u/CatAptorians

Hello everyone.

I'm F(27) live with my abusive Narc mother and want to move out. I have already paid deposit for a place and sneaked my stuff out with the help of a coworker. I'm supposed to move out in a week and I'm terrified. I feel frozen and doubting myself. I have no idea what I would tell her and I'm so scared of how she would react. I've planned to just move one day after work and only tell her that I'm going away on a vacation or something after I'm at my place. I've also thought to tell her that I've left my current job and got a new remote one because she might go to office and cause a scene there. I planned to work from home and told a coworker of my situation and to tell her if she does come that I no longer work there anymore.

But I'm also scared because I dont want to be physically harmed ever again. She is unhinged and unpredictable. I do not feel safe with her ever and she is creepily possessive and paranoid. The only thing she cares about is that we never separate and I never go anywhere away from her. She has beaten me, thrown a glass cup at me, held a knife at me, and threatened to end her life multiple times when she thought I might leave her before. She has also already been to icu after losing her shit on me and blamed for it. I'm scared that when I move something similar will happen or that she will try to find me and hurt me.

For context, I come from a super religious Middle Eastern family and currently live in my home country. I grew up traveling to different countries abroad. As a result, I don't have any close ties to my family and my closest friends are not in my home country. So I feel like I have no one here and I feel isolated and alone. Women were I come from are just expected to be obedient and live with their family until marriage. This is one of the reasons that's making me scared because my family would go crazy when I move just for the cultural/religious reasons alone. I'm scared that she will get the men of the family involved and they will try to find me and force me back.

On top of that my family is dysfunctional and abusive as fuck. My grandparents were abusive towards my mother and my mother is abusive towards everyone. My parents are divorced and my father has always been unavailable, doesn't even call or text me. My mother was the one who raised me and provided for me. She married my dad to escape the generational trauma and abuse in her family. Which turned out to be a horrible idea. I always felt like she wanted someone to give her all of which she never had from her parents. She wanted a family, someone to provide and take care of her, someone to rely upon. My dad didn't do any of that and somehow she turned her eyes on me. She expects me to be that person who does all those things for her. I've always felt like she resented having to take care of me and couldn't wait for me to grow up already so that I could take care of her. I've always felt like our roles were reversed like I had to parent her while she behaved childishly demanding attention and care from me while my needs were constantly neglected.

She expected me to be her best friend and therapist, oversharing her issues with me and wanting me to fix them. She has a fear of abandonment where she told me when I was 9 that I will abandon and leave her alone. Everything she does is to guarantee that I'm dependent on her and that we live together forever. She has always brought me down and tried to convince me that something is wrong with me and that she's only tolerating me because she's my mother. Always telling me that no one would ever love me because even she hates me. Said that she's waiting fir the day I get married so that my husband and his family see how awful I am and she can finally feel validated of how much she had to endure because of me.

I also grew up extremely sheltered as she never allowed me to do normal child/teenage things like go out with my friends and have sleepover or go on school trips. People always gave her excuses because I'm her only child and she's worried about me. But she always made me feel guilty for wanting to have a life and experience things as if there's something wrong with that or with the experience itself. Like she would come up with the most paranoid theories about how the people I'm meeting could be spies or get me into prostitution or how the mere act of getting on the bus with a guy friend is immoral.

Our relationship became worse when I went to college (I studied abroad while she was working in that country). That was the only time i started to have a life of my own. I created a support group with amazing friends and boyfriend. I finally felt like I'm not alone. But she became jealous of my friends and didn't like me seeing them often. If I went out once a week that would already be too much and I don't need to see them the week after. She would say things like why do you spend so much time with your friends but not with me? Why do you hug your friend but not me? Why does your friend stay in your room and not me? Then she would try to threaten to ruin my friendships by saying that she would "expose me" to them after we have a fight. I told her to go ahead and do it since my friends already knew everything which pissed her off even further.

I worked really hard in college because I knew that I had to be financially independent as soon as possible. (sadly I couldn't work as a student because that country didn't allow it). She knew how much I cared about my studies and college so she would threaten to not take me to college or take away my laptop with all my work on it. I don't drive and there was no public transportation that could've taken me to college. So I called my friend and she drove me to college and again my mother was pissed.

Covid came and she had to leave back to our home country. She went insane because she didn't want me to stay and continue my studies while she goes back. She made the entire thing about her and how she needed comforting completely disregarding how stressful the situation was for me. I had one year left and I wanted to finish my studies at the same college but she wanted me to go back to my home country even if that meant I would redo additional semesters/years because to her that's better than us being separated. She called me a traitor, selfish, she spat in my face, and started to threaten harming herself.

I did end up going back to my home country due to a lot of complications and it broke me. I went from feeling like I had support and I wasn't alone to going back to a place I've rarely lived in with zero support and guaranteed isolation plus dependency on my mother. During this time there were lots of fights in my family as well. Both my grandparents wanted to leave me money and she did everything in her power to not let me get that money. Saying that her money is my money.

At the same time, my grandmother from my dad's side passed away. I was heartbroken and I thought maybe I should go live with him so that he's not alone. Maybe we could get to know each other again and rebuild our relationship. I was also desperately seeking help and wanting to feel like I have any kind of family in this country everyone calls my home. I went to offer my condolences to him and he ended up congratulating me because now I have 3 year old brother. I was shattered. Not because he has his own family now, but because he never bothered to be my family when I needed him the most. He doesn't know anything about me because he never reaches out. I was doing my masters degree at that time and the only thing he cared about was that I needed to focus on being a caring sister instead of my studies. I left immediately and went back to my mom.

I still couldn't tolerate living with her so I tried to go to my grandfather and live with him instead. But he offered me no support and wouldn't do anything when she abused me but told me that I needed to go along with it because she's not right in the head and she's my mother. So again, I left and went back to her.

Thankfully by that time, I have gotten my own job and started saving my salary. I reached the conclusion that I have no family or support here and I thought if I left somewhere I would be safe. I wanted to travel to my boyfriend who I've been with for the past 8 years since college. He has always been supportive and always been there for me. We both wanted to end the long distance after the pandemic but I was scared because I didn't want to run away to another person like I tried with my dad and grandfather. I didn't want to repeat what my mother did when she married my dad. I wanted to be with him because I love him not because I was trying to escape. I also wanted to be independent and live on my own before deciding to move together or anything. He was understanding and we tried to look for ways so I could try to travel and live on my own over there while working remotely. This kept going until the plan changed and he decided to study abroad. He asked me to come with him but I couldn't afford it but I've always wanted to do a PhD so I thought I could apply for funding. I got accepted but I didn't get funding. At the same time we had some difficulties and became distant. We haven't been speaking for a while and he's going through a difficult time over there with his studies and finding work. He said that it would be unfair for me to go through these difficulties with him. That he wanted space because he can't expect to pile on my issues even though I want to do anything to support him. Now I don't know if we'll ever talk again or if things are ending between us or not.

So now I feel totally lost and alone here with no support. I never felt like I had a home but my boyfriend was like my safe space all those years especially after coming back here. Now that things are uncertain between us and all the future we dreamed together might not be happening, I feel like I must take action and have a safe place of my own. I can't keep waiting for someone to save me even though I desperately need help and support more than anything. I know that moving out is the right decision for me but I'm absolutely terrified and the anxiety is killing me.

I also feel guilt that my mother is alone and doesn't have anyone to take care of her. She's not in good health and has back issues. She is married but her husband is an asshole and doesn't stay with her most of the time. I have tried to convince her to get a maid to stay with her but she's refusing even though she can afford it and says she doesn't need a maid because she has me. I can't do this anymore. I can't be her maid/caretaker. I've already done that role for years. I hate this house. There's so much trauma in it. I just want to feel safe and calm and to feel like I finally have my own place where no one shouts or curses me. But I'm so scared of leaving. I'm scared of dealing with it on my own. I wish I had my friends/ boyfriend with me but I'm alone here. I don't know what I should say to my mother when I leave or how to deal with anything that will follow. I don't know how to deal with this anxiety either.

I need some kind of advice or perspective for how to handle this or what to say when I leave or if anyone can share their experiences and how things turned out for them, I would really appreciate it.

Hello everyone.

I don't usually post on reddit and I've only started posting about this to try and seek advice and support from others who might have gotten through similar experiences. Apologies if the post is all over the place, a bit too long, or not written well (English is not my first language).

I'm F(27) live with my abusive mother and want to move out. I have already paid deposit for a place and sneaked my stuff out with the help of a coworker. I'm supposed to move out in a week and I'm terrified. I feel frozen and doubting myself.

For context, I come from a conservative super religious Middle Eastern family and currently live in my home country in the Middle East. I grew up traveling to different countries abroad (a mix of Western and Middle Eastern). As a result, I don't have any close ties to my family and my closest friends are not in my home country (I went to college in a different country but I will get into that later in the post). I also feel like a complete outsider and find it really difficult to find support or someone to trust here. I'm personally not religious but there's a lot of stigma against not following religious and cultural norms especially for women so I feel even more isolated. The culture here is extremely misogynistic and women are just expected to be obedient and live with their family until marriage. This is one of the reasons that's making me scared because my family would go crazy when I move just for the cultural/religious reasons alone.

The second reason is that my family is dysfunctional and abusive as fuck. My grandparents were abusive towards my mother and my mother is abusive towards everyone. My parents are divorced and my father has always been unavailable, doesn't even call or text me. My mother was the one who raised me and provided for me but she has always been emotionally neglectful, manipulative, and verbally and physically abusive.

My mother comes from generational trauma and in order to escape the abuse, she married my dad. Turns out it was a horrible idea. But I always felt like she wanted someone to give her all of which she never had from her parents. She wanted a family, someone to provide and take care of her, someone to rely upon. My dad didn't do any of that and somehow she turned her eyes on me. She expects me to be that person who does all those things for her. I've always felt like she resented having to take care of me and couldn't wait for me to grow up already so that I could take care of her. I've always felt like our roles were reversed like I had to parent her while she behaved childishly demanding attention and care from me while my needs were constantly neglected. She always says things like "oh when you were a kid, you couldn't take care of me because you had school. Then when you went to college and had to focus on that and now you work so you have to focus on that. When are you ever going to take care of me and focus on this house? You're selfish and only want to focus on yourself."

She is creepily possessive, dependent, paranoid, and always abused the shit out of me because she wanted me to be her best friend who fixes her problems. She would overshare adult issues including sexual ones and expect me to give her advice and comfort her. She believes we will live together forever and wants me to live with her when I get married. Which is ridiculous because I feel like she's just blocking the escape she used with her parents (not that I want to get married like that).

She has some fear of abandonment because when I was 9 she told me that somehow she knows that I will leave and abandoned her. She always tries to convince me that we have no one but each other and I have no one but her. That no one would ever love me but her. And then as I grew older and started to become more independent, she began to up her abuse in disapproval. Started to say that she hates me and something is wrong with me. That she is only tolerating me because she's my mother and one day I will realize that the only person I have in the world is her when no one loves me. Because no one can ever love me because I'm a failure and I'm unlovable. Basically trying to manipulate me into being codependent on her so that I could stay with her forever.

She is unhinged and unstable beyond anything I can explain. I never felt safe or comfortable in my own home or around her. I can never have a sensible discussion without her throwing a tantrum and making everything about her. One moment she would act loving and the next she would humiliate me or beat me. She would precieve the weirdest most convoluted bullshit to make everything my fault and just hulk out at me as if I've committed a crime then act like nothing happened. She would literally say stuff like I betrayed her, I have no loyalty I'm a scheming ungrateful bitch... Just weird shit to say to a kid. I grew up very confused and walking on eggshells. I knew from a young age that my feelings don't matter, the world only revolves around her and her needs. If my needs are not her needs, then I'm selfish and awful.

I also grew up extremely sheltered as she never allowed me to do normal child/teenage things like go out with my friends and have sleepover or go on school trips. People always gave her excuses because I'm her only child and she's worried about me. But she always made me feel guilty for wanting to have a life and experience things as if there's something wrong with that or with the experience itself. Like she would come up with the most paranoid theories about how the people I'm meeting could be spies or get me into prostitution or how the mere act of getting on the bus with a guy friend is immoral.

Our relationship became worse when I went to college at a different country ( we moved because she had a job at that country). That was the only time i started to have a life of my own. I created a support group with amazing friends and boyfriend. I finally felt like I'm not alone. But she became jealous of my friends and didn't like me seeing them often. If I went out once a week that would already be too much and I don't need to see them the week after. She would say things like why do you spend so much time with your friends but not with me? Why do you hug your friend but not me? Why does your friend stay in your room and not me? Then she would try to threaten to ruin my friendships by saying that she would "expose me" to them after we have a fight (she has done this before with my school friends when I was a kid and it did in fact ruin our friendship because they were judgmental and I never shared or even recognized the abuse that was happening). But in college I did tell my friends about everything and I would tell her that they already know whatever she wanted to expose and that really pissed her off.

I worked really hard in college because I knew that I had to be financially independent as soon as possible. (sadly I couldn't work as a student because that country didn't allow it). She knew how much I cared about my studies and college so she would threaten to not take me to college or take away my laptop with all my work on it. I don't drive and there was no public transportation that could've taken me to college. So I called my friend and she drove me to college and again my mother was pissed.

Covid came and she had to leave back to our home country. She went insane because she didn't want me to stay and continue my studies while she goes back. She made the entire thing about her and how she needed comforting completely disregarding how stressful the situation was for me. I had one year left and I wanted to finish my studies at the same college but she wanted me to go back to my home country even if that meant I would redo additional semesters/years because to her that's better than us being separated. She called me a traitor, selfish, she spat in my face, beat me, held a knife at me and threatened to kill herself.

I did end up going back to my home country due to a lot of complications and it broke me. I went from feeling like I had support and I wasn't alone to going back to a place I've rarely lived in with zero support and guaranteed isolation plus dependency on my mother. During this time there were lots of fights in my family as well. Both my grandparents wanted to leave me money and properties but my mother didn't want me to have that kind of money in fear that I would use it to leave. So she fought and did everything she could to stop me from getting these properties and at the end she said that her money is my money.

I wanted to study masters abroad but she again saw it as an escape attempt and said she would never allow it and my only option was to either study in my home country or study online. I ended up studying online because my specialization wasn't available in my home country. It was horrible. I spent all my days at home completely isolated even after the pandemic ended. My mother got cats and dogs whom she threw their responsibility on me along with cooking and cleaning and doing everything at home. She treated me like I worked for her and the verbal abuse was unending. She ended up throwing a glass cup at me and beating me again because I didn't want to clean dog shit frist thing after waking up.

I had enough and wanted to leave. Around that time my dad texted me and told me that my grandma has passed away. I was heartbroken and thought that maybe I could go stay with him so that he's not alone. That maybe I could live with him and get to know each other. I went to offer my condolences and he congratulated me that I now have a 3 year old brother. That man doesn't even text me on my birthday and doesn't know what I'm studying, where I'm studying, or anything that's going on in my life. I told him I was doing my masters and he just expected me to put that aside and be a big caring sister instead. I left the next day and went back to my mother.

I tried to leave and stay with my grandfather from my mother's side. He needed up not doing anything when she threw a glass cup at me or beat me or pull my hair or anything really. He just told me that I need to take it because she's my mother and she's not right in the head and I have to take care of her. So I left again, defeated and went back to my mother.

Thankfully I got a job 3 years ago and I started to save. My boyfriend who I've dated since college supported me throughout all this crap and we were trying to plan something so that I can move out and also end our long distance. He wanted me to come over to his home country but I was scared as I didn't want to run away to another person and also do the same exact thing my mother did to escape. So I was clear about how I needed to be independent and live on my own before we move in together or anything. I was also concerned about money as I feared I might not be able to move to another country on my salary (I can work remotely from anywhere). This kept on going until the plan changed and he went to study abroad in a different country. I tried to apply for a PhD and join him but I couldn't get funding. At the same time, we haven't been speaking for a while and I fear that things might be ending between us.

So now I feel even more alone and isolated. I never really felt like I had a home but my boyfriend used to be my home now that he might be gone, it made me want to have a home of my own and move out like I've always wanted. But I'm absolutely terrified.

I have no idea what to tell my mother or grandfather. I know for a fact that I can't discuss this with them because they will refuse. I'm also scared because I dont want to be physically harmed ever again. My plan was to move and then call my mother from my new flat and tell her that I'm taking a vacation somewhere in my home country for a while (which she will flip out about because she doesn't let me spend the night outside). Then I thought to tell her that I've left my current job and will start a new remote one soon. This is because I'm scared she might actually go to my office and cause a scene like she has done before with my friends. But I'm so scared of making that phone call and I'm doubting if I should even do this move at all.

I forced myself to pay the deposit and move my stuff but now I feel uncertain like I'm doing something wrong. I know it's stupid because I'm an adult but neither my family nor my culture think that I have any right in moving out. I know that I don't need their approval to do this but I'm somehow terrified of what will happen next and how they will react.

My mother has already done unhinged things. She has already threatened to kill herself. She has been hospitalized in icu after snapping at me and beating me and she blamed me that I'm the reason she went to icu. I'm scared if she gets hospitalized again because of my move. I'm scared that they will try to find me and hurt me. I'm scared that they might cause a scene at my office and humiliate me. I'm so terrified I'm constantly having this feeling of dread in my stomach.

I also feel guilt that my mother is alone and doesn't have anyone to take care of her. She's not in good health and has back issues. She is married but her husband is an asshole and she's he's second wife. I have tried to convince her to get a maid to stay with her but she's refusing even though she can afford it and says she doesn't need a maid because she has me. I can't do this anymore. I can't be her maid/caretaker. I've already done that role for years. I hate this house. There's so much trauma in it. I just want to feel safe and calm and to feel like I finally have my own place where no one shouts or curses me. I want a clean organized place where I can relax without the filth and clutter and animal hoarding. I'm so exhausted, overwhelmed, and anxious. I can barely sleep properly or focus on anything. I really need this but I'm terrified and I don't know what to say to them.

I don't want to just leave and disappear but I'm so scared of what will happen after. I'm scared of dealing with it on my own. I wish I had my friends/ boyfriend with me but I'm alone here. I have this coworker who helped me but it's not the same. I feel so incredibly alone.

I need some kind of advice or perspective for how to handle this or what to say when I leave or if anyone can share their experiences and how things turned out for them, I would really appreciate it.

Hello everyone.

This is my first time ever posting on reddit. Apologies if the post is all over the place, a bit too long, or not written well (English is not my first language).

I'm F(27) live with my abusive mother and want to move out. I have already paid deposit for a place and sneaked my stuff out with the help of a coworker. I'm supposed to move in a week and I'm terrified. I feel frozen and doubting myself. I just need to hear thoughts and advice from people who might've gone through similar experiences.

For context, I come from a conservative Middle Eastern Muslim family and currently live in my home country in the Middle East. I grew up traveling to different countries abroad (a mix of Western and Middle Eastern). As a result, I don't have any close ties to my family and my closest friends are not in my home country (I went to college in a different country but I will get into that later in the post). I also feel like a complete outsider and find it really difficult to find support or someone to trust here. The culture here is extremely misogynistic and women are just expected to be obedient and live with their family until marriage. This is one of the reasons that's making me scared because my family would go crazy when I move just for the cultural/religious reasons alone.

The second reason is that my family is dysfunctional and abusive as fuck. My grandparents were abusive towards my mother and my mother is abusive towards everyone. My parents are divorced and my father has always been unavailable, doesn't even call or text me. My mother was the one who raised me and provided for me but she has always been emotionally neglectful, manipulative, and verbally and physically abusive.

My mother comes from generational trauma and in order to escape the abuse, she married my dad. Turns out it was a horrible idea. But I always felt like she wanted someone to give her all of which she never had from her parents. She wanted a family, someone to provide and take care of her, someone to rely upon. My dad didn't do any of that and somehow she turned her eyes on me. She expects me to be that person who does all those things for her. I've always felt like she resented having to take care of me and couldn't wait for me to grow up already so that I could take care of her. I've always felt like our roles were reversed like I had to parent her while she behaved childishly demanding attention and care from me while my needs were constantly neglected. She always says things like "oh when you were a kid, you couldn't take care of me because you had school. Then when you went to college and had to focus on that and now you work so you have to focus on that. When are you ever going to take care of me and focus on this house? You're selfish and only want to focus on yourself."

She is creepily possessive, dependent, paranoid, and always abused the shit out of me because she wanted me to be her best friend who fixes her problems. She would overshare adult issues including sexual ones and expect me to give her advice and comfort her. She believes we will live together forever and wants me to live with her when I get married. Which is ridiculous because I feel like she's just blocking the escape she used with her parents (not that I want to get married like that).

She has some fear of abandonment because when I was 9 she told me that somehow she knows that I will leave and abandoned her. She always tries to convince me that we have no one but each other and I have no one but her. That no one would ever love me but her. And then as I grew older and started to become more independent, she began to up her abuse in disapproval. Started to say that she hates me and something is wrong with me. That she is only tolerating me because she's my mother and one day I will realize that the only person I have in the world is her when no one loves me. Because no one can ever love me because I'm a failure and I'm unlovable. Basically trying to manipulate me into being codependent on her so that I could stay with her forever.

She is unhinged and unstable beyond anything I can explain. I never felt safe or comfortable in my own home or around her. I can never have a sensible discussion without her throwing a tantrum and making everything about her. One moment she would act loving and the next she would humiliate me or beat me. She would precieve the weirdest most convoluted bullshit to make everything my fault and just hulk out at me as if I've committed a crime then act like nothing happened. She would literally say stuff like I betrayed her, I have no loyalty I'm a scheming ungrateful bitch... Just weird shit to say to a kid. I grew up very confused and walking on eggshells. I knew from a young age that my feelings don't matter, the world only revolves around her and her needs. If my needs are not her needs, then I'm selfish and awful.

I also grew up extremely sheltered as she never allowed me to do normal child/teenage things like go out with my friends and have sleepover or go on school trips. People always gave her excuses because I'm her only child and she's worried about me. But she always made me feel guilty for wanting to have a life and experience things as if there's something wrong with that or with the experience itself. Like she would come up with the most paranoid theories about how the people I'm meeting could be spies or get me into prostitution or how the mere act of getting on the bus with a guy friend is immoral.

Our relationship became worse when I went to college at a different country ( we moved because she had a job at that country). That was the only time i started to have a life of my own. I created a support group with amazing friends and boyfriend. I finally felt like I'm not alone. But she became jealous of my friends and didn't like me seeing them often. If I went out once a week that would already be too much and I don't need to see them the week after. She would say things like why do you spend so much time with your friends but not with me? Why do you hug your friend but not me? Why does your friend stay in your room and not me? Then she would try to threaten to ruin my friendships by saying that she would "expose me" to them after we have a fight (she has done this before with my school friends when I was a kid and it did in fact ruin our friendship because they were judgmental and I never shared or even recognized the abuse that was happening). But in college I did tell my friends about everything and I would tell her that they already know whatever she wanted to expose and that really pissed her off.

I worked really hard in college because I knew that I had to be financially independent as soon as possible. (sadly I couldn't work as a student because that country didn't allow it). She knew how much I cared about my studies and college so she would threaten to not take me to college or take away my laptop with all my work on it. I don't drive and there was no public transportation that could've taken me to college. So I called my friend and she drove me to college and again my mother was pissed.

Covid came and she had to leave back to our home country. She went insane because she didn't want me to stay and continue my studies while she goes back. She made the entire thing about her and how she needed comforting completely disregarding how stressful the situation was for me. I had one year left and I wanted to finish my studies at the same college but she wanted me to go back to my home country even if that meant I would redo additional semesters/years because to her that's better than us being separated. She called me a traitor, selfish, she spat in my face, beat me, held a knife at me and threatened to kill herself.

I did end up going back to my home country due to a lot of complications and it broke me. I went from feeling like I had support and I wasn't alone to going back to a place I've rarely lived in with zero support and guaranteed isolation plus dependency on my mother. During this time there were lots of fights in my family as well. Both my grandparents wanted to leave me money and properties but my mother didn't want me to have that kind of money in fear that I would use it to leave. So she fought and did everything she could to stop me from getting these properties and at the end she said that her money is my money.

I wanted to study masters abroad but she again saw it as an escape attempt and said she would never allow it and my only option was to either study in my home country or study online. I ended up studying online because my specialization wasn't available in my home country. It was horrible. I spent all my days at home completely isolated even after the pandemic ended. My mother got cats and dogs whom she threw their responsibility on me along with cooking and cleaning and doing everything at home. She treated me like I worked for her and the verbal abuse was unending. She ended up throwing a glass cup at me and beating me again because I didn't want to clean dog shit frist thing after waking up.

I had enough and wanted to leave. Around that time my dad texted me and told me that my grandma has passed away. I was heartbroken and thought that maybe I could go stay with him so that he's not alone. That maybe I could live with him and get to know each other. I went to offer my condolences and he congratulated me that I now have a 3 year old brother. That man doesn't even text me on my birthday and doesn't know what I'm studying, where I'm studying, or anything that's going on in my life. I told him I was doing my masters and he just expected me to put that aside and be a big caring sister instead. I left the next day and went back to my mother.

I tried to leave and stay with my grandfather from my mother's side. He needed up not doing anything when she threw a glass cup at me or beat me or pull my hair or anything really. He just told me that I need to take it because she's my mother and she's not right in the head and I have to take care of her. So I left again, defeated and went back to my mother.

Thankfully I got a job 3 years ago and I started to save. My boyfriend who I've dated since college supported me throughout all this crap and we were trying to plan something so that I can move out and also end our long distance. He wanted me to come over to his home country but I was scared as I didn't want to run away to another person and also do the same exact thing my mother did to escape. So I was clear about how I needed to be independent and live on my own before we move in together or anything. I was also concerned about money as I feared I might not be able to move to another country on my salary (I can work remotely from anywhere). This kept on going until the plan changed and he went to study abroad in a different country. I tried to apply for a PhD and join him but I couldn't get funding. At the same time, we haven't been speaking for a while and I fear that things might be ending between us.

So now I feel even more alone and isolated. I never really felt like I had a home but my boyfriend used to be my home now that he might be gone, it made me want to have a home of my own and move out like I've always wanted. But I'm absolutely terrified.

I have no idea what to tell my mother or grandfather. I know for a fact that I can't discuss this with them because they will refuse. I'm also scared because I dont want to be physically harmed ever again. My plan was to move and then call my mother from my new flat and tell her that I'm taking a vacation somewhere in my home country for a while (which she will flip out about because she doesn't let me spend the night outside). Then I thought to tell her that I've left my current job and will start a new remote one soon. This is because I'm scared she might actually go to my office and cause a scene like she has done before with my friends. But I'm so scared of making that phone call and I'm doubting if I should even do this move at all.

I forced myself to pay the deposit and move my stuff but now I feel uncertain like I'm doing something wrong. I know it's stupid because I'm an adult but neither my family nor my culture think that I have any right in moving out. I know that I don't need their approval to do this but I'm somehow terrified of what will happen next and how they will react.

My mother has already done unhinged things. She has already threatened to kill herself. She has been hospitalized in icu after snapping at me and beating me and she blamed me that I'm the reason she went to icu. I'm scared if she gets hospitalized again because of my move. I'm scared that they will try to find me and hurt me. I'm scared that they might cause a scene at my office and humiliate me. I'm so terrified I'm constantly having this feeling of dread in my stomach.

I also feel guilt that my mother is alone and doesn't have anyone to take care of her. She's not in good health and has back issues. She is married but her husband is an asshole and she's he's second wife. I have tried to convince her to get a maid to stay with her but she's refusing even though she can afford it and says she doesn't need a maid because she has me. I can't do this anymore. I can't be her maid/caretaker. I've already done that role for years. I hate this house. There's so much trauma in it. I just want to feel safe and calm and to feel like I finally have my own place where no one shouts or curses me. I want a clean organized place where I can relax without the filth and clutter and animal hoarding. I'm so exhausted, overwhelmed, and anxious. I can barely sleep properly or focus on anything. I really need this but I'm terrified and I don't know what to say to them.

I don't want to just leave and disappear but I'm so scared of what will happen after. I'm scared of dealing with it on my own. I wish I had my friends/ boyfriend with me but I'm alone here. I have this coworker who helped me but it's not the same. I feel so incredibly alone.

I need some kind of advice or perspective for how to handle this or if anyone can share their experiences and how things turned out for them, I would really appreciate it.