u/Individual_Pace2299

Not saying having an ultra sensitive intuition is a weakness—it IS a strength, just the type that not many people can really understand. Like for instance, as a kid I always have had a feeling that the phrase “make your parents proud” didn’t sit quite well with me because I always felt that my achievements would turn into some sort of “trophies” for my dad to parade around with his friends or extended families. The telltale sign is usually he’d be quiet once I did something good but said the most shit when I fucked up.

But I didn’t have a solid empirical evidence to prove my hunch. So my past self would justify anything just to avoid getting that kind of attention even though it could also benefit me in the long run.

My parents are pretty decent people btw even though they did have their own flaws. But where they grew up and in our culture, I just find how generally normalized it is to claim a child’s achievements as though the child’s entire being is the extension of the parents’ especially in certain social classes. The goal is eventually to obtain social validation from outsiders.

I also have had moments with my family that I just recently realized were quietly sabotaging my own potential such as constant gaslighting and infantilizing, so that if I failed, the credits still would go to my parents for “doing their best to raise an incompetent child.”

But here’s the beauty of having major placements in 12th house: the delusions and tolerance start to fall apart once you hit the last year of your 20s (saturn returns) and slowly make your way to the 30s. I have nothing against my parents due to their past circumstances so as for myself, instead of dwelling on what could have happened if they were better parents, I start to detach and keep my own truth to myself.

My point is if you have ever felt very strongly about something despite what others say, your intuition is not entirely wrong. Your answers will only be revealed once you’re emotionally and mentally adept enough. But honestly speaking, when you’re still not mature enough, being a 12th houser sucks more because you don’t know anything and you don’t know how you’re supposed to act.

I personally enjoy being an adult more than a child because that means I have more control over myself and the life around me. People seem to respect me more as I age.

If you struggle with the same issues, you should know how to keep a lot of things for yourself. Study them, learn how to get along with them first and once you’ve seen enough patterns, act accordingly. Leave some things or some people behind when necessary. Move abroad if possible. I personally would never want to live in close proximity to my family forever, no matter how much I love them.

I’m not sure this is the right sub to talk about this issue but since I’m a 12th houser too, I’m just going to spill it. Before I start, let me clarify something: I am NOT a professional astrologer but I’ve been absorbing some basic knowledge about different schools of astrology—vedic, traditional, placidus—you name it. So my rant is going to have a little bit of this and that. Okay here we go.

I (29F) was born and raised in a loving family where all my needs were and still are basically fulfilled. We’re not rich but enough to send me overseas for college and occasional long-distance travel. I check my natal chart and unsurprisingly, I’m a Taurus Sun born on Friday (Venus day), under the Venus/DC line (if you’re into astrocartography) and ruled by Venus (in Vedic). In Placidus I’m a mercury ruled since I’m Gemini rising there. But even so, if you look at the degrees according to traditional astrology, many of them are Venus influenced. Long story short, my life has been pretty much Venusian on top of having grand trine earth in 4h/8h/12h in Placidus. (According to some people, the placements may make one lazy due to harmonious flow of energy in one’s life.)

But here’s where it gets frustrating. I have Saturn in 11th Aries (Placidus). Debilitated and unaspected. So it stands alone and does its own things within that house’s wall. The way I see it, my Saturn is definitely weak and from there, I figured why I still struggle with independence because I lack the inner discipline and the older I get, the more I discover that the love I’ve received is unstable and unstructured.

You may think, I’m just finding excuses to justify my laziness or lack of effort but nope. I’ve been trying to unlearn what I was taught as a kid and re-parent myself so that I don’t become like my mother (a housewife with no income). I’ve tried to commit to something that helps me stand on my own feet but nobody ever took me seriously professionally. Maybe I was indeed lazy when I was younger and I internalized every word of my parents’. Sure, but imagine raising your girls without boundaries and expect them to marry a man who can provide for them too. If I confronted my parents about this, they’d say they never taught me that way but their actions tend to contradict their speech.

Anyway on top of these, I have my Midheaven in Pisces. I’m not wishing for a hard life but my point is don’t take astrological interpretation at face value especially when it concerns benefic planets like Jupiter and Venus. Benefic placements without boundaries tend to enlarge destructive self indulgent behaviors if not handled properly.

I realize I’ve been a pretty stuck-up and selfish person too due to Venus in 1st house. Anyhow, Saturn is not always the bad guy. I wish he was present in my life more during my formative years. Right now since I’m on my Saturn Return, I figured that Saturn influences are starting to show and prepare me to be an actual adult. I’m currently working on relocating to a country known for its strict work culture. Hopefully, this way I can better develop my skills and my outlook on life, and no longer hang on to the idea that a prince charming would come and save me as always.

Feeling unseen is indeed part of the 12th house rodeo and if you’re new here, I just wanna say that you should manage your expectations because otherwise you’re going to have a hard time making peace with the downsides of this placement.

I have a pretty good relationship with my mother. She’s a very devoted mother and housewife so she practically spends almost her entire life taking care of us and our home. I would say that she understands who and what I am from inside out almost 90% of the time.

However even so, there are still some things about me that remain hidden from her. For instance, I recently made a big decision about my life that to her was an unexpected move even though I have had it for so long. The look on her face and voice every time I talk about this particular journey tells me that she didn’t expect it to come from me.

I even have some habits that I liked to do when I lived abroad far away from my parents that would give them major heart attacks if they ever found out because to them I was this and that. Again, it’s never truly 100% accurate.

I understand that the wisdom “nobody knows you like you do” applies to even those with little to no 12th house influences but I’m aware that it may affect us more as 12th housers because we’re so used to be misunderstood, we expect everyone including our loved ones to get us 100%. Unfortunately, it’s never gonna happen. I even had a fallout with another 12th houser because I got blinded by my own expectations.

When I was younger, I struggled to maintain relationships with people because I didn’t know how to “embellish”my words. I don’t mean being honest equals being rude and blunt at all. I mean when someone asks you something about yourself, it’s best if you tell them what they want to hear while still retaining the core message that you want to convey.

For example, someone in a casual conversation asked me about my background for the past 10 years. My teenage - early 20s self would tell them the entire history in details including all the good, the bad, and the ugly. I can’t read people’s minds for sure but turns out sometimes something I said in that moment would bother them one or another even if it’s nothing particularly significant.

Now that I’m entering my 30s next year, I learned that with the majority of people, you sort of need to “embellish”your words to suit whatever narrative or impression they’ve held against you the moment you walk into the room. You don’t necessarily need to lie, you just need to twist your words a little bit and keep some facts to yourself.

This is also probably the reason why lots of people easily fall victim to marketing tricks. It never ceases to amaze me how important this particular skill in communication is even when eventually everyone quietly knows what the truth is. They just hate the fact that you point it out to their faces.

The next time someone asks what being a 12th houser is like, I guess I’ll just tell them to watch the movie the backrooms that’s currently being hyped by social media right now 🤷🏻‍♀️

I mean not gonna lie but I personally don’t quite understand what’s so eerie and peculiar about the backrooms—it’s literally like a visual representation of my mind.

Struggled to define what I am (the Sun) and articulate a coherent thought verbally (Mercury) because my identity and my inner deep thoughts are too busy running around in circle inside the liminal spaces. And, outsiders can see the rooms clearly and instantly feel spooked.

Been on this subreddit for a while now and even though it’s a common 12h thing to have others underestimate us, I find that my 12h mercury poses a pretty unique challenge when it comes to communication.

I used to have many people trying to “correct” my speech or choice of words even when I had said it correctly. I remember someone used to say my choice of words was shallow and elementary at best when I said the word “way of life.”
She said I should have done something to improve my vocabulary. Mind you that, English isn’t my first language and I wasn’t particularly in a situation where language precision was crucial.
And the word “way of life” fit perfectly to whatever else I said on that day.

Another most recent event was when I started a new semester at a Chinese language school and the teacher asked me to introduce myself. I said what I said and the teacher understood me very well but I had another student also trying to correct my speech. Thankfully, this time, the teacher was kind enough to defend me by REPEATING the word(s) that person thought was incorrect.

Why do people do this 😂 we 12th housers should grow thick skin to survive indeed. Too many irrational reactions to us just vibing and living our lives.

Not sure if it’s a specifically 12th house thing but as a child growing up to this day even as an adult, I actually love visiting a sick patient at the hospital or attending a funeral.

I would follow my family around to the hospital for their appointments even though I absolutely got no business there and I could definitely opt to stay home. It was all optional.

I’d only been hospitalized once in my life for dengue and I’d say I had quite a blast except for the limited food options.

I often find unexplainable comfort and peace sitting or walking down the hospital’s hallway. The smell of antiseptic cleaning agents, the white walls, the flickering lights… the liminal spaces. Especially at night or early mornings when it gets quieter.

Funerals give off the same feeling for me.

What are the things that you like to do that may raise some eyebrows but feel completely normal to you?

DISCLAIMER: I’m not attempting to conflate science with astrology as I’m fully aware that neurodivergence is much more of a separate neurological issue that’s more likely to be a result of genetics and environmental factors, and can be observed and measured objectively by evidence and data. I don’t claim expertise over both fields as I’m here only to describe my own experiences as a 12th houser that sometimes people themselves may have conflated them with symptoms of neurodivergence.

I may or may not be neurodivergent (ND) as I have never stepped foot into a therapist or psychiatrist’s office. But later on after learning more about astrology, I did find out that the influence of my 12th house placements do project similar symptoms to autism. For instance, I’ve always found it very difficult to maintain eye-contact with people all my life because ever since I was young, I thought eye contact was only reserved for lovers or soulmates.

I still find eye contact with people I’m not close to extremely uncomfortable because once I look into their eyes, I feel like I can instantly see another world from another realm. Like I wasn’t supposed to be there and I was clearly intruding.

I can feel all the energy as if I’m to become intimate with this particular person. That’s why whenever I talk to someone or try to explain something, I only look at their eyes briefly for nanoseconds and then move my gaze elsewhere. You may find my mouth and hands moving around while my eyes are on the ceiling or the wall.

I also used to have a hard time looking in the mirror while I was talking. I just found the image of me actually existing and conversing with others very uncanny valley.

Some people could have found the way I talk pretty unsettling and might be the reason why they avoided long conversations with me. I asked my best friend one time if she thought I might be on the spectrum. She said if you ever got diagnosed one day, I wouldn’t be so surprised. But I don’t really believe that I could be ND since I can conduct myself properly in public and understand social cues to a certain extent.

I have also heard some people say that this house could be an indicator of ND in someone’s natal chart but I just think it’s too reductive and oversimplified. Any thoughts on this?

I want to tell a story that I haven’t told anyone in my family and close friends about because I’m pretty sure they’d see me as batshit crazy. But it’s totally real and it happened.

I’m not the most social person (obviously) but my parents especially my dad is. So some time during my childhood, his friends or neighbors’ children would hang out with me. I was still hanging out with one of those childhood friends until several years ago when something finally broke the camel’s back.

The older I got, the more I sensed that this person only wanted to hang out with me for the sake of the past and our parents’ connections. A few meetups had helped me conclude that this person didn’t actually want to be there. But still, every time she contacted me when I was in town, I couldn’t help but to accept the invitation.

Until one day, I was supposed to meet her at the church she attended at the time. The church was located inside a very busy shopping mall. I was already about to be late and the church was on the highest floor of the building so I decided to take the elevator.

When I was waiting for my turn, I saw at the corner of my eye a very suspicious looking man who kept eyeing me. I tried to shrug it off because I thought it was just my anxiety being in the middle of the crowd. He started approaching and kind of stood pretty close to me when we were about to enter the elevator. I felt something brushed lightly against my lower back near the tailbone. I didn’t think about it much because

1. there were many people rushing to get inside the elevator.
2. That man was already waiting for the elevator before I got there

But whenever I looked back trying to catch whatever was on my lower back, the man had his hand close to him. It happened for less than a minute and I couldn’t take any action due to the circumstances (I was worried about falsely accusing someone or that man could have defended himself by using the crowd as an excuse).

That was when something inside my brain started to click that I should put an end to the shallow insincere friendship. I didn’t get to enjoy the rest of the night because I felt like I was putting myself in danger for some shallow and insincere connection.

Years later, she did something that offended me and proved my suspicion after all.

Some of you might not be able to find the connection between the elevator incident and my friendship with this person. You might also think I just made up a completely fallacious excuse to cut her off. But as a 12th houser, I often experience a similar unpleasant incident that signals that I should get myself out of that situation regardless of the correlation and causation.

Idk if this makes any sense at all but sometimes having major placements in this house means you may receive some sort of signals or warnings from the universe about certain things or people even if the events may seem unrelated at first.

Edit: take into account that we’re East Asian descent living in Southeast Asia where putting up facades is the norm to maintain social cohesion.

I have had friendships that crashed and burned but I also have had those that are filled with respect and love. I’m not trying to be ungrateful but at times I find myself constantly being the one taking the initiative to maintain contact first. Even with the ones I trust that won’t ever betray me and will always be there for each other. Otherwise, it may seem like they would just completely forget my existence.

As fellow 12th housers, do you experience the same thing as well?

I’m not sure if everybody would be able to understand what I’m about to say here but let me try to break it down carefully.

Let’s say, I’m of Chinese descent but I’m not from China and I have never lived there. None of my parents and their parents did. But my ancestors (most likely my parents’ grandparents) came from China and migrated to Southeast Asia to escape the civil war at that time. So, I’m (roughly) the 4th generation of Chinese immigrants in SEA.

Our family still strongly upholds the Chinese culture as part of our minority ethnic identity in the SEA host country where we live now but our identity has merged together with local culture. So if we go back to China or Taiwan, we no longer can relate or strongly identify with the original culture there.
There’s always a minor difference that’s too hard to ignore.

Many of us don’t speak Mandarin Chinese as well — the national language/dialect of China — but some of us still speak other minor Chinese dialects like Fujianese or Hakka. I recently just returned home from Taiwan after studying Mandarin there for almost two years.

I have strong placements in 4h (home and family life) but also in 9h and 12h. I’ve always wondered whether speaking and learning Mandarin Chinese still counts as “foreign” according to 9h/12h or it sits nearer towards 4th house interpretation?

I have my mars conjunct moon in 4h and when I was still in Taiwan, I did feel the same type of anger and resentment that I used to harbor a lot when I was younger. I think Taiwan itself isn’t a bad place to live in, some people even love it, but when I was there, the same type of isolation still exists like there’s a glass wall between me and the people of the same ethnicity.

Interestingly, when I check my astrocartography and check cities/countries with high population of Chinese descent such as Singapore (I used to live here for 4 years too), I’d still have at least one 12h placement. I have sun and mercury in 12h in my natal chart, but other planets like Venus may move to my 12h in the astrocartography chart of those Chinese majority countries.

If you have similar experience or you have deeper insight, please share your thoughts with me.

I knew someone who is a Leo sun and mercury in 12h but at first glance, she would be the last person you’d suspect to have 12h placements at all because she has strong 5th house stellium in Aquarius.

So you could say she’s pretty social and popular, and based on my personal observations, is also often surrounded by a solid group of friends. Whether or not she’s struggling with the same kind of isolation or alienation is something I cannot directly assess but from what I got, her 5h stellium does help her pull herself out of the hole most of the time.

In my own case, I recently figured out that my isolation is also largely influenced by my Venus opp Pluto in Sagittarius 7h. On top of that, I have my Saturn in Aries in 11h. Double whammy. But for the past few years, I have noticed that I have always been “excluded” by the universe for a good reason.

I barely have friends that could see me eye to eye but once I do have, the friendship becomes transformative and intense, since I also can only manage a one-on-one type of friendship — it counts as a form of partnership one way or another. More than 2 persons at a time, I’d automatically be excluded. So the deep friendships I have had speaks volumes about the themes of Pluto in 7th house. My other placements such as 4th house stellium in Virgo also never really help my case…

Yeah I’m a Gemini rising with Pisces MC on top of everything, so being holed up in my room is basically the main purpose of my life I guess lol. But the point is sometimes 12h does amplify the loneliness but it’s not the only thing that matters. You have to look at the entire chart to conclude what perpetuates the issues further. Because if, let’s say you have stellium in public/visible houses like 1st 5th or 11th, you don’t have something else anchoring you down like a 12th house, you might have felt super restless like your life is constantly on a public display.

One bad placement doesn’t always signify absolute doom and gloom — it could indicate hard aspects from other placements. After all, everything in astrology is intertwined and influencing one another.

As a 12h sun/mercury in Taurus, I just recently came to realization that what usually saves me from the gloominess and loneliness of this house is my Jupiter in the 9h.

The 9th house in astrology represents:

- higher learning

- long distance travel

- philosophy

- religion/spirituality

- worldview/belief systems

Whenever my 12h placements try to suffocate me especially in the context of my outside world/social life, I usually retreat and find my solace in books, articles, foreign culture/languages, foreign media, and travel. I also write essays and create social media posts for foreign audiences. (mainly English speaking audiences – I am a Southeast Asian living in Asia and English is not my first language)

I also consider myself a lifelong learner because most of my childhood and adolescence years were disrupted by too much expectations and rush hours. I didn't have the time and space to think clearly. Only now that I'm almost 30, I can start thinking and doing things for myself.

I'd like to emphasize how much the 9th house has blessed me effortlessly with many things that most people from the similar backgrounds would have difficulty accessing such as openness and flexibility to accept different opinions, thoughts, and belief systems. Being exposed to foreign culture for long term is also one of them.

I'd consider myself financially lucky to have the capacity to fulfill my 9h Juno's purpose too but even if I didn't have the means to travel and stay in a foreign country for long, I can still solely rely on the internet and other more affordable resources to help me realize it.

For the record, I spent a total of 6 years living in 3 different major cities in 3 different countries, and the only continent I haven't traveled to is pretty much Africa (excluding the Poles).

But what I'm trying to say is consider "escaping" your pain and sorrow inflicted by the 12h to where your Jupiter is located in your chart. After all, Jupiter is the planet of Dharma – the planet of compassion even during the times when you don't have one for yourself – I can assure you it will help so much with clarity and emotional relief.

Have you also had any good experiences tapping into your Jupiter to balance out the bad in your natal chart?

I am a Taurus sun 12h, so safe to say I love my sleep. A lot.

But what I mean is if you have prominent 12h placements and you're struggling with life choices and direction, sleep can be such an underrated solution.

I noticed that whenever I get stuck with options, or whatever issue I struggle with in my waking life, my dreams would become much more vivid and metaphorical. But once I'm done with it, the dreams just automatically stop being dramatic and lucid. This house rules the unconscious and dreams, and it's the house of Pisces. That being said, tap into your unconscious mind more because oftentimes it always tries to tell your waking mind what to do and how to solve your problems, even when you don't see the connection at first.

Fyi, I am a Buddhist but I suck at meditating or praying because it feels too deliberate for me. Meanwhile, sleeping puts my mind in a more natural flow state. Sometimes, I even dream about the people I know and the internal struggles they're facing that I have no way of knowing until I actually ask them about it.

Do you as a 12th houser often experience vivid dreams as well? They might try to tell you something important about yourself and your world.

The whole trope of 12thhousers being scrutinized and alienated for no reason has so much to do with the fact that non 12thhousers are the ones being dishonest about who they are or their stances.

To illustrate, I know some people would look down on me at some point of my life but this person in particular stood out to me the most. It was 2014 when I just started college overseas. This person happened to be my classmate. Mind you that I did nothing, I knew nothing, and I had no interest in this person. I was basically just existing, minding my own business. Both of us were from the same country so it's not unusual for international students from the same country to kind of stick together especially when we were only 17 at the time.

She'd enthusiastically chat with other classmates while completely ignoring me whenever I tried to chime in. The first time she acted that way, I already got the memo. Not that I had the slightest interest in building a close friendship with her anyway, but I was just being courteous and tried to fit in.

Years of observing her attitude towards me and also hearing stories from my friends about her being a proud bully who attached her self worth to all things shiny–wealth, grades, status, and whatnot–I learned that my quiet, observant, frugal, and honest way of living kinda triggered the crap out of her because she grew up in a strict Christian household (another irony) and status-driven social environment that upholds reputation and superficiality. It's no wonder she tried too hard not to be associated with someone like me.

This is all behind me now but occasionally I'd still find this person hovering around my social media trying to peek at what I'm up to these days, which is kind of ironic considering in real life, she deliberately put on this disgusted expression whenever she came into contact with my presence, as if I were the demon spawn she read on the Bible lol.

People project onto us 12thhousers or act nasty for no reason, and that's inevitable. However, this doesn't mean you can just let yourself die as a martyr and do nothing about it. The best course of action is to have all the facts and evidence straight–since 12th house can fog your ability to discern–and try not to take things personally because what they do to you reflects who they are, not you.

I saw a post on social media that said there are indicators in Astrology that make people "not meant to be successful in life" and even though the measure of success is subjective to each individual, I have several placements that resonate with my actual experience. I can't help but to focus on my mercury (taurus 12h) square Neptune 8h in Capricorn. I always struggle with inconsistency, bad decisions, distractions that makes my life path very non-linear. Fogginess and confusion about directions though clarity has become apparent as I get older.

I also have the Sun in 12h and the chart makes a grand earth trine with 4h virgo stellium (moon, mars, NN, Lilith). South Node in 10h Pisces (some people said this indicates a past life full of hard work). I always feel all of my ambition and potential are sort of bottled up with nowhere to go, and the universe seems to conspire against me so that I can just chill and become the passenger princess lol.

Anyone dealing with the same problem as well? What is your solution to this?