Dear esther08, Your situation scares me for the following reason: my friend is 63 years old (my age), She had similar relationship with her mother in her twenties and onward. We went to college together, and I can see how your relationship with your mother is very similar. That hostage feeling of: “she needs me, makes my life comfortable by taking care of of me and paying for things, so I don’t leave. When I speak of a possible life more independent, she becomes upset and tells me she will cut off any support “out there”.
This is exactly the discussions and thoughts we used to talk over, over the years and decades.
Here is the very sad continuation of this sort of life:
My friend’s mother is now 95 years old, senile and a very big problem to deal with. My friend never left home, and has been living with her her ENTIRE LIFE now. She feels she has burned her life away and now takes care of a woman who doesn’t even know her, fights with her in her frail way, and is a struggle to get her to take a bath or not poop on the floor. That is the life my friend has now. She also could not make “decisions” and it was easier to stay year after year. She has many regrets and realized paralysis kept her in” place”, because she wasn’t strong enough to think of any other way. If life is purposeless now, how will it feel years from now, if there is never a time to get up and get moving, no matter how frightening or guilt-ridden. You are young, dont let your own life get away from you