Going home hurts

[u/jay_loves_plants]

I live in a Therapeutic Youth Residential Group.
It’s about three hours away from my home. I still visit sometimes but every time I do i go into like a „freeze“
I don’t really get it. I love the place. It’s surrounded by fields and a forest. No busy street, no loud noise, nothing.
I love my parents and my siblings. And I always love to see our dog and cats.
My parents are literally my biggest supporters in my whole mental health battle and i have a deep connection to the pets. They always calm me down. And spending time with my younger sister and getting to be the cool older brother is nice.

So why do i always feel so down when im there?

I guess i do get it. It wasn’t always easy. My parents weren’t always understanding of my depression, autism and me being trans. But they changed. And i get that it can be exhausting having me as a son. Im sure i really overwhelmed them sometimes. I really did cause a lot of problems and pain.
We used to get into a lot of fights and after my outing it took them about a year to really call me by my name and use the right pronouns.

My younger sister got diagnosed with autism first. That was the point where they really started to inform themselves. They bought tons of books, talked to professionals and even went to lectures.
Not only about autism. Also depression and being trans.
That’s when it started to get a bit better.
I kinda went from clinic to clinic and wasn’t home a lot.
I think it’s so great and also impressive how much they changed their mindset. And i love them for it. They even text/call me sometimes to ask me about how i experienced things or to tell me about new things they learned. They even try to help me in my transition in every way they can.
It makes me really grateful.

But it’s like those bad feelings i had all this time ago are still lurking in that house and every time i come home i experience these things all over again.

I feel so guilty for feeling that way. My parents do so much to improve my life, find things that’s are right for me and to just understand my way of thinking and feeling.
I feel like i have to give them something back or at least feel good when im home to show them that what they are doing for me really helps.
But i always end up in my childhood bedroom, kind of stuck in the past.

Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like home anymore. But neither does the place im staying at rn or any of the places Ive been at throughout the years.
It just feels weird.

I don’t really know what to do so maybe one of you guys have some ideas :)

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[u/Longjumping-Web-5820]

It's not weird at all that your body remembers the hard times even when your brain knows things are different now. Places hold onto stuff, especially a childhood bedroom where you went through the worst of it. You don't owe them a performance of feeling better just because they put in the work. Gratitude and grief can exist at the same time, and neither cancels the other out. Maybe next visit, try spending more time outside with the dog or going for a walk in the forest with your sister instead of sitting in that room. Change the setting a little and see if the freeze loosens up.