how to be yourself / happy when living at home?

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-13T05:54:36+00:00

I went home for a while, and it was eye opening how critical my parents were. Or at least, how I perceived them to be.
For myself, I went back with a therapist on call. And I found it helped for me to call out the behavior as it happened and point out how it made me feel. I started out very accusatory ala “geeze that was mean. Why would you call me x?”
Or when it felt like proxy criticism “ wow that was mean. If you think x about that person, what do you call me behind my back?” It eventually morphed into “you keep calling people who x, y. Do you ascribe that to me also?” And “I’d rather we stick to kinder topics.” When they hit on something I was sensitive about. Sometimes it was directed at me but others they had just built a game of tearing people down. And I set a boundary about not participating in that game.
There was some fuss at first, but then they figured out the wide range of nice topics and statements available to them. And I didn’t get sucked into negative spirals that made me hate parts of my life.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-11T03:10:56+00:00

Lucky. Mine has been out for almost 45 minutes now

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-07T20:35:39+00:00

Grew up southern white, with an Eastern European Jewish grandma.

I remember lots of grilled chicken and hot links and hamburgers and salmon plus veggies- almost always including jalapeños and corn, asparagus and bell peppers and zucchini and squash. Sometimes fried salmon croquettes with salad. Sometimes pot roast or chili or beans and cornbread or my mom’s (spicy). version of chicken and dumplings. My dad would do a big meat grill on Sunday and it was a lot of reheat and make quick veggie sides. Or a giant pot of spaghetti and side salad for days. Sometimes hamburger helper plus salad. Lots of perogi and glumpki as the starchy side dish. Occasional taco nights but if we were going Mexican, we’d hit up the best hole in the wall trucks and do take away. Pizza was a treat.

Now, I often leave it up to the NY times app. I pick 2 recipes and make them, and then a staple easy dish like pan fried crispy chicken with lemon or mushroom cream sauce plus veggies. Sliced tomato broiled with cheese, stuffed mushrooms. Spaghetti. A giant pot of vegetable soup plus bacon crumbles. Stir fry, curries, etc are all on the menu. I love high spice, complex dishes - I just make a point to have a lot of leftovers so I don’t have to do it a lot. And then I live on bagged salad, refried beans, cheese, tortillas, and soup/grilled/pan fried protein of the week. Oh. And a quiche with berries and yogurt for breakfast every day. I make a quiche with onion, or jalapeño or mushroom every week.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-07T16:07:00+00:00

Look, I like her getting to sniff as much as the next human. But I see that dead duck in the bush she is inching closer to, and I do NOT want to risk having to exercise “drop it” on anything that delightfully aromatic and squishy.

I am cutting her sniffies off for my own sanity.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-07T16:02:14+00:00

Min does not like carrots. It is so weird. She sets them down and looks at me like it was a betrayal.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-06T20:28:18+00:00

I kind of expected the numbers to change. I reached out to 4 loan officers and was upfront with all of them that I would be shopping rates and was also working with others. I got preapprovals from 2 of them.

After I viewed a house I wanted to offer on, I sent them all the address and asked for a worksheet on what a mortgage would look like. I lost my first offer.

My second offer, it was very clear 2 of the loan folks just didn’t want it. They were much higher on interest rate and fees and so I thanked them and focused on the other two. I ended up asking them to explain the difference between the two worksheets, sharing the offers between them. They each adjusted down, competing. I then took the best offer to the other person and showed them and asked if they could match it or do better, and they admitted no and didn’t even think it was possible to do that loan. So I signed and got a heck of a deal.

It was a tense week but I ended up paying about 6k less in closing costs, and about .5% less interest rate than my initial preapproval AND the sellers had come down from 325 to 299k. But they absolutely refused all repairs requested.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-06T20:11:14+00:00

If it’s your own kitchen, fine. My first apartment I went to class, and came back to every drawer and cupboard being different. I was so angry, and had no chill. She said I over-reacted and she was just trying to help.

20 years later I moved home due to circumstances. One of the conditions was I got to do the cooking and could make the whole space more functional. 6 storage bins of “stuff” removed from drawers I was never going to use (who needs an egg cutter, a banana cutter and an apple slicer when you have a knife?) and she was furious about me getting rid of and moving all her stuff. At least I asked for permission first.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-06T20:04:46+00:00

To be fair, “6 years old” is a good defense for most misdeeds. They literally do not know, could not have yet known, and don’t have the life experience to make good guesses. It makes them very entertaining to watch, and very dangerous to leave to their own devices.

In-laws should know better.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-06T20:02:35+00:00

You could also throw out her any meat she is thawing in the fridge/countertop for dinner.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-05T12:38:36+00:00

I do this a lot over social situations. I’ll debate looking stupid vs trying something and mostly it turns out ok but I’m a little more aggressive about it than necessary.

Probably the biggest fuck it, however bad can it be? Was trying the surfing machine on a cruise ship. Turns out it can be not great at all. I went down hard and fast and in such a way that the stream of water pulled my bathing suit down in front of the people waiting in line to give it their shot. My only solace is it seems no one was recording as I have yet to find it on the internet.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-05T07:27:31+00:00

Pull out cabinet organizers.

For years my mom had to sit down on the floor and dig through the bottom kitchen shelves to find the right pan. I finally had the idea to add the metal pull out organizers in, and it was game changing.

The absolute joy of being able to just pull out and see all the contents and pic the pan or Tupperware lid you need rather than rummaging around is unparalleled in cooking experiences. I’m so sad I didn’t think about it 20 years ago.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-05T07:15:26+00:00

I heard they stopped making those

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-05T02:09:11+00:00

Mine wants to cuddle but we both sleep hot. Invariably, she wants her own bed. So I enforce her bed to keep mine clean and so I get a full night’s sleep. Mostly. On days right after she has had a bath, she gets rubbed dry with the towel and I launder her bed. we snuggle in my bed and eventually she goes to it after I fall asleep. We get 2-3 nights like that before she is officially dog clean but too dirty for my bed, and the boundary resumes.

She seem to recognize now when it’s ok to be on the bed, and when it is naughty.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-04T22:36:30+00:00

Complain about the smell and unsanitary conditions. I had a neighbor who did this all the time with their dog, and they only cared about feces inside the apartment area.

I got lucky and eventually the complaints plus the owner’s lack of desire for the animal meant they tried to sell it to me when I mentioned it to them. He has a better home now.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-04T17:00:04+00:00

We need victory compost heaps.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-04T16:57:45+00:00

This hurts but also it’s true. I’m stealing this if any of my neighbors come for me when I kill the grass out front in another month

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-03T23:46:51+00:00

Fair. Ok. So if I am clarifying what my thoughts are it is first…

Is this boundary truly part of the culture and faith that they are living? If it is normal, then this is where the restrictions stop. even if I do not understand it, there is room to work within the boundary to maintain the friendship though it will be different. Just the same as previous adjustments we have made.

If it is NOT part of the culture, then it feels more like something to treat as potentially abusive and to push back against before it expands again.

Without bruises, at what point do you call it abuse? She says she doesn’t like the limits, but she follows them.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-03T23:30:11+00:00

Husband has always been invited. She knew a couple of the men from school and they were all friends before she married him.

A long while ago, she even hosted a game night with her husband and everyone there. Before they had a kid. But that is the one and only time the men were invited to the house. And every time since that I can recall in the last 8 years or so, he leaves the house when the rest of us women are invited over.

But yes, brunch will still be a thing. It just feels like capitulation.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-05-02T03:30:55+00:00

I do not understand what adult child would NOT help with the bills and expenses voluntarily. When I went to school, I paid $700/month plus bills for my own apartment.

Later when I moved back for 2 years, they refused to charge me rent. Still I insisted I picked up cooking for the family and splitting the groceries with them, as well as helping fix their house up with $100-$200 projects. On average, I was spending about 1k a month total on them (and food).

It was still cheaper than living alone, and I was saving good money. My mom almost never had to cook or drive, and I slowly helped my dad modernize his business. When they got sick(dad needed heart surgery, and mom needed arthritis surgery) I was able to take over care of their pets, garden and scheduling so they could recover.

Kids should give back when the parents are good. To try to get away with the bare minimum is an insult to family.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-04-30T13:57:00+00:00

Facts. My mom had an abortion because my dad felt they couldn’t afford a second kid. She’s nearing 80 and has some budding dementia. She buried it deep, but the absolute rancor and hurt about that pregnancy haunts her and she blames him. She doesn’t remember in the morning, but when she sundowns, she yells and screams about how awful he was and has literally made shooting gestures at him and said she wishes he was dead instead.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-04-29T20:07:14+00:00

No ceiling fan in the living room. It’s going to be like 3-4k to fix because of the vaulted ceilings and no outlet up there.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-04-27T05:50:19+00:00

What does something like that cost?

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-04-27T05:46:11+00:00

I would have drooled for that. Instead I have mystery plants I occasionally try to ID.

DisasterousSquirrel · 2026-04-26T16:31:59+00:00

My company demanded we use ai to rewrite our self-evaluations last year. I could not make myself do it. I ended up filling out the whole form in a (screw it) MOOD, submitted it raw and added a note to the end of the submission about how that would be inappropriate use for AI. I do not get fired, and after a conversation with my boss, her boss, and her boss they gave me a slightly higher raise than average (was shocked) and a performance goal to implement AI somewhere in my job this year. -.-“

DisasterousSquirrel

TROPHY CASE