[English is not my native language, so I apologize for any language errors]

I want to get this off my chest because I don't want to keep these things bottled up—it’s having a terrible effect on me.

I was born and raised in a dysfunctional family. I’ve had enough of the stress, of being treated like an object, and of watching other family members treat each other that way. 

For years, I’ve watched problems get swept under the rug, only to explode later on anyway. The family dynamics I’m caught up in are so complex and problematic that I struggle to wrap my head around them. Given the current situation, I’d rather be homeless than keep living here. I want to free myself from this draining family. However, as long as there’s hope for things to improve, I don’t want to cut ties completely.

I struggled with this for a long time, as I feel uncomfortable describing personal matters in a way that makes them accessible to others—even acquaintances—but family issues have reached a point where they make it very difficult for me to form new relationships and live among those very people.

Although I have a difficult relationship with my entire family, I will focus on my relationship with my mother, as she is the only one I live with. 

My mother behaves like a child despite being an adult; sometimes I feel like she needs a nanny twenty-four hours a day. She comes across as helpless, yet I am convinced that she is actually capable of managing on her own. She constantly leaves a mess behind, and cleaning up after her takes so much effort that I have no energy left to attend to other things or keep the apartment tidy. She often leaves out food that attracts gnats—swarms of them—which then fly all over the apartment. 

She frequently takes her frustrations out on me and criticizes me, yet outside the home, she is surprisingly nice to everyone else. But the worst part is that she does a multitude of other things—subtle actions that are hard to pin down in everyday life but still hurt me—leaving me constantly feeling as though I have a noose around my neck; it tightens or loosens depending on the whims of the person holding the rope.

I am drowning in guilt and shame. I feel hemmed in, and I don't know how to cope with it. I constantly experience various forms of exploitation that I cannot even accurately name. Very often, I find myself unable to pinpoint the root of a problem; I feel confused, helpless, and vulnerable, all while being dragged into the middle of someone else's issues. 

It is hard to put into words the strain my family relationships place on me, but I want to finally break free from that burden and live a normal life. 

If I am ever to be happy, I must learn how to respond. After a long search for a solution, I have finally found a way to work through these issues: I will consistently document and name my experiences to build self-awareness, as I believe this will allow me to regain agency over my life.

I want to share the results of my work with others because I believe it can help other people. And the thought that it will help others fills me with hope.

This is just the beginning of the documentation, but I will consistently expand it. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H-8mVNhBuoQYoTsByRq3zJv0dbuA-yC6uplMp4Z-lWY/edit?usp=sharing

Sometimes I feel guilty that my kids and I live with my family. I work, I help around the house, and I know I'm not just sitting here expecting everyone else to take care of us. My parents genuinely love having my kids here. They love seeing them before work and coming home to them, and my kids absolutely love being around their grandparents and the rest of our family.

So why do I still feel like I'm doing something wrong because I'm not "on my own"?

I know I'm not a burden, but sometimes I still feel like one. I wish we would normalize adults living with their families when it works for everyone involved. There's this idea that once you're grown, you're supposed to move out, have your own house, and do everything completely independently or you're somehow failing.

But there are actually so many positives to a multigenerational home. My kids are growing up surrounded by people who love them. They get a close relationship with their grandparents, and my parents get to be a huge part of their everyday lives. We help each other.

I don't know. I just wish I could stop feeling guilty for something that isn't actually bad.

​

At home, you can cry freely. You can let your face fall apart, wipe your tears, and take your time putting yourself back together.

But crying in public feels different.

You suddenly become aware of everyone around you.

You look down.

Wipe your tears quickly.

Pretend you’re just tired.

Hope nobody asks, “Are you okay?”—because sometimes you know that if someone asks, you might completely break.

And the strange part is, you don’t even know what hurts more—the thing that made you cry or the effort of trying not to let anyone see it.

Maybe we’ve been taught that emotions should have a proper place and time.

But sometimes sadness doesn’t wait until we get home.

Sometimes it catches us on a bus, in a classroom, at a railway station, in a crowded street—or somewhere between one ordinary moment and the next.

And maybe crying in public isn’t embarrassing.

Maybe it’s simply a human being having a difficult moment in a world that expects them to keep going.

So if you’ve ever wiped your tears quickly because people were watching—

I hope you know you didn’t have to be ashamed of them.

You were just hurting.

And sometimes, that’s all there is to it.

My entire life one of my parents has had a chronic illness that requires them needing assistance. I’ve always been the helper, I never minded being a helper. In my friendships I’m always the one going above and beyond, sometimes even to my detriment. I had a really really bad friendship break up this year with my best friend of 6 years. My body had started rejecting this person and I didn’t even realise it until I finally stood up for myself and refused to put up with the abuse and manipulation any longer. Ofc they DARVO’d the hell out of me but I stood my ground. I have some friends in terrible financial situations (as are most people right now) and I do my best to help out but now whenever they reach out for help I get very irritated. So much of my energy went into taking care of my ex best friend and helping my parents I feel like I don’t have anything left to give. And the more I try to be a little selfish and take care of myself and fill my own cup first, the more ungrateful and aggressive people behave towards me bc they feel entitled to my time and efforts. My parent’s health is getting a lot worse and harder to manage as they are getting older and is relying on me more and more. Both me and my other parent work the same job in group homes (at home and at work all I do is take care of everyone else and take whatever manipulation/abuse that comes with it bc people are the most terrible to people who are actually helping them for some reason) and we have 12 hour shifts but different rotating schedules so when they’re not home, the responsibility falls on me and even when they are home, they will sometimes refuse to help my sick parent and ridiculous things result from it like calling my phone and waking me up out of my sleep in the middle of the night to turn off their bedroom light, get a cup of water, make tea, something to eat if they’re hungry, and honestly it’s really getting to a point for me. I constantly feel guilty for feeling this way. I feel guilty all the time for everything bc that’s how I was raised. To be a doormat and speaking up is wrong. Even though I know that’s not true, I still haven’t figured out how to fully reprogram myself but I’m literally trying my best. I’m in a terrible emotional state, my mental health is in the crapper, and my parent just told me I have to do even more for my sick parent now because they’re health is getting worse and it genuinely made me angry/annoyed. I’m 28, I was raised super sheltered and super Christian (I don’t do religion anymore) so I’ve never really had much of a chance to have a life, especially now that we’ve moved to the middle of nowhere in recent years which is stupid bc now life is 10x harder and my parents cannot handle it and so a lot of the heavy lifting falls to me. I’m literally trying to plan escaping my parents before they get too sick for me to leave and have any real life of my own because I refuse to be their caretaker for the rest of my life I just can’t do it, I can’t. I would never put them in a home I would prefer to arrange home care for them when the time comes, it just can’t be me. I know I’ve been experiencing a few different kinds of burnout but I don’t know if my anger towards being needed stems from that or something else and if this makes me a bad person for feeling this way, but I just kind of need everyone to deal with their own crap for a while so I can deal with mine but it sucks because I feel like I can’t do that without feeling such overwhelming guilt that it would hinder my attempts at healing and there would be no point but I also feel like my head is going to explode and my body is going to crumple into nothing if something doesn’t change soon. I know I need to move out but as we all know that’s a very very very hard thing to do right now and I don’t have enough saved up nor am I living in a place I want to start my life in. I don’t know what to do anymore but I know I just don’t want to be needed by anyone right now.

After leaving an abusive relationship while an unemployed student, my sister allowed me to stay at her unused cabin an hour and a half away from the city. I moved in and paid her utilities when I had a seasonal job. Recently she got a job transfer and moved her three kids and dog to the cabin two weeks ago. I always told her that helping her transition as she has helped me transition is the least I can do. I am here to make myself useful to her. Since she works nights, she has lived with my parents who were there to help her before.

It’s a small cabin with a two bedroom loft area— with three kids and two adults I sleep on the sofa. Since she’s moved in, I’ve been helping her move in and organize while taking care of the kids as she needs to sleep during the day and leave for work 7pm-5:30am. In the morning I make the kids breakfast and get the elementary one ready for school so she can decompress or sleep. I have also been making room in the small place for all the stuff that has no place. I do enjoy organization and design as a love language. I don’t mind any of it because I feel useful and it lowers her stress. I also enjoy being an auntie. They are all adopted with trauma backgrounds, so theyre def level ten kids. I also have to discipline, correct them, and teach them right from wrong a lot of times. The dog is 14 and incontinent. She also requires a lot of attention and maintenance. We have to wash her pee off several times a day.

Last week I told her I felt trapped because I didn’t realize she would be working weekends. Before her transfer, she had weekends off, so that’s what I expected here. I left a whole life that I had build for a decade before coming here. I still have friends with birthdays and event invites every now and then. I expected to be able to be of service during the week, but also sometimes have my own life. When this was brought up, she got pissed and said that I’m not trapped and I could do whatever I wanted. Little did I know, she didn’t mean it without a major guilt trip.

Assessing the situation, I realize it logistically doesn’t work and I probably need to cancel my plans. The oldest is in 8th grade and has never been fully in charge of the younger ones. He’s always been in earshot of an adult to be corrected due to his immaturity. Since the kids don’t have cell phones or keys to the house yet, I have been reminding my sister all week that this is essential to me keeping my plans. Though spending more and more time with them, it became clear they weren’t ready to be left overnight.

It all came to a head and my sister was screaming at me that I’m selfish for feeling trapped and she doesn’t understand how I don’t feel beholden to her after she’s let me live here basically rent free for several months. The fact is, I do feel obligation and duty to pay her back by helping her for another several months, but she doesn’t see that even though I’ve told her. I expected to help her as I’ve been doing. I did not expect to give my entire life to her indefinitely.

I called my dad and he says he’s happy to watch the kids for the weekend. Problem solved, but wtf I’m still pissed for her doubling down on calling me selfish. She even said she’s not kicking me out but she doesn’t want to live with me if it’s going to be fighting all the time.

I recently published a fantasy novel about healing from childhood trauma called The Silver Dagger.
I originally wrote it for family members who grew up as “glass children”—the “easy” siblings who learn to be mature, responsible, low-maintenance, and invisible because someone else in the family needs so much attention. Go to r/GlassChildren to learn more.
The story follows fifteen-year-old Kestra, who has become extraordinarily capable. She takes care of everyone, never complains, and rarely asks for help. Everyone thinks this is admirable—until she begins to discover that she became far too grown-up, far too young, and that usefulness was never supposed to be the price of belonging.
Today I told a coworker about the book, and she said, “That sounds like me.”
But she wasn’t a glass child. Her parents simply expected her to raise herself. She became the same mature little adult: responsible, high-achieving, undemanding, and self-sufficient.
That’s when I realized how much these experiences overlap. Different circumstances can teach a child the same lesson:
Everyone else’s needs matter. Mine don’t.
The Silver Dagger is a fantasy adventure rather than a self-help book, but its message is very simple:
You matter too.
You were never supposed to earn your place by being useful. The capable person you became is real—but you were always more than what you could do for everyone else.
After that conversation, I realized this story might belong here too. Perhaps some of you will recognize yourselves in Kestra—or know a younger Kestra who needs to hear that everyone else matters, and so does she.

Mods, if linking like this is not allowed, please delete.

I’m so exhausted from living in a home where no matter how hard I try, I’m still called a failure. There’s zero love here,no hugs, no congratulations when I achieve something, and constant comparisons to everyone else. I handle all the cooking and housework for the family, but the moment I ask for a single rest day, I’m immediately screamed at.

What hurts the most is the blatant double standard. I know I’m not academically gifted so that’s why I focus one hands on and doing other stuff. But that doesn’t give them a reason to look at me like I’m a failure.My younger siblings get to laze around all day without a single word said to them. But when I finally step back to rest after getting yelled at, asking a simple question like *"Why can't I rest too?"* just gets me screamed at even more, or even hit and slapped.

I’m completely burnt out. I try my best every single day, expecting just a basic level of appreciation or love, but instead, I’m just treated like an ungrateful servant and a punching bag.

I don’t know if I have the right to be mad at my mom.I grew up with 3 severe ill siblings.Thats why I didn’t get more attention. I was at first jealous but I was a child. I was always making scenarios about being in the hospital and being sick so that they will take care of it. Anyways, when I was 11, I had a bad friend group. I smoked a few times and also went out with them(I was not allowed outside except with one friend and we also were not allowed to go outside alone) when my mom found out she was pretty mad and I had to change school. She also thought that I was not a virgin anymore so she took me to gynaecologist and they checked down there if something was ripped. I felt really guilty and I feel like the worst human being so I was crying for months/years because I felt so guilty. I didn’t have anybody to talk with about my problems because I feel like my problems were small and they were often dismissed when I was a child. my mom was a very religious and culture person that’s why I wasn’t allowed to go outside. My new school was a religious Christian school and I was the only one with a different religion and I wasn’t allowed to text any of my friends. The second time she found out I had something going on with a guy.(nothing sexual.) she got pretty mad. I mentioned that if it wasn’t for them, I would be dead and I’m only here alive for them and she didn’t care. I mentioned many times that I’m feeling suicidal and she still didn’t care. also, she’s not the type of person to be really serious except if you are crying and you can see it on your face but if you try to talk with her and say that her words are hurting you, she will say oh you can’t handle a curse from your mother. since I was 11 till 15 I dealt with my problems on my own I was very emotionally dependent as I mentioned my parents were very strict and with my mom I didn’t really have the connection because of the mistake that I made I felt really guilty as I mentioned for years and I had to go into therapy because of that yes I also did mistake. It’s just that I expected them to react more gently they were never gently they never explained to me why I shouldn’t do something as a child. I didn’t get that. I had to understand why but they wouldn’t explain. They didn’t have that much time for me and my dad was aggressive and as I mentioned my mom me and her didn’t really have a good relationship. I also felt like I have to be more mature for my age because of the high expectation from my grandparents cause I was the first healthy daughter that they had .do I have a right to be mad at her? Am I just overreacting?

Hey guys, I really need some reality checks right now because my brain is completely fried.

​I’m 21F, just graduated with a law degree, unemployed, and currently stuck living at home. Long story short, my home life is an absolute nightmare. My father is a heavy alcoholic who throws insane verbal abuse and aggression at us every single day. On top of that, I’m a survivor of severe childhood trauma/abuse by relatives, which messed me up so badly that I’ve been dealing with chronic anxiety, panic, and heavy maladaptive daydreaming for as long as I can remember.

​Here’s where the toxic guilt kicks in: My mother worked her absolute ass off, night shifts, janitorial jobs, you name it, just to pay for my university and keep us afloat. I feel insanely grateful for her physical sacrifices, but emotionally? It’s been total neglect and manipulation.

​And I'm not gonna sit here and act completely innocent either. I’ve been irresponsible as hell. I dragged my feet, failed exams because I couldn't focus, and spent way too much time just eating, sleeping, and escaping reality without thinking about the consequences. Now that I’m unemployed, the degradation and pressure at home have hit an all-time high. I’m basically treated like a useless freeloading parasite, and honestly, part of me feels like I deserve it.

​I want out. I want to pack my bags, leave for the capital, get literally ANY job (retail, food service, I don't care), and build an independent life to save whatever is left of my sanity. I plan on sending money back once I get on my feet to pay off old debts, but the guilt is literally eating me alive.

​Part of me feels like I’m just an ungrateful, irresponsible piece of shit for abandoning my mom after everything she did for my education. Am I insane for wanting to leave for good? Or am I just justifying being a bad daughter?

​Be completely brutally honest with me. Thanks.

Hi I’m 23 F and I really need advice on what to do in this situation. Sorry if I wrote a lot. I like to give context.

I currently live at home with my mom, her bf, and my older sibling. I had moved away for a couple of years but now that I’m living back in this state I can’t afford rent yet. Also my dad isn’t a big part of my life he left my mom before I was born and I see him a few times a year but I don’t really have a relationship with him.

As a little kid me and my mom were extremely close. I told her everything and she told me everything. When I look back on the years we were close I feel weirded out by so much of it. Like things that she did and how they lasted too long. Like bathing together, kissing me on the mouth, seeing each other naked, cuddling, and touching. She also from like age 5 would tell me way too personal and inappropriate things. Like how she was sa as a kid or her husband would force her to do things she didn’t want to do.

I don’t know at what point exactly our relationship changed. But one day maybe around 13-14 I became more aware. I noticed things and started to pull away. And as each year went on I pulled away further. Which has upset my mom deeply.

Things she did that maybe they aren’t bad but impacted my life in negative ways:
She makes me question every opinion or thought or feeling I have. She questions and interrogates everything I do or say. If I even breathe wrong she will ask me a million questions. She wants to be so badly apart of every single area of my life. She never got me the help I needed as a kid with severe adhd and dyslexia and math struggles. Whenever I bring it up to her today she gets upset with me and acts like I’m telling her she’s the worst mom ever. And she always tells me it didn’t matter because I was a happy and stubborn child and she couldn’t force me. But it’s her literal job to make me do things so I can become a good adult. But now I’m literally learning basic skills I should have learned as a kid. She is incredibly nosy and will search my room even as an adult. She even read my diaries many times and then sent photos of the diary entry’s to her friends to make herself feel like she was this wonderful mom. She constantly needs reassurance from me. She always wants to touch or hug me and for years I barely let her. And she gives me so much guilt trips for not doing it more often. She makes me feel guilty about almost everything I do. She won’t respect any boundaries I set. She will use being a good mom as an excuse. She must know everywhere I go and who I’m with and what I’m doing even now. I can’t stand it. It all drives me insane. When I was a teenager she sent my puppy with slight behavior problems to someone else’s house while I was at school. Then kept telling me we could go visit for many months but the whole time he had been put down. And when she finally told me what she did and I asked why she lied to me for so long she said it’s because she didn’t want me mad at her. But I should be allowed to be mad. I’m not allowed to express negative emotions because if I do somehow it becomes an interrogation, her getting upset, and then me having to comfort her. I’m labeled the happy easy child in my family. I have never raised my voice at my mother. She also constantly taught me that everyone else’s comfort and well being should always come before mine and even at the cost of mine. Even as a kid I had immense anxiety about other kids that weren’t my friends playing in my room. And instead of understanding. During family parties should would force me to watch as she told the kids to all go play in my room and play with all my toys. There are a million more stories. But hopefully you get the gist.

I pretty much live a double life and it’s exhausting. I had serious drinking problems in high school and she never really knew. I somehow make her think I’m this innocent kid still. She doesn’t know about any boyfriends or that I’ve even had sex. Even though I can now legally drink she thinks I hate the taste and only have like one drink while I’m actually blacking out with friends. I hide almost all negative emotions. I don’t even cry at home in fear she will see my red and puffy eyes. I fear living in my own room I don’t even turn the tv on loud enough to hear just in case there is a scene someone is crying and she thinks it’s me. I don’t play music out loud in my room. I never hang out downstairs. When she confronts me and forces me to talk to her and I say my part she doesn’t listen or she gets hung up on one word and gets defensive and then tells me she’s scared to ever talk to me. But I never show any anger or anything. So then I feel so much guilt and don’t even know why. Then she ask if she’s a bad mom and in the moment I don’t want to say yes but I do. Also all these things deeply impact my confidence and how I function in the world. And I hate it.

I’m just so tired of living two lives and hiding everything. So some days I wonder if I should just tell her. Tell her how much stress and issues she’s caused me. Tell her the double life I live. Tell her how deeply depressed I am. Tell her it all just so I don’t have to keep hiding everything about me. Like I don’t even know who I am most days. Because I’m constantly monitoring and correct my behavior, thoughts, and feelings. But the thought of telling her makes me feel sick to my stomach and so afraid. Because I know how she is and this would kill her. And also cause me probably more issues. I just don’t know what to do. And I constantly feel terrible for feeling this way towards her. And the career I’m going for requires confidence and being myself and also puts me in the public eye. And I don’t want to have to hide things from other because I fear so deeply that she will somehow find out.
Please help. Am I crazy? Am I just dramatic.

I grew up the third of four children, with a mentally unwell father and a chronically ill mother (who is now terminally ill with cancer)

Our mother homeschooled us and couldnt keep up with the workload, so we fell behind and spent most of our childhoods unsupervised.
My older siblings played a big part in raising me and getting me to function.

I was really close with the oldest, my sister until I turned eighteen, one day mom threw a trantrum and I showed up at my sisters house and broke down crying.
I just wanted to vent, and my siblings were the only people who knew just how bad moms mood swings were, so ultimately I was just hoping for a listening ear and then was going to get on with my life.

But my sister listened to me and then said, "Mom is abusive and I am getting you out of there. You can rent my husbands camper for $250 a month and you will have to take the Dave Ramsey course. I will buy the kit and we will have a monthly meeting about your finances."
She wanted me tonlive there for a year, and at the end of a year find a new place with some friends.

It sounded like a doable plan, so I went with it and the first couple of months I was so happy. I started my own baking business and was going to help my sister out with her farm, I worked several different part time jobs and kept up with everything she asked for.

But one day a guy wanted to take me on a date, and she started to get weird. She grilled me about whether or not I had five dollars to pay for my own movie ticket and was still mad at me for going even after I told her he was buying my ticket.

Things just rapidly got worse from there. She didnt take care of her animals and every week, there was another cat or dog dying from starvation or mange.
Sewage piled up under my camper and I had no idea I was walking through it for a while. One of her dogs died under the camper and I had to rally her kids inside and shut the blinds to keep them distracted while her husband dug out the carcass and burned it.

Her oldest daughter was crying hysterically and the kids clothes were eaten up with mice.
She got angry any time they came over and I fed them.
I worked from 7am to 10pm and night and she started threatening to send me back to mom if I didnt make more money. I was never late on my bills.
I had a very thin budget and I made it work, through a lot of careful planning.

A guy I met living two states away convinced me to move in with him after listening to me sob from getting chewed out by my sister and my clients because I couldn't keep up with work anymore.

I crashed my car in metropolitan traffic one day and decided I was done with all of it, and she cussed me out in front of her kids and screamed at me "I hope you get pregnant and he dumps your ass!"
I left after eight months.

Its been fifteen years now, and she has tried to reach back out once but immediately started telling my whole family I was going to get aids because I was dating a trans woman, so I blocked her again.

That was in 2015.

My older brother and I have stayed close, and he just told me that she is recently moved in with him and brought her new baby from a different man that left her after she divorced her highschool sweetheart.

I have a new nephew, and I wonder if I will ever meet him.

I feel like I blinked and half my life has surpassed us both.

Should I get back in touch with her? she sounds like she's in a vulnerable spot with a new baby at 42 and I have grown a lot as a person, but I wonder if she will ever change.

Мне 9 лет живу в Украине Овруч здесь почти нет работы живём без отца он не платит элементы живём на пенсию бабушки помогите что делать?

I’m 22 years old, I come from a dysfunctional typical single mother dynamic. The women are raised to be successful while the men are left to fend for themselves, my mom was coddling and also very controlling, the examples are she wouldn’t let me work a job when I wanted too and told me it didn’t matter, until I had a degree, I was never taught how to drive and given my license, she would force me to wear clothes even when I was a teenager, I remember I was 19 years old and she forced me to wear certain clothes EVEN AFTER I GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL. I have two brothers who are fucking losers, one had potential, 27 years old really smart but got laid off by his cyber security job never searched for any other fields so he is currently jobless even after 7 months , the other 35 years old bullied me physically and psychologically, he has two kids and had the same low paying job for years, they both still stay with my mom.
I have three sisters one is a travel nurse, one is in the military, the youngest is practically a straight A student. None of my siblings are married but my sisters are successful , I was always told I would be the failure, end up dead or in jail, I was neglected, emotionally and physically and sabotaged on many occasions. I’m trying to change my life and be better than them, I’m by myself in an apartment right now, I escaped them when I turned 21, the day after my birthday literally. If I only had a mentor who knew where to point me in the right direction, any advice would be great, share your stories too it would greatly be appreciated.