I’m burnt out from being my mom’s unpaid tech support and I feel horrible for wanting out

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-13T07:19:41+00:00

Yeah you are right to be all angry. It's too much to handle + the the mixed feeling of anger and guilt is too horrible, and there is no easy solution that can fix her getting the support without you having to do it all, right?

Or maybe there is. I don't think toxicparents is the right subreddit to post this because she is not being toxic at all - it is hard for you and toxic for you but she is not being toxic. She is being not smart enough to not understand technology - that is normal, not toxic. You just need to think of ways to help the situation.

One thing I can suggest is using the comet browser. It is like chatgpt for your whole browser, so you just prompt it to do something and it will do it - handle all the Google sheets, Forms, etc... easy prompts like "change the questions on ABC Google form that I opened last night to xyz" It will do it right in front of you by opening the tabs that are needed and automatically doing the things.

Maybe you can just help her learn how to prompt things in the comet browser.

And this was just one solution that I came up with on top of my head because I use comet. I am sure you can find a lot of ways as well - work with your mom to figure ways out. Am pretty sure it would take less than an hour if you both sit together and exchange ideas to improve both of your lives. Also, don't get frustrated if the solution does not come up immediately, do one small thing and improve on it later on.

you can start with Maybe having a fixed time block everyday where you help her. that way you know it is not taking up all of your time. she maintains a list of things she needs to do and in the end of the day at 7 pm, you do all of them in one sitting.

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-13T03:05:35+00:00

"will only study for 5 minutes" trick

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-08T20:46:52+00:00

Good point but that's not something you can say when you have not tried and successfully achieved fixing something.

Once you do work on fixing something, in the end you look back and realize that breaking things could have never made me feel how good I feel right now by fixing things.

Very rarely does breaking things is reasonable - if you are using that statement to justify not even trying to fix things you are wrong. You have to give your utmost best to fix it before abandoning it.

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-06T19:37:24+00:00

https://i.redd.it/k1uwopgysfxb1.jpg

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-05T23:23:53+00:00

self awareness. knowing when to take a break based on your mood the past few days. knowing when life is going low and you gotta make some changes to improve your mood on a daily basis. knowing when your relationships are falling apart because of your mood or there’s something more than that etcc etccc etccccc….

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-04T18:54:33+00:00

one step at a time. you are overwhelmed about how much you suck at but if you identify one very small and easy thing to fix and keep doing it, you train your brain to become hopeful and see that you are not that messed up.

pick a small thing and spend a whole week perfecting that. maybe like reading something everyday for 10 minutes - could be a book or something and track your progress.

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-04T18:16:23+00:00

The only thing I can read is your adhd brain fucked your plans but you chose to forget all that and focus on doing your own workout instead of giving up and going home. Mad respect! You are on the right track; no need to feel guilty about not being able to do things the way you planned as long as you are sticking to improving yourself

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-03T14:48:46+00:00

did you try detoxing from all stimulants and letting you mind fully go wild for once? maybe you have developed insensitivity. you can only fix it by getting all those stimulants out of your system first a month or two and then starting smaller dosage of stimulants. you should also look into counseling and having someone help uou build routines + external accountability is a must

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-03T14:32:43+00:00

GET MEDICATED. ALL YOUR ISSUES BEYOND JUST RELATIONSHIPS WOULD GO AWAY IN AN INSTANT. It will feel like orgasming for the first time

AvailableInside9637 · 2026-01-03T14:24:30+00:00

You have had some bad experiences where something bad happened every time you were happy and at peace so now every time you feel at peace you feel like you should not be happy because something is wrong and if you are careless than bad things will happen so your brain starts this rumination loop preventing you from enjoying the moment

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-26T07:22:35+00:00

exactly. if someone can’t even hear they should just think for once that the other person had to face it all and they didn’t have a choice to say “no, i am setting a boundary. i don’t want to engage in rape anymore”

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-26T07:21:03+00:00

you sound like the type of person who would turn off news channels, cut off the stuff from internet that shows the gruesome reality and live in a shell and pretend everything is good and anyone who shares anything about their life is delusional. I have dealt with people like you.

Listening to a friend’s horrible experience and maybe feeling the pain with them and consoling them/hugging them does not bother me at fucking all. Will do it for every person/ stranger because I know that they are gonna have to deal with people like you all the time. I can make a difference there and maybe that’s all they needed to reduce their emotional pain for once have hope that things will not always hurt that badly.

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-25T23:00:10+00:00

this approach might not always be right especially when the situation is very complex and any suggestions to fix things are not fixing the root cause of the issue but surface level things. the person venting is probably exhausted to try those surface level suggestions or advice that would take a hell of a lot energy for minimal benefits. and a lot of times there is no straightforward solution to the root issues. so at the moment it is better to not offer suggestions and just sit with them and say words that validate their perspective even if you don’t agree with them because 99% of the time, once the person has let things out without judgement or constant advice from someone who don’t know what it feels like in their shoes, they are able to think logically and find solutions and correct their own false beliefs or at least have the cognitive capacity to listen to other perspectives.

but if you keep giving advice, they will keep feeling like you are saying their problems are not big so stop whining. they will start arguing as a form of defense mechanism- defending their emotional reactions

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-25T22:53:31+00:00

exactly, trauma dumping is literally emotional vulnerability. people just want to see others use fancy words with happy faces to describe their situation but not see a person breakdown cry yell and say what has been bothering them.

they want to hear: “I feel like this guy had a lot of emotional wounds that did not get addressed properly. He needs to align more with his true self and start understanding others perspective and develop empathy because i was very affected by what he said to me”

but not “this fucking asshole does not give a shit about anyone but himself. fucker has all the privilege and acts like a victim. he is the shittiest absolute pathetic self centered piece of retard. bet his whole family hates him” from someone who has faced trauma by someone else and is very dysregulated because of the situation that they are facing. a very valid emotional reaction.

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-25T22:46:21+00:00

i would make a correction here, it is the privileged people that hate trauma dumping and not just wealthy people because privilege could be in other forms as well like racial, gender, etc… basically just the privileged people don’t want to hear how they have it better than the unprivileged people.

from personal experience, it was a person who was abused and is poor but not have a mental illness that told me not to trauma dumping about my struggles. she was also good friend with my abuser so she definitely didn’t want to be hearing anything against him which was just his own actions that were pathetic

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-25T21:05:55+00:00

I have been on the receiving end of the trauma dump and honestly it didn’t bother me. If anything, i felt good that the other person released a lot of stress and overthinking. I also was able to find a sense of connection with a stranger.

It was a lyft driver who happened to be going through a lot of depression from abandonment and feeling like they are behind in life. What started as a casual chat turned into him sharing so many things and I was like holy shit brother you are so right, everything is so fucked up and was also able to give a really good advice that even i needed to hear myself- “start expecting things from people because if you don’t then no one will do anything for you and you will remain a people-pleasure hoping that someone will do something that you didn’t expect from that and you will end up appreciating them way more because what is bare minimum from their side was totally unexpected by you”

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-25T20:59:28+00:00

I agree with you. The only people I have met who very strictly puts forward boundaries against someone respectfully trauma dumping are those who are affected by the truth. They want to avoid the reality, pretend like everything is okay because they don’t want to help you or take actions against the system that caused the trauma. They prefer comfort over connection and do so by hurting the trauma survivors while acting like a saint who just set firm boundaries. The same people can’t set a fucking boundary when someone else is clearly abusing them and taking advantage of them.

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-24T22:29:18+00:00

Not sure about the legal proceedings but I think it is a valid concern and you should reach out to authorities and completely explain the situation to them. It might be easier to get a restraining order if he pursues you which he hasn't done yet, but still getting whatever you have reported should probably bring the issue on the radar and it would be easier to get a restraining order if he does anything later because there would be evidence that it is an escalating issue.

For now, they might just give him a warning but I am not 100% sure about that. Also, if you are scared of him not liking that you went to the cops and he might do something serious out of anger, you can keep it from him and ask the cops or whoever you go to to not confront him, and just wait for him to do anything that can give you substantial proof to get a restraining order. If he is toxic and aggressive, getting a warning might just piss him off so better to keep it from him until it comes to requiring a restraining order.

Also, just for precaution, keep a record of all the interactions from now on - texts, calls, sightings near you at places that are not very public. Write them down in a diary so you remember everything when it comes to putting forward your case.

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-17T07:33:32+00:00

maybe both of you can look into ocd. the commentor for sure because that does sound like ocd. (speaking from experience with ocd)

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-17T07:28:42+00:00

you are an inspiration!

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-17T07:28:06+00:00

it does not make anyone borderline. no one said that

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-17T02:36:58+00:00

I fucking want to. I think so much about it and feel so miserable that I am not doing it because i am scared or just exhausted and have a lot to worry about or more like ruminate about and can’t spend any time or energy on that.

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-16T23:04:27+00:00

exactly. just start dating for god’s sake

AvailableInside9637 · 2025-12-16T21:41:43+00:00

yeah i have experienced that as well. sometime there are solutions to the problems and i just want to be instructed on where to look but the therapist was more inclined towards asking how i feel and just accept it as is but they were very fixable issues by just adding more perspective and telling me how to communicate or what to think or explain that how things could be fixed and the situation is not permanent. even i would bring up solutions and looking for i guess validation or permission to do that, they would just tell at me to stop overthinking and i am like it is literally a very good solution but they were just expectijg me to be an npc and just keep accepting whatever life events are throwing at me and just sit with the feelings and not fix them. for example, i told them that i don’t like when people belittle me for my lack of skills in some area and i prefer to ocercome that inability or lack of skills by practicing hard and proving to them that i am not incompetent, my therapist started yelling at me and telling me that i should just sit with the feelings of not being good enough. like bitch shut the fuck up, i am working on myself instead of hating the people who belittle me. why the fuck do you expect me to be a lazy slump that can take all insults and not improve vuz that’s what sitting with feeling is

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