Feeling surrounded

Living alone was the best upgrade in my life. Sadly I still have to go home for Christmas just to trade gifts. And I'm sick this time around... and the plans that have been made are really inconvenient for me.

Mrfeathers wrote:

cthulhucakes wrote: I live with 7 other people

How, how do you even? Do you at least have a lock on your door?

Nope. My grandma will just come into my room unannounced and start complaining about how I'm a hoarder and living in a pig sty because I have 1 shirt on my floor. I live in schizoid hell. There's a reason I have motivation unlike a lot of other schizoids at the present moment.

cthulhucakes wrote:Does anyone else get like this? I'm ready to jump out the window.

Yes. I'm actually not sure if I'm going to make it through this Christmas without telling my parents what I think about them and telling them how much I hate engaging in any kind of activity with them. Like, I'm exhausted already and there's still several days of this ahead.

Last Christmas was pretty bad but I felt I could handle it. This time, I'm really not sure.

Yesterday my brother brought a pear and chestnut ice cream log even though the whole family knows I'm allergic to nuts... They don't even taste good! I've flushed 1 restaurant and 2 bistros because they don't mention what dishes contains nuts. What is wrong with people? Being a smoker I get my alone time by going to smoke one every half-hour or so. I hate the way poeple cut me off when I'm talking too.

I start retreating into my head whether I want to or not. My family likes to all talk at once (LOUDLY) and there are lots of other noises (movement, cabinets, doors, forks & knives). All of their words & noises are flying into my head and it causes my mind to be overwhelmed. Any big family dinners (including other people's families) does this. Retreating a little inside my head is an attempt to block out some of the incoming information.

Sorry to hear that, cthulhucakes.
My family wasn't big, but they always started to bicker on Christmas Eve and it would lead to yelling, silent treatment and so on. Lots of bad memories.

cthulhucakes wrote:I've had a massive headache for a few weeks and just am ready to explode in a rage at every second. This feeling of being totally surrounded and not having any room to myself is going to be the death of me. I feel like I can never be relaxed at home to begin with, but this definitely intensifies it. Does anyone else get like this? I'm ready to jump out the window.

Yes. I don't live at home anymore, but it has always been like that. I've felt completely surrounded by my family, without any space to live or breathe except my room. Today, I don't have a room anymore (no one does, since my mother claims all space for herself, she needs five rooms for doing nothing), so coming "home" for Christmas was a nightmare. I was very nervous and had a couple of panic attacks before leaving. Interaction with only that one person can make me feel like I'm suffocating. It reminded me how sweet it was at home. And I have that about the relaxing and getting aggressive too. Sorry I don't have any kind of advice or help... Normally I just would be very sarcastic and make fun of everything, that helped me to live through it.

Tough brreak. I avoid any such gatherings now at all costs. If everyone meets at my father's house( I still live with him) I just schlep it on over to the library down the street so I can spend a quiet evening reading random informative books..by myself.
I remember huge family gatherings and cook-outs and such when I was little but I was a fairly normal kid and actually played with my cousins and friends up until about age 12. Now rather than sit like a dunce in the corner amidst a scene like Pan described, I remove myself from the picture whether my family thinks I'm weird for it or not. But nope, haven't felt "surrounded" in a long time.. not at home at least. I actually have two rooms to myself most of the time. Work frustrates the hell out of me and I just wanna walk out on my shift half the time. (Fast food restaurant) [never alone]

Most of my memories of holiday gatherings as a child involved people bothering me and my mother making offhanded comments that I'm shy or quiet and disclosing personal information about me generally when there was no need or prompt to do so.

I've vowed to myself to never attend any sort of gathering with her ever again as a result. It's hard to convey in words all the details of her behavior, but the way she behaved just seemed very rude and very disrespectful to me.

Apart from the occasional "Do you have a girlfriend yet?", they usually leave me alone. We usually play poker after we eat so it's not so bad.