A
allthatisgold93
Guest
Hello everyone. I am an eighteen year old female, and this is a situation I have been dealing with (or at least trying to) for quite some time.
Okay, so let me try to explain this. When I was two, we moved into the house we currently live in now. After a few months of living in a two bedroom double, my parents decided to let my aunt (my mom’s sister) to move into the upstairs apartment. A couple years after that, a friend of the family moved in with us in our apartment (she was my mom’s long-time friend, and because she was living in a crummy house, we felt bad for her and allowed her to stay with us.) The problem is…there were only two bedrooms, so she slept on the couch.
Well, here we are roughly sixteen years later in the same situation (although now, our poor friend has moved to a small bed in our dining room, which she is actually content with anything, but I feel bad).
Now that my living situation has been explained, I will go on to write about what the major problem is; not with our friend, but with my aunt who lives upstairs. The first few years were okay, but by the time I was four or five, she grew to be incredibly jealous of the friend of our family (with whom I had developed a close relationship. She played with me, taught me how to draw, taught me Latin and began to strengthen my Catholic faith.) My aunt is a jealous person and so I had to begin watching what I said about our friend, otherwise she would go back up to her apartment in a huff. My aunt also “taught” me piano, but I eventually had to quit because she was so very nasty as a teacher. I was just a kid; acting in such a manner was completely uncalled for, and my mom began to realize that and eventually put a stop to any future lessons.
The problems have seemed to worsen as I’ve grown older. Somehow, my aunt seems to think she is entitled to tell me what to do and how to live, even though I have parents who are perfectly capable of doing that. I am ashamed to admit it, but I’ve taken to lying to her about almost EVERYTHING I do (my parents know, though). When I date, she cannot know; many things I do at school I do not tell her. For instance, when I do something as simple as writing a paper, I do not tell her or let her see it, because she is so mean about it. One time, I wrote a paper for my criminal justice class in college and received a mark of 100% on it. So she asked if she could read it and I (stupidly) let her. She tore it apart (not literally, verbally) and told me my grammar was all wrong and I had to make a ton of changes. Well, if a college professor saw nothing wrong with it, then who is she to think she outranked him? Ever since then, I never tell her what my assignments are.
She still does the best she can to be involved in everything I do. The second she hears my car door close when I get home from school, I hear her coming down the stairs to ask about how my day was…the problem is, she does not leave for a long time. A little visiting is okay, but I really want to spend time with my parents alone, and she can never seem to understand that. If my mom, dad and I decide to go out somewhere together, and she finds out about it, she invites herself along. My parents do not dare tell her that she can’t, otherwise she will be really “hurt” and bug my mom about it later. So now whenever we go out, we either lie about what we’re doing, or sneak out so she won’t hear us.
She is OCD (I’m not just saying that, it is really true), and it makes everything worse. When I am driving in the passenger seat of her car, she will adjust my seatbelt while she is driving. I mean, HELLO?? I’m eighteen years old! Stop treating me like I’m eight! She questions me all the time about things that go on in my life and I try to keep it as brief as possible. There have been times where she has blown up (and I mean BLOWN up) over nothing, and starting screaming at me. One time, I had to lock myself in the bathroom, while she was banging on the door yelling. My mom was gone, and I took the phone into the bathroom with me and cried hysterically to her. My aunt sincerely apologized, and I accepted, but the problem is that she does not know how to keep from acting like that. That is more of an extreme example, but I feel like we are just acting in a way to keep her from going berserk like that again.
My parents don’t know what to do. My mom has spoken to her about how she smothers me, and she says she will stop…and for a certain period of time she does, but then it starts up again. After a while, I think it gets tiring for my mom and she does not want to have to argue with her sister anymore. My dad gets really angry about my aunt, and I know he will end up yelling to her, which I don’t want either. I’m just at a loss. Sometimes I really want to move out of the house and get my own apartment, but then I think of the expense and also how it would terribly hurt my parents who I love more than ANYTHING else. I just do not know how much longer I can deal with my aunt….she comes down countless times during the day, never leaving us alone…sometimes late at night, too! Another thing is, if I am having an issue at school, she will find out about it and will then go on to try and figure out what I could have done wrong to have caused the problem. Now I try to keep all of the problems between me and my parents, but it is hard, because when she is down, sometimes I have a very depressing issue that I cannot talk about.
Please…if you have any advice for me, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. But I ask for you to especially keep me in your prayers. I suffer with this quite a lot…I can’t stand having to lie about everything…I just want to be happy.
Thanks in advance, and God bless.
Okay, so let me try to explain this. When I was two, we moved into the house we currently live in now. After a few months of living in a two bedroom double, my parents decided to let my aunt (my mom’s sister) to move into the upstairs apartment. A couple years after that, a friend of the family moved in with us in our apartment (she was my mom’s long-time friend, and because she was living in a crummy house, we felt bad for her and allowed her to stay with us.) The problem is…there were only two bedrooms, so she slept on the couch.
Well, here we are roughly sixteen years later in the same situation (although now, our poor friend has moved to a small bed in our dining room, which she is actually content with anything, but I feel bad).
Now that my living situation has been explained, I will go on to write about what the major problem is; not with our friend, but with my aunt who lives upstairs. The first few years were okay, but by the time I was four or five, she grew to be incredibly jealous of the friend of our family (with whom I had developed a close relationship. She played with me, taught me how to draw, taught me Latin and began to strengthen my Catholic faith.) My aunt is a jealous person and so I had to begin watching what I said about our friend, otherwise she would go back up to her apartment in a huff. My aunt also “taught” me piano, but I eventually had to quit because she was so very nasty as a teacher. I was just a kid; acting in such a manner was completely uncalled for, and my mom began to realize that and eventually put a stop to any future lessons.
The problems have seemed to worsen as I’ve grown older. Somehow, my aunt seems to think she is entitled to tell me what to do and how to live, even though I have parents who are perfectly capable of doing that. I am ashamed to admit it, but I’ve taken to lying to her about almost EVERYTHING I do (my parents know, though). When I date, she cannot know; many things I do at school I do not tell her. For instance, when I do something as simple as writing a paper, I do not tell her or let her see it, because she is so mean about it. One time, I wrote a paper for my criminal justice class in college and received a mark of 100% on it. So she asked if she could read it and I (stupidly) let her. She tore it apart (not literally, verbally) and told me my grammar was all wrong and I had to make a ton of changes. Well, if a college professor saw nothing wrong with it, then who is she to think she outranked him? Ever since then, I never tell her what my assignments are.
She still does the best she can to be involved in everything I do. The second she hears my car door close when I get home from school, I hear her coming down the stairs to ask about how my day was…the problem is, she does not leave for a long time. A little visiting is okay, but I really want to spend time with my parents alone, and she can never seem to understand that. If my mom, dad and I decide to go out somewhere together, and she finds out about it, she invites herself along. My parents do not dare tell her that she can’t, otherwise she will be really “hurt” and bug my mom about it later. So now whenever we go out, we either lie about what we’re doing, or sneak out so she won’t hear us.
She is OCD (I’m not just saying that, it is really true), and it makes everything worse. When I am driving in the passenger seat of her car, she will adjust my seatbelt while she is driving. I mean, HELLO?? I’m eighteen years old! Stop treating me like I’m eight! She questions me all the time about things that go on in my life and I try to keep it as brief as possible. There have been times where she has blown up (and I mean BLOWN up) over nothing, and starting screaming at me. One time, I had to lock myself in the bathroom, while she was banging on the door yelling. My mom was gone, and I took the phone into the bathroom with me and cried hysterically to her. My aunt sincerely apologized, and I accepted, but the problem is that she does not know how to keep from acting like that. That is more of an extreme example, but I feel like we are just acting in a way to keep her from going berserk like that again.
My parents don’t know what to do. My mom has spoken to her about how she smothers me, and she says she will stop…and for a certain period of time she does, but then it starts up again. After a while, I think it gets tiring for my mom and she does not want to have to argue with her sister anymore. My dad gets really angry about my aunt, and I know he will end up yelling to her, which I don’t want either. I’m just at a loss. Sometimes I really want to move out of the house and get my own apartment, but then I think of the expense and also how it would terribly hurt my parents who I love more than ANYTHING else. I just do not know how much longer I can deal with my aunt….she comes down countless times during the day, never leaving us alone…sometimes late at night, too! Another thing is, if I am having an issue at school, she will find out about it and will then go on to try and figure out what I could have done wrong to have caused the problem. Now I try to keep all of the problems between me and my parents, but it is hard, because when she is down, sometimes I have a very depressing issue that I cannot talk about.
Please…if you have any advice for me, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. But I ask for you to especially keep me in your prayers. I suffer with this quite a lot…I can’t stand having to lie about everything…I just want to be happy.
Thanks in advance, and God bless.
