Post
by dj_ultima_the_great » Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:50 am
Not sure if this is right for the Happy Thread, because it comes with very strained feelings, but...
I finally set a date. June 1st: I'm moving out, regardless of whether or not my mother is financially ready for me to do so. I'm running out of money in my savings to pay our bills and my best friend is just about at the end of her rope in waiting for me. It's now or never.
On one hand, this is amazing. I want to move out. I have a steady job, and with the bills being split three ways (myself, my bestie, and a co-worker that she knows well and trusts), I can finally start putting money away into my savings again. It will give me freedom from my mother, and the chance to start living how I want to, instead of this weird not-quite-a-child-but-not-really-an-adult phase in which I have been stuck. This feels real to me. I know I have mentioned moving out before, but we are doing real planning. We're looking at places, figuring out furnishings, setting rules - all steps that I had not taken before. This is honestly happening; there's no stopping it now, and I'm excited.
On the other hand, I'm terrified. Every time I think about it, I get close to a panic attack. I'm not worried about moving, or with whom I will be living. I'm confident in all that. The trouble is Mom. She has a job, but it is very, very, VERY part time - not even a fraction of enough to support herself. I told her a month ago about this plan and I haven't seen her make any effort to figure out her living situation. She'll need several roommates, or some kind of halfway house-type accommodations. I am doing what I can to offer her information, but even I don't know where to start exactly.
If it follows the pattern of everything else these last few years - and it will - then I know that will end badly. So, so badly. Mom took the news calmly at first, but she is going to start freaking out towards the end, when she realizes I'm serious, when she realizes I can't help her anymore. She's going to do everything she can to hold me with her, but the truth is that she no longer has anything that she can take from me. Even having the car repossessed really didn't affect my focus. I have the money in my savings to both replace a vehicle (with a clunker, maybe, but it'll be something) and to keep up with the bills in the meantime. Nothing has changed, despite the setback.
She only has one thing left that can hurt me, and it will hurt me, but it won't make me change my mind: she's going to threaten suicide. It's always been there, more and more in recent years (how she gets put on all kinds of mental meds for this but I don't get a second glance for my overwhelming stress, I will never know). It will hurt like hell if she threatens it, devastate me if she does it (and there is a very real chance of this happening), and frustrate the hell out of me that the price for my stability is a dead mother and the ire of her debt collectors, but like I said - it's now or never. My options are exhausted - I am exhausted - and this is what I have to do.
So mixed feelings. Joy and stark terror. Please, just this once, let this one, single thing end well for me.