I’m a 23 year old college grad with a BA in History and a decent resume in community organizing. I have roughly 17k in my savings and another $35,000 in assets that I absolutely do not want to liquidate (this includes my car). My car is currently in Dallas and I’m in Seattle living with my family while finishing up a commissioned project. The problem is, my entire family struggles with mental illness, both parents, both my siblings, and myself. After years of working on my own mental health, being back in a family dynamic is unraveling every single inch of progress I’ve made, and now that I’m coming up on 3 months of living with them, I feel like I’m losing my damn mind.
I’ve discussed things with my parents but they’ve made it clear, neither of them are interested in changing, even if I paid them rent to get some say in the environment.
So, I’m considering buying a flight to Dallas, booking a monthly Airbnb and restarting my life from there. I know no one in Dallas, but have one distant cousin who lives there, and my sister used to live there as well. This cousin, along with the rest of my extended family, don’t know about the issues with my family, so I know that doing this will make most of my family & friends think I’m crazy.
I’m confident in my own abilities when I’m living independently, but as soon as I walk into my parents house, every nerve feels exposed and I question everything about myself. It’s embarrassing because this isn’t how I normally am, and I’m worried that because I’m so bothered by my current situation that I’m not thinking through this clearly.
So, with brutal honesty if needed, please tell me how insane this sounds, or if there’s a shot this could work.
Edit: sorry I didn’t specify, Dallas was a city I was considering moving to post-grad, along with Austin & Nashville, but I’m also considering using the Airbnb as a temporary base until I find a salaried position in one of these cities.
Edit #2: some people mentioned living with friends but unfortunately my family moved out here after I left for college, so I know no one here and agreed to move back in with the idea that I’d be leaving within a month or two, so I haven’t met many people here & while I know my friends would take me in, they’re all in Florida where I went to school.
Edit #3: I can’t thank everyone enough for the comments! Even the ones deterring me, since everyone has made really valid points. I wanted to clear up that I don’t feel comfortable necessarily telling extended family about the situation as, even though my parents made a lot of mistakes in raising my siblings & I, I do love them and hope to one day get to a place where I can stay with them for extended periods without having a bad reaction. Talking to extended family about them would feel like punishing them for their past struggles with mental health when that’s exactly what I’m struggling with now. Sorry for all the edits, I’ll add any additional info in the comments as needed!
Submitted March 04, 2022 at 09:52PM by hungrynconfused https://ift.tt/bBRLMEe
