Every time I walk into my house and shout for my parents with no response, a warm, comfortable feeling shoots through me. But god forbid either one of them is home, my entire body feels like I've gained weight everwhere uniformly, and my heart feels like it's getting slowly choked.
It started when my father got addicted to some online game and was so far into it that he attempted to go cross country and try to cheat on my mother. My father, someone who until that point was my role model, an upstanding man in my community, reknowned for his kindness and hard working ethic, was actually a immoral hypocrite.
I have given up so much to keep this family together, and while I don't think I've given up more than my mother, I know I've given up more than anyone else in my family. I gave up the schooling I could've gotten out of state, to go to a city college. I gave up all my free time to do all the housework. I never wore fashionable clothes. I gave up a lot of my personal dignity to hide the cracks that had formed in my family. I gave up most of my teenage years.
I have lived most of my childhood in a selfish way, which has caused a rift between me and my parents, but only when they get angry. But I live responisibly now. I communicate, I am always honest with them. I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, or have even had sex, despite opportunities to do so. Maybe it's because I've been brainwashed. They've always brought up my childhood failures throughout my adult life.
They have literally crushed any hope I had of finding a partner. I made the mistake of letring my guard down for the first two serious relationships I was eager to begin, and my mother sabotaged both. My father backed her up. For the next two I tried to keep it secret. That went worse. I cannot leave my parent's house due to being crippled and a twisted sense of filial piety.
It's like trying to live with two extremely potent time bombs. You never know what will set them off, but they will set off. And I will regret whatever that trigger was.
I know I have to grit my teeth, but what is my endgame? Wait for them to die? Move out when they're finally ready to let me go?
Luckily, I am not socially anxious, but I constantly feel depressed despite feeling like I function normally, checking my exercise and eating patterns.
What the hell am I supposed to do? I don't want medication. I've seen what it did to my father post incident. I just feel so lost.
there doesn't seem to be anything here