Useless and trapped!!!

[anthonyS13]

I need someone to rescue me. It's as if I'm being held here against my will with no way to get out of this house. I want to use a car to go out and find work, but I am in this house and being forced to do work that my mother should be doing. I am a male and I am not meant for the kind of things I've been made to do. I need to be out in the real world.

No friends, no way to get out of here, and no solution to move forward. I'm slowly turning into a useless unemployed deadbeat, and my life is not in my hands. I am trapped.

 

[LonesomeLoner]

Sorry to hear you are feeling this way. I'm in a slightly similar boat to you. If you wanna chat about anything, pm me.

 

[anthonyS13]

Someone needs to help me out of here before I go insane.

 

[lonelydoc]

anthony, you need to get a little more specific. what is keeping you in the house? where is it that you want to go?

if you don't have a car you might need to get rides from people, find a taxi, walk/bike, use public transport etc. i'm just trying to offer thoughts here.

 

[Sci-Fi]

What exactly are you being forced to do that you shouldn't be doing? Cause things like cooking, cleaning, etc are things you would have to do for yourself if you lived on your own. Nothing is really gender defined anymore and shouldn't be looked at in such a way. Anyone who lives at home or people who live with them, whatever the situation, should all pitch in with the household chores. My mom had my brother and I helping her out since we were little kids. We had to make our own beds and clean up our own room, we also helped to vacuum, cut the lawn, dust, cook, wash the dishes, everything I ended up having to do once I was living on my own for awhile. So they are good skills to learn, even knowing how to sew your own buttons back on your shirt. No joke.

As for being trapped in the house, I echo what was said above, what is keeping you from getting out exactly? Are you being physically restrained within the house or just lack of transportation? Do you live in a rural area where you can't walk to places? Why can't you use the car?

 

[TheSkaFish]

I'm going to temporarily break my silence here, to offer some suggestions. I'm sort of in a similar situation - since I have no job and therefore no money, I can't drive my car either. So when I feel like getting out of the house for a little while, I go for a walk or a bike ride. I either go by myself, or with my mom to walk my dog. It's really relaxing, I highly recommend it. Just take a walk to clear your head, go to a park and sit on the swings, go for a bike ride at dusk and watch the lightning bugs and listen to the crickets. I like to do that a lot.

As far as the stuff about "women's work" - not to come off as yelling at you or nothing but one, it's an outdated idea and two, like others have said if you lived on your own, you'd have to do these things yourself anyway. It's the bare necessities of survival, like laundry, cooking meals, cleaning, gardening, stuff like that. Some of these tasks are other ways that I find help me de-stress, or take my mind off things that are bothering me. Cleaning helps me with that, when something is making me feel bad, sometimes I clean. I sort things, make sure I know where everything is and put things away, and throw or give stuff away that I'm not using anymore. Also, I find that gardening and weeding are a great way to de-stress as well.

 

[Locke]

No one - man or woman - is ever going to want to clean up after you. These are things that you need to do for yourself. That includes dishes, laundry, shopping, yard work, cleaning, cooking, paying bills, whatever. Taking care of yourself is part of being an adult, and if you want out of your mom's house, you have to learn to take care of yourself.

Like everyone else said, I suggest you get this "I'm a male and I shouldn't have to do this" stuff out of your mind, because it's not true. You do have to do it. If you're living with someone, you have to pitch in.

If you want more free time to find a job, try having a polite and respectful conversation with your mother about it. Do not tell her what you shouldn't have to do. Her house, her rules. Unless you're being physically or emotionally abused, that's just the way it is. Tell her you'll do your chores and work. You can do it. I know several college students who work multiple jobs, go to class full time, and still manage to take care of themselves.

 

[ladyforsaken]

I need someone to rescue me. It's as if I'm being held here against my will with no way to get out of this house. I want to use a car to go out and find work, but I am in this house and being forced to do work that my mother should be doing. I am a male and I am not meant for the kind of things I've been made to do. I need to be out in the real world.

No friends, no way to get out of here, and no solution to move forward. I'm slowly turning into a useless unemployed deadbeat, and my life is not in my hands. I am trapped.

Well, you do have to give a bit more specifics here or people might jump to conclusions about stuff because the way it looks here, is that you hate doing house chores and you think that is a mother's or a woman's job and you're not supposed to be doing these things just cos you're a man.

There must be a reason why your mother has asked you to do the house chores. And why can't you go out looking for a job after you're done with your chores? I don't understand.

Please elaborate.

 

[Ruthie]

Sometimes there are parents who intentionally damage a child's confidence to keep the child dependent on them. They are more afraid of being 'alone' than the child is. They subtly infuse the child's psyche with a mix of guilt, shame and blame in order to retain control of the child as s/he grows up, and, by doing so, strip the child of nearly all necessary confidence (which loving parents should gladly provide in the form of encouragement and emotional support) to face the world.

Such selfish parents seldom admit to doing this to their child, they often won't even admit it to themselves - but the process begins almost from the child's birth. By omission of emotional support and by mixed messages that confuse the child, the parents are sending signals that imply that the child is inferior, incapable of doing anything substantial for himself, isn't worthy of unconditional love, isn't capable of finding work, is 'needed' by the parent (while the very same parent also sullenly moans that the child is not pulling his weight financially, chore-wise, etc., whilst disapproving of his friends and other activities, that take away from attention to the selfish parent.).

Outwardly, it looks as if the child is a selfish leech! But what the world doesn't know or see is that all this was caused by a selfish parent! The child, in effect, becomes a scapegoat for a disgruntled, bitter, controlling parent.

This can go on even into the child's 20s. The child begins to get the message that if his own parent doesn't believe in him - something must be very wrong with him. The child begins to doubt his own capabilities. It can demoralise anyone, and it frightens the child through guilt (Don't want to leave my parent!) and fear (I'm not sure I can do this on my own, so why even try?) of even trying to leave home.

The child (whether adult or not) often won't recognise what's going on, on his own. It usually has to be pointed out to him what his parent is doing, and when he sees it clearly, he can more easily break free. He sees that that "free lunch" was never "free". It came at a high cost to his self esteem.

I don't know if this could be what is going on in your situation, Anthony; but it does happen sometimes.

I hope you can make good friends and move toward getting a lot of emotional support which you need and deserve, and get in touch with what you might like to do as a career, but in the meantime, settle for working any job just for experience and to savour the taste of independence and the high of watching your self esteem grow by leaps and bounds by knowing you did your best and seeing it richly pay off for you! Anthony, you deserve that.

You'll feel so much happier and more positive once this begins happening.

 

[TheRealCallie]

No one - man or woman - is ever going to want to clean up after you. These are things that you need to do for yourself. That includes dishes, laundry, shopping, yard work, cleaning, cooking, paying bills, whatever. Taking care of yourself is part of being an adult, and if you want out of your mom's house, you have to learn to take care of yourself.

Like everyone else said, I suggest you get this "I'm a male and I shouldn't have to do this" stuff out of your mind, because it's not true. You do have to do it. If you're living with someone, you have to pitch in.

If you want more free time to find a job, try having a polite and respectful conversation with your mother about it. Do not tell her what you shouldn't have to do. Her house, her rules. Unless you're being physically or emotionally abused, that's just the way it is. Tell her you'll do your chores and work. You can do it. I know several college students who work multiple jobs, go to class full time, and still manage to take care of themselves.

This.

Also, you live under your mother's roof, you live by her rules, not your own. If you aren't paying rent, you REALLY need to stop complaining. If you are, well, it's still your mother's house and you do have responsibilities while you are there.
If you don't like it, move out and see how hard it really is to be an adult and live in the real world.
Another thing you might want to try....check online for jobs that are available in your area. I know quite a few stores and restaurants have online applications on their websites.

 

[WildernessWildChild]

Put on shoes. Go out the front door. Start walking.

There's been more than a few times in my life I had no vehicle to find a job and get to work but I did it anyway.

 

[anthonyS13]

No one seems to be able to keep anything clean for long around here, increasing the time it takes to have this whole house clean and decreasing the time it takes for everything else. Can everything here just be clean for one whole day? I'm always caught up with doing most of the housework while everyone else simply makes their beds.

I'm ready to go follow up to the jobs I applied for, but since I am never able to be allowed to use the car, I can't. It's always the same duties every day and there's no reason the kitchen or the bathroom or other rooms should be as dirty as they are within one day. People have to learn to put things away when they're done with them here.

 

[anthonyS13]

Put on shoes. Go out the front door. Start walking.

There's been more than a few times in my life I had no vehicle to find a job and get to work but I did it anyway.

The thing is, this is Arizona I live in. It's too hot and everything is too spread out. My family has to make it so hard for me to go to my follow-ups.