- Date posted
- 15h
Unempathetic parents
Hey everyone, this is my first time posting on here. This is a long post but I would REALLY appreciate some responses to this. Does anyone else deal with parents who are unempathetic and claim to understand OCD but actually do everything in their power to make it harder for you at every single turn? For example, I live with my parents and younger siblings currently (now that I’m employed again, I WILL be moving out in 2026 come hell or high water) and I don’t use the same fridge as them because they don’t care about making me feel even slightly comfortable enough to use it. I have my mini fridge in the garage but I moved it into the kitchen because it’s too cold in the garage in the winter and the compressor shuts down, which means my food melts. For the past 3 years, I’ve had to keep my fridge in the garage despite the fact that the food melts because my dad claimed that the kitchen couldn’t accommodate the electric power of a mini fridge (this was a lie). For the last 3 years I’ve had to stand in a freezing cold garage and microwave ALL of my food as soon as I buy it before it melts. However, this year my dad said that the fridge would be able to go in the kitchen (nothing has changed from the previous years; he just didn’t want to feel the cold air from the garage every time I went in and out and because it was affecting HIM, he decided to do something about it. But he didn’t care I was freezing my behind off for the last 3 years). Anyway, I had to move the fridge by myself while my dad (a tall, 200+ pound man) watched me struggle because he told me he didn’t feel like washing his hands and wearing a pair of gloves in order to help me. When I pointed out that not being able to move my fridge would lead to a greater decline in my health, more disordered eating, and diabetes (which I only got while living with them because I wasn’t eating frequently) he didn’t care. My mom refused to wash her hands and wear gloves too. And before anyone says that them washing their hands and wearing gloves would have been enabling the OCD; it wouldn’t have. It would’ve been helping me. The fact that I was even going to let them touch the fridge was the brave exposure that I was doing. It is truly evil to refuse to do something as simple as washing your hands and wearing a pair of gloves because “you don’t want to” when you see that your family member is starving and experiencing health issues because of a household environment that you created that they’re not comfortable to live in. I would appreciate some helpful advice or encouraging responses from y’all!