Came home from socializing and annoyed my mother

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georgewilson
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20 May 2023, 9:54 pm

I've been living with my mother most of my life, mostly without my dad since 8 or so though we keep in touch remotely. Graduated from college and worked a job almost 10 years now, though only 40 hours the last 6 months or so after gradually working up from 24 to that over the years, still hoping to get more and never got back to home ownership after we lost a house in a 2010 foreclosure. I know I'm not alone among people in my generation to struggle, but I still feel a little embarrassed by the fact that at a gathering of young people (Zillennials mostly) tonight, I gather I was the only one living at home, the rest were with partners or in solo apartments or dorms or roommates I think. A few I'd met before, they and the rest were sociable though as always I did struggle keeping conversations going and tried to vibe the best I could, I sometimes think I do very well and never would have dreamed in the past I could handle 2 hours of shooting the breeze on a neighborhood bar rooftop but here I was. I of course didn't tell any of them my living situation, especially considering there was at least 1 single woman I didn't want to leave an embarrassing first impression towards though the rest were with their partner. FYI I had my first makeout in a woman's apartment and first sex at 33 with 2 separate women, albeit one battered and mentally ill and the second a divorced rebound, I'll always remember them please understand I don't mean to be mean; no public relationship where everyone knows we're an item though.

However, when I got home, I realized I'd forgotten to buy toothbrushes and was near the end of a month since the last time, the interval I usually try to replace them. I took my statin when I got home, the last of my medications I recently went back to after trials to return to SSRIs and antidepressants were miserable failures, only one I haven't gone back to is antipsychotics to deal with I guess "mania" when I was younger, Seroquel made me sleep SO MUCH. Sometimes after statins I think I get upset or tired, and perhaps that's why I think I pressed the steering wheel horn a bit too much and it got stuck for 30 seconds until I figured out I could unstick it, bothering my mom and the neighbors in our apartment complex for a short bit (it still turns on now on bumps in the road sometimes, it's a 1997 50,000 mi. but I can't afford to replace it without risking a repo in a time of fiscal calamity possibly looming with the debt ceiling on the salary I make but want to increase with a new job).

Even though I fix the issue, I'm shook and embarrassed and half crying on my way to get the toothbrushes and back, and I kind of vent to my mother who's doing her thing sitting stream-binging TV as she does between chores and gig work searches. I told her I was embarrassed to be so stuck on replacing the toothbrush, so unable to remember it on the way home, and so stuck with my life in a holding pattern as a 34-year-old man living in a stigmatized situation. I just wish I could function independently and have a normal relationship like these people, and sometimes my mother reads it as ingratitude :( Or she thinks I need to get back on more meds or have some kind of OCD instead of just coping with routines I change slowly through trial and error or under situational duress like everyone else on the spectrum. She's depressed and has been on Lexapro half her life, taking Lorazepam too when she's wound up by things, and sometimes her advice involves accepting medications or disabled status in ways I'm not comfortable with. I feel like SSRIs especially when I try back on them make me lethargic to do my often fast-paced call-center job and didn't let go enough even after 1-month trials at low dose (there's a Zoloft-Strattera cocktail with my name on it that was going to be a fallback if I couldn't afford CBD gummies I tried and think were ultimately BS placebo or just had issues on those, but I can't bring myself to do it). But she sometimes reduces my more poorly understood condition to her better-understood one when the risk is mediocrity and not suicidal ideation for me, and in fact I felt good on nothing but the statins, barely even feeling muscle pains, for the last four days, better than I did either on or before the gummies so maybe there was a vision quest type effect I guess. I guess I just wish things were easier for me and for her, she's so bitter about my dad leaving her and not being able to get quality work afterwards, and I wish I could soothe and help myself a bit more rather than waste my time feeling bad about weird guilt-shame combos about what I owe my mother or what it means to be me after what's actually a good evening and I hope a pathway to a better life. Is there a way I can be the equal of these hipsters in my 40s or are they just living a youth I'm too old to experience once I catch up developmentally? Can the answers please avoid denigrating liberals or younger generations so this can be a positive space too? (It's a Young Democrats group for my County)



georgewilson
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22 May 2023, 12:58 pm

No response all weekend? Bumping! My mom's quite upset and I melted down on the job



bee33
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23 May 2023, 1:48 am

I don't know if this will be helpful, and you might need a therapist to help you, but your feelings of mediocrity and inadequacy are just that: your feelings. It's not easy, but we can change our feelings, even when we can't change our reality. Again, it's not easy, but I think you need to give yourself a break and realize that it's perfectly okay to live with your mom, it's okay to forget to buy toothbrushes, and it's okay to accidentally bump the horn and cause 30 seconds of bother to people nearby. You're doing what you can, and that's all any of us can do. We all make mistakes. Many of us are not where we would like to be in our lives. It's not the same for everyone, but it's a shared experience to be disappointed and to make mistakes, and to upset other people without meaning to.

You answered your own question when you wrote:

Quote:
I wish I could soothe and help myself a bit more rather than waste my time feeling bad about weird guilt-shame combos about what I owe my mother or what it means to be me after what's actually a good evening and I hope a pathway to a better life.


What I mean by that, is that you already know you are wasting your time feeling bad about guilt and shame. That's the part you can work on. You can work on how you feel and on how you see yourself, and on accepting and loving yourself as you are, with imperfections, like everyone.

I don't know if you "can be the equal of these hipsters in [your] 40s." Maybe you can, but you don't have to be. It's okay for you to be however it's possible for you to be. None of us can be everything we wish. The first part of the solution (though, again, it's easier said than done) is to learn to accept ourselves as we are, and be kind to ourselves.

Then you can try working on changing some things that you would like to change, but don't be too hard on yourself if it doesn't all work out exactly as you would like.



georgewilson
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04 Jun 2023, 10:08 pm

Thank you bee33 for replying, I posted another manifesto of sorts tonight after a more embarrassing encounter yesterday with someone from the same meeting, hopefully explains a bit more. Just was a very frustrating time, glad I'm not dealing with a government default threatening my mother's Social Security and my job on top of everything else. I've gotta try to center myself and not just hope the meds will carry me through. Just so hard sometimes. :(



bee33
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05 Jun 2023, 12:13 am

georgewilson wrote:
Thank you bee33 for replying, I posted another manifesto of sorts tonight after a more embarrassing encounter yesterday with someone from the same meeting, hopefully explains a bit more. Just was a very frustrating time, glad I'm not dealing with a government default threatening my mother's Social Security and my job on top of everything else. I've gotta try to center myself and not just hope the meds will carry me through. Just so hard sometimes. :(
It's hard. But hang in there. Best of luck to you.