I'm 29 years old, disabled by fibromyalgia, chronic bronchitis and have a touch of OCD that is relatively under control. I have my ups and downs but for the most part I'm doing pretty well, I have a job I love, a great boyfriend, a hectic social life and a number of hobbies that I'm starting to get to professional level at.
Right now, I'm living with my father. I lived in the city for eight years but had a terrible time health wise last year, struggled to pay rent by myself when my housemate bailed on me and the cost of keeping myself healthy got too much. My mother suggested I move back home and commute to my job, it made sense at the time with the country in a recession. She doesn't live here herself, she moved to the other side of the country with her new man and as far as I'm concerned that's the best place for her. I love her, but she is difficult to get along with and doesn't really seem to care about what goes on in my life. She wasn't very helpful when I got ill and for some reason denies that I was in and out of hospital as a child, which I was. Moreover, I recently told her about the sexual assault I suffered at the hands of a doctor during one hospital stay and her response was 'Well, I can't blame myself, there's nothing I could have done to stop it.' True, but a bit too cold for my liking.
My father is much easier, I think he's happier now that she's gone and he ferries me about, waited on me hand and foot during a recent flare up that stopped my legs from working and was invaluable when I did move out, he made two trips to the city to get all my stuff and helped me clean the old house.
Here's the problem. She recently came down here for work and spent the night in the house (Dad chose to escape to the pub until she was gone again) and she walked into my bedroom, declared it a pigsty and told me it smelled awful. There is a problem with damp in the room that I'm trying to sort out but she blamed the clothes I had lying around. I haven't unpacked all of my stuff yet and with the commute up and down to work taking up a lot of my time sometimes I do just dump the clothes and run, but it was nowhere near as bad as she made it out to be. There's a lot of fabric floating around because I'm setting up a sewing studio in the back of the house and I'm still trying to sort out the storage there. I agreed and said I'd clean up, but she wouldn't let it go, just kept talking about it until I got very upset/ She's made comments like this before, called me a hoarder (I have a lot of fabrics, vintage dresses and works in progress which does create clutter, I'll admit) and told me she'd like to set fire to all my stuff. She has form for this, when I was a child she got angry with me about how untidy my room was so she binned all my toys except for one teddy and my walkman. She never asked about my health while she was here, made token inquiries as to my job and my boyfriend and flat out refused to give me a lift to the bus for work as it didn't suit her.
My Dad, again, is better but he's getting in on this too. I think he finds it hard to accept how ill I am, he doesn't understand how I can walk one day and not the next and he also infers that he'd like me to get rid of my clothes (again, lots of vintage, one-offs and handmade stuff, it's not going anywhere.) He keeps on pointing out that my coat or jeans are dirty when I arrive home from work, and every time he does it I explain that I work with small children who are very messy, and I only get to do my laundry once a week. I told him today I started doing yoga again to help with the pain and stiffness in my joints, he immediately asked how much I was paying for it.
Am I overthinking this? I used to just put up with it but I find myself getting angrier with them as time goes on, and being a regular lurker on this board and hearing of how other people have cut off their parents makes me less inclined to take it anymore.