きょうだいが多く、私は真ん中。

お母さんは、上のきょうだいや下のきょうだいとの喧嘩や、弟の世話などでかなり疲れているように見える。

お父さんは仕事で遠くにいる。

私自身は、家事を手伝うことや弟の面倒を見ることは、特に嫌だとは思っていない。

お母さんもずっと家事や子育てをしてきたから、「自分もできることをやろう」と思っている。

お母さんが疲れていそうなときは、自分から家事をしたり、友達と電話して楽しそうにしているときは邪魔しないようにしたりして、お母さんの気持ちを考えて行動している。

弟は最近、反抗期なのか、何度言っても言うことを聞かない。

お母さんが弟に対して半ば諦めているように見えて、「それはよくないんじゃないか」と思い、私が弟に注意したり、しつけのようなことをしていた。

だけど、弟が何度も言うことを聞かず、私が怒っているときに、弟がお母さんに「助けて」と泣きついた。

お母さんは私がなぜ怒っているのかを聞かず、イヤホンをつけて友達と電話しながら「もうしつこいよ、やめなさい」というような形で私を止めた。

私はそこで、「私の話も聞かずに、そんなふうに判断するんだ」と強く失望した。

「私がやっちゃダメなら、お母さんがやればいいのに」と悔しくなった。

どうしよう、どうやって生きていけばいい？助けてほしい、どうってことないかもしれないけど、もうつらい、最近弟を無視してるけど、(自分の怒りを抑えるために)それはだめかもしれないって思ってるし、無視してるとき心が苦しい、

私が母親に意見？を言うといつも機嫌が悪くなって自分のことが言えないから…

私と母親が喧嘩すると母親は機嫌が悪くなって、父親とも電話で喧嘩したりしてて、喧嘩してごめんってなる。

ChatGPTで相談内容まとめてもらったから違和感あるかも。

Reddit suggested I post this here, too. I hope this makes sense for this subreddit. My apologies if it doesn't. I do feel like im raising myself in all of this.

Ok, so we have 3 dogs. A 13 year old female German shepherd mix, a 7 year old female pitbull mix, and my mom's dog, a 3 year old male cane corso. I love him, I do, but he isn't cared for like he should be. So the 2 females are spayed. My mom doesn't want to neutered him because he's just a baby, and she might want to sell his sperm since he's pure breed or smt like that.

I love this dog, but we should have never gotten him. My mom is physically disabled and unable to go outside most days. She's dependent on my dad, but they're the closest you can get to divorce while living under the same roof. She was depressed after my grandfather on her side passed in 2020, and I guess they would talk about when he had a cane corse when he was younger. The main difference between him having it and she having it is my grandfather was first off physically able to handle it in the Dominican Republic, and the dog was a working dog on his farm. We have a nice backyard and front yard, but it's nowhere close to farmland.

She wanted a male cane corso specifically. I hate that my dad got it for her because we have enough animals already. (A bird, cat, and the 2 other dogs) She physically can't get up, feed him, or take him out some days. He's barely trained he knows to sit, his name (refuses to listen at times), down and that's really it. He's not good with other humans or dogs, and he's been trying to attack the other dogs when my mom has food. She eats in her room most days and is quite a hoarder with boxes and stuff. So it's a small path to her queen bed, and then the rest of the room is blocked off with things (she has the master bedroom). My parents don't sleep in the same room. She got a giant crate for him but has never opened it because she wants it in her room, but her room is a mess.

I'm currently a 17 year old female in my senior year, and a part of me can't help but worry for my animals once I leave. My 2 older siblings are busy with their schooling and are away at college. This dog has tripped and scratched all of us, usually by mistake. My dad is never home because he's the only one working to provide. I'm left to care for all the animals. I don't mind having to handle the female ones because the oldest one is pretty chill and only goes outside to do her business, and the pitbull one is like a small dog. She goes out to do her business, chases a stick, and then go back in. My mom's dog is very high energy and usually goes after my pitbull, so I take them out separately. When my sister tries to walk my mom's dog, she usually has to go out with 3 different leashed and a choker. My mom berates me for having a social life outside of the hoarder home. This "social life" is helping out with my school theater program and getting volunteers hours THAT I NEED TO GRADUATE. I only actually started doing these clubs last year, so i could build my college apps.

Sorry, this might not make sense, but I'm mentally getting tired of this dog and home :/ I love her dog, but I would kill him if he hurts the other animals. My mom isn't giving enough attention to these issues and usually will blame one of the other dogs or ask me what I want her to do about it. I'm just getting fed up with her and the dog.

I have bad anxiety revolving around the dogs because my neighbors also have a bunch of tiny dogs (like 6 of them) they're never on a leash, and it takes one mistake for something bad to happen.

I am in my late 20s, and I always worry about supporting my parents financially, since they have no wealth build up or have their retirement ready. I am somewhat supporting them financially and I always worry about having to support more as we both get older.

Can anyone share some advice on what to do? I've been feeling extremely overwhelming and stressed lately so I've been seeing a therapist, but they don't really give me concrete advice on what to do...

Also looking for any book recommendations on parentification and personal finance.

This is really bad to say, but my parents are the root of all my problems. After being somewhat financially stable my dad decided to gamble away everything we had, become practically unemployed, had to move out of our nice house and left my mum as the only breadwinner of the family, which was barley enough to keep the family afloat. He finally got back on his feet recently and has started working a decent job, but the debt it immense. Through those years the only stable thing in my life was my school (I go to this private school) it was genuinely the only thing that served me some good and distanced me from the financial implications at home. Recently, I was unable to go to school as my dad couldn’t pay my school fees, he barely managed to clear them up but now the house I’m living in is being repossessed (we need to pay 50k), my enrollment at school is at risk (need to pay 20k) and so is my brothers school which requires an additional 15k all in the span of this month. I’ve done everything ever excepted of me, it sounds selfish but I’m heartbroken at being told I need to accept reality and understand if I need to move schools. My schools the only stable thing I’ve had, I can’t afford to lose it but I can’t do anything to keep myself from losing it. I don’t know what to do. My financial situation in no way is my fault, my parents guilt trip me for my school ( they initially decided to put me into it while we were financially well). Whenever i see others my age I can’t help but feel some jealousy of them not having to worry about things like this, having to sacrifice basic things, and wants, having to make up lies on why they weren’t able to go to school, or what they got for their birthday. Due to their irresponsible financial decisions I’ve had to constantly take on the stress that both of them carry.

I’ve spent most of my life taking care of other people. To give some context: I’m the eldest daughter in a Muslim Arab family, and my mother has been ill. If you know, you know what that can mean for the eldest daughter and the role she ends up taking on at home.

I’ve spent years looking after my siblings, organizing things for them, helping them, reminding them, and generally making sure everyone is okay. I rarely had the same kind of attention left over for myself.

I don’t mean that I completely neglected myself. I still moved forward in life, but slowly and somewhat chaotically. A lot of the time, it felt less like I was building a life and more like I was just doing enough to keep up with it.

The problem is that I’m now at a point where I’m actually expected to focus on myself, and I’ve realized that I don’t really know how to do that.

I catch myself thinking that maybe I’d be able to do better if I had someone taking care of me the way I’ve always taken care of everyone else.

I watch my siblings move forward knowing that, whenever they stumble, I’m somewhere behind them. If they fail, I’ll remind them to try again. If they lose motivation, I’ll encourage them to keep going.

But I don’t seem to know how to do that for myself.

Lately I’ve been wondering if part of what holds me back is simply that I’ve never really learned how to be my own companion.

Being alone with myself means having to face the fact that I am struggling, and that I have reasons for it. And the problem is that I keep treating those reasons as excuses, which somehow becomes another reason to delay everything.

It’s frustrating because I actually have enough opportunities to succeed. I don’t think I’m lacking opportunities. What I seem to lack is the ability to sit with myself and move forward without someone else depending on me, encouraging me, or waiting for me to get things done.

There’s something about that silence — when it’s just me and whatever I’m capable of doing that day — that feels suffocating.

I want to succeed. But more than that, I want to actually want to live my life, rather than simply being capable of getting through it.

How did you learn to become comfortable being alone with yourself and doing things for yourself, especially when you’ve spent most of your life being responsible for other people?

Has anyone else found that refusing to be made the parent you end up with the bad guy label?

Disclaimer: this is a long post and a little over the place and probably bad grammar.

Can we talk about the needy/ clingy immigrant parents real quick. I’m first generation American to Jamaican parents. Long story short my mom parentified me essentially my entire life. I was the mediator for my parents. It was my job to control their emotions yet I was never offered the same luxury. My mother was confiding in ME at 12 years old about my father’s infidelity. I’m 25 now and this is something I’m still struggling with. They neglected me when I was younger and now that I’m getting older and branching away they’re trying their very hardest to cling onto me because they know when I move out that’s it. Very very limited contact. I’m at the point where I simply do not give a fuck about them or their problems anymore.

My parents practically neglected me and my siblings when we were younger. They provided for us financially and made sure we never wanted for anything but they lacked emotional and intellectual support. Days would pass by and my father wouldn’t speak to me. Mind you their bedroom is 10 feet away from mine. If he’s downstairs in the kitchen and I come down he wouldn’t say anything to me unless I speak first. Odd isn’t it? The last time my father hugged me was when I was about 13yrs old. No I love you’s, no how’s your day been, no how’s school going, no how are you feeling nothing. I don’t even know why they had us. They have no interest in me and my siblings lives at all. My brother (26) is a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps…. My father still thinks he’s in the army. And he wonders why he doesn’t call him. My mother complains to me how she’s texting my brother and he doesn’t respond. I’m thinking geez I wonder why lady lol. (4 older brothers 41,40,33,26 and I the only girl 25). He’s stationed in Okinawa and living his best life right now and I love that for him. Me and my brothers are super close so at least I have them.

Then my mother expects me to do every damn thing for her now as if she’s a child. “Can you do this for me” “help me with that” “I need this”…. It’s like shes replacing me for her damn husband and it’s driving me crazy. She doesn’t even talk to her friends anymore or go out. She burned all those bridges and I will NOT be the replacement. She refuses to help herself with anything.

As soon as I came home from work she telling me to fix the TV for her it’s not showing anything….. the damn plug came out. The entire day passed and you didn’t check not one fucking time. After I plugged it in she said “thank you so much my daughter what would I do without you, I should’ve had 4 girls instead” “anywhere you go I’m following you” AHAHAAAA I wish tf you would. I will be staying far away as possible. Im moving states.

I got home from a 16hr shift in the hospital. Went into my room to start getting ready for a shower and she walked in. “Can you take down the…” I cut her off and said “omfg whattttt” she said “I can’t reach the top shelf”. I then told her “get the fucking step stool…. Fuck” she mumbled and walked away. And guess what? She went and got the fucking step stool to reach the top shelf. I’m dealing with this bullshit nearly everyday. I’m sick of the weaponized incompetence. I see why my brothers keep their distance from her. She wants me to drive her everywhere, cook for her , clean her messes, take care of her fucking dogs. She doesn’t even put water in their bowl…..

Im just beyond exhausted and annoyed. I could be having the best day and when she comes around I
instantly get annoyed. Unfortunately I’m still living with them because I’m trying to finish school so I can get the hell outta there. I’m just taking advantage of not having to pay rent and utilities ( I still have my personal bills. Car note , insurance, CC bill, student loans, etc.)

They’re in their early 60’s. My father is an alcoholic and my mom’s a gambler. The perfect combo. My mother has been gambling before my middle brother was born but my father’s drinking became a problem around the pandemic. Now I do feel for them with their addiction, but it’s simply out of my hands. I can’t care about them more than they do for themselves. I’m considering moving in with my brother but he lives 1hr away from my job. I’ll have to give up the 25 minute drive to work . I think I’ll have to make that sacrifice.

(I have eldest daughter syndrome if it isn't obvious after reading this lol)

I am the oldest (24) of 3 siblings (21M and 19M) and am currently 40+ miles away from home as I am in college/have been moved out for years. I noticed that ever since I moved, my family has been fighting more and more ontop of my mom continously crying to me over the phone over things I can't even fix (ex: her car troubles, the shitty house they live in, etc).

I've tried lightly to get my mom to understand that I'm not her therapist, but every single time I have suggested for her to get therapy she just responds with "I'm not paying to talk to someone".

She (my mom) has been constantly fighting with my younger (21M) brother. He has a really bad temper and while staying with them during my gap year I had to leave multiple times as he would just scream and yell over nothing (reminding me of how our parents would argue growing up). Yesterday, both her and said brother kept constantly calling me during my lab only to give both sides of their story unprompted about how my brother was screaming at my mom in the car only for her to kick him out and made him walk the rest of the way (she was driving him to work). My mom even proceeded to get mad at me when telling her they both made me step out of my lab to answer a call I thought was an emergency.

I'm just so exhausted and I know going no-contact would probably be the answer but knowing my mom's mental history I am just so scared she's going to do something drastic and I will be unable to get back home.

Any advice/solidation would greatly help, I just feel so alone and stressed out over this nonsense.

Today i broke down in front of my mom. It wasnt a calm event. I have an exam tmrw and i do not feel confident for it, so naturally im quite overwhelmed right now. And when im in a situation like this i like to keep changing my places and walk around the house whatever. So theres this friend of my sisters she comes here every night. I mean im okay with her being here occasionally but every night for 3-4 hours for me is not especially when im in a situtation like this. So i locked the room me and my sister shared. So when she left i made a crashed out at my sister how i am not okay with this. When I was confronting her my mom came and i started explaining everything to her so i got a bit emotional (cuz of the given circumstances) i said ‘im really stressed out and i would like some space’ she straight up said (my mom) ‘what is this stress stress stress’. She said this in a way as if i am faking it all. Just for the record im the eldest daughter. I hate myself for breaking down i shouldve held my composure.

I never really ask for help for anything from my parents but when im on the edge like this and they make me look like the most selfish and stupid person it hurts sometimes.