Help! I feel so trapped in an emotional hell I just can't escape

OK, everyone, apolgies first of all for how long this will be, as well as if I sound like I'm whining, but I honestly have no other place to turn to now...

The problem I'm facing right now has been a very long, on-going one. I currently live at home with both of my parents, which I was forced for financial reasons to do three years ago. The plan at that time was to move back out after 3 years, which went to hell after I was downsized last year at my job.

First off, a little background info on my home life & relationship with my parents. They're both Catholic. I was too, but I've recovered from that particular affliction (sorry if that offends anyone, it's just how I feel). I still believe in God, it's just the people whoo run things & all of the followers thatI have serious issues with. Anyway, my parents have always prided themselves on being good little Catholic automatons & going to church every Sunday so they can be good people. And like most people, they've convinced themselves that ths makes them good people, in addition to the few church events they participate in, which sees to be more like social events for them than actual selfless acts, but that's my point of view. After all, pretty much all of their friends are people from church.

At the same time as growing up amidst all of this, my father has been verbally abusive to me my entire life. While I have moved away a few times, financial reasons always force me back, as well as when life has a way of turning on me or when I've made a mistake that's forced me to rely on them (we all make mistakes after all & I certainly won't say I never have). Despite many times asking, pleading & even almost begging for my mother to make him stop, her attitude has always been that she can't him, he won't change on his own, she doesn't want to get in the middle of things & that I have to deal with it (there's even been a few time where she has cried while saying this, but I have my doubts from someone who says she wants it to stop but makes herself out to be the victim and being in pain because she's in the middle of things). I almost wish my father had beaten me when I was younger. I would think that at least then my mother would have done something, but even then I have my doubts, small tho they may be. So basically, I've been growing up in an extremely horrible emotional environment. I might add that it was so bad at one point, the stress of it caused my younger sister to develop a stomach ulcer when she was in elementary school at the time. She actually had to go to the hospital fo the pain of it, it was so bad.

So, 3 years ago, I reluctantly decided to move back in for financial reasons. My mother had actually invited me the year before that to move back, but I was extremely hesitant given my history & refused to. After eventually being worn down, I decided a year later to move back, amidst promises of things being different and being treated with respect, dignity and being treated as an adult. The first piece of furniture me moved back into their house was y bed. Before it had even entered the house, my father had started back on me with the verbal abuse. My level of stress already had started to rise exponentially & I hadn't even gotten thru day 1 back home at that point. I actually threatened to kill myself before I have finished moving back all of my stuff (which wasn't even a joke, I was trying to convey how I was being made to feel; what happens normally on the rare occasions that I'm honest happened here - my mother started crying and saying that t hurt her tohear me say things like that & she got all upset, but then went back into the house & left me to deal with moving the rest of my stuff with my father, totally leaving the situation behind her. Fast forward after 3 years & it been pretty much the same the whole time - me waking up every morning wondering how much or even if I should defend myself, thoughts of suicide, massive depression (which I never got mediation to help me because that would mean having to have said medication in the same house with these people who have a bad habit of walking into my living area (the basement) and petty much looking at whatever they want or going thru whatever they feel like under the justiification that it's both their house & whatever happens under their roof is their business as well as the whole you're our child we have a right to know what's going on with you attitude. When you add random searches in with the verbal abuse, the lasck of respect & the periodic reminders of past mistakes I've made, I'm basically living in hell, with no chance of escape. Emotionally, I have never felt safe in this house & yet I keep stupidly thinking that things will change, even tho they never do. I have spent a lifetime lying about how I feel to everyone, family, friends, teachers and anyone else in my life, because I learned at home very quickly that on rare occasions where I have chosen to be honest, my mother gets all teary-eyed, makes herself out to be so hurt (which I'm sure she is, but it always seems to comes back to how I just made her feel with what I've said about my feelings and how much she's done for me and so on). Even tho I've been burned so many times by both of these people, every now & then I just think that maybe this time will be different. Most times, I don't get the waterworks tho. I just get told that I'm wrong & then I'm told how I actually feel by either of them (as if they would know how I feel), I get told I'm making things up, I get told I'm using what I said as an excuse to get out of something - basically my feelings get dismissed & ignored because either or both of them can't handle hearing it & it's easier to dismiss than it is to deal. Keep in mind I'm 36 and this has how things have been during my life, although when I've tried to explain the above to either of them, I've been told that I'm making it up, being overly dramatic, etc. After speaking with one of the mods here about a month ago, we had decided that I should just stay here & kind of stick things out, seeing myself more as a boarder who just lives with these two people rather than as a member of the family. I gave that a go, but over the last month it became quite apparent that another 2 years here just wasn't going to work out, no matter what I told myself...

Then came a slight ray of hope.

I am going back to college as part of a gov't funded program that pays for everything - tuition, books, supplies, even living expenses like rent, phone, internet, cable etc. After getting everything in order with the educational side of things, I spoke with someone concerning getting a place in town & started looking at apartments so I could get the hell out of here. As usual, my mother couldn't ust let me do everything myself, but felt the need to interject herself into the search. For the last two days, I've been looking at apartments. all of the ones I saw yesterday are great locations close to my college, just too expensive & too small, not to mention I'd never get the gov't folks to approve covering the rents. Today I saw several apartments that were all inclusive for rent, hydro, etc & very reasonably priced, so much so that I could probably talk my way into the gov't program covering those expenses with minimal effort. At the end of everything the catch finally came - because I would be classified as a student, I would need a co-signer for the lease. My father retired but has been picking up work to make ends meet sometimes, working shutdowns in the chemical plants here. Long story short, after my mother & I called him to go over everything, he said no on co-signing. he didn't want to take the chance that he'd have to go back to work agai (which is funny because tonite after eatig his mac & cheese & hot dog, he complained about needing to eat better, which meant buying groceries, which meant needing money).

While I understand the reasoning, I've just seen my one chance to get out of hell vanish. The car ride home was difficult. My mother & my father seems to have this thig sometimes where they feel that they can get around things if they try hard enough, regardless of what the rules are. On the way home, my mother couldn't shut up about how we could get around the whole co-signer thing. The woman who had shown us the apartments had made it quiite clear that if the word student was on the application then a coigner was necessary without question. Yet my mother kept going on & on about how I had such great credit maybe they would make an exception or maybe if I tell them I'm 36 (I don't look that old, most people think I'm 10 years younger than that at least) maybe they would make an exception. After saying several times to her that she was standing next to me when this woman told us how things worked & that the paperwork would require it, she finally got a little frustrated with beig told what she already knew but just would't accept. That led to an argument which led to me, again stupidly enough, pouring out how I've been made to feel my whole life. She got out of the car in tears & again made herself out to be the injured party (which agai, I don't doubt that she feels that way, just that in feeling the way she does & articulating it to me, she completely once again ignored how I felt & made me feel even worse about how I feel. It's really f**ked up when I'm in pain & then made to feel like it's my own fault on top of beig made to feel guilty about how she feels about what I've told her about how I feel. Every time things always come back to how they feel when I say something about how I feel. I was prety much told I can forget about any chance of a cosigner, which I'm not sure why it was said, it had already pretty much been decided against before we'd even left the apartment building's parking lot (before the car had eve been started to leave, in fact), which really hurt because it was like trying to throw it back at me ('Even tho we won't do this for you I'm going to tell you to forget about us doing this for you.'). I have just watched what probably is my only chance to get away from what was descibed to me as an emotionally toxic environment disappear, like this chance has been violently grabbed away from me & I'm left literally in a situuation that I cannot escape from. I am seriously in extreme depression right now & have no idea what I'm going to do. On top of all of this, I'm transgendered & came out to my mother at the end of July (it didn't go well to say the least). Things ever since have just made it impossible to even be able to live with myself, as I have NO privacy at all and can't even go an hour without seeig either one of them (I live in the basement & there is no sort of door to block myself from any other area of the basement, just a Japanese screen thing that stands there like a very thin, temporary wall). Getting out of this house was, from my way of looking at things, possibly the first step to doing what I needed to to start being better & happier, but it's gone now.

I don't think anyone who has read this far to this point will have any helpful advice, as I honestly can't even see any options open to me at this point either. I guess the point of all is this was more to just get it all out & at least let one or two people know how I'm feeling right now (I seriously think I'm emotionally f**ed up right now, after everything in my whole life & everything that happened today, I still can't cry & I hurt so bad right now.) As per usual, my parents had dinner at the table tonite & I thought maybe I'd sit with them & see if a useful conversation could occur. The whole of the events I just described were completely ignored. As usual, whenever a difficult emotional situation occurs, the both of them rush thru it as quickly as possible so that they can pretend it never happened later. My mother had even said earlier that I need to talk to someone, which I am wholeheartedly for, I WANT to talk to a therapist or someone who can be objective or at least be respectful to how I feel. The only problem is that I have no money for a therapist & surprise, surprise, the only people who might will eventually say when I try to make an appointment is that they are retired and can't afford to pay for a therapist. This pretty much leaves me feeling like I've been punched in the stomach & then backed into a corner.

To anyone who did read all of this, thanks & I'm sorry to have wrote all of this, it's just about the only thing I could think of to deal with this right now...

 

Nazo - I'm living on unemployment insurance benefits right now so many is really tight. I have money saved all along since January (about $4,000) but guess who has control over my money? Can't get at it unless they give me access at the bank (sneaky too, originally i was saving for a vacation in Halifax, Nova Scotia where my best friend lives, so my mum said if she was given control of my money to help the savings process, then she'd buy the round-trip plane ticket; I lost my job, & she kept control over the money, so there ya go). I'd love to do the friend thing but everyone I know have kids, families 7 their own issues with money & space where they live so that doesn't really work, not because no one would want to, just that everyone's circumstances don't really allow for it sadly. My dad won't cosignn because he's retired & doesn't want to go back to work f I default on the rent (which is being payed by the gov't, not me anyway), which sounds even sillier since he's been picking up contract work on jobs in the chemical plants anyway. Long story short - he won't do it because of money concerns. Which I can understand, I'm not unreasonable. As for my mum, she won't do that, she's going to do what he does. Even worse, if he even started to show that he was rethinking, she'd dig her heels in & not let him. Which won't happen anyway. Coming out as transgendered at the end of July probably isn't helping the situation much here eithe. I suspect that my mum thinks if they can keep me here long enough they'll eventually wear me down into living the way they want me to (which isn't unreasonable for her to thin, given that I usually do wear down & give in when they want something badly enough. As for asking one of my friends, times are tough all around and it's a lot to ask of anyone, plus I wouldn't want to lose any of my friends over something like that...

redstormrising - I did look into the possibility of on-campus housing during orientation but unfortuately the residence on campus is full with a waiting list, plus trying to be transgendered while sharing a room is probably going to be pretty hard anyway (there aren't any single rooms at all). Plus I'm 36 years old, living with a bunch of teenagers & people in their early 20s is not an ideal situation anyway...

I'm certainly not trying to discourage anyone from offering any advice & I'm not trying to be negative, but this is really a difficult situation, believe me. I'm having like a million things going thru my mind right now trying to figure this out. I hope that maybe all of here on EC can put our heads together & maybe an idea will just jump up & surprise us all! (*hug*) to all tho, it's really good to have everyone here to at least listen to things, that alone has been a bit helpful...

 

I'm noot really close with any of the rest of my family really. They're OK, but I certainly wouldn't ask any of them for something like this as we just don't have that close a relationship. Plus, if I did ask, I'd be asked why my parents won't do it, leading e to have to explain why, which will in turn make things worse since my parents seem to be closer with everyone than I am & I can actually see them doing damage control & making me look like the unreasonable one. Not being close to any of the rest of family is also why coming out to any of them is such a low priority for me as well. My sister has 2 kids, so I know that her & her husband can't really jump into something like that, plus I like my brother-in-law & don't want to put him in an awkward position since he sees my parents all the time (they live two blocks away from us).

There were other apartments that i saw yesterday that cost more & were smaller but didn't require cosigner, so I figure when I meet with the gov't tomorrow, maybe I can fast talk my way into them covering one of those, but the ones i saw today were just perfect & ones that I would want to stay in after school. Maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow & not need to worry about all of this anyway. I just figured if got one of the ones today, I could pick up a full-time job during the summer to cover the rent until the gov't funding kicks back in when year 2 starts. The only reason I don't get a full time job now to cover things is that the gov't requires that any job you have while getting money under this program be limited to 20 hrs/wk. Plus it would be hard to study law & work a call centre job full time at the same time. The hours don't work too well for classes & studying anyway...

 

Thanks Veronica. Believe me, I'm doing everything I can to get out of here right now. I just think that it's totally unacceptable for me to be honest about how I feel & then have my mother make it all about her & how she feels. I decided. I am no longer going to be responsible for how she feels. I am no longer going to worry about everyone else & if they're comfortable. I need to be comfortable and I need to be happy. I haven't been either for pretty much my whole life. And as for my parents, I already decided a couple of weeks ago that they've lost me. What's been happening here recently is just further evidence to me that they aren't going to change or get used to things or accept anything. They'll never accept me as their daughter, so they will just have to get used to not having me be a part of the family at all. I'm not letting them control me anymore. I might consider speaking with them every now & then, but i won't live with them anymore & they certainly will not be a part of my transition nor will they even be told what's happening while I am transitioning. One day they'll see the real me on the outside & if they can't handle it, then adios. Luckily, I just talked to my friend & she is totally on board with helping me every step of the way during my transition, as well as my other friend. Both of them have pretty much said they are here for me & will help with everything, so as far as I'm concerned, they are the start of my new family!

 

This is EXACTlY one of my top questions to ask tomorrow when I go in to talk to them. While I'm at the point that I'll take whatever I can get, I also want to live somewhere that's safe & I won't have to worry about being robbed or assaulted all the time. I also am not that picky, but it's important to me to live somewhere clean. If there's mold or pests, I just can't live there. Being picky and having standards you have to hold yourself to are different IMO. I don't want to trade one bad place to live for another...

And thank you so much everyone. It's nice to know that everyone here actually cares. (&&&)

 

UPDATE: I just put in an application today for a one-bedroom apartment. Wish me luck everyone! God knows I'll finally be able to just be myself at least one place all the time finally...

And thanks to everyone, I appreciate having all of you to rant to, vent to, get advice from & cry for, I really do. (&&&)