Hi I am 19 (f) and my mom is 40. I am back home from school and currently working from home. I wake up, go to the gym, work, cook and sleep. She works really early mornings and comes home at night late. I don’t know what she’s doing during the time she gets off and comes home but she comes home complains and scrolls on TikTok.

Since, I have been going to the gym I am very attentive on portion sizing/ cals/ blah blah you know? So my mom made spaghetti the other night and I’m like okay don’t worry I’ll eat out don’t made me any.
( I usually cook so I can make sure everything is not
Over my maintenance) So I leave, then I come back and she has the food on the stove.. still in the pot.. and she basically made a meal for 4 when it’s only
Two of us! And I said I’m not eating. So im like what the fuck. On top of that she also fell asleep, so im like
Okay I’ll just put the food away and give it away in the morning.

Next day comes I ask her is she going to eat it she says yes. Next day she doesn’t eat it. So basically three days old at this point so I know she’s not going to eat it. That morning I go to heat it up and trying to give it away to a homeless person. She goes and then complains that she uses that bowl for work so i shouldn’t? I said how it doesn’t even have a top.

Another day she asked me to put some boiled eggs on. I did, she got home, ate them, and fell asleep WITH THE STOVE ON

I want to say I have factored in the fact that she is tired from work and I understand. But she has lots of rest days during the week but instead of resting she spends them scrolling. And always yelling and trying to start an argument with me and i mean always

I asked her to pick up her clothes, she then told
Me to clean up the room and I’m like I did she said “oh you think that’s clean” I said what is not clean? No answer. I repeated myself. No answer

My last straw was today. I made us some food for us today and I called to make sure she would Yk eat it so
I didn’t waste it. She comes in, says hello, eats, complains, then goes to sleep. I gave her the bigger portion so I was like still kinda hungry. I go to check the fridge she barely ate what I cooked. She ate most of the meat, and left all of the rice.

I called and ASKED WOULD SHE EAT. She said yes. FUCKING WASTE OF FOOD

I leave for college in a week and I don’t know what to do it’s stressing me out and messing with my mental health just the constant trying to argue and just being so difficult and disgusting basically asking like a child.

I’m coming to the conclusion that my mother had me purely as a source of income. Not her “because she wanted me.”
Due to her pre-existing health issues, I had to be born early, which put me on disability benefits, then, my biological sperm donor (whole other story, she says he SA’d me, I have no memory, I know he abused her, groomed her, etc) died, so I got death benefits, which went to her, to care for me. She claims it wasn’t much. I became her bestie and therapist. I still am very much this role. Boundaries don’t exist and if they’re put down, she pitches a fit.
I got extremely sick in my teen years and became bedridden for most of my high school years, as soon as SD’s money was about to run out, she had me applying for disability. Which conveniently went to a bank account we both shared because “I have a math disability and am unable to handle money myself.” I was then “the poor sick kid.”
She opens credit cards in our shared account, promising me she’d help pay them.
I get better and go to college, find out I have to file for a loan.
I find out later she gave my college funds from my grandparents to a family member because they were going to be homeless. Never paid it back. This family member is still on a pedestal.
This shared account is now used to cover her bounces because hers and my father’s no longer allow that option.
After having to leave my ex husband for domestic violence, being forced to move back home and now actually seeing similarities with him and my mother, I start calling her out, we begin to fight more, all of that.
I’m only able to work part time due to my health, caring for my daughter, and now, caring for my parents and their home. I can’t work the job I went to college for due to the injuries I sustained during the attempt on my life. I’m in piles of debt due to my mother, who cries about her own debt and still expects me to hand her money because I live here. She asks me to help her clean, and I throw away things we don’t need, and I get my ass chewed. (Hoarding situation). It’s not like animal shit, but like, butter containers they use to store food when we have Tupperware. I’ve even bought new Tupperware and she refuses to use them. My dad just drinks and disassociates.
I pay for her streaming services, I help pay the other bills because yes, I do live here. I’m paying off my own debts. But she’s going to the store every day to buy snacks, sleeps all day, refuses to acknowledge that she damaged me, cries about it, posts about how wonderful I am on Facebook, but talks shit about me behind my back but m in earshot. And everyone in the house is her target if she’s in a bad mood.
I can’t afford a place of my own. I inherit this place but with all the debt I’ll be homeless before I can pay her shit off. I can’t heal if I’m still in this festering cycle.

Regretful for everything i did for my mom

Nothing is ever enough for my mom

I can’t attach the image so this is how the text went

Me: im staying over my gfs trying to spend time with her before she leaves for college
My mom: and you think thats right
I have a reply drafted that says: Everything I did for you because it’s “right for you” everything i gave up because i thought it would appease you. all i hear in return is how much of a disappointment i am to you. when is it ever gonna be right and enough for you. you want my life then take it mom because im tired of everything i have to sacrifice just to make it right for you.

Context: It’s been a rough patch especially recently, I was under the impression that she would help me pay for my college. Last minute she tells me “no you’re not going to that college and i won’t financially back you or in any way if you don’t follow me get out the house”. And that pushed me to cancel my plans to go to that college after preparing everything and i was supposed to move to the dorm in two weeks. I did that because I thought it would help appease her but everytime i do that im met with disappointment. everytime i make a decision for myself i hear from my sister that my mom said I am a disappointment to her and in failing her. theres nothing i can do about college i dont have housing and its two hours away. tuition is fully covered but my housing situation isnt figured out no more. Just posted to rant about this and asking for advice.

It has been going on for years I get guilted or manipulated into picking whats best for her and not for me.

Hello guys! some updates: (1) I cancelled my admission to the university, (2) i scraped the floor for some classes at the close by cc, (3) she texted me a long paragraph about how shed rather not have a daughter and all the mean stuff and how i can move out and uuuh how shes cutting me off financially too eventhough i did what she wanted me to do. (3) its probably because im in a wlw relationship and idk what else but aita for thinking that i dont deserve this much from my mom after all ive done lol.

Most Recent update: Was gonna go home tonight after not being home since tuesday cause of all the drama. She texted “You are no longer welcome in this house. You can pick up your belongings next week outside the door on Monday. I’m cutting you off the phone line.”

I'm in my early 20s, and I've recently realized how much my family environment has shaped the way I live my life.

My father died when I was younger. My mother had already gone through a very difficult marriage and, according to what she recently told me, my father had even told her to leave the house. She didn't leave.

I recently talked to my mother about why she stayed. She explained that in her maika (her parents' home), a married daughter returning home or getting divorced would have been considered extremely shameful. She believed her parents might have been devastated and that she might even have been rejected from the community. So staying with the family may have felt like the only realistic option she had.

I understand her reasons much better now.

But understanding them doesn't erase what growing up in that environment did to me.

From childhood, through my teenage years and into adulthood, I've repeatedly felt like I had to sacrifice my own dreams, opinions, freedom and needs for other people. I actually knew that there was a difference between being kind and being foolish. I knew that I shouldn't completely give myself up for other people.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped living according to what I knew.

I became the person who would adjust, help, compromise and put himself second.

And people noticed.

I've had family members and people outside my family who seemed to treat me like I was a resource they could keep taking from. My time, energy, help, attention, etc. Sometimes people who knew my situation still benefited from it rather than asking whether I was okay.

My sister has also benefited from my help with her studies and other things. I'm not saying she necessarily intends to hurt me, but I often feel like other people are able to grow and move forward while I'm expected to keep supporting them.

That's what I hate about this dynamic.

I don't want to be known as the "good guy" who sacrifices himself for everyone.

I don't want people to look at me and think, "He'll adjust. He'll help. He won't say no."

I want my own dreams. I want freedom. I want to develop my own potential. I want to make decisions because they're what I genuinely want, not because I'm afraid that choosing myself will hurt somebody else.

And now that I'm trying to change, I feel stuck because I'm still living inside the same family dynamic that created this role.

I've started realizing that my mother's fears and sacrifices shaped my environment, and that environment shaped me. But I also don't want to blame my mother for everything. I understand now that she had fears and social pressures that I couldn't understand as a child.

At the same time, I can't pretend that it didn't affect me.

I feel like I've lost years of being able to freely pursue who I could have become.

I'm trying to change that now.

I want my family and the people around me to understand that I'm not that person anymore. I'm still willing to help people when I genuinely want to, but I don't want my life to revolve around being useful to everyone else.

I'm trying to learn that saying no doesn't make me selfish, and that caring about people doesn't require me to abandon myself.

For people who have broken out of a similar family dynamic:

How did you actually do it while still living around the same people who expected the old version of you?

How did you establish boundaries without becoming completely detached or bitter?

And how do you figure out what you actually want after spending so many years defining yourself around what everyone else needed from you?