Parental issues a la mode...

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It used to be that my mother would be there for me at least most of the time, but I can only perceive through many actions as of late by her that she has replaced me with one of her friends. To make matters worse, that 'friend', through whatever kind of emotional detachment from his own blood-family, equates my own mother as his. Despite my being her actual offspring, my mother is

I'm not sure if Asperger Syndrome has anything to do with this; though my mother was diagnosed with such recently. I actually think my mother may be slightly suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as well, which to my knowledge and intuition both is the best explanation for this behaviour, as though my mother claims to mean well, I can only put her actions down to emotional parasitism, feeding off other people's adulation and positive emotion to fill a void in herself. Since I was emotionally absent from my own mother for a long time in my adolescence, my own mother has replaced me with the aforementioned family friend with the 'right' emotional fuel, due to that friend being more reliable than me in that regard, even if I have tried my best to make up for that emotional absence recently, I can only assume that her subconscious mindset about this is 'well, sorry, but it's too little, too late'.

I am enraged at how my mother could possibly replace me with someone else, I did not know she had it in her. Even when I try to raise the issue with my parents they both vehemently deny it all. But I know the truth; I have been by and large set aside by my mother for someone else who can play the 'doting son' role better than I can, despite that person NOT being of any kind of blood relation, and my father is too emotionally detached from the issue to care much, not to mention he is always working away from home as he is a drilling rig supervisor on the Australian oil rigs in Bass Strait, so I can only assume he is emotionally distant from the issue as well; his interactions with me have been to essentially 'buy' my loyalties and such with material goods, in emotional regards he and I are quick to verbally fight, at least over the phone, and I cannot confide much emotionally with him as he all but dismisses me as weak and not tough enough. And yet, despite his supposed place as the 'family leader' for want of a better word he is emotionally thrall to my mother.

Our family appears as functional as all-get-out to others - my parents have remained together inexplicably for 25 years or more, I am 23 years old - but some of my mother's remarks to me play the guilt-trip line and serve to affirm she has emotionally discarded me and replaced me with that other, such gems as "You should have had a different mother" or at least worded similarly.

Unless I can actually get some other support network in real life, wherever it may be, this whole thing is going to make me snap one day, possibly (but hopefully not) resorting to parricide. I can't see much of a future in my relations with my parents despite how they may beg to differ. Their goals for me, to me, are inscrutable and incomprehensible, even if they say they have the best intentions I cannot understand how they can say that when my mother has effectively abandoned me emotionally by-and-large for an outsider, and that my father is too emotionally distant and too materialistic to truly care, at least in my view. Worst thing is, my parents talked me into signing a tenancy agreement in a flat in their own hometown and seem to have no intent on letting me make my own mistakes, which will upon my leaving the half-way house (more like a set of flats under the control of the mental health wing of a prominent hospital in the area, but that's beside the point) I have come to resent, lock me into six months of having to put up with them being emotionally omnipresent at least. Unless something or someone happens to help me get out of my parents' emotional control, I can foresee the possibility, remote or otherwise, that I may do something terrible in the extreme.

I just wish there was a way I could get out of the contract and winning my own freedom. But it would seem that such would in all likelihood involve suing them in the courts, and in battling my own parents therein, it'd be their word against mine, and my voice tends to be silenced and when they are in the picture, and though my father isn't exactly wealthy, he is a financial juggernaut compared to me, and he would probably hire a very good solicitor to shoot me down and draw me back into submission and subservience, should I openly oppose him in that manner.

I have only one desire - to finally break all unnecessary ties with my parents and win my freedom, even if it does lead to personal hardship and adversity. But my parents, for all their talk of their wanting me to be independent, take and espouse actions that bespeak the opposite view. I can only conclude that their spoken desire for me to be independent is hypocritical, or at least their idea of me being independent is different, likely irreconcilably, to mine. Worse, they seem to have made me emotionally dependent on them, by virtue of my having found it extremely difficult to make friends or at least close alliances with others to jump-start my eventual breaking away from my parents.

I can also with a strong likelihood of correct assumption think they may have even emotionally sabotaged me in relationships that do not fit their ultimate plan for me, and even when I have dared to ask what their plan is they are silent or use glib phrases such as "We want you to be independent" without actually explaining their view of what they exactly mean by that; as they seem to take actions with the aim of ensuring my dependence on them. I would guess that they want my independence to commence only with their last breath, judging from how they have emphasised independence of mine own only after their demise, as opposed to anything beforehand. But given their general good health and their age (they are both in their fifties) I can only assume that they would only trust me with full independence when I reach their chronological age or similar.

I want my parents to let me go and let me be free, but they seem to be totally opposed to any such notion at all, and yet they speak glibly of my 'independence'.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!

I guess your parents are the type that want you to think for yourself, as long as you do what you are told to by them. Sheesh.

I would suggest that you do everything in your power to live your life your way.

Take steps to build your self esteem and understand that you don't need their approval to be happy. you don't need to follow their ideas.

Best wishes.