I live at home because I'm studying and don't earn enough to move out. I will be 23 in a couple of months. I am trying to be kind and considerate of my mum, but I need to look after myself too.
I feel suffocated living at home. My mum asks me where I'm going and gets annoyed if she finds out I haven't told her all the places (even if it's just mundane things like the supermarket, pharmacy etc), saying that she wants me to be honest with her. I speak a second language that she does not, and I was reading something in that language on my laptop the other day. She sat beside me to ask me something, then looked at my screen and asked me what it said. I wasn't overly keen to translate it because it was private to me. She said "it's called making conversation you know" and got up and left.
I feel like she gets jealous when she knows I'm seeing or talking to a friend about personal things. She wants me to talk to her. I recently started counselling (for unrelated depression, but she currently isn't helping that either) and after the first couple of sessions she was asking what we talked about and "if there were tears", until I told her that I didn't want to do a post-mortem after every session.
This afternoon I went out for a walk and to run some errands, and she of course asked where I was going. I told her I was going for a walk and to Tesco. I may have mumbled it a bit because I resent not just being able to have my own life. She then asked me if I was cross, I said no, then she said that I was cross and slammed the door behind her. When I got home again I went to do some studying, she came into the room to get something and on the way out she said to me "don't worry, I won't bother you. I'll just get on with my life and you can get on with yours. Ok?"
I feel bad, because I don't want to hurt her, but I feel like I really need space. There is no clear communication between us, just passive aggression and things left unsaid. When we do try to talk, it ends up becoming a shouting match and I feel like she takes everything I say personally. I don't know how to fix this. I am a generally caring person, but she says that I am rude to her. I don't think I am. I think recently I've just been trying to set more boundaries, and she's interpreting that as rudeness. She doesn't have a close relationship with her mum, and she's said before that she doesn't want the same thing to happen between me and her. But ironically she's pushing me away because I feel completely suffocated.
I feel so guilty even feeling all of this, but it's got to the point where I'm thinking of dropping out of uni so that I can get a full time job and move out. I don't know what to do.