this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Mental Health

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How can you escape toxic people if you're too hurt from them? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Lost_Soul@lemmy.world to c/mentalhealth@lemmy.world
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I'm 21/male and already lived on my own but I was forced to move back to my toxic parents 2 years ago because I wasn't able to live on my own because of my depression that was caused by the trauma from my parents (the only alternative I had was being homeless).

I was taken away from my parents when I was 12 and the fact that I now live with the people again who are the cause of my misery makes me feel like I'm paralyzed and I don't know how to escape this situation.

I'm a very sensitive person and always seek positivity and thoughtful interactions. Especially my dad is the exact opposite of that and is the most direct and rude person I ever met in my life. Every time my dad see's me he lectures and devalues me in the most direct and aggressive tone imaginable to the point where I'm too afraid to leave my room when he's in the house. He even criticizes me when I don't touch the door properly and leave fingerprints or when I left a few water drops at the sink as if I murdered someone and he leaves threatening messages on paper across the house. And everywhere he goes he spreads negative energy. (I'm obviously not doing anything wrong and he's just dissatisfied with himself and he makes way bigger/actual mistakes.)

As a highly sensitive and reactive person this makes me deeply depressed and makes me feel I'm incapable of escaping it on my own. I know that I have potential but I can't use it because the circumstances are paralyzing me. It's like being trapped in hell and the fact that this hell is so damaging/hurtful to me makes me unable to escape. I feel like it's destroying me!

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[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 points 2 weeks ago

I was quite sensitive at your age. It took me a while to discover it, but I found that I was far more sensitive to psychological toxicity than I was to physical difficulty.

At the shelter I had to deal with:

  • Sleeping in a room full of men, with the lights on
  • Showering in a group situation (being naked in front of other men)
  • Pooping at toilets in open stalls
  • Keeping my backpack up on the bed with my arm looped through the straps to ensure nobody stole it (there was a thief in the room during my stay, and after a couple days of people’s stuff going missing we caught the guy and he was kicked out)
  • Having to wake up on their schedule (5 am wake up, 6 am having to leave the shelter)
  • Eating food that didn’t match my (soft) dietary restrictions

Overall that was hard, but it was easy compared to dealing with the decades of psychological horseshit that had built up between me and my parents.

It was spartan living conditions, but I was healthy and optimistic when I was there. Lots of other guys in there were not healthy and optimistic.

That’s just my own experience. And this is coming from someone who considered himself quite sensitive. As a kid I never did anything physically dangerous because I was too afraid of injury. I was a “wuss” as a kid.

Staying at the homeless shelter was surprisingly easy for me. A far less dangerous environment than my home.

Plus it was an aventure that helped me find out who I want to be in life. I pride myself now on my toughness, and in knowing what I need and what’s just nice to have. Turns out I need an environment in which I’m not being psychologically tortured, I need a system of boundaries and incentives that’s clear, and it’s merely nice to have a bathtub where I can take hot baths, and a kitchen where I can cook, etc.

I still consider myself sensitive, but not to cold showers and physical danger. What I’m sensitive to is people loading on my empathy with unclear, neurotic, angst relating styles.

I’m totally sensitive to the kind of depression I get when staying with family. I’m not so sensitive to deprivation and challenge.