Hi,
so long story short, I'm 25 and would normally live in Asia for about 10months of the year. However, due to Covid, I'm stuck living in my parents house until the border opens.
My family have always been close knit - as a child, I always saw it as just my parents and my older brother. But as the youngest, my childhood was a little secondary to the brother - I understand and hold no resentment for it. I got over that.
But my parents are the type to use my brother and I against each other - whether it's been she went to uni, or he's paying a wage (I was 16 and just in college at the time), it's been a weird sort of war between my older sibling and I. This got better when I moved abroad two years ago, and he moved out just over a year ago. So we just see each other in person during the twoish months I'm home.
As a child, my family were involved in stuff at the Village gym - had their community of friends to hang out with/do stuff with - I know this because I was dragged to all of them. But then those friends disappeared. It happened a lot as I got older, and now I can kind of understand why - some of them weren't the best of people but also my parents can also be really rude/negative about people too - for instance, they talk about a neighbour as a 'fat mess', 'nosy' etc and then try to get me to say the same thing. But then they'll act nicey nice to them in person, or send messages to them like the best of friends.
Despite moving to Asia aged 23, they will expect me to call every single day - to which I reached the point of making up language lessons just to get two nights to myself. Even if I am at work - very early UK hours, they'll message or call despite me saying I am at work.
But last year, my mother had a fall. She ended up having part of her brain removed and I had to come back to the UK temporarily during this period. She made a good recovery but part of her isn't obviously the same as she once was.
Currently, she has issues with seizures - but hasn't had one in a long time. There's also headaches and something similar to temper tantrums - these mean that she gets angry very easily/takes it out on anyone else but herself. She also has a stutter.
So when she has one of her moments (which are a lot), she will do two things. 1 - cry and shout at someone or 2 - cry and go to her room. Either way there's tears and it can often be crocodile tears purely because she isn't getting her way, or someone has stood up to her. This had lead to countless arguments between the whole family -minus the brother - which often ends in my father blaming me for it all and then my mother blaming herself and me - sometimes she uses guilt to make it all her fault which again, everyone blames me for in the end.
But since being home, from mid feb, I have mostly been hiding away in my brother's old room. I will spend most of the day in there because the chance of being screamed at or blamed for something is ridiculously high and I genuinely don't want to be here anymore. I haven't got anyone to go to - parents just fell out with my brother for the stupidest reason - and they have both told me and I quote 'don't call or message him about anything' because they don't want people to know about how things are.
In addition to this, I've had to teach from home. If I have a lesson that interferes with them despite me telling them way in advance about lessons, they get angry. I missed the postman a few times because I was mid-lesson with one of my classes that I was getting full pay for, and my parents told me to just say to them I'll be back in 5. When I work, I have a 5min break between my classes and the parents of those students aren't the most understanding and they could get me fired (they did that to my colleague for the same thing so that's how bad it can get teaching overseas.)
Oh, and for some reason, and thoughts please, my parents have put lots of my photos up around the house for some strange reason. There's photos from my social media that they can use to contact me on in Asia which I've since blocked them from seeing, but it's literally on a shrine level. There are very little of my brother.
I also found out that whilst I've been away, my father (the nosiest person I know) goes through my things. He has since started to wear my old jumpers/hoodies/shirts without my permission, and will regularly - even now - come into my room and look through my things and take stuff. In some books I have in my room, he's put little weird notes in them, and refuses to let me throw away things that I don't want anymore.
Recently, they fell out with the brother because they dropped off some of his old things - games/suitcase/Blu-Rays , and an amp. The amp was something brother had already told them to throw away. Father refused and when they dropped it off at brother's house, brother went to leave it in the car. Father threw it out into brother's front garden thingy and drove off.
Parents came home from that trip furious with brother. Hence the don't message or call him stuff from them, as well as making references to brother and brothers girlfriend who they seem to hate.
I feel like its added to my anxiety, and I'm depressed. A lot of the time when they start blaming me for stuff, I feel like cutting - something I've not done in years. I've cut once when it got really bad. But if they knew, they would blame me and then make it all about them instead of understanding or helping me.
Please can someone help me with how I can ask and get space from them? I sincerely doubt they'll understand - they're very quick to criticise and tear someone apart - I've had countless 'you're fat', 'could you gain any more weight', comments on my appearance and anything I do.
The only thing I thought of was going back to Asia when I can and effectively cutting them off without a warning but I know they'll do something stupid like call the police etc. They also have my school's address so I wouldn't put it past one of them doing something with that.