The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Oh man, almost felt like it was my writing, that's how similar your situation is to mine.
This and so much more. To this day, I still feel guilt whenever they ask me if they were good parents because the answer is no, but they'll never understand why because to them they did everything right. They fed me, provided me roof over my head, gave me education, and steered me away from bad outcomes. Lack of nonmaterial parts of the relationship doesn't count to them.
Things will definitely get better for you as you get older and set some distance from them though. I personally gave up on trying to get them to understand, but it's okay. My advice - take advantage of whatever material help they offer even if they try holding it over your head, that's the only way they know how to show love and they will hold your childhood over your head anyway, so may as well just take it.
With how recent my discovery is, I struggle to feel anything short of resentment and disgust for my parents and the little powertrips they've subjected me to, effectively gaslighting me into believing I'm some piece of human garbage I was not, after all. I dream of the day I will be financially independent. I want to take help with dignity, and accepting any more of their help is undignified. Maybe I'll calm down in a couple of months and I'll realize I don't mean this earnestly, but right now, I'm ready to take night shifts and rent the most mold-ridden apartment in the crappiest part of town to break free from these chains. I can't discern how much of their material support was a flawed attempt at love and how much of it was just leverage.
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