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Mental Wellbeing Thread


HexMachina

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After two years of hearings and repeals, I'm now receiving disability payments, due to my high functioning Autism (another reason why I never had a job or dated, along with my social anxiety). With it, we now have the funds to seek a Cognitive behavioral therapist around town and to help pay some of the bills. With this, I know that I can make another breakthrough in my life.

And I'm ready to tackle this math class. It's a prerequisite, but it still brings me a step closer to earning a degree.

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6 minutes ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

After two years of hearings and repeals, I'm now receiving disability payments, due to my high functioning Autism (another reason why I never had a job or dated, along with my social anxiety). With it, we now have the funds to seek a Cognitive behavioral therapist around town. With this, I know that I can make another breakthrough in my life.

And I'm ready to tackle this math class. It's a prerequisite, but it still brings me a step closer to earning a degree.

That all sounds great!

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I'm so tired and utterly wasted right now... Today I got horribly reminded of my lack of social skills and as usual, my first reaction was to even further isolate myself and wallow in misery.

Well, I have been a teacher trainee for the last year. One thing I noticed and noticed especially hard today is that everyone else successfully managed to socialize and arrange some prep groups for themselves, while I'm still hopelessly alone. I kept asking and asking, both within the group from my university I wanted to keep in contact with, as well as the teacher trainees in my seminar groups, but every time I got the answer that they have no time or that it wouldn't work anyway because we are teaching different grades. Every time I asked to take a look at my worksheets since I could need some help, the replies ranged from "Looks fine, don't worry" to a plain "No". It has become so bad that even my principal, who is barely present and usually extremely aloof to her underlings, mentioned after her last visit that she has worries about me doing all my lessons entirely alone and that I should get myself someone to talk to.

And today I sat in the seminary and the same people who kept shooting my suggestions down, sat around me and kept talking about their past and future prepping meet-ups, while I was just staring back and forth internally screaming "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!" And then they kept arranging a celebratory brunch next week as well as going to a bloody dance club afterwards. I just... feel so completely disconnected. During the entire seminary I was basically just mentally retreating, feeling completely miserable, not talking to anybody and of course not getting talked to by anybody else. Even though we were supposed to be working on a group project, I was just completely silent.

I don't know what to do... I am completely, utterly out of my depth. As mentioned before, I can't stand it when my friendless background ends up hurting me professionally. Because I only want to talk with people. Exchange ideas. Getting their perspective on things. Just some tiny hints, I don't ask for more! I'm exhausted, all my creative energy gone. Even though that's the most fun part about the job! But thanks to my constant anxiety about how I'm perceived by the people judging my fitness for the job, I totally tired myself out. And I feel myself more and more getting pressured in a corner. The seminary also arranged two trips to Austria and France during the next months, of course I didn't dare join them. Too great the fear that even there my depressed state would just continue and I'd be seen as a hopeless depressive moron who can't keep up with anyone.

I also made a huge mistake by breaching that topic to my mother earlier, even though thanks to the legal shenanigans of my father things have gotten as tense as usual at home. Her reply was actually in part helpful, saying that whenever I try to act as if everything is fine I look like an arrogant jerkass no one wants anything to do with. That made me realize that I indeed must look quite confusing to outside people, both wallowing in misery and still powering on in lone-wolf mode regardless of it. It certainly explains the "looks fine, don't worry" replies if I unconsciously try to gloss over my insecurities even when attempting to ask for help. I guess it helps that it usually takes hours for me to even approach someone for the tiniest request.

Of course, my mother then went on her usual rant about how I'm not cut for working in a school and I should search for something else, making me feel even more miserable as I hopelessly attempted to change the topic...

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@Toth Woah. I am at a bit of a loose end right now (hence clicking this thread, which I've often been curious about).

I can't begin to imagine what you're going through. That's the thing about this shit - no one can. Even if you've been dealing with this type of thing for 40 years or so, you can isolate factors, engage with therapy; try to eat right, exercise, cut out caffeine, alcohol, nicotine - you name it, and it can bite you all the same. I must stress I don't know your situation, and the last thing I'm trying to do is say, 'there there'. But I feel you. And you're not alone. 

I did see you said 'friendless background'? Genuine question here: have you really never had a friend? If so, then I'm not being patronising, but I am straight up your friend. I know that doesn't mean much, as I can't actually help, and we're never likely to meet, but everyone needs a friend. Even if it's just words on a screen.

I know this sounds cliche as hell, but a lot of the cool, together types who are unconsciously excluding you (I honestly can't believe people at a base level are so callous) are like as not feeling things akin to you, albeit to a lesser degree. I don't for one minute suggest human experience can be generalized in such a way, but at the same time, we're not all that different either. Mammals in the space time continuum, dude. Mammals in the STC. 

From the above I would guess you are an introvert? Introversion is a wonderful thing, and should be celebrated more - particularly in the bombastic world in which we live. But I suspect you know yourself that it can only take you so far. Please try and speak to one person today, even if it's just a passing comment to a neighbour, or a hello to a guy in a shop. I know this is easier said than done, and is probably a cackhanded piece of advice, but the social skills you think you lack (though I'm guessing from your sensitivity do possess, and just don't feel confident enough to use) will only grow if you're brave enough to exercise them. You got this dude. You really do. 

In terms of teaching: I don't know which country your based in, but maybe you can find some sort of web based forum for discussion? I used to teach English to speakers of foreign languages, but I doubt it would be of any use here. Are there any online repositories of tips etc? I can appreciate researching this is a chore in itself - particularly if you're low - but it's something to do at least? If you feel up to it, I would definitely have a look

Anyway, I'll stop bleating on now, but straight up, feel yourself. And thank you for what you wrote. Peace and love. 

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Well... thanks for the effort. Actually I feel somewhat better today, even though I made another failed attempt at talking about prepping lessons with one teacher who has a parallel class of mine. It went marginally better, even though I was still unable to breach the topic of an in-depth planning session the moment she said that she wanted to plan her sequence a few weeks after the next holidays since she has already something stored up.

I guess my outburst was in part caused by how some students of one of my classes tried to convince me to join them on their class photo yesterday, even though I'm not the headmaster and was just tagging along to the photo appointment as supervisory duty. I really like that class and get along well with them (some thoughts of regret about how I sabotaged my own lessons by getting intimidated by my new seminar leader's preferred methods notwithstanding), but it's silly things like that where I feel completely out of my depth. It pretty much set the mood for the remainder of this godawful day.

18 hours ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

I did see you said 'friendless background'? Genuine question here: have you really never had a friend?

I guess I can't reasonable say no to this anymore, but I still have a long and ridiculous history of being the official village outcast since primary school. So no, in the past I never had a lasting friendship that hasn't either turned into total hatred or indifference. I have been trying to actively go out of my way to train talking to people for the last 8 years, but apparently my problems only got worse...

18 hours ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

If so, then I'm not being patronising, but I am straight up your friend.

Thanks, but... Nah, that's not how this is supposed to work.

18 hours ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

I know this sounds cliche as hell, but a lot of the cool, together types who are unconsciously excluding you (I honestly can't believe people at a base level are so callous) are like as not feeling things akin to you, albeit to a lesser degree. I don't for one minute suggest human experience can be generalized in such a way, but at the same time, we're not all that different either. Mammals in the space time continuum, dude. Mammals in the STC. 

I guess that's kinda true. I mean... I have witnessed the other History teachers and teacher trainees dealing with their own worries and frustration... but all that does is becoming just another factor for me not to approach them. Why should I weigh them down with my problems if they have their own to deal with? I'm well aware that this is not how the real life works, that there is no person who has no problems whatsoever, but part of me thinks of myself as too much of a burden to open up (probably because I always was and people indeed actively shunned me because getting involved with me caused them real trouble).

18 hours ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

In terms of teaching: I don't know which country your based in, but maybe you can find some sort of web based forum for discussion?

Mmh... Given how most teaching in History boils down to getting the most interesting and creative approach that works with a specific class, I can't say I am very confident in stuff online. I occasionally search for specific ideas anyway, but I have yet to see some convincing hints that I haven't altered heavily afterwards anyway. Not to mention that what I actually seek is conversations with other history teachers in order to develop new ideas.

So... still thanks for the offer, but I will have to get through this in real life in face-to-face conversations.

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@Toth glad you felt somewhat better, and didn't mean to cause any offence, or pretend anything I said could have helped. Often in my experience, very little does. It was just shooting the shit and trying to let someone know they're not 100% alone. With the online teaching stuff - you wouldn't be a good practitioner if you didn't adapt and tailor for your style and your kids, but are there message boards and such? I know it's not the same flow as an organic conversation, but it's something maybe? Anyway, I know a stranger's online persual of your pain isn't going to help, and you weren't asking for my two shillings, so I'll leave it with peace and love as always. 

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Sorry again if I had sounded dismissive there. That wasn't my intention. It's just that I am absurdly overworked right now, get bombarded with both professional and personal problems and am feeling constantly exhausted. I'm really no good talking to at the moment because I indeed turn into a selfish asshole who only cares about his own self-pity when I'm feeling depressed. Thanks for the suggestions.

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Please don't apologize dude. I have an inkling, or a version, of how you feel. I know it must not seem like it, but a lot of folks do. Somehow it all seems a bit too much, far too much of the time. But you can do it man. Your personality traits sound like they hinder you a fair bit, but I suspect that in some ways they will be your strengths too. Take it easy man, and keep on trucking. 

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Evan Rachel Wood shares her experience of being treated for PTSD, she was hospitalized (in-patient) at a psychiatric ward earlier in her career. 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/evan-rachel-wood-gets-candid-checking-psychiatric-facility-22-absolutely-no-shame-183128122.html

She describes the treatment as a tremendous help for her and mentions it as somewhat of a rebirth for her, for which she is grateful she sought that help.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Does anyone else get crippling existential fear whenever they think about the environment and the future of mankind?

With every year the studies I have been reading have become ever more grim. I have a feeling where we as a species are long beyond the point of no return. Headlines began with "We need to engage in long-term measures", had turned to "We need drastic change now" and finally arrived at " There will be cascading ecological collapse within the next 12 years". Meanwhile political leaders around the entire world have agreed with economic lobbyists that it is preferable to feign ignorance instead of doing shit, decade after decade.

Especially these latest reports about the insects have hit me hard. I remember when I was little and my father was driving on the motorway, his at the time white car was afterwards completely covered in squashed bugs. These summers I see people driving on the motorway and come back totally speck-less. They didn't hit a single bug. It had always worried me. So imagine the dreadful confirmation of a vague childhood memory telling me that something is off when reading that within the last 20 years, 75% of the entire insect population in Germany has died. 75%! That's an absolutely breath-taking number!

I also happen to happen to live just down the road of the federal apiology research institute. You would think that means in summer my entire neighborhood is buzzing full of bees happily going over their business. I wish it was. Instead summer announces itself by having the entire road covered in dead or lethargic bees. EVERY SINGLE TIME. They are everywhere! Not a single healthy one! The most they are able to do is crawl around on the sidewalk. It is absolutely heartbreaking. The odd thing is that I don't even think pesticides are the reason. There are no agricultural lands anywhere. It's just city on one side, forest on the other.

Then this Puerto Rico story now. 92% of all insects dead. Not because of any direct human poisoning, but because climate change messes with their lifecycles and causes them to get lethargic. Lethargic like the bees here...
Every time I think about this, I get this primal dread totally freezing me up. This knowledge that I will, with certainty, witness a cataclysmic event that will severely cut the human population down and end out current way of life forever. There is no going around this anymore. Everything points to the ongoing apocalypse and those who are able to do something around it, instead plunge us further into political chaos to satisfy their own greed and narcissism.

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On 2/14/2019 at 6:25 PM, Toth said:

Does anyone else get crippling existential fear whenever they think about the environment and the future of mankind?

I've been thinking about posting this very question here once or twice. Or a variation thereof. I refrained because I'm starting to believe such existential dread is the sign of a healthy mind more than anything else, ergo that existential fear is the new normal, rather than something to be discussed on the internet (I've had regular exchanges about this IRL though).

But it does affect one deeply. I also have a young kid and lately I keep wondering whether it's still appropriate for me to keep spending time on my career rather than on actually taking action. I love my job, but there are days when I think that the situation is so serious that the time for intellectualism and intellectuals has passed and that I should either find something more concrete to do, or just spend more time enjoying myself with my family, as in "enjoy the good times while we can."

It's all terribly depressing. Unfortunately I fear the problem is essentially political. By that I mean that our institutions are completely unable to deal with a crisis this serious and will need to be completely overhauled for civilization to survive. Or they won't, and it won't.

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On 2/14/2019 at 8:19 PM, Derfel Cadarn said:

It's worrying. I've a 5 month old baby and wonder what world she will grow up in.  

I used to entertain the idea of raising a child myself, but now I'm glad that it's unlikely to ever happen because of that exact reason... Just know that I'm holding my fingers crossed that somehow we are able to get through this.

8 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I've been thinking about posting this very question here once or twice. Or a variation thereof. I refrained because I'm starting to believe such existential dread is the sign of a healthy mind more than anything else, ergo that existential fear is the new normal, rather than something to be discussed on the internet (I've had regular exchanges about this IRL though).

How did the discussions go? My mother just thinks I'm crazy when I brought it up (and then snidely remarks that she is going to die before the cataclysm anyway, so it's not her business. Even though I pointed out that it's a bit ridiculous to say given what we witnessed these last summers in terms of continuing droughts and crop failures in addition to the collapsing of ecosystems).

8 hours ago, Rippounet said:

But it does affect one deeply. I also have a young kid and lately I keep wondering whether it's still appropriate for me to keep spending time on my career rather than on actually taking action. I love my job, but there are days when I think that the situation is so serious that the time for intellectualism and intellectuals has passed and that I should either find something more concrete to do, or just spend more time enjoying myself with my family, as in "enjoy the good times while we can."

I know. All of these things are stuff that I can connect to. As a teacher, I feel it is my job to help guide the future of the kids in my classes. But I don't know whether they will get one and that thought makes me sick. It's also not helping that two semesters ago I had witnessed a class brainstorming likely future scenarios and they were all very apocalyptic. As a Star Trek fan, I'm mourning the optimism with which I used to look into the future at their age.

Of course, then also come the regrets that I'm not making the most of our current self-destructive civilization. I never traveled to any of the places I always wanted to visit for lack of money and am envious to how my colleagues keep talking about the experiences they made while I was just rushing headlong through my studies. I'm 25 and haven't experienced anything other than school and university and soon it might all going to end.

I also entertained the thought of going into politics for the whole sake of how done I'm with the current crop of politicians that keep walking us down that path of doom. I still will, right now it's just the lack of time that prevents me. Unfortunately, even though I see my best chances at the green party, it is disheartening how both they themselves have watered down their core principles for the sake of compromise while all their opponents keep vilifying them. Given the flat-out Nazi rhetoric in the internet, you might think Germany was ruled by the greens for the last two decades instead of the conservative party...

8 hours ago, Rippounet said:

It's all terribly depressing. Unfortunately I fear the problem is essentially political. By that I mean that our institutions are completely unable to deal with a crisis this serious and will need to be completely overhauled for civilization to survive. Or they won't, and it won't. 

Psychology is an interesting thing. I managed to drag myself back a little to being not quite as frozen by focusing on hopeful news. For some time I've been thinking whether we could not solve all the energy needs of Europe and Africa by plastering the entire Sahara desert with thermosolar power plants. I'm quite thrilled that Morocco together with the EU is trying just that with the Noor project, but so far it's still too little, too late. I also looked up how electric mobility is going and while I was quite pleased to see how people are praising the Hyunai Ioniq as a very solid car, I was still a little disheartened about just how infuriatingly proud German car companies are about ignoring their emission requirements. Some don't even have any alternative energies at all in their current line-up. It's especially infuriating since those are especially those companies that I had witnessed bragging with their concept cars back when I was a kid. How the hell did they end up rolling back all their damn projects? I have to assume the economic incentives given by their conservative lackey politicians are to blame for so much willful ignorance.

Still... despite all the complaining, I was at least able to somewhat relieve myself by focusing on the few things that are actually done.

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12 hours ago, Toth said:

How did the discussions go? My mother just thinks I'm crazy when I brought it up (and then snidely remarks that she is going to die before the cataclysm anyway, so it's not her business. Even though I pointed out that it's a bit ridiculous to say given what we witnessed these last summers in terms of continuing droughts and crop failures in addition to the collapsing of ecosystems).

They pretty much always follow the same pattern:

- It starts with humor, a couple of jokes about the coming apocalypse (which everyone I've talked with takes for granted by now).
- Then there's a short discussion about how rotten our politicians are and completely incapable of dealing with the problem (quite often with a footnote about neo-liberalism thrown in there, depending on the people present).
- A more useful exchange about possible technical and grassroots solutions.
- A conclusion about what one can do, either to help (i.e. stuff like buying local) or to relieve oneself from the existential dread (i.e. hobbies and stuff).
- Moving on, because no one really wants to spend more than 30mn on the topic.

Little gets done because i) few people know what to do. Seriously, I consider myself well-informed, but you kinda have to look for the info on what one should do to help, some things aren't as obvious as others. And ii) psychology is a bitch, because most people are reluctant to make serious sacrifices if society as a whole doesn't follow.
Then there's even the second level where many people feel that the burden of transitioning should be on corporations rather than on individuals, or that transitioning only makes sense if society as a whole becomes fairer.

In a nutshell, humans suck at dealing with crises that are not immediately obvious and find multiple ways to justify procrastination. Or perhaps it's the size of modern societies (nations) that makes long-term thinking more difficult*, I dunno.

*some anthropologists say it's always been an issue though, what with men exterminating entire species even in prehistoric times without any kind of second thought.

12 hours ago, Toth said:

As a Star Trek fan, I'm mourning the optimism with which I used to look into the future at their age.

I'm also a trekkie, which means I'm also bitterly aware that the ST utopia was born of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. For years I hoped that humanity wouldn't have to grow up the hard way, but now I wonder if it can. I'm also doubtful that things would turn out as nicely IRL with a Zephrane Cochrane and Vulcans being a form of deus ex machina to save humanity from its own self-destructive tendencies. I fear that IRL it will take many centuries before mankind reaches some kind of collective wisdom, and that's if it's lucky to survive long enough for that to happen.

Generally speaking, as far as this issue goes, one tends to alternate between hope when focusing on all the -very real- possible solutions to climate change, or despair when looking at politics. Out of hope comes a desire for activism, out of despair a form of modern hedonism. But that's also how existentialism works: alternating between highs and lows.
It's funny, I studied existential fears during the Cold War, and at the time I genuinely believed it was a thing of the past.

 

Edit: Ha, as a joke, this one is appropriate for this thread... And several others tbh :P (online comics - SMBC):
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/life-online

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I guess I have to vent a bit again. Things at home are awfully tense at the moment. My mother, as usual, has trouble both with bullying at work and my father being an occasional nuisance. So she needs me as an emotional anchor and I understand that. And I want to be there for her. But once again I feel suffocated. Last week I got an interesting offer for a school to work at after teacher training. Nothing is set in stone as of yet, I've sent the application (alongside a bunch of others) and am still waiting for the reply. But the school is south of Berlin. Well connected to my current place, but moving would still be more advisable. Which is nothing new. For a long time I have said that once I've got the money, we can divide our household again, moving into two flats either simultaneously or shortly after one another. Money had been the most restrictive and constant issue so far. But once I'm a full-time teacher, that would change.

When I brought this topic up again at the dinner table my mother however reacted extremely frantic. Saying that she has to live with me there again, that she would go crazy if I was moving. Saying in no uncertain terms that she demands I stick with her. And I felt dreadfully reminded of all the past times where she mentioned that she expects me to care for her until she dies. I'm now 25 and have put all my attempts to live on my own on hold ever since my father left her and she moved in at my place nearly 7 years ago. I have stunted much of my social growth because I dreaded her reactions. And yet an end isn't in sight...

Of course I am a terrible son thinking this way of her. That the moral option would be to just accept that her will in this is more important than mine. That she isn't a load, just someone who needs me. But more than once I'm thinking that some distance would do our relationship a lot better. Yesterday was strange as well. I came back from school, went back to preparing my next lessons and correcting tests that I had promised my students to have finished the next day. But my mother droned on and on about how I've got to write more applications, that I'm an idiot for for not doing that, that I'm going to end up on the street and that she doesn't know how to survive if that happens. On and on and on. I'm a computer science teacher, god damn it, there is no shortage of opportunities for that! I told her that much, but she wouldn't calm down at all. And I'm thinking that she just wants me to find different schools than the one that the senate recommended to me. Schools where we wouldn't have to move to...

Of course, I barely managed to finish anything. I always end up doing 5 times at once because of things like this, but this time it had been especially bad and I ended up a nervous wreck.

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5 hours ago, Toth said:

When I brought this topic up again at the dinner table my mother however reacted extremely frantic. Saying that she has to live with me there again, that she would go crazy if I was moving. Saying in no uncertain terms that she demands I stick with her. And I felt dreadfully reminded of all the past times where she mentioned that she expects me to care for her until she dies. I'm now 25 and have put all my attempts to live on my own on hold ever since my father left her and she moved in at my place nearly 7 years ago. I have stunted much of my social growth because I dreaded her reactions. And yet an end isn't in sight...

Of course I am a terrible son thinking this way of her. That the moral option would be to just accept that her will in this is more important than mine. That she isn't a load, just someone who needs me. 

Do you think an adult child always have to do what the parent wants? That feels a bit like a slave to me.

You are not obligated to live with her forever or take care for her untill she dies. You are not her caregiver or put onto the world to take care of her.

If it's better for your development not to live with your mother, than move out.  care can also be arranged another way. You are expected to live a lot longer than your mother and you shouldn't sacrifice your life to  make her life better.

It sounds like a very unhealthy situation!

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6 hours ago, Toth said:

When I brought this topic up again at the dinner table my mother however reacted extremely frantic. Saying that she has to live with me there again, that she would go crazy if I was moving. Saying in no uncertain terms that she demands I stick with her. And I felt dreadfully reminded of all the past times where she mentioned that she expects me to care for her until she dies. I'm now 25 and have put all my attempts to live on my own on hold ever since my father left her and she moved in at my place nearly 7 years ago. I have stunted much of my social growth because I dreaded her reactions. And yet an end isn't in sight...

This feels like a real red flag to me. I think you have said in the past that she also has a habit of rubbishing you and telling you you are going to fail at things. My recommendation would be that you get out as soon as you can while you still have most of your life in front of you. And stay away from her as much as possible until you have got yourself together a bit more.

This rings a chord in me because she reminds me of my mother-in-law, I don't get on with her and so am biased, but in my opinion she is a would-be-controlling and unhappy woman with no respect for other people's boundaries, who has left substantial scars in all her children's psyches (other than the exceptional Mrs W's). As the only child who has not moved far away and who now sees her regularly, Mrs W has faced frequent and sometimes spiteful assertions that she has variously failed at life, mixed in with a long running no holds barred campaign to bully or guilt her into performing her "duty" of moving back in with her mother as companion/housekeeper/nurse. (What would happen to me in this scenario is not clear, but I understand that on several occasions she has come close to telling Mrs W she should divorce me.)

 

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3 hours ago, Isabel said:

Do you think an adult child always have to do what the parent wants? That feels a bit like a slave to me.

You are not obligated to live with her forever or take care for her untill she dies. You are not her caregiver or put onto the world to take care of her.

If it's better for your development not to live with your mother, than move out.  care can also be arranged another way. You are expected to live a lot longer than your mother and you shouldn't sacrifice your life to  make her life better.

It sounds like a very unhealthy situation!

Very much agreed. IF you have a good relationship with parents then living with them can be a huge help - if you don’t nd you don’t have to then honestly get out. You’ll always feel like a belittled child there. 

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Well, thanks for the concerns and suggestions. But then again, please take in everything I complain about with the very specific grain of salt that I only vent here when it's particularly tense or me bringing up something difficult like this had backfired. Usually we do get along comparably well. I really don't want to vilify her even if it looks like I'm just complaining.

The only ongoing problem is in large part my own sense of suffocation that causes me to not being able to focus on my preparations as effectively when she is bustling around than when I'm alone. That's mostly in my head and I don't really know what causes it. I just end up being unable to work because I don't want to get in her way and end up retreating into some corner where I spend the whole day hunched over my laptop. I guess it's a weird case of claustrophobia where I have no room to work because she takes up all the spaces at once. It's just two spaces though, given how tiny our flat is.

Well, right now I still don't have any tangible job offers anyway, just recommendations where to apply and a load of initiative applications. The only reply that came so far was from one of the latter, telling me this morning that they have no positions free. I'm not really concerned about that, given how it was just a shot into the blue and I was actually more than a little intimidated by how elite that school was.

Therefore... I will have to see where I will get a position and then I will breach the topic with my mother again. The problem, of course, lies mostly at the money front. Until I have any kind of safety net, I can't do anything to change my situation anyway. I'd just appreciate not to be discouraged at every step of the way just because she doesn't feel like 'splitting up'...

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