My case of enmeshment

Hi, everyone. I wanna share my story with this community. I'm 36 years old, currently unemployed and living in "our" beach house (mine/ my mother's). I live by myself here (she always visits) and what I do, for now, is basically to take care of the house, paint it, and do small renewals. I have had many jobs in the past and I also have formal education. Still, right now, my mother feeds me. It hasn't always been this way, and it won't be for long, but I'm still terribly ashamed of it. Growing up, my mother treated me like a partner and a therapist. We used to have a shared journal where I'd be all loving to her, calling her cute names and pleading her to be less angry and sad. She'd play dead and would also tell me my father had died, many, many times (he's alive and we talk from time to time). She'd tell me I was stupid when we had longer conversations. My toys were more hers than mine, she kept them. When I met my first girlfriend, she threw me out of the house with all my clothing. Grandma put me back in. My good girlfriends were severely sabotaged. She'd say "so you want to play couple in my house? Let's play then". Than she'd curse the girl often and not talk to me, hide food and charge me rent, not lend the car and stuff. But, when I had toxic relationships, she'd play savior. What a change! Invite the girl in, feed us, lend the car and stuff. She'd even go out to give us privacy sometimes. I mean when the girl was violent with me. With friends it was the same pattern. Women, she'd sabotage violently. Her tricks were to say I was "killing her" by "abandoning her" every time I went to see my lady friends. My reaction was I'd get really angry and do as I wanted anyways. But... it was so exhausting every time. I have moved out and back in with my mother many times, and she has also tracked me down and moved in with me when I refused to go back. She'd get mentally unstable when I left and startle the whole family. Then she'd find me and act aggressive. I was running away from her, going LC and NC for long stretches, but when my dear aunt with whom I was living died and Covid hit right after, I softened and decided to take care of my very mentally ill mother. There was a point where she was pulling knives and scissors at me, setting stuff on fire and getting these bouts of amnesia. And it was during lockdown... there wasn't much to do, I felt. I remember basically giving up on myself and just hoping I could help her. Over time, I found her a therapist and taught her meditation myself, every night. When I say the house I live in is "ours", I mean it was bought with money from an inheritance my father left "us" when he left. It's weird and hard to explain. Basically, when he split, he left us the apartment we were living in, in her name. The apartment was never used, she just put a stranger there and settled for tax money. She didn't even charge them rent... I was furious growing up and when I went to College I asked to rent the place. She said no. It was 6 hours of public transport every day to get to College, I had to work and just couldn't afford even to eat properly. But no talk of renting me the apartment. I wanted to keep living there as a child, too, but we moved to my grandma's house instead, when I was 4. That place was hell on Earth. Grandma was great, but the neighborhood itself was a war zone, all kinds of violence on a day to day basis. Anyways... I have recently spent one year in Asia and the moment I stepped into this beach house again, upon coming back, severe depression took over me. It's been six months since I got back. I don't even know how much money I spent in Asia, but it was not much because I was in a monastery. Still, I can't quite tell how much I would have left, because I put the money in our shared Bank account and none of us really kept track... typically. She says I failed. But she also buys me cookies. When I was bed ridden with depression, she bought me a birthday cake with little sparkly candles to celebrate. She also told me she had lost some work days because of my condition. When I told her I was improving and wanted to go to the mountains to meditate, she said I was killing her and "since you have become nothing and have no one, you should stay with me when I retire". ... I hate myself for being six months here without contributing, but maybe we actually still have money I saved to go to Asia. Even there I managed to sell some stuff to make up for the trip expenses. It's all a tangled mess.

Now I'm bracing myself to go NC for life. I'll get back to the labor market at 36, ashamed, exhausted, feeling the toll of having devoted my life to... coping. Many things I've done rather obsessively such as meditation and music have really been ways of "sailing on the shore", as said in a favorite song. I urge people not to be so blind and accomodated as I have... I feel soooo ashamed of my age and life path so far. Sorry for the confused and long text and, again, don't do these same mistakes, please. Provide for yourself and get going. You're not in a cage. I've dealt with so many mental illnesses in my life, it's really sad when I think about it. And I do see and acknowledge my fault in this. I should have left for good. But I didn't...