How can I get my mom to stop opening my mail or going through the things in my room? She always goes through my room and lately she has been opening my mail! Once I turn 18, opening my mail becomes a federal crime! How do I get her to stop without taking legal action?
Contact the federal gov and ask them to send you info on the legality of opening someone else's mail. Let her open and read it. Is this email or post mail? If post mail, I would contact those you don't want her reading and ask them to switch to digital correspondence. If it's email, change all your passwords now. Don't set them to remember your password and sign out every time you walk away from the computer. Also set a login/screensaver password and lock up when not in use. I think all you can do is protect yourself because even if you asked her to stop and she says she will, she might not. I think whatever you have in your room, you're going to have to get rid of it or find another place to keep it. As you're in her house, I think you're stuck with her nosiness for now. Unless you can explain to her that you're crushed she doesn't trust you because you hope she knows you'd never do drugs or anything criminal or get pregnant or *something else she would find shocking*.
I'm sorry for what you're experiencing. It is definitely a violation of your boundaries and expectations of privacy, and that feels really shitty. A couple of options: -- If you can afford $8 - $10/month, you can rent a PO box and send all your mail there. That would be probably the easiest choice. -- You can sit down with your mom and talk about why it feels like an invasion of privacy and a violation of your boundaries. However, parents who do this generally have shitty boundaries and so are unlikely to acknowledge their shitty boundaries. I don't think the postal regulations approach is going to be very fruitful. She'll just get mad, and besides, I seriously doubt you'd actually be able ot get the post office to do anything under the circumstances.
She's got to realise she is overstepping the mark and you need privacy. Its unacceptable You might have to … just tell her.
