I [20F] don't think I can mentally handle going on vacation with my family this summer. How do I tell my parents [Late 40s M/F]?
Throwaway account woo
So a bit of background here:
My relationship with my parents is... *okay*. I'm pretty independent, so I don't talk to them much, and vice versa. My relationship with my mom is much better than with my dad. He's kind of an asshole. He gets pissed easily and overreacts in regards to punishing behavior he thinks is bad. He's also really inconsistent in his reactions.
This past October, my parents came down to visit me in college for fall break. We've had various kinds of campers for nearly a decade now, so they brought our current down to a campsite nearby. When they picked me up and drove me to the campsite, SURPRISE! They bought a legitimate RV! Cool, whatever. I didn't have any really strong feelings about it because it was basically the same situation as our fifth-wheel (really big camper) we had before it. Except it wasn't.
Now the thing about our fifth wheel is that it had a separate room for beds for my brother and I, and the beds in the room were bunk beds, with mine having half a wall in front of it. The point is, I had a space to myself that was pretty secluded, especially for a small space like a camper. This is really important for me because a) I'm ridiculously introverted and b) As I said earlier, I don't get along with my family all that well. The problem is, the RV they bought only has one room, the master bedroom. On top of this, there is only one convertible bed, which they've already said my brother will sleep on. They told me that I'll be sleeping on an air mattress in the middle of the floor in the kitchen area and right next to the bathroom.
I cannot stress enough how problematic this is. I have literally had a breakdown on every vacation we've had since we got a camper because it's really difficult for me to deal with being in such close proximity to them all the time. I will have no privacy. I will be forced to get up at 6 or 7 AM every day because that's when everyone else in my family naturally gets up. I will be forced to stay up late watching movies that I don't like. I will be woken up anytime someone needs to go to the bathroom. I will have no place to chill out and calm down if I get pissed off. I won't even be able to get away by going outside because our cousins and grandparents will be camping next to us, and they already think I'm kind of a brat because they've seen me have so many breakdowns on vacation. This semester of college has also really taken a toll on me, and being at home is also stressful for reasons I touched on above. I don't think I'm going to be mentally okay enough to go on this vacation. I have no idea how to tell my parents this.
I feel okay telling my mom. She's generally pretty understanding, and while she'd be upset about my not going, she'd also get that I can't handle it. I still want to approach it the right way with her so she doesn't think I hate her or something, but I'm not worried about her flipping out.
The problem is my dad. Like I said, he's kind of an ass. I'm worried that he's gonna be pissed when he hears about this, and when he gets pissed, he starts with the crazy punishments. I am genuinely worried that he'd say something like "Oh, you don't want to be part of this family anymore? Then get out of the house." My parents are also paying a ridiculous amount for me to go to this college, and he's threatened to stop paying for less than this. Suffering for two weeks to ensure that they still pay for college is technically an option, yeah. But last year when I had my Annual Vacation Breakdown ™ , he threatened to hit me. This was in public as well, and I'm worried about what he'd try privately this time, since he actually did hit my brother earlier this year. This is the first time he's hit either of us outside of spanking when we were little, and it was over literally nothing.
Basically, I don't feel like I have any good options. The one reason I have that MIGHT pass is I want to get a summer job, and I can't miss two weeks of work if I get a job. How on earth do I approach this?
TLDR: My parents bought a new RV that has absolutely no privacy and expect me to somehow be okay with it. I mentally cannot handle going on vacation with them in this sort of situation. My mom is okay, my dad may or may not kick me out of the house or stop paying for college if I say I don't want to go. How do I talk to them about this?
Submitted April 29, 2019 at 12:15PM by familyvacayhate http://bit.ly/2V1FaWp
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