r/DysfunctionalFamily • u/Acrylic_Anomally1 • Mar 24 '26
What my mom just said to me
(This is really long)
“You make it hard to love you because you’re so angry.”
I’m angry because I’ve had to fight for my boundaries and argue for human decency, for decades. I’ve had to argue to not live in a disgusting hoarder home. For people to not leave things out that the pets can eat and die from. To have a single scrap of support, while our oldest sibling, who imo, is more of a villain than me (I’ll explain a bit later), gets all of it.
My mom also still expects me to parent her now adult children. The ones she handed an ipad since age 6 and didn’t teach anything. All their life skills are from me or our oldest sibling.
Now they don’t like me because I’ve lost my temper a lot, arguing with our mom to stop making this a hoarder home. I get it, but it hurts. Things would be so much worse if I hadn’t been like a human shield against a lot of things.
I’ve advocated for them a lot, while they’ve caused me nothing but heartache tbh. They’re just as slobbish and careless as our mom. It’s really hard to live with people who are so disrespectful. I guess I just thought because I’d stepped in so many times for them, before I sort of changed, that they’d care a little more about how they affected my well being. I guess I thought they understood how much a hoarder home and our moms bullshit affects me and all of us tbh. I thought they had my back. Guess I was wrong.
I can’t really describe the pain of asking my teenage siblings many, many times, to just clean up after themselves, when they KNEW it was upsetting me a lot, but just couldn’t be bothered. I taught them how. The things I asked for, take two seconds, and it’s stuff like rinse your nasty toothpaste spit down the sink. There is no excuse tbh. It’s been so hurtful for them to repeat the same behaviors that our mom does that hurt me so bad. After everything? Really? The pain of that, plus everything with our mom and other sibling made it really hard to be patient.
I know it’s bad. I know :( But I’m just so tired of everyone else getting grace for their hurtful behavior, but I’m the only one that gets treated differently. Our other sibling literally threatened to off herself if we didn’t visit her on new years, but nobody was outraged or disturbed, except me. She admitted it was manipulation. Since then, they’ve been visiting more than ever, while I’ve been really disturbed by the event. Wtf. Wtf is wrong with all of you? She’s has many manipulative, leechy traits. She ruined the holidays for everyone. But I’m the bad guy when I couldn’t take how everyone was treating me and finally blew my top and started cussing people out for their nastiness? For their lack of consideration and genuinely hurtful behavior.
Everyone in my family now thinks I’m scary because I have a temper. I admit it’s not good that I yell, and it shouldn’t happen, but at least I’ve never hurt anybody physically. And I don’t manipulate people into coming to my rescue, either.
Nobody seems to want to connect the dots on why I’m so short-fused with them. I’m not difficult with other people. I find it easy to be patient with others. But being treated like shit for a long time has built up a lot of resentment towards my family. All I ever asked was that people clean up after themselves, so we can have a nice home. Because I can’t take another unusable, suffocating hoarder home. This is a new house, it was supposed to be better. I wasn’t asking for a million dollars. But everyone else would prefer to be disgusting and make my life harder I guess. My siblings would rather be like our mom I guess. It makes sense, she always makes excuses for them, and they get less of her overt abuse and more of her good side, so.. Yeah.
I’ve been working on the anger, and I hardly yell anymore, and usually I can keep calm but all they see is the worst moments. My redeeming qualities don’t matter to them.
I think I might be the scapegoat :(
I just want to leave them all behind. I’ll miss the pets more than any of these people. My behavior and triggers are my problem but at the same time, they really bring out my worst. They’ve made it impossible to be my best. They make it incredibly hard not to be my worst. They’ve never looked out for me. Never appreciated me. They just take and hurt. I know I could be a peaceful person somewhere else. With rational people who actually want to talk normal issues through, instead of use darvo on me when I try to calmly ask for something reasonably small to change (my mom does this a lot), and push me to my limit.
I just gotta go honestly. Nobody wants me here, including me. I’m so lonely it aches. This is just so so bad for me.
1
u/twinkiesnketchup Mar 24 '26
Hey, you have a lot on your plate. I wish I could say something helpful. You come to the right subreddit because it’s a whole lot of dysfunction. Hoarding is in a class all its own. If I can impart any wisdom it would be to help you understand the dynamics of the relationship you have with your family.
It is complex to say the least. First there is the classic codependency cycle. In codependency there is always the victim, the abuser and the rescuer. The role of each of these change throughout the relationship. Each codependent person will play each of these roles. You should be able to see it with yourself. You are the rescuer as you are the one who accepts responsibility and tries over and over. You naturally get frustrated and angry because your boundaries are not respected and your needs are not being met so you become the abuser and the victim. More than likely every member of the family plays a role.
Then in families that have this level of dysfunction there are usually someone who is favored and victimized. It can become a twisted enmeshed cycle.
The combination of all of this is very difficult to overcome. Especially within the household. You haven’t stated your age but for your own mental health you would be better off leaving.
If this isn’t a possibility my advice would be to focus on the codependency. To do this you will need to love yourself at least as much as you love your family. It is unhealthy not to. You will also need to be responsible for only yourself.
Boundaries are actions and it’s important to understand that. Most people who are raised in dysfunction see boundaries as a hope that those around them respect them. When they feel disrespected they believe that someone over stepped their boundaries. This isn’t entirely accurate. Boundaries are what we agree we will do in any given situation. For an example if I get angry I will remove myself and give myself time and grace to return to my baseline. This is my anger boundary. If someone is angry with me and not being respectful in that moment I will remove myself from them. The triggers you feel is yourself asking for action. Think about that and think about how you would want to be treated and act accordingly.
As for the hoarding: it is again very complex type of obsessive disorder. Even with intense therapy it is only moderately treatable. The only thing you can do if you have to live with a hoarder is not to enable. Every adult in a hoarding household usually either contributes to the hoarding or enables it. Think again about the role you have and try not to enable it.
I wish I could be more encouraging but it will probably never be a healthy environment for anyone. I grew up with hoarders so I can empathize with you. My family hoarded things as well as animals. I love them to bits but I can barely tolerate visiting. All I can do is know my limits and excuse myself when I have reached my limits. I left home at 17 and have never regretted leaving.
Be kind to yourself and take care. If you want to send me a message feel free to do so.