There is a certain psychosis that comes from living with your parents after a certain age (or developmental stage). Something about it makes it easy to get into a mental rut where it seems impossible to change things about yourself. While there is indeed a lack of ritual and intiatory rites in our culture, one important ritual that remains (for those fortunate enough) is the multiple year vacation from home, called college. It’s been said again and again, but the important thing about college is not the schooling, the education, the degree. Exactly what is important about college is debatable, but the opportunity to be outside of your parents supervision, control, and influence while remaining in a stable environment is invaluable. I got a taste of this, but I returned to soon, after just one year.
Now I’ve been living with my parents for about a year and a half, and it’s beginning to get unbearable. What exactly is it? I’m really not sure. Part of it is that the situation seems too much like high school, with the exact same tensions. My dad doesn’t feel like we’re very connected and he gets angry about it every once in a while. I don’t blame him, we aren’t a very close knit family. There’s a certain awkwardness, uncomfortability, rigidity in our interactions. I’m not sure why it’s like this, what the origin of these problems are, but I don’t feel safe bringing up or talking about anything personal with my family because of it. I have an easier time talking about things like this with strangers on the internet than my actual family, mainly because I don’t have to worry about the consequences of things I might say to a stranger because I don’t have to live with them.
But the more comprehensive reason is that I can’t deal with the pressure of needing to have an adult relationship with my parents, and the ups and downs that entails, while living in an environment that is under their control. Quite simply, it’s an abusive relationship. They don’t take an active role in abuse (most of the time) but they unconsciously hold things over me without having to justify it, because it’s their home. Again, I don’t want to blame my parents for this, but they are (unconsciously) still trying to “parent” me like they did in high school, as an adolescent. Regardless of how it worked back then, it’s completely the wrong way to interact with me now. In order for them to learn to interact with me as an adult, I can’t remain in the same situation I was in high school, meaning living at home. There needs to be a physical change that they can acknowledge, and I think moving out is the best, if not the only, solution.
