Scarleteen

Hello,

I am a young adult living with my parents, and I have been having issues living with them for a long time.

Today my parents had a heated call about finances in the living room, and their conversation resonated throughout the entire house. I tried to tell them to go to another room where the sound wouldn't resonate, and I also told them that their stress rubbed off on me, and I was laughed off, basically. This is just yet another failed attempt to affirm myself.

In part because of them I have to wear ear plugs at night to sleep well, and even then I can still sort of hear them talk through my ear plugs. I've already told them to be quiet, but they basically make no effort and I'm tired of reminding them everytime. It would greatly help my sleep quality if they were quiet at night.

I'm a very quiet and reserved person in nature but also because of mental ilnesses / disorders, so affirming myself is something I avoid doing. I don't really know what else I could do to make my home a better environment for myself. Any tips ?

I am so sorry to hear about this, and how your trying to ask for some basic consideration went. It sounds like, unfortunately, whatever is going on between your parents, and whatever the dynamics of their relationships are, they are so absorbed in themselves that they're unable to see or consider the impact it's having on you. It's their job to do that as your parents, but clearly, it's not something they take seriously, and there's really nothing to say about that but that that really sucks.

It sounds to me like your very best bet would be to start doing whatever you can to plan for living away from home. If they won't consider your requests or take them seriously, and you've already done all you can to care for yourself -- like the earplugs, like asking them to adjust -- without success, then what you can know, sadly, is that this isn't likely to be an emotionally or sensorially safe place for you.

Would you like to talk about your situation in terms of why you're still living with them and what you'd need in order to live separately from them?

Hello Heather, thanks for the reply.

I see, that's unfortunate for me I guess.

The idea of moving out is not something I am considering doing anytime soon mainly because I am still studying and my future is still not secured yet. So living with my parents is for the better at this period of my life, I don't have to carry the extra weight of being homed, fed, etc.

I'll keep trying my best to adapt to my environment and not rely on them.

I'd still suggest starting to plan for independent living. This doesn't sound like something that will be good for you to be soaking in for many more years, and even if you're looking at moving out in say, a year or more, planning ahead can make it a lot more likely that you can do that. I'd also add that very few people ever have futures exactly secured in the way it sounds like you're thinking. That's not something we need in order to do things like move out and find housing or housemates: we just need to have a fairly reliable way to pay for our expenses from month to month, and often, especially when we're young, that looks less like a big, fully fleshed-out future and more like whatever will get us what we need at that level. I can tell you from personal experience that sometimes -- and this may or may not be true for you, I'm just putting it out there -- what we need to do to feed ourselves and pay rent is worth what that can provide us, and doing whatever that is can be a lot less stressful than living somewhere where we're surrounded by unhealthy people or relationships. <3

As an example, you could start looking for some very part-time work -- work-study can be one option, if your school has that -- to start creating some kind of savings for yourself. You can start paying attention to listings people make for housemates to get an idea of what might, in time, be a good situation for you, or paying attention to rental listings in the neighborhoods or cities you think you might want to live in.

Sometimes that kind of plan can also offer you something beyond practical help, too. Just knowing that the ability to be out of there and away from all this is somewhere on the horizon, and that you are taking even baby steps towards it can go a long way when it comes to your morale, you know?