u/simplyjw116

Curious if anyone else also experiences this. Recently my parents went on a trip (a pretty regular thing for my mom and she always tends to dump all the home and family responsibilities on me every time and I'm super over it). Anyway, more to the point, my house has been empty for about a week and a half and I still feel on edge. My body tenses up and I still hear everything going on in the house even though my mom isn't home. These things normally happen when she is home but I feel like I should finally be able to relax knowing she's not going to be home for a while and the relaxation piece never seems to come. It's like my body is stuck bracing for impact nonstop regardless. Eventually I hope to move out but I'm nervous that when I do I still will always be on edge waiting for my mom to come in and suck the life out of me every time I start to relax.

Thanks for reading any thoughts or advice are welcome

So this is kind of a rant but I'm curious what people's thoughts are on this because I'm pissed off at her already and not sure if I'm over reacting. Back story is my mom made the decision to have my grandmother do something called "hospital at home" the day before she left for a vacation which is basically a nice way of saying they kick the person out of the hospital to free up a bed, send nurses twice a day and make you do 24/7 care for the person. So that alone has been fun and I don't agree at all with her choosing to do this and then going on the trip anyway (she got travel insurance she could have gotten her money back or at least most of it back).

Fast forward to this morning. While talking to other people leading up to this morning I had said "I dont know if she even would come home if I were in the hospital". Well this morning we got the answer to that question. I've been sick the last couple of days with tonsillitis that just kept getting worse. This morning I stopped being able to swallow and went to the er because the pain was so bad I couldn't sleep. Turned out to be an abscess which they drained and I now feel a lot better but I'm not anywhere near 100% and my mom's response was that she could have a friend of hers come and stay with us to help out. My aunt and uncle are currently here, my uncle helps out when he isn't working and is actually helpful. My aunt had a mini stroke a couple weeks ago and basically needs adult supervision to do anything so she's also basically a patient in the house and my uncle is starting to get sick as well.

Anway, I'd love anyone's thoughts on this and/ or advice. I get being sick, feverish, and sleep deprived that I might not be seeing this 100% clearly but I am so pissed at my mom. I also can't leave because my only option is staying with friends and they're immunocompromised and I don't want to get them sick or get a hotel which I can't afford and if I do either my grandmother is left being cared for by someone who legally shouldn't even be driving and can't even care for herself never mind someone else.

So I live with my parents, I am hoping to move out as soon as physically possible but I'm finishing nursing school and I have at least another year before moving out is realistically possible. I semi-recently realized my mom is a narcissist. I knew that she was difficult and we had our issues but I didn't exactly have a name for why things were the way they are. Now that I know what it is everything I see is like textbook narcissism. Lately I've just been feeling so emotionally and physically drained from everything. I'm also my grandmothers primary caretaker (kind of forced to be since my mom refuses to do anything to care for her mother). So I'm not sure if what I'm feeling is caretaker fatigue, emotional burnout from my mom, just general exhaustion, etc. Anyway the question for the group is does anyone else also feel this way?

So a little background, I am 29 and I have to live at home at the moment while finishing nursing school. I have 1 year left, I estimate 1.5 years before I can reasonably move out (if sooner ends up being possible then that would be great but I'm trying to focus on realistic time frames). I have semi-recently realized my mom is a narcissist. I also currently am basically an employee in the household on top of everything else. My 97 year old grandmother lives with us and I am her primary caretaker. I am payed (technically) for some of the hours I spend caring for my grandmother but I routinely work far over what I am payed for and constantly get crap from my mom when schedules need to change or if I honestly even just need to leave the house for an hour to go to a doctors appointment. She is mostly respectful of the school schedule (at least the class times, study time tends to blend into time she insists I do other things as well), however, anytime I have to go to the doctors or even leave the house for any amount of time its constantly "who is going to watch your grandmother" even when she is home and my dad is home (and he is wonderful with her and helps as much as possible, he works from home so most of the time during these occurrences he is also trying to work but he is physically in the house should any type of emergency happen he could handle it).

I have realized living at home is not ideal and being an employee on top of it makes everything so much worse. I have secured a higher paying job that is in the field I want to be in (I want to specialize in pediatrics once I finish school and this is a job doing exactly that and I could move into a nursing role seamlessly once I finish school at this place). My mom is currently avoiding finding additional help for my grandmother despite her being off from work for the summer (she's a school teacher and usually very difficult to be around especially over summer breaks because she expects me to constantly entertain her like a child). My grandmother had 5 children (my mom being 1 of 5) and all 5 children could be involved in my grandmothers care and my grandmother has multiple grandchildren and extended family that also wants to and could be involved but my mom refuses to contact them. From the start of me being paid my mom was supposed to be essentially a manager in all of this and she has dumped all the responsibilities on me. I am so over everything in this house and have so much anger and resentment it's hard to think straight especially on top of all the school stress (which hasn't stopped just because it's summer, I still have a lot to do for school and my mom is constantly interfering).

Fast forward to boundary setting. I have been trying to enforce very strict boundaries as I start this new job and transition out of employee and back to basically a family member in the household. One boundary that is an excellent example of her lack of respect is an upcoming trip for her birthday. She decided she needs to go on a week-long trip the week of her birthday. My dad and I both did not want this trip and she's doing a month long one with my dad literally 2 weeks later which was supposed to be the "birthday trip" but since it doesn't happen on the actual day the second trip was deemed necessary by her. For the month long trip I will have no help at all with my grandmother and will have all the household responsibilities on top of everything else while trying to work at my new job. I'm annoyed about the second trip to begin with and don't want to go. I stated I would show up at the location the day of and drive home that evening and stated a multitude of reasons why the most important one being I have an incredibly anxious cat that needs anxiety meds and won't be able to get them if some random person shows up at the house to give them to her. My mom went around what I had said and arranged for a cousin to come and watch the cats (which isn't the entire problem) and stated that now I "can spend the night or two at least since it's her birthday"). She obviously wants me to stay the entire week which is not doable and blatantly disregarded my boundary by arranging home care despite me saying it's not sufficient.

Anyway this is a super long post, if anyone reads this thank you for listening to my long ass rant. Any advise or tips are greatly welcomed