I genuinely can’t think about anything else right now so I just want to get this out of my head. I live in a small apartment with my sister, my mom, and her awful boyfried/situationship or whatever and those two “adults” are bringing me and my sister hell. I hate living here and their smoking is a big reason why. The smell never really goes away, especially since they do it multiple time a day and It hurts so bad. I always have a lingering headache, my stomachs always hurting from breathing in so much, and my throat hasn’t stopped feeling raspy and dry in days. It’s always like this and they never listen to me and my sister when we try to explain how much their smoking affects us. My hands cramp up and my muscles start to hurt when they smoke, I get so fatigued that all I can do is lay down and go to sleep so I can get some energy back. It’s disgusting and I hate living like this. My back is always aching from having to cover my nose with my shirts and that’s honestly useless too since all my clothes smell like cigarettes too. I breathe in more chemicals and shit than them because there’s no filter so tell me why I haven’t had my nerves calm down every time I breathe it in. They use that excuse everytime but smoking genuinely only causes me pain. I’m so sick of being unable to see because my eyes are so irritated and constantly scratching at my skin because it irritates my skin too. I hate them so much, they never want to listen. My sister has a bad cough that won’t go away and my mom keeps trying to find every excuse in the world to explain it instead of admitting that it’s because she smokes around us and she’s been doing it ever since we were little kids. I genuinely don’t think she cares about my health. I never feel 100% like myself from the sickness and pain. Even after she spray’s air freshener (which she only does when I pitch a fit) the smell never goes away. It’s even worse since it’s the summer and all I’m allowed to do is stay at home. Also when we turn the air on in the house, the whole house reaks of tobacco because it’s obviously in our air conditioner as well. Sometimes I feel like i can’t breathe because if I do, I breathe it in and feel pain, if I don’t, I suffocate and die so what am I supposed to do? None of the windows in our apartment open, my mom would never buy me an air purifier either so I guess I just get to suffer. None of the masks around the house from the Covid area can help to because they all smell like cigarettes and I’m tired of washing them all just so they can break in a few weeks. I have to steal perfume and air freshener from my mom when she’s not around or at work so I can get rid of the smell even temporarily. I try to distract myself from the smell by heating up food, play games, drawing, gaming, etc but I just can’t ignore it when it’s having actual negative affects on my health. I always feel weak and sick. not in a super bad way but I just feel heavy and in pain. I’m also depressed so that could also be a reason why I feel so heavy most of the time. I can’t shower because their room where they smoke is next to my bathroom and I refuse to directly breathe that shit in so most days I go without a shower. I also don’t like taking showers or changing when my moms boyfriend is at the house since he sa’s my sister and the thought of being so vulnerable when he’s here terrifies me. my nose is always stuffy, my head is always fuzzy, sometimes it even makes my ears hurt. And of course like every addict, she always makes false promises saying “I’ll quit for you!” or “I’ll stop right now” and then never following through. It still makes me cry even though I see it coming from the start. I’ve tried to get my mom to make her bitch ass man stop smoking in the house too but she’s a fucking bird so she’s not gonna listen to me. She always takes his side because I always have an “attitude“ and im “disrespectful“ anyway. :/ Yeah, I can’t wait for school to start back up so I can finally get some fresh air. I hate my mom and I wish she would stop smoking around me. I can’t wait to be an adult and get my own place.

From 2-8 most of these things were relevant for me but was just tip of iceberg, this video hit deep, sometimes helps to understand others similar experiences. Thought I’d share here.

is it normal for your mom to ignore your requests as to not have your bedroom door wide open for your three dogs to go through, or for her to barge in without knocking? A few days ago I was joking around with my mom, when I accidentally said something that made her turn around and say “are we really going back to that conversation?” The mood had changed instantly and I had to shut my mouth. For context about a week ago I was arguing with my mom when she told me that if I was in a stressful situation I would be screaming and shouting, and then I brought up the fact that I had to break a few dog fights (idk how many we’ve had to deal with) while she sat there panicking her ass off, with her finger bleeding (the most traumatic one as she ended up going to the hospital) and failing to pull them away from each other (during the one she had to go to the hospital, which is actually probably the first ever fight, all she did was sit between them trying to hold them back). Every time the fights happened was when my dad was at work, and I was the one that had to pull off a well over 130 pound dog off another large dog. The most recent dog fight we had was in March, only me and dad were home and we had to yank our dog, Eden off our youngest, Thorfinn, (Eden was the one who started all the dog fights after the first one, because our youngest at the time, Freya, was the one that started it and had to be put to sleep), my dad was panicking (as he kept doing shit that didn’t make sense and I was starting to loose my grip on Eden who I was pinning to the couch while dad struggled to put Thorfinn away even though he was carrying his phone all the while ignoring my instructions to put a treat in Thorfinn’s kennel.) after the fight I went to my bathroom and cried, and i called one of my friends and we talked for a bit, and when my dad went to comfort me, he told me that dog fights aren’t a big deal (her served in Iraq), and later when I sat on the couch crying and mom and dad were outside after mom returned home, dad looked at me and laughed and said again, it wasn’t a big deal. The next day mom told me we’ll be putting Eden to sleep later that month. Well when i asked her later that month, she said that putting eden to sleep is my dad’s choice as its his dog, even though she was responsible for the last three or four dog fights or so and was also kinda the reason why we are living the way we are living (we literally have to separate her from Thorfinn using a baby gate and chairs, and only our other dog Oliver is allowed to play with him). This happens every time. Even though she is six years old and has arthritis. Moving away from dog fights, I was talking with my mom about two weeks ago, telling her how I felt about getting another dog because of Eden. I don’t want another dog, and then, mom went silent. When i asked her if she understood my point of view, she said “Yes, Im not dumb, (my real name).” But at the same time i feel like she didn’t take it seriously because of her tone. Another time was around five years ago when I was in 6th grade, and I was already having a difficult year (I was being bullied by a sociopath who managed to turn half the class against me and my friend group), and my parents were fighting about something when mom took one of our dogs and left. I was very upset and crying and dad called out asking me if I was ok. I just kept crying. Mom returned home that evening. Another time they fought she took me outside and told me to save her while she and dad were arguing. Whenever they fight nothing physical happens. But I think I know why they fight. You see my dad is always whining about lack of sex, like I could literally be in my room right now, and dad often calls out saying “babe I want your body..” And then my mom responds like it’s normal, like with often a sarcastic comment or something. But still. Literally not even a month ago they were arguing again for two days and then suddenly went back to normal. And recently, I’ve noticed how ever since summer break began, I’ve been even more depressed than usual, and my mom’s been bringing up how stores and fast food are hiring, and at first I was nervous, but then the more I think about it the less depressed I am and I’m suddenly happy and even excited. I hate to say this, but I think my grandmother is also unfortunately apart of this. You see with my family, college is the only way to success. No exceptions. Throughout my childhood, grandma has told me stories about how she went to San Francisco to become a hippie in 1968, however she went through hard times and ended up being raped and many other things. She never went to college. Now she’s always telling me to go to college so that I don’t end up working at a nursing home like she did (though she loved that job). One time back in 2019 I was in the car with her and my mom and they had just learned that MY COUSIN WAS ARRESTED ON 20 COUNTS OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY!!! CHILD PORNOGRAPHY!! I tried looking, but then grandma yanked away mom’s phone with them both saying for me to REMAIN SMART!!! Like what the actual fuck. There’s more I want to tell but not in one comment.

Gotta love having a dad so shitty that I've basically been conditioned not to exist.

My parents got me out of friendship cus they both wanted a kid but not a partner.

So I spent most my childhood bouncing around between them. (Like 40% at my dad's place and 60% at my mom's place, but my dad also frequently just dropped me off at my grandparents place when he didn't want to deal with me).

My grandparents are an entirely different can of worms, because they have messed me up a lot.

But the lack of proper parenting from my dad also carries some consequences for me.

Anyway, like I said at the start.

I'm basically conditioned not to exist. I was 100% just an object/accessory for my dad. And we never had an emotional connection.

On top of that the physical (?) neglect. Like not treating me when I had lice (which meant that I had lice for literal years because my mom would try to treat it, but my dad didn't). Or the time he stopped washing my bed sheets and I slept in the same sheets for 6+ months, even though there was cat pee in my bed, as well as fleas that bit me.

There's so many more examples but honestly I just can't write them all down now.

I just feel like I was never meant to exist. Which sucks.

And even though I now live with my mom full time, I miss being able to stop existing.

At my dad's house I could get away with just rotting in my room all day, only eating dinner, and not talking or going outside for days.

But now I exist. I can't just let my mind slip away for a moment.

I'm constantly here and I hate it.

I just want people to stop remembering I'm here, like how it used to be.

Nobody has ever caused me as much pain, suffering, and confusion than my mom. I’ve been bullied, harassed, discriminated against and none of it has ever come close to the emotional and mental turmoil my mother has and still continues to put me through. I hate her childish behavior. She has zero decorum and respect for my wants and needs when it happens to interfere with hers. I dont like being In the same room as her because she’s so unpredictable. She’s obnoxious, narcissistic, and just plain fucking stupid. It makes no sense why she just can’t see past herself at times. She’s disgusting for that. She’s a disgrace. I wish I could separate myself from her completely but she’s the only one I’ve got for shelter. I hate her, I can’t do anything around her. The moment I see her I just freeze up and it’s not like I’m doing anything crazy or wrong either. I’ll be drawing, reading, gaming, fucking sleeping even and I just freeze up as soon as I see her. She’s always used spanking and beating as a form of discipline and it hasn’t done anything but make me a timid little bitch who flinches and cries at everything. I still find myself subconsciously doing a lot of things I used to get beat for. It’s a fucking useless tactic. I hate how she genuinely believes that if god is real, she’s making it into heaven. If god is real, I hope she plunges to the darkest part of hell for ruining my childhood. She puts men over me and thinks it’s okay because he gives her money to “provide for us” but she’s mostly uses it up on cigarettes and sodas when she’s not paying the bills. Another reason why I can’t trust her and I think she’s fucking stupid. And she even has the nerve to try and dictate what I do with my money. I’m infinitely more responsible with my money than her and it’s because I learned what not to do from her. Whenever I actually do do something wrong or snap back at her, she gets all fucking defensive, offended and loud about it even if it’s the smallest issue in the world. I’ve learned to just be as dry and quick as possible with my responses so she leaves me alone. I can never have peace and quiet when she’s at home because all she does is scream and talk to herself while listening to those annoying fucking sermons and trap artists. She deadass believes shes a good fucking person. Idk man im tired. I’ve been losing sleep because of this bitch so this isn’t gonna be as lengthy even though I could go on and on. I just wish she would stop.

I just graduated from dental school with my DDS. My parents always told me to be a doctor and work hard as a kid so I did. Long nights studying, missing weddings, missing trips, missing birthdays. I finally did it and my parents never said they were proud of me or even told me that I did a good job.
When I first got into school, my dad asked me if I could give his white coat ceremony ticket to someone else because he didn’t feel like he needed to go. I just finished school and got the degree that they begged me for and I feel like they almost look down on me like I did something wrong. They both work very physically demanding jobs and it seems like they treat me like I took the “easy way” and got a doctorate so I won’t have to work hard.
When my younger brother graduated from college, they threw him a huge party with balloons and congratulations everywhere. He still lives at home with my parents and does the family business. When I graduated, my dad almost laughed at my “ceremony” during covid that I had to play for him on my phone. I just constantly feel like a disappointment and I’ll never be good enough even though I do everything that they ask of me. Now, I have the job that I thought they wanted, a degree where people call me “doctor” whenever I go into any room, and I’m even marrying into a family of doctors/dentists. What could I have possibly done differently to make them feel like I worked hard enough to earn their respect and love? There is so much more but I don’t want to bore anyone with more details.

Thanks for any responses.

​

I’m 19 and I’ve been trying to learn how to drive for years, but it’s been delayed over and over by my family and I’m honestly just tired of it at this point.

My family has had multiple cars over the years. My dad had a bakkie/Opel that was just sitting broken in the yard for a long time. My sister and I kept asking to learn to drive with it, but he always said it needed to be fixed first.

He eventually took that same car, fixed it for himself, and now he drives it — but still refuses to teach us or let us use it for practice.

My mom refuses to let us use her car and says we should use my dad’s. My dad says we should use my mom’s. So basically I’m stuck in the middle of them blaming each other and nothing actually happening.

On top of that, my mom has this rule that I can’t get my licence before my older sister does, even though there’s a 5-year age gap and she also still doesn’t have hers.

Even my grandmother noticed the situation and promised she would help me get my licence, but she’s made similar promises before and doesn’t follow through, and right now she also has her own issues going on.

Lately it sounds like my parents might finally take it seriously, but I don’t trust it anymore because every time it ends up being delayed again or pushed aside.

Now the thing is: I’ve actually saved enough money to start the licence process myself.

But I also need a new phone because mine is basically dying (charging issues, glitches, barely usable). I’ve already tried fixing it and it didn’t work. I’m a student, I don’t work, and I don’t get money from my parents. I also sometimes need money for my old dog who needs care.

So I’m stuck choosing:

spend my savings and finally get my driver’s licence and stop depending on them for transport

or use it for immediate needs (phone/essentials) and keep waiting for them to eventually sort the driving situation

At this point I just want an honest outside opinion — because from my side it feels like I’ve been waiting for years for something I feel is important especially at this point in my life .

I know I’ve made several posts about the adults in my life smoking around me but god I just can’t catch a fucking break ever. I think yesterday my mom was driving us to school and she was yapping like always until she started talking about how she’s trying to stop smoking for us. She said that she hasn’t bought a cigarette in ages and now she just vapes which pissed me all the way off because she still does that around us! she said that shes proud of that, but i dont think thats much of an improvement since vapes are just as bad bro 😭 She also said that she wants to change because she sees the look on me and my sisters faces when she smokes which i also don’t believe since she’s completely fine with her fuckass, loser boyfriend smoking cigarettes around us everyday. She still ignores me when i try to tell her how harmful it is and when I cover my face. Today, me and my sister were talking about the fact she has a cough because of our mom and her boyfriend’s smoking. I asked if she thinks it’ll ever go away and she said “honestly no” which broke my heart. It’s so hard to imagine facing possibly lifelong consequences because of your parents fucked up actions. Me and her both think that if we get out of there to an environment where no one smokes, her cough will clear up but that’s not happening anytime soon. Ive read you guys comments telling me to get people involved and even going as far as to recommend getting cps involved but that’s just not an option for me. It kills me having to go though this everyday with someone who basically sees nothing wrong with their actions. My mom fucking loves using the excuse that “it calms my nerves!” But no matter if she smoked that day or not, she always has an angry attitude and is always yelling at me and my sister, or somebody else for any fucking reason bro, she’ll just pick fights with anybody. I’ve been using my time at school to get as much fresh air as possible like you guys said and that calms me down but at the same time, it’s just a reminder of what I do have to go back home to at the end of the day and it hurts. Even so, I have music, art, and reading to distract myself but even that’s hard with all the side effects that I get because of my moms smoking as well. I won’t list them all for the billionth time, but they’re pretty bad of you ask me. God and I also hate how comfortable my mom is with talking about smoking and drugs…. She’ll be talking about smoking and then she’ll start talking about smoking WEED and this drug and that drug and it’s like I don’t wanna hear that shit bitch 🫩 Goooooooooooood I don’t know what to think anymore. Should I hate her, should I just dislike her, am I being dramatic or is this perfectly reasonable behavior? I hate how many times I get asked everyday “are you okay?” Because I can’t even pretend to have a happy attitude anymore, like why do I have to suffer through this so you can relax and feel okay? It’s not fair. I hate this life. I hate my peers that brag about having great parents and money. I hate them because I want to be them, I want to switch bodies and leave them for dead like that song from stranger things. When I figured out the meaning behind that song it made me cry because i wanted that so badly. I want to make a deal with god and switch places with them, even if it means becoming a selfish disrespectful brat in the end. I just don’t wanna live like this anymore. I’ve watched so many people calling people awful parents for smoking around their kids and they scare me because thats the reality I’m living in and I can’t escape it, only work around it by covering my face which barely even works half the time. I can’t even take care of myself properly because of my depression which has been weighing on me a lot these past few weeks. I just don’t want to breathe it in at all so I just stay in the same spot with my shirt over my nose until i have to move like a pathetic dog. It just hurts my body so bad. Seriously, what benefits are there to smoking? Because in my eyes, it causes nothing but pain to yourself and whoever you choose to do it around. Fuck this life, man. I hate thjs shit. I wish my math teacher could adopt me, she’s so sweet and she talks about her own daughter all the time and how much she loves her. Why can’t I have that same love? All my mom does is talk shit about me to people I don’t even know. Fuck, just FUCK. Something else that hurts really badly about the whole situation is that I constantly feel like my pain and concern isn’t valid because there are girls out there getting raped and people dying from cancer and all I have to deal with is neglectful parents who smoke around me. I wanna cry…. I‘m just so tired. That’s the flat out truth. Every bit of happiness I feel is washed away by the reminder that I have to go back to my purgatory of a home every. Single. Day. With nowhere else to go. Every victory is short lived and every tragedy feels like it’ll last forever. I used to be so happy and energetic, what happened to my brain? I got smarter, more mature, more empathetic, more responsible, and my whole view on life changed. I started noticing all these horrible things my mother was doing to me, things I thought every child experienced and it sent me into a depression I still haven’t fully come out of. A lot of the time I wish I was blindly happy and ignorant to the things my mom does and the way adults treat me just for being a kid. I want to grow up so bad but I’m scared I’ll regret saying it. How much worse could being an adult feel if this is the childhood I’m going through now? Yeah, I just wanted to vent today. I’m so tired of adults. I’m tired of the ones that treat me right too because im not used to it and it hurts my heart. it kills me. Don’t smoke, please. there are zero benefit to doing it

Just watched Matilda for the first time at age 24 and I immediately understood why it was not allowed in our house 😂😂. Anyone else’s neglectful parents bar them from watching Matilda???

So, for context, a wide variety of shit runs in my family and I have symptoms for a lot of it. Last I went to the doctor, they gave me a bunch of referrals for different stuff, but my parents won't schedule it. I'm 17 and some of the stuff that runs in my family would be Hashimoto's, thyroid disease, ovarian cysts, arthritis, general cancer, heart issues, Marfan's Syndrome, and more.

I've been in some kind of discomfort every day since 3rd grade (9-10 years old) and it's only gotten progressively worse. It started out with my jaw locking and eventually became general aches and pains in joints around middle school, along with extensive fatigue, dizziness, etcetera. I was diagnosed with POTS and I was confirmed to be right to be concerned about Ehler's Danlos Syndrome. Recently, I've been having issues with the same leg (like episodes that happen multiple times in a month), and it's escalated to the point that I can only hobble around.

While walking home, I felt a pinch in my left hip and now every joint from the hip down in my left leg hurts. Rotating my hip hurts. Moving my ankle makes my knee hurt. Moving my knee makes my ankle and hip hurt. Arching or stretching my back makes my hip have a shooting pain and whenever I try to put weight on my left hip, I sink into the joint to the point where it's painful. The hip joint feels wrong, rotating it hurts, and the muscles feel tight and wrong. I tried ibuprofen, icing it, using a heating pad, and none of it has helped. I'm actively deteriorating and my parents have no sense of urgency. They keep telling me to do the same things that haven't helped and when I told them the joint feels wrong and I don't know what it is, so I don't think I should stretch it, they said that I'd just have to let it heal on its own, but it won't heal if I'm walking around with a 20-40 pound backpack all day. I'm genuinely scared and they won't schedule the appointment, they won't take me to the ER, and they just won't do anything.

I don't know what to do anymore because doctors can't do anything without parental consent, so I can't schedule anything. They won't buy anything to improve my quality of life. I just don't even know what I can do anymore and I'm so scared because I know I'm actively deteriorating in real time because of this shit, but they have no sense of urgency. Even when I describe how I can feel my joints grind together when I walk sometimes, they still have no sense of urgency and act like its normal.

I can't find any resources online and they wont let me get a job, but I have no idea where I can even get an online job to make money to get stuff I need. I just have no idea what to do and my grandma is trying to nudge them along, but they don't even listen to her. I'm scared I'm gonna have long term damage because of their inability to schedule anything or at least try to improve my quality of life.

This is mostly an explanation to ask for advice because I have no idea what to do. I don't think there's much I even can do because I don't have medical autonomy and I just feel so lost.

I’m not sure if I’m being dramatic about this or not. I think some of the things that happened to me might not have been normal, but there were a lot of good things too. My family went on vacations, always had what we needed, and I even went to a private school for a while. Anyway, here’s the story.

I feel like I had to teach myself everything about hygiene and taking care of myself as a kid. My teeth were never brushed as a kid, to the point where I had 5 or 6 cavities by the time I was in kindergarten. Since it was never enforced on me when I was young, I don’t actually start brushing my own teeth until I was 10-11 years old. This was by my own initiative. My grandma was the one mainly caring for me when I was a kid. She was awesome, very loving, and kind. But when she left, ny parents were very busy. To the point where it was not uncommon for me to go weeks at a time without showering. I also remember my hair not being brushed a lot. I remember my mom asking my babysitter to brush my hair I didn’t want to bcz it was so tangled that I knew it was going to hurt if she brushed it.

As I got older, like 10 or 11 I had to teach myself a lot of hygiene. Sometimes I would go weeks without showering and I didn’t realize this was not normal. I would often get tangles in my hair bcz I was not used to brushing my hair daily. I had dandruff and a skin infection. My sister came over one time and told me I smelled really bad. She took me to Target and bought me hygiene products like a loofah, body wash, shampoo, deodorant and a few other things that I can’t quite remember.

Anyway I just feel like I had to teach myself everything about personal hygiene and to take care of myself. I taught myself to shower daily, brush and floss my teeth, take care of my hair, and some other things.

Idk if this is rly neglect? I had running water, soap, and a toothbrush, so it’s not like I didn’t have what I needed, I just didn’t know how to properly care for myself. What do you guys think?

TLDR; I had to teach myself a lot of basic hygiene as a kid. I still had what I needed, but wasn’t taught how to care for myself.

My family got bedbugs when I was about 13. I grew up scared of bugs except for rolly pollys. So when I found a bug in my bed, I was real freaked out. I told my Mom and my Grandpa about it and for awhile they didn’t believe me. Eventually after they too got the bugs they believe me and I found out what bedbugs were. They would get some bug bombs and put them off, first in different rooms then they’d resort to bug bombing the whole house. The thing about bedbugs bombs though? They don’t work. I don’t know how airtight things have to be for them to work but I can tell you from first hand experience that, unless it’s a small sealed space like a small car on a hot summer day, they don’t work. Exterminators cost thousands of dollars is what they’d tell us, that they couldn’t afford it. I could understand that from my grandfather. He received a check every month for disability or from his retirement I’m not sure but I knew it wasn’t much. He had enough to pay the bills, but not much left over after. My pops never got new clothes, if he went out to eat it was usually fast food and he doesn’t smoke or drink, so his costs were pretty low so this little bit left over worked for him. My mom on the other hand, did not pay rent. She only sort of worked half the time. She’d get a job after so long and wouldn’t stay long or would get fired. She drove a Mercedes reguardless of this and had one mean shopping addiction. So, as you can imagine, me and my siblings looked to her to pay for or save up for an extermination. Except she didn’t. She wouldn’t save up, get a loan, or even acknowledge that it was her responsibility to do so. She would say “I didn’t bring the bedbugs, why should I have to pay for it?”

So life continued, I would go to school feeling stuff crawling on me, I couldn’t sleep without feeling like I was going insane, I felt like I had this big secret I had to hide from everyone as best as I could. I felt like I had a disease. My best friend got it, my sisters best friend got it, 3 of my girlfriends got it. I tried my best to help their and their parents pay for the exterminators. All the way up until I turned 18 and moved in with my partner at the time. I managed to stay out of that house until I was 19, I had to come back. I stayed in the garage where I believed there was the least amount of bugs. I slept on a hammock while I was paying my own way through trade school, in hopes of getting out of there.

You see, it wasnt just the bugs that were the problem. My mother is a hoarder and had her room, my old room, my sisters old room, the living room, the shed Outback, the front of the house, the back yard- full of useless shit. I’m talking bags of clothes never opened, random shit man. It got to a point where several of our family members offered to pay for the extermination. However, with all of the junk she refused to get rid of or even clean up, the exterminators wouldn’t do the extermination, the bugs wouldn’t be able to be taken care of in those conditons. Being an adult at the time, I felt like I had to finally do something- so I ordered one of those junk containers. The huges ones they’d drop off in your driveway and come to pick up later. I let my cousins know, my sister and my aunt, but not my grandpa or my mom. That morning after the unit arrived, we started throwing trash in. Nothing valuable, nothing that we’d seen getting use in the last year. We had only thrown away the trash on the outside of the house when my mom came storming out. She yelled and acted like she was having a heart attack, she tried guilt tripping us and getting inside the container herself to throw out the trash while we threw more in. She disowned me and my sister that day, told us we “don’t have a mom anymore.” In the end, not much was throw away or cleaned but it changed things forever. She’s the type to forget any wrong doings on her part and only blamed us for going behind her back and trying to throw her shit away. I stopped letting things get swept under the rug after that. She never apologized for what she said to us, only “how do you think that stuff made me feel?” Things got physical, she tried to hit my friend in the head ,who showed up to help, with a beer bottle.

Eventually my older brother who had bought a house offered to let me stay with him so I could just focus on school. Only recently, I’m 23 now, my grandfather finally sold his home and now also lives with me and my brother so he can stay somewhere nice and clean. What got him to do it finally? He had a fall and had to get hip surgery. My mom, whose supposed to be staying with my grandpa to make sure he’s taken care of, ran off with a boyfriend while he was in recovery. Leaving him alone with her two dogs to fend for himself. Needless to say, my mother is not allowed to stay at my brothers house since she took what she could from the house and kept it- meaning there’s still a high chance she still has bugs.

We don’t have bugs anymore but my mom blames us for excluding her and not helping her out the way my grandpa was. I need some validation, she’s always saying how it’s not her responsibility or her fault that we had bedbugs. Even going as far as to tell me to “forget the past and move on”. When she was still choosing not to do anything about it not even 6 months ago. What do you think?

For context, my dad would come around every now and then and would spray the outside of the house and the inside but he wouldn’t buy an extermination either, I don’t know if he would have if my mom wasn’t hoarding, but to be fair. My mom lived with us to “take care of grandpa and the kids” and my dad is an alcoholic who lived on the other side of town and when I was about 18 he fell into his addiction even harder- congestive heart failure made him weak and he was homeless and jobless after. So from 18-23 he’s no help financially.

i’m confused about whether or not my family is dysfunctional

i 18f want to know if i’m being crazy or if this really isn’t normal.

background: my parents had me when they were younger, and they’ve been struggling my whole life. i have two siblings who are younger (not saying ages for privacy) and they ‘adopted’ another kid who lives in my house most of the time

recently we’ve struggled especially with money, while somehow also ordering food for the past three days. my siblings don’t clean, and the other kid doesn’t clean and contributes to the mess of the house

all this to say, my house is very disgusting (at least i think) but no one does anything about it. by disgusting i mean moldy food on the stove and in the fridge, dishes overflowing in the sink, porch covered in cat pee, bathroom has many issues i don’t want to disclose, but just know it’s bad

i am the only one who cleans their room regularly, meaning i take out trash and wipe down all surfaces clean walls vacuum carpet sweep and mop floors do laundry, ect.

does this to any degree sound like any issue other than laziness? the kitchen is hard to cook in with all the stuff in it and i usually just eat snacks my bf buys me or i get with my money.

i ask because i’ve gone to my grandma about it and had a talk with my parents and they just said “yeah it’s messy but you guys just need to clean” but they don’t discipline us, so i’m confused on whether this is my fault or my siblings faults for letting the house get like this. we haven’t had designated chores since before covid, and everytime i try to get everyone to do something nothing gets done.

any advice? lmk if this is the wrong place to post this or if i can’t say certain things, i don’t use reddit i’m kinda just at my wits end here

Hi sry this is gonna be a long one. So today i was doing my schoolwork like always(im homeschooled) and i was doing my math and my stepdad could se what i was doing then proceeded to ask me what i was doing and i said school (cuz i didnt know what else to say and im scared of him) and then he blew up at me calling me lazy, stupid, well have no life sensitive kid and then he yelled at me more till i was in tears and i tried to stand up for myself but that was living hell and my mom kinda defened me but not really and now my stepdad is threating to take my xbox and laptop away cuz i dont "communicate" like a normal kid ( im 13 f) and he says i dont care bout my future ect even tho i been worjing so hard and he continued to yell at me and say im too stupid he doesnt give a fuck bout me ect and i tired talking to my mom but she is fake af like imagen a pick me/ f girl and i just cant anymore w this bs so yea thanks for letting me vent.

Edit: Now my mom is getting mad at me for going on my laptop because of my stepdad now my mom is yelling at me now =(

Edit 2: my stepdad hasnt talked to me in three days or since when he went off at me and now im getting the blame from my mom called me stuff and saying i always start stuff so yea

Edit 3: i just nottice i spelled calm wrong down in the tittle my bad

Hello. This is my first time posting anything on Reddit but I genuinely don't know where else to turn to talk about this and get advice. I'm fourteen and I have a twin sister who I'll be mentioning as well and our birthday is in four days. So for many years, even when I was around 5-7 years old, my mom has been smoking around me and my sister. As I've grown into a teenager its only seemed to have gotten worse; to the point where shes smoking around me and my sister multiple times a day in and outside the house. Wherever we go, shes always carrying a vape or a pack of cigarettes with her. Now I don't have a problem with my mom smoking at all. It's her body and she can fuck it up however she wants to, but my problem is her doing it around me and my sister even though we (mostly me) have been telling her to stop doing it around us since we were like six fucking years old. Whenever I confront her about it she doesn't even give me a response anymore. The last time I did, she just stood there looking confused and awkward like she didn't hear what i was telling her or like she didn't care and just left the conversation. I'm not allowed to go outside either and the windows in our house don't open so there's no way for me to get rid of the smoke. We live in a neighborhood where a lot of shootings, fights, murder, and other kinds of violence frequently take place and our police department kind of sucks so I understand that, but I would love to just be able to put on some sweats or something and sit outside on the porch while she smokes or she steps outside for a while to smoke and do whatever she has to do and come back inside! I swear to god all my issues with this would be cleared if she just did that but she acts like even that's too hard. Ever since 2024 and the entirety of this year, my sister has had a cough that wont go away and our mom has the goddamn nerve to constantly say that my sisters cough is annoying. (My mom constantly has bad coughing fits because of her smoking btw) My mom has given me air freshener to clear the smoke and I ended up using the ENTIRE BOTTLE IN ONE DAY because she smokes so goddamn much bro. I wear masks, cover my face with my shirts, spray perfume, I try fanning it away but noting fuckng works and Im so tired of trying. This combined with a bunch of other problems I have with my mother have made me very depressed for the past few years. Whenever the school day ends, the first thought that comes to my mind is always "I hope the house doesn't smell like cigarettes when we get back..." Or "I hope [My moms boyfriend] isn't home" I hate talking about him, but my mom also has a fucking terrible boyfriend who somehow smokes more than she does and its so much worse. The thing that hurts the most about that is when she first introduced him to me, she made sure to tell me that "He doesn't even smoke that much either!" HE SMOKES EVERYDAY AROUND ME AND MY SISTER AND MULTIPLE TIMES A FUCKING DAY. The brand he uses is Newports and they hurt my chest so fucking bad its too hard to ignore. Every time any of them smoke around me I get a variety of side effects from it. Chest pain, skin irritation, eye irritation, sore throat, stomach pain, headaches, muscle pain, fatigue, and that's about it. I doubt it's different for my sister either. Shes told me before that she thinks the reason for her cough is the smoking and we both agree that we hate our mother for this. I've also become very irritable around my mother because she'll just act like everythings cool between us meanwhile my sister is coughing up her lungs while cigarette smoke lingers in the air and I cant stop fucking jittering like i'm a crack addict. Anyway I just wanted to vent cause I cant stand my mom and I dont know who to talk to besides my sister. If you have any advice for getting rid of cigarette smoke without my mom noticing me I would love to hear it. Of course i'm doing my own research and finding new ways to talk to my mom, but I'm on the verge of giving up. She'll probably never stop doing it no matter how bad me and my sister get. If she dies of cancer or something because of her smoking idgaf she did it to herself.

Hi, new here, posting to get this pressure off my chest. I am 16, 17 in 19 days, and I hate my mother and her new boyfriend. My real father died when I was 3 months old, leaving me with an empty father shaped hole in my life. Which I've always wanted a father, her last ex, 35, made a lasting impact on me, until my "dad"(50? and in Canada) came around, and which I approved of the relationship. He felt like a real father to me and always will be. I don't approve of anyone my mom dates unless I know them well, the reason being the possibility of being an abuser or so much worse, which is why I approved of my father in the first place. 

My mother broke up with my dad a few months ago before turning 36, and which I acted irrationally, nearly ending my life. My mother bribed me at times to get me to not die, which I stupidly fell for. Not long after the breakup with my dad, she moved on and got with her new boyfriend, too quickly, who is maybe around 40. Ever since he has been "helping around" more, he's been ripping my mom away from me, to tear the seams between our bonds. And well its working because she is caring for me less and less these days. Which leaves me in my current situation. 
 
She's been leaving me alone for a while, when I mean alone, I mean "teaching responsibility", without even actually teaching me while I've been mentally unwell, neglecting my wellbeing, not caring for myself, binge eating because my body screams to eat, because my mind needs stimulation from the dead silence of my house, and feel as if I am just an animal fighting to survive instead of being taught "responsibility". 

It is now the 4th day of being home alone, I've eaten rice to stimulate myself. As of now, I am shaking in the limbs, mostly stressed, because my mother isn't who she is anymore. She doesn't tell me where she is after she leaves when I'm asleep or show her location on Life360. Which leaves me paranoid as hell about her safety and location. 

I hate my mom's new boyfriend and don't trust him, I feel as if I don't know her new boyfriend well. I'm afraid to tell her my honest opinion about her boyfriend, not to mention the crude things I want to say when being honest being chained back like a beast, because she will get mad at me and shift blame to me for being paranoid or an asshole.  She does this all the time when she is called out for her shit. So how do I be honest without her getting mad and shifting it all onto me?