Dear Robi:

As I read, yet again, and more thoroughly this morning, through your first 2 threads and parts of your third, my challenge was  to copy and paste as little as possible from all your massive writings, so to not be distracted, so to create a clear, focused picture in my mind.  And indeed, following 5 hours of reading and studying, I see something major that I didn’t see before. First the quotes, then my comments:

“I still feel uncomfortable around them and I still don’t feel connection.. I was very attached to them as child (very young  barely remember something)… About one thing I am sure. They never gave me privacy or the feeling of freedom…  I never had my own space… I felt controlled… Being a big part of my childhood trapped in their workplace (June 8-10, 2018).

“If I stay here I will always be helped by my parents and I will always feel controlled… I would describe both of them as being anxious and disconnected. My father never makes eye contact with me… my parents never had fun, never really had a social life.. inactive” (Dec 7, 2018).

“I finally made it back to Spain.  For the last week while still home, I felt really anxious and unsure about coming here. I was starting to even consider possibilities like becoming a police officer in my home town… But I left anyway on the 5th of February. My mom took me to the airport, I flew and I was here again. I was very tired from the long trip and I felt extremely anxious and unsure… I arrived few hours ago and I was already thinking about going back. Everything looked so intimidating… I am too anxious to be here. I wanted to call them and tell them I am going to come home” (Feb 8, 2019).

“Up until the age of 29 I was basically fully and later partially supported by my parents. I have to admit, although comfortable, there was a lot of frustration in me because of that. I wanted my independence… During the period when I was fully independent, every time we talked on the phone they would offer to help me financially If I needed it. They would even insist… It’s Christmas!.. We went to spend a couple of weeks with my parents… I wanted to ask my parents for their financial support in order for me to become a Personal Trainer… At first, my mother was thrilled – ‘oh, finally! you’re doing something! we were worried about you. why didn’t you tell us earlier? I give you the money right now if you want!’.  That felt good! It felt like a welcoming hug… She cornered me and started a fight – told me I didn’t care about them and I only cared about myself… she said to me – ‘You’re living in 3 days. From that point, you’re on your own’ She didn’t talk to us for the next days…  I called my mother 10 days after we left… I ended up listening to a 40 minutes monologue – her telling me how bad many things I’ve done as a kid and that I deserved to be hit. And she was joking when she told me I’d be placed into foster care” (Feb 18-19, 2024).

“Very often I’ve heard from them (actually my mother mostly) things like: ‘please don’t forget us’, ‘keep calling us’ , ‘don’t leave us’… Me being financially supported by them does keep us connected– so I see indeed a good reason there to keep the status quo… As for my mother, your description is perfect. ‘crazy – not sensible or reasonable. She seems bitter, angry, chronically stressed, perhaps, unaware/ having no insight into herself or into others.. unpredictable, impulsive’… Her traumas are showing in her body, but she doesn’t hear it. I am very often worried, and I find it hard to live my own life knowing she needs so much help” (Feb 20, 2024).

“I don’t miss being controlled and observed by my parents all the time though. But does it have to be like that?… I think I can set my boundaries better now. I’d like to be able to go back to what I believe is partly my house, to the country I grew up in, without being afraid of becoming a trapped kid again. I don’t want to be avoiding going there – that place should be a place where I can feel at home and I don’t want to run away from it” (May 16, 2024).

“In the last 4 years, I’ve spent about 2 to 3 months a year living there… I often felt uncomfortable around my parents… we don’t really have that much to talk about… in the last years I was working online so I’ve had my own source of income – although they didn’t really let me pay for many things and always insisted on paying for everything –  treating me like a guest…  Having their words of disappointment and discouragement is quite literally the last thing I need right now” (May 18, 2024).

“I was working from home, very often in the garden and in my free time I was doing my workouts and spend a lot of time in the nature. I was be mostly on my own when I was there.  They live in a much bigger house now, where I finally have my own room and a separate entrance –  so in that respect I do get a lot more privacy. The worst part was the fact that we don’t really talk much when I’m there.. There isn’t that much to talk about.. so they watch a lot of tv and just go on with their day. I do my thing… I do believe there are ways for us to heal and accept each other more. They have no one else but me… I see they are suffering on a daily basis..  my mother is stuck on her phone almost non stop scrolling social media – she’s heavily addicted. She cannot listen to more than 10 seconds of any of my stories without getting distracted and tuning out. At the end of my conversation there will usually be no reaction from her.. she just has no idea what I’ve said to her…. Her body shows her all the pain she hasn’t worked on…  Both of them feel miserable most of the time. I clearly see that and I feel sorry for them.. I really do. They often say they love me very much and I’m the most important to them. (I know.. I don’t much competition do I ?)…I still think we can be a family…I think they would feel disappointed if I left Spain. While I lived in Poland they encouraged me to move back to Spain” (May 19, 2024).

My comments/ the picture I see: at the edge of the picture, I see that financial independence on your part will not change the ways your parents behave toward you. They will not treat you like an adult when you are financially independent from them.

At the center of the picture, I see that what stands between you and further adulting is, not your financial independence, but your excessive emotional attachment to your parents. This part is a surprise to me. Your early-on and many shares about how disconnected it’s been in your home growing up and still, how uncomfortable you feel around them, how you don’t like them, or hate them, etc., I didn’t think that you were emotionally attached to them (not since you were in kindergarten, that is, as you shared).

But I was wrong. Notice what you shared above, on Feb 8, 2019, it clearly shows intense attachment to your parents, excessive, for an adult. Notice how their offer of money during Christmas of last year felt like a “welcoming hug”. And most recently, on May 19, 2024, your strong attachment to them is evident, still wanting to be a family after all these years of disconnectedness.

And the strangest thing that I see today, strangest because it didn’t occur to me before, is that your parents are way less attached to you than you are to them: both have been miserable while you lived there with them, your father doesn’t create eye contact with you, was never  involved in your life, neither was your mother, neither listens or talks with you about matters that interest you; your mother having threatened to send you away to foster care, and during Christmas of last year, she told you that in 3 days after the visit with her, you’d be on your own. And notice how encouraging they have been for you to live away from them,  in Spain. Most recently you were afraid to tell them that you are leaving Spain and heading.. their way, afraid that it will disappoint them.

I think that your parents are and have been just too.. stressed to be attached to you, too stressed to invest in a relationship with you. Just like she expressed to you last Christmas, paraphrased: it’s been too stressful, too difficult for her to be a mother.

If you consider what I wrote here, if you find it to be true, it may weaken your attachment to them, motivate you to not try to connect with them (that’s likely to increase their stress), and make you able, emotionally to make a life for yourself, your own life, your own way! It doesn’t mean that you need to cut contact with them.. just not live with them, and limit the length of visits.

anita