Parents, Friends, & Church Reputation
For context, I, 20F, am a service missionary. I've been on my mission a year, 6 months teaching, 6 months service. I'll be finishing the next 7 months as service as well. Since I'm a service missionary, I don't get financial support from the church. I have to live off of my parents' support, because they offered to pay for my mission before it began (when we thought it would be a consistent $400/month), and I don't have any way to make money now.
I have been struggling with my relationship with my mother. My father is very logical and he agrees oftentimes that my mom makes no sense. My mother has always been the type of person to change the narrative to suit her. (She's also a big fan of the silent treatment, though she will respond to me whenever someone who isn't in our family is around, so they can't see her ignore me asking where the InstantPot is or something.) One week its "why don't you just end your mission early and go back to school? We'll pay for it, just go back to school because it's so hard to go back to school once you start working..." (which would cost thousands?) and the next week its "you'll need to pay for those scoliosis xrays and any future appointments you have." (They agreed to continue paying for my medical treatment before my mission as well, so I don't have any savings to do this.) This kind of back-and-forth has caused me so much grief over the years, especially since it started before I was old enough to have a job.
The main issue I want to bring up, however, is how isolating it feels to be a representative of the Church when facing this sort of thing. Whenever I express how fickle my family is to friends, I feel like it gives them a bad idea of the Church, since I'm the only member they know. They know my parents are very religious and then they hear how I've been treated, and I think they connect the two together. So I'm afraid to vent to non-member friends, lest they associate the Church with poor parenting.
I hope this wasn't too rant-y, but I genuinely want to know how one balances venting to friends with keeping the Church in a positive light. Maybe the only way is to get a therapist...
tl;dr I'm financially dependent on my parents, my mom likes to threaten to not pay for things I need like gas, doc appts, I feel like I can't vent to non-member friends without hurting Church reputation. how do I cope?