Thank you for all your insights !

@Miranda My family all has green cards, but we were living in our native country during my Sophomore and Senior year, then I moved to the U.S when I graduated high school and been staying here since. My parents decided to come live in the U.S because they retired and would like to pursue the citizenship. Fair enough, I mean who wouldn’t?

I’m confident that they would be able to live alone by themselves. My dad doesn’t listen well, but writing and speaking is pretty much ok. My mom doesn’t speak the language at all. I just feel kind of bad to tell them to go live alone because they’re my parents. It’s a different culture they grew up in and I guess I do internalize some of that value. I moved out after living with my older brother for 2 months and it was easy because he was a slob and I didn’t care much for him, but it’s different for my parents because I feel like I owe them something for raising me. My brother already doesn’t give a hoot about my parents, so I feel bad if I tell them to go too. I want to be alone, but I’m afraid telling them that will affect our relationship. My dad likes to act tough, but I know he feels lonely.

@anita I feel conflicted because when I look at other families, they don’t have problems like this. None of my friends feel this way about their parents. Everybody wants to live together and be with their parents, especially kids studying abroad like me. When I go on facebook, I see bunch of loving messages from friends to their parents, saying how much they miss their parents, how much they want to see them. I just don’t feel that way, I felt liberated when I moved to the U.S. I feel like it’s just me who feels this way and not the teaching. Growing up, I’ve been told countless time by my family that I was self-serving, cynical, and just over all hard to deal with, so I don’t know if I feel this way because I’m a bad person, or if it’s just who I am.

I believe living with my parents serve me no good. I used to wake up at 6am and cook breakfast and exercise and be on my merry way to work. Now that they’re here, I spent most of my time at home in my room like a teenager because I just don’t like their presence. I’ve started taking up more hours at work because working feels better than being at home. How should I talk to them about what I want? What do I say? I don’t express myself around my family very much, and I suck at expressing myself in my native language. It just feels weird to sit them down and have a “heart to heart talk”. Just thinking about it makes my stomach drop.

@Inky Thanks for your suggestion. My parents have plenty of money since they’re retired and some close friends living in here in the U.S. I’m sure they would be ok living alone after a while, but I’m worried for them. They are almost 60 years old, they’re healthier than the average person, but they’re still old, and doesn’t know the culture well. I don’t know if I’m just being over protective. I wish they would hate me so it would be easier for me to leave them.

@jay Thanks for the suggestion, I’ve heard great things about meditation, although I’ve tried before but didn’t seem to work. Would I be able to sever the emotional connection that I have to my family if I meditate?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by Leocube.

@anita I feel like what you’re saying makes sense to me, but I can’t think of concrete evidence that they rejected my true self. I can think of a few small examples of my family making me feel bad, but I also think every family is like that. You’ve commented on my post long time before and I feel like your relationship with your mother is stemmed from an actual “abusive” POV. I just don’t think my family is abusive towards me.

I can remember a few keystone occasions that made me permanently pulled back from my family in some aspect. For example, in elementary school, we had several maid/babysitter that came and went. I was close to all of them so when each of them were fired, I always cried a lot. Not until 5th grade when another maid was fired and I cried, that was when my parents made some light hearted joke like “aw, you’re crying, that’s so cute” or “It’s ok you can cry”. I felt insulted for some reason and I never cried again.

If I’m not just making narratives up in my head, I think from that point on, I felt like I need to disassociate from people so I don’t feel sad if they happen to be gone again. I know my parents didn’t mean to make me feel bad, but for some reason I just did. I think not crying also led to other things like I couldn’t act compassionate, or caring for people I care about.

But I just don’t think this is everything. Since I was a kid, I’ve had fantasy of my parents getting into car accident so I could live by myself (dumb, I know), but this also means that it is not entirely their fault, but also my fault for having a low key desire for them to be gone. I don’t know If I’m just piercing together non related pieces to fit a narrative, or if this is the root of the problem.