u/ryleyatbest

I (22) have been staying at home for the holiday weekend and my parents have been out of town. Yesterday, I swam a bit in their pool and got out to cool down. They have a decently big umbrella in an outdoor table that I had up to provide some shade once I got out of the pool.

When I was done swimming I had moved it back down since where I live is incredibly windy, but I had totally forgotten to tie the fabric part shut. Later that night a giant thunderstorm blew through. I woke up this morning to get the water off the pool cover and saw that the umbrella had blown open again and completely bent over. It’s totally destroyed and the rod is in two separate pieces. There‘s absolutely zero way to fix it (I‘ve already tried).

I feel like my parents are already irritated with me in general for being forgetful. There’s been talks of kicking me out and we agreed instead that I will be out of the house by the end of the year. I’m trying to save every penny I can since I only graduated from college in May, but this broken umbrella is fully my responsibility and I’m already going to volunteer to pay for it. My biggest thing is I don’t know how to tell them it’s broken.

My mom comes back to town in a couple days while my dad is gone until mid-month. Do I call them? Send them a text? Should I wait to tell my step mom in person instead? I fear them coming home before I get home from work and seeing it broken and getting mad that I didn’t tell them sooner. I don’t know what to do and I’m not sure if I can handle them getting irritated or disappointed at me further than they already are.

This is somewhat of an update from my last post made in this subreddit. tldr I explained in that post how I was unsure how to handle my dad’s disappointment in me despite my successes in life. I really appreciated the responses everyone had but I need advice again.

My dad was gone for two weeks on a trip and just came back this weekend. When he came home, he barely spoke to me, didn‘t acknowledge the Father’s Day card I left him, nothing. He leaves again tomorrow and decided to “check in” with me tonight about my job search progress.

For context, I have had a full time job since the beginning of the month. I landed that position within three weeks of graduating with a Bachelor’s, honors, and a certification in my field. The pay is not great, but I have a guaranteed raise of five dollars hourly set in October and it still is something rather than nothing. I decided because I’ve been studying for another certification exam that I was going to be a bit more lenient on my job searching until I take the exam, then I’ll dedicate more time to searching after work. I have ADHD and only have so much capacity at the end of the day lately for more computer work after a full-time office job. To add on, the dog that has been around with me since I was 11 (I am 22) had to be put down three weeks ago. I’ve been grieving so my plate is generally smaller than usual.

His check in with me consisted of raising his voice and asking pointed questions… nothing out of the usual. I started to tear up because I cry easily when I feel I’m in trouble, and then he flew off the rails. He told me to ”stop fucking crying, you’re an adult” and that I needed to grow up. He demanded that I show him my job search progress since he left, and when I countered him by saying I was not comfortable showing my emails to him and grabbing my computer for him like I was a teenager, the conversation escalated further. He said I needed to be out of the house by October. I told him I needed to step away from the conversation so we could both calm down and talk about stuff like adults. That made it worse, and he said I needed to be out within a week.

I then went to my step mom to ask for her advice since she typically can deescalate the situation. Instead, she said “I think we’re both disappointed in you right now” and left the room. My dad continued to yell at me, tell me that if I was lying about my job search progress that I needed to grovel at his feet in apology, and then was saying I need to be packed up and gone by tonight. This sent me into a panic attack since I was kicked out of my mom’s house as a young teenager and I felt this was coming entirely out of left field.

I was able to deescalate and have a more level headed convo with him. I asked him why he thinks I’m not doing enough, what his expectations are, how I think he could be communicating it better so that this doesn’t keep happening - and nothing. He explicitly told me that it is not his position to be there for me emotionally. He wouldn’t even hear me out about recommunicating what holding me accountable for job searching looks like.

I do not know what to do. I’m NC with my birth mom because of her abuse and emotional neglect. My dad is emotionally unavailable, but materially available (which I am so grateful for, don’t get me wrong) and my step mom is not there for me emotionally as much as I need. I try to express what I need, but I am shut down. My dad ended the convo tonight thinking things ended on a good note. I feel distraught and confused.

I don’t know what I did to end up with parents like this. I love my dad so much but this is hurting me to no end. I want to move out ASAP since I know this convo will happen again in the future but I cannot work two jobs unless I want to be miserable and fall behind in everything else. I really need advice and reassurance. I’m stuck and I’m scared. I don’t feel safe anywhere.

Just a little over a week ago I graduated with honors and got a bachelor's degree in a field I'm super passionate about. Unfortunately, this field does not have a million job openings for new grads, or I've been getting ghosted by bigger firms for months before getting an automated rejection email. The degree is in the arts and design field and I know these rejections don't have much to do with my actual resume and cover letter and portfolio, as I utilized to the best of my abilities portfolio review and career coaches at my university before I graduated and got all my materials to the highest standard I could.
Since the moment I got home, which was a day after graduation, I have been job searching for at least four to five hours a day immediately in the morning. I left my internship so I am currently unemployed but trying to take this opening of free time to network and set a good sleep schedule for myself so transitioning into my first full time job will be easier. I don't allow myself to do anything else until at least five jobs have been applied to, and more often than not I am applying to more than that if I find it and am reaching out to follow up.

My dad has been frustrated because to him it looks as if I am not doing enough. I set things up intentionally for my last semester of college so I could have ample time to focus solely on my capstone project, which meant I was only taking two classes. During this, my anti-depressant also stopped working, so I fell into a bout of passive suicidality and lost a lot of motivation to do things. Despite this, I still graduated with an extra certification that I studied for for months and with As in both the classes I had. I ended up breaking down one day and told my dad about my ideation, and he helped push me to reach out to my doctor and get my anti depressant switched. I've been on it for only a little less than a month, but I'm already feeling a positive change. Last night, he rehashed the same conversation again where he feels that I am not doing enough and that I should have been doing more during my last semester even though he knows I was really depressed and trying my best. I keep getting asked why I didn't graduate with another certification that I'm currently studying for, or why I didn't start taking the first step to become licensed in my field professionally. I was at a loss for words, and I felt as if I brought up the depression again that I would be another "welcome to the real world" thing.

I'm feeling as if my current achievements are being overlooked because there are still more things to do that I am actively pursuing instead of already having under my belt. I'm also a little disheartened because he hasn't asked me about the medication switch or how therapy has been going. He's assuming my perceived slowness with job searching is because of an anxiety about entering the workforce, and while I am anxious, I'm more anxious about not getting anything ASAP. I've applied to a total of 75 related jobs within the last week and am networking with a bunch of professionals and alumni from my degree. I'm waking up at 8:30 everyday. I'm going to bed before midnight. I have three interviews scheduled for next week and have already had two. I leave the house almost daily to go do something else. I work out everyday. I feel as if this is enough and I am proud of my efforts, but I don't know how to get my dad to stop being disappointed with me. It's been a common thing my whole life that he thinks I don't care enough about things (i.e. I've heard the line "it feels like I care more about this than you do" a million times), but I struggle to understand that perception and I don't know how to advocate for myself and the forward progress I've been making. I get he's worried because I will (hopefully) be moving out soon, but is he right? Am I not doing enough? Or is this parent anxiety that I need to learn to separate from my achievements?