Me [F28] and my mom [F60]. I moved in with her because of Covid and I am losing my mind because she follows me 24/7.

I lost my job and had to move in with my mom because of Covid.

I am constantly looking for a job, but my mom and sister both have pre-existing respiratory conditions, so I have to take social distancing very seriously. I'm limited in apply to remote jobs.

Since moving in with my mom I am going ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

My mom is obvious very lonely and very particular. I think it's fair to say that both my mom and I are set in our ways and those ways clash. She is very particular about her house and how things should be done. Like VERY FUCKING PARTICULAR. Example: the sponge should be left vertically instead of horizontally because she believes something about mold prevention. She changes where she wants shoes left on a daily basis (in the closet? on the rack? by the carpet?), she doesn't like anything being cooked past 7pm because "the AC is on and cooking heats up the house". Why it doesn't heat up the house prior to 6:59pm I don't understand... but I don't question it, I get to live here for free.

I try to respect her particularities but she does not respect how much time I need by myself.

I naturally wake up at 8am everyday. I feel like a teenager lately, because I have been starving myself to stay away from her until past 12noon. Every time she and I have an encounter, she wants to spend hours talking and gets very offended or annoyed if I try to exit the conversation. I have even downloaded a fake app that pretends a friend is calling you to schedule interruptions.

She talks so much. She gossips about the neighbours, complains about local road work, talks about how unfair vacation day distribution is at her workplace (meanwhile she gets paid so much for so little work... she gets paid over $150k a year and I never see her put in more than 20 hours worth of work any given week).

What ends up happening is that she exhausts my patience after a while and I end up getting super crabby and giving her one or two word responses. She chooses the WORST times to try to talk to me as well.

This morning for instance, I tried to make myself coffee and breakfast, and she insists she needs help with something quick. So I turn off the burner, and it turns out she's purchased me a new mattress and we need to spend hours picking it up, transporting it, getting a delivery fan, dropping it back off, installing it, OH YEAH AND WHILE WE'RE OUT WE MIGHT AS WELL DO SOME RETURNS AT COSTCO.

It is literally 2:45pm here and she has taken up so much of my day that I have only now gotten around to brushing my teeth, and I barely even wanted to do that because she was talking to me while I was in the bathroom.

I have already had nice conversations with her about how I was living alone for many years and I just need my quiet time. This has resulted in two reactions, depending on the time I've mentioned it:

• She agrees with me and then yaks for several hours more.

• She gets really offended that I never seem to walk to talk to her.

The whole reason I moved out of my mom's place to begin with was to be my own independent person who had more control over their life. Moving back in with my mom, I just don't have that. It's truly driving me crazy because she doesn't respect that I do not owe her my attention whenever she wants it.

I'm appreciative of the fact that I get to live here rent free and that she's being supportive in a financially difficult time in my life, but I am literally going crazy with how much of my time she demands.

I do not mind helping her... I just hate being talked at so much. It's not even conversations, it's just her talking at me one directionally as if I'm a diary. She even shares complains about the kind of diarrhhea or periods she has and I don't care if I'm another woman, I just don't don't like hearing that stuff. If she talked to me less than 5 hours a day, I would be genuinely surprised.

My sister has this figured out - she wakes up at 5pm to avoid my mom. I have adopted her strategy a little bit but it makes me feel so immature and it interferes with my own productivity in trying to look for jobs (it's been so tough, even when I feel I have enough time for myself).

What do I do? Is there a different way to have the same talk with her to make her understand without offending her? Is there another avoidance strategy I can incorporate?

Help me!

TLDR: I moved back in with my mom because of Covid and she talks to me too much. I have had conversations with her about how I need more alone time and that I need to have time to myself to try to find a job, but she either ignores it or takes it personally, and either way disregards it and continues to talk to me just as much the next day. I need to balance respecting my mother and keeping my sanity.

Submitted July 17, 2020 at 11:50AM by honestgoing https://ift.tt/32Gc8yn