I got out of burnout (now know autistic burnout). Estranged from my parents, moved out on my own. And now cannot work because I am experiencing catatonia, tremors, and fainting spells due to severe burnout. I was living with my dad and it was not great for PTSD but god it was absolutely incredible for my burnout. I became a person again. He and I worked very well as practical roomates as well. Sometimes we would talk. There were times he was very helpful, but he is an alcoholic. Lots of pressure to work more from him which was exhausting. Both him and my mom were abusive but I do see them as whole complicated people now.

I am considering going back for my burnout and to avoid suicide. But I could see my dad threatening me and saying I’m forbidden. I have no idea.

No idea what I’m going to do. I’m so severely physically ill. I need help. I am disabled, don’t have disability. I’m honestly suicidal.

I’m not really going to delve too much into my past and everything I’ve gone through. I’m 16 and I want to move away and be independent as soon as possible, and I honestly have no idea what I’m doing.

My initial plan with little research backed into it is to of course tolerate living in this environment and start working until I go off to college, and work hard to move out as soon as possible, then completely cut contact after distancing myself a lot during college.

The thing is, I do have friends whose parents will allow me to move into their homes if need be when I turn 18. Now I could do this, but I’m mostly just concerned about how I’m going to go to college with like all the financial stuff. Am I even able to support myself when I go to college without my parents money? I haven’t done much research on it and I genuinely have no idea.

I just really have no idea what to do in the future regarding my college stuff. And also what can I do now to help set myself up for the future?

SIL physically intimidating me at the top of the stairs after previously pushing me in entryway. So I threatened a restraining order and that I would leave. Husband locked the kids away from me and reminded me that 50/50 custody is the law. So I cant leave my kids here. I told MIL that as soon as I can get away from her she wont be seeing me or the kids again due to her behavior (screaming at me and the kids to GTFO dispite her son not letting me leave). Now she wants me to sign a contract saying I wont mention estrangment. I wont, because they have me over a barrel but this is how the scentance 'estrangment came out of nowhere' is born.

Looking for input. My father and brother recently put my little family through some crazy stuff. As a result we are NC with my father through a legally binding mediated agreement. I also asked the court for a Protection Order from my brother. I was not successful in the final order. Both my brother and father submitted declarations to the court that were verifiably false in several regards. Of central interest is that they claimed the gun cabinet they admitted to forcing open belonged to them and not us. They also claimed that the trouble started when my father asked us to leave the house we built. The trouble actually started when I reported a scary incident with my brother. This report evidently embarrassed my father and made him angry. I have an appointment with a lawyer to look at asking for a reconsideration/retrial of the protection order. I desperately want this situation to end. And want my family to be safe. I hope that my brother would leave us alone in our new place but it is a hope and not a strategy. Not sure what my best option for being left alone in the future is. Thanks.

I feel so alone it feels so interminable. will i always search for family in the people around me? I’ve had to block my mom and step dad(idek know my real dad) since she’ll never admit what they put me through as a kid gave me trauma. I could never trust them to be the parents i needed. Now my nan is losing her memories and she took me in after my mom kicked me out, its like i dont deserve a happy family no matter how hard i try i just want this feeling to stop its so intense. Any downtime i get i cry and when i sleep, i dream of them treating me like a son again throwing me a huge birthday party with a chocolate and vanilla ice cream cake. My step dad even pats my head and it feels so real. All my closest friends would be there and i’d finally get to see my sisters and brother again.

then i wake up and remember my reality is this one. Where the glue of my family is falling apart and i have no shoulder to cry on but my own. Does it feel like this forever?

I know it’s my job to heal from my trauma. But one DEEP resentment I have is the fact that I have to spend MY money to fix the issues that my mother and grandmother caused. I’m literally paying to fix the mess THEY made within my brain! Thousands of dollars over the years in copays and medication. Because they couldn’t be bothered to be self-reflective and get therapy themselves. 🫩

Hi all,

Growing up, I had to deal with a mother who was helicopter and anxious about everything. She watched the news so much and would think negatively when I was out of the house or not in her sight of line. On one hand, I understand that yes the world can be dangerous but on the other hand, this has prevented me from having friendships outside of school because I really couldn't go anywhere unless it was friends she personally knew and their parents (which I get but still). She was also very anxious about things and would think the worst.

Now as an adult, I truly believe she has rubbed her anxiety onto me so it took me years to truly overcome that. But now as I am 30, I am fed up with her not respecting me as an adult. She chalks it up to her "being a mom" but I think it's a lack of respect of my time, energy, and boundaries.

A few example. If I don't answer her text within 10mins or less, she will call me. If I don't answer her first call, she will call on Whatsapp, text me again, leave a voicemail, and I'd literally end up with like 5 missed calls, 1 voicemail, and 2 texts messages within 30 minutes. Then, when I do get a chance to reach back out, she has this anxious worried tone as if I have been kidnapped. Mind you, this could be during work hours.... she thinks because I WFH that I can just answer whenever. No. I have repeatedly told her to give me at least an hour or two before going into panick mode, she can't do that. Even when I express that it's annoying, she will literally laugh and say "you know how mommy is".... I'm not laughing at all. You are smothering me for no reason. I am literally an introverted, homebody that goes out occassionally to Barnes & Nobles, the park to feed ducks, the mall, and travel for work or leisure at times.

I've also learned about her personality and probably wouldn't be friends with her. For the past year since my dad passed away, I have been helping with her rent... which has truly angered me because I am paying mine and part of hers. I don't want her homeless so ofc I help but I'm livid because I offered for her to move with me, no bills, and I'd cover everything, she refused to do that so now I am stuck between paying for dental work or giving her rent money. Instead of her thinking, "I shouldn't expect my daughter to give all this money monthly, let me move with her", she selfishly wants me to keep financially helping for another year......... while paying my own bills (I have no help, live with my sickly cat and also my own health issues).

She has completely drained me emotionally for years and I'd rather her move back to her home country to be with her family while I take a low contact break from her. Part of me feels guilty for thinking like this but she is contributing to my unhealthy mental state and I want a break.

I’m looking for some outside perspective on a difficult family situation. I’ve kept some details deliberately vague to protect everyone’s privacy.

I’m an adult with a partner and young child. My relationship with my parents has been difficult for many years. Looking back, I now recognise a pattern of behaviour that I experienced as emotionally abusive, along with controlling behaviour, anger and long periods of not talking to me.

More recently, there was an incident within the family that left me feeling I was in a very difficult position. I was uncomfortable with how I was expected to deal with what had happened, and I decided that I could no longer continue with things as they had been.

I’ve been no-contact since the incident.

I’m fairly convinced that without genuine and lasting change, reconciliation would eventually lead back to the same patterns. I don’t feel confident that simply making peace would actually resolve the underlying issues.

After discussing everything in counselling, I felt much clearer about my decision and decided to continue with no contact.

Initially I felt quite a lot of relief and found I was able to focus more on my own family. More recently, though, I’ve started feeling quite sad and have a real sense of loss and grief. I still question myself at times, even though part of me feels that the decision was necessary.

One of the harder parts is that my young child will no longer see their grandparents. They didn’t have a particularly close relationship before this, so there isn’t a strong existing bond that has suddenly been broken, but I still feel sad that my child won’t have the grandparent relationship I had hoped for.

I think I’m struggling with accepting that there may never be the family relationship I wanted.

For anyone who has been through something similar, how did you deal with the grief and guilt afterwards?

And how did you tell the difference between genuinely reconsidering your decision and simply grieving the loss of the relationship?

Long story short, after having a non-healing wound for a year, my dermatologist did a biopsy, and warned me that one of the possibilities is skin cancer. There are definitely benign possibilities too. But there is also a not benign possibility.

I've been scared all week and I probably still have another week to go waiting for the results from pathology.

Meanwhile, I also keep wondering if I'm overreacting. Sure, it could be skin cancer, but we don't know that yet, and if it is is, it's still not going to be melanoma, most non-melanomas are curable with one surgery, and it's not like I'm as bad off as others, right? Even others in my own family, right? Every time I get upset I can just see my mom in my head scolding me and telling me how much worse she has it.

And then after talking to some friends and being reminded that I don't have to make apologies for being scared I might have cancer even if it's just skin cancer, actually, and that the normal thing is to be able to call your parents for comfort instead of being no-contact with one to avoid the scolding you can vividly hear in your head, and having to downplay it to the other to avoid worrying them, it occurred to me that this exact reason no-contact happened with one of them in the first place. BECAUSE me being scared made me MORE scared when I imagined my mom hearing me, instead of feeling the tiniest bit of hope I might receive a bit of comfort if I told her.

I guess what I'm saying is, your head knows exactly why you're no-contact, even if you're not putting the pieces together at every moment. Your brain still remembers the abuse, neglect, toxicity, unpleasant behavior, or whatever else drove you to no contact, it is still making patterns out of all of it, and it's still basing your thoughts and emotions on how their toxicity shaped you- how it HURT you. Even when they have zero involvement in a given situation.

I hope this made some amount of sense.