting rooms and explain your situation. research places to go now, start applying now, do it all in secret on a phone she doesn't pay for and doesn't have access to.

as soon as you get your first paycheck, get a gym membership

you do not need to be stuck there, get the hell out of there, it sounds awful, maybe you'll stop being depressed once you leave

also, i am hoping you are over 18, in which case even if she was emotionally abusive to you, and being cruelly over-protective can, in my view, be a form of emotional abuse, then you do have the option of leaving. if you are under 18, of course, you shouldn't be here and please leave. i am guessing you are over 18 and just she was so over-protective you almost have like this inability to realize you can leave.

you can do this, just look for jobs online, apply online, take anything, get the hell out of there

I am over 18 yes, I'm in my 20s, it's just a manufactured codependency I can't break out of. she prefers to keep me childlike. and I know these things theoretically, but practically it's more complicated than that. I can't get a job without a car and driver's license, because the nearest place is an hour's walk there with no sidewalks on the side of a ditch next to the road and I'm disabled to where this just isn't feasible. even if I did make the walk every day I would be incapable of working once I got there, and everywhere past that is even further distance and more dangerous ways to get there. living closer to the area that any workplace where I live is in, in a tent, would be terribly unsafe. leaving the house regularly or doing anything like that without her knowing is literally impossible, due to this as well as various other factors such as me being her caretaker and so always relied upon for her needs. not to mention when I try to job search most if not all require a high school diploma/equivalent which I do not have. I have looked into rent prices where I live while trying to find somewhere I could move to and know this would not be sustainable. and then what? what about my necessary healthcare, regular hospital visits that are an hour+'s drive away? what about my pets that would die left alone under her care? and so on, and so forth

a job is where any sort of independence starts like you describe and I have thought about this often and made plans but I have to get past these roadblocks first. and I am working on doing so, regardless of how difficult it is, but it's not as simple as just getting a job and especially not when she intentionally makes it as difficult as possible for me to and controls so much of my life, withholds things I need, etc. I'm not trying to be pessimistic about it, I in fact try so hard it hurts to be optimistic about it and not give up, I don't know if it looks like I'm just looking for any reason to avoid it, but I have to be realistic about my circumstances and options and I swear I have thought this through so thoroughly and am trying so hard to find a route through this that will work out best for me.

is the option technically available to me right now? yes, but not without ruining my life even further. I would not stop being depressed if I started living like this because it would be going from one bad situation to another, but this one with my health and safety more at risk. this is something I have factored into my plans to get away, that at the very least this is stable and I'm housed and usually fed, which is not something I could say of the alternative.

 

[claracatchingthebus]

I am over 18 yes, I'm in my 20s, it's just a manufactured codependency I can't break out of. she prefers to keep me childlike. and I know these things theoretically, but practically it's more complicated than that. I can't get a job without a car and driver's license, because the nearest place is an hour's walk there with no sidewalks on the side of a ditch next to the road and I'm disabled to where this just isn't feasible. even if I did make the walk every day I would be incapable of working once I got there, and everywhere past that is even further distance and more dangerous ways to get there. living closer to the area that any workplace where I live is in, in a tent, would be terribly unsafe. leaving the house regularly or doing anything like that without her knowing is literally impossible, due to this as well as various other factors such as me being her caretaker and so always relied upon for her needs. not to mention when I try to job search most if not all require a high school diploma/equivalent which I do not have. I have looked into rent prices where I live while trying to find somewhere I could move to and know this would not be sustainable. and then what? what about my necessary healthcare, regular hospital visits that are an hour+'s drive away? what about my pets that would die left alone under her care? and so on, and so forth

a job is where any sort of independence starts like you describe and I have thought about this often and made plans but I have to get past these roadblocks first. and I am working on doing so, regardless of how difficult it is, but it's not as simple as just getting a job and especially not when she intentionally makes it as difficult as possible for me to and controls so much of my life, withholds things I need, etc. I'm not trying to be pessimistic about it, I in fact try so hard it hurts to be optimistic about it and not give up, I don't know if it looks like I'm just looking for any reason to avoid it, but I have to be realistic about my circumstances and options and I swear I have thought this through so thoroughly and am trying so hard to find a route through this that will work out best for me.

is the option technically available to me right now? yes, but not without ruining my life even further. I would not stop being depressed if I started living like this because it would be going from one bad situation to another, but this one with my health and safety more at risk. this is something I have factored into my plans to get away, that at the very least this is stable and I'm housed and usually fed, which is not something I could say of the alternative.

you're on a site people frequently visit when they are suicidal, and frequently people are here when they are very serious about considering suicide or intending to commit suicide

you are saying how awful your situation is

realistic? you need to get the hell out of there

start looking for jobs now

i've said this before in other threads, but i am willing to help with job searches for people who need them. i am not a pro-lifer, however, i could be, you can't really know, so it may not be a good option. but revising resumes, helping with applying to stuff, i'm considering trying to do more of that, like career counseling i guess... you probably won't be interested.

you mentioned getting a job and moving to a homeless shelter would put your health and safety more at risk. you're on a forum... about suicide. you are apparently so unhappy you are here. your situation is already putting you at risk because it's depriving you of regular emotional needs. unless you have some extraordinary health issue you haven't mentioned, look for work and get out of there

jobs do not check your educational information unless they are extremely well-paying. if you list any school "Nowhere High School, 2021" at the bottom, they will not ask if you graduated, they will not check if you graduated. they are very unlikely to check anything. many people lie on resumes and in interviews. if someone lies extensively on a resume for "backroom stock clerk" so they can get minimum wage, feed themself, and not die, then if they do the job correctly and show up then they haven't actually harmed anyone. many people would also not consider it unethical because if you need a job to live and eat, you have to get a job some way or another. i am not saying to lie, i am saying whatever you list will be barely looked at, you will find something that requires no experience at all, and you just need to somehow fill up a small page with information and fill out applications and submit it. you are clearly miserable and although it's unfortunate your mom is dealing with issues, she is also being controlling.

there are remote jobs. get a remote job, don't tell her, save up, and then leave and go some place you don't need a car, like getting a tiny room near a city. if you are in your 20s and hate your life, you aren't a slave, you aren't forced to be there. LEAVE. you are making a choice to stay if you don't leave.

what country are you in? in the US, if you are caretaker for a family member the government will pay you. are you being paid? if she needs full-time care, then she should go on disability and have someone take care of her. or you should tell her you are 20 and miserable and aren't willing to live in the area without a car anymore with nothing to do and you can either both move closer to a city or you'll leave. You don't have to accept your situation. At a certain point though, perhaps you don't want to change it.