Angry at my mother

Ok, so I went looking for a flourescent light ballast (magnetic PL adaptor) that I had and I couldn't find it. I ended up searching the whole house for it. Every time, I returned to the same drawer I remember seeing it in and searching through it.

Finally, I asked my mom if she had seen the "thing that looks like a lightbulb" with a socket on top. She asked me where I last left it and I told her I thought it was in the drawer next to my computer. She thought for a while then told me she threw it away a few weeks ago when she was cleaning out my room along with some some other things. :scowl:

Now I'm angry at her because she threw my things away without asking me what they were. We've been arguing about it for the last 45 mins and she finally told me to shut up and let her go to sleep. I was still so angry that I threw her keys away so she woundn't be able to go to work. I know, I shouldn't get back at her (I probably should dig the keys out of the dumpster) but I'm still kind of angry. This isn't the first time she did this though; I've had a skateboard, parts of my Go-Ped Scooter engine, some circuit boards I made, and even one of my flashlights thrown away by her.

Have anyone of you ever had this happen before? I'm still trying to get over this if anyone can help.

First of all you need to have more respect for your mother! And make sure you don't make a mess in your room/drawer. When everything is tidy, she won't throw things away so easily as she now did.

EDIT : And get her keys out of the dumpster!

Bad move - throwing her keys away.
Go get them, clean them off, and give them back.
Explain to her that even though you live in her house, you need to have a little bit of space you can call your own. Explain to her that from now on you will be cleaning your own room, and do not need her help in this area. Explain to her that you would appreciate it if she would no longer throw out anything of yours without asking you first. You can help her understand that your interest in flashlights is important to you, and that there are MUCH WORSE things that young people get involved in. But always remember - she is your mother, and you live in her house. When you eventually move out and pay your own bills, then you will be "in charge".

Wow, what would you do if she threw out a ballast, a flashlight, and a battery charger?

Thanks guys, I've gotten over it.

I already returned her keys (they were sitting on clean peices of paper on top of the trash) when I started this thread. We spoke together and she will ask me in the future about anything she throws away that may be mine or important to me. I doubt if I can get another one of those twin tube CFL adaptors anymore these days though, since one peice Spiral CFLs are cheap and mass produced by Chinese companies now a days. Man think it's cheaper to throw a way a dead bulb with a perfectly good ballast still attached rather than to just replace the bulb part.

The flashlight was a different story. She threw it away before warning me not to leave my EDC items laying all over the kitchen counter. It was already long gone before she warned me and I went to get it to put it away and discovered it was missing. I was pretty mad about that incident and now, I always put my EDCs in my room instead of downstairs.

I'm 19 now (turning 20 this June) but I can predict that I may still be living with my parents for several more years since I don't have a job (hopefully will get one by this summer), car, or even a "girlfriend" yet. I do have my driver's licence but since my parents think having a third vehicle is too expensive to insure, I wasn't allowed to have my own vehicle. I drive my mom's car but that is when she isn't working and needs me to go to Costco or the supermaket for groceries and food. Other times, I walk about 6 miles round trip just to get to RiteAid or RadioShack for things like batteries or electronic parts.

I know many of my younger friends have expected me (and often told me that they will do the same when they reach my age) to move out by now.
They will learn the truth though.

I'm glad you wised up and got the keys out. I had a big long post for this but the CPF server said no to my post .

Don't worry about the future live life and enjoy it (while still working to move out). As I always end up going against the grain, if you want to move out the military is always an option and a decent life, I've been in for 18 years now and have loved nearly every day I've been in. :rock:

Doug

Parents will sometimes do things that drive you crazy I'm almost 36 and my mom can still push my buttons even over the phone from a thousand miles away

I moved back home for a time at your age as well. It was interesting. I think I was 22 or 23 before I landed a job where I could afford an apartment.

The only real consolation is that parents can be trained to a certain degree. A little explanation about your stuff and keep your mits off mom (said with more tact though I hope) will probably result in her respecting the drawers full of stuff you're keeping that to her look like garbage And the other thing is that be assured that you drive them just as nuts as they drive you

As you get older they will loose their power to drive you crazy on a daily basis, but you'll keep your power to drive them crazy!

I used to have stuff like that happen occasionally but only when I left it outside of my room. This was over 20 years ago though, and my mom has since learned to just put whatever I may leave elsewhere back in my room. For my part I rarely if ever leave anything of value to me outside of either my bedroom or workroom. I don't recall my mom ever throwing away anything that was in my bedroom once I was past grade school, although I lost some stuff I made the mistake of leaving in other rooms (nothing of value to be sure). To be sure she still complains even now when things are messy but I chalk this up to differing views on what constitutes "messy". Basically I have a higher threshold for mess than she does, although not by too much. I recently spent a week cleaning my bedroom top to bottom because the mess was actually bothering me as well as her. This mess included boxes and VCR tapes in stacks on the floor, a few huge piles of papers, junk on my desk. I threw away a fair amount of clutter, reorganized the rest. At least it looks decent now. My workroom is always kept fairly neat since I need it that way to work efficiently. BTW, my mom's complaints are limited to the stuff outside of drawers and closets. She never looks in drawers or closets except if she's looking for something, and would never dream of throwing things out no matter how messy they are. Of course, at 43 I feel I have some right to my own space even though this is my parents' house since I've put thousands of hours of work into various home-improvement projects benefitting everyone.

I personally feel that children, no matter what age, should have a space where they are in charge. If not their entire bedroom, they should at least be able to keep their closet and drawers how they see fit. This also teaches responsibility and organization. If they can't find something among piles of junk, children quickly learn the value of keeping things neat.

My 12-year old niece has a similar problem to you. Her mom (my sister), having grown up in a crowded apartment which was usually messy with my father's junk, has overcompensated by not really allowing her daughter much say in how she keeps her room, and throwing away her stuff sometimes without asking. This inevitably leads to friction of course. Everyone needs their own space regardless of age. It might be a good idea to sit down with your mom and discuss some sort of compromise. And I wouldn't worry about leaving home yet. It'll happen when you're ready. My sister left at 24, my brother at about 28 (although he lived with us recently for over a year before purchasing a home). I don't plan on leaving unless I get married. We all get along, more or less, and respect each other's space.

BTW, your reaction is muted compared to things I remember doing in anger at your age. I still remember the places where I had to patch holes in walls and doors because I put my fist through them in anger. Mind you we have pretty thick plaster walls so this took quite a bit of strength on my part to make these holes. I also remember a nice swift kick I did right through the 1.5" solid oak front door in anger. To this day I don't know how the heck I managed that. I must have been really angry. :scowl: I've since calmed down although as a cyclist I've little doubt I can still do a lot of damage with my legs. :devil: As the old saying goes, "don't tread on me!"

woah! solid 1.5" oak door and you just kick through it!? are you superman or somekind of superhuman?

James S said:

Parents will sometimes do things that drive you crazy I'm almost 36 and my mom can still push my buttons even over the phone from a thousand miles away

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I'm reminded of a line from the show "mad about you".

Her-"Grrrr, I'm a grown woman and mom still knows how to find all my buttons"
Him-"Of course she does...she installed them!"

:naughty:

When my mother decided that my bedroom had become too messy for too long she would just grab a few tall kitchen garbage bags and start filling them up. They would then be stashed in the loft above our barn. This actually worked pretty well since I usually only ended up bringing one or two items back into the house and leaving the rest in the loft.

I wonder what Freud would have to say about this...

Oh and Yuandrew.... "Get a job ya lazy bum"! <grin>.

Okay, just kidding on the "lazy bum" part but in all seriousness at 19 you need to start taking care of yourself. Once you have some income you can...

-Offer to pay a little rent to your parents, work out a written contract that you are now a tennant and outline what that means (I.E. nobody else gets access to your room).

-Buy your own car, pay your own insurance. You can find a $500 POS that looks terrible but runs, the insurance is what will kill you but then you don't have someone else saying "you can or you can't".

At 19 you are legally an adult but that really doesn't mean squat if you don't take the responsibilities that come with it. As one adult to another your parents should respect your privacy and property, but are you acting in an adult role?

How much did this thing cost? I'd be pretty crappy if someone threw something out that was mine without asking but then again, I'm also a big believer in 'My house, my rules'.

The last thing I know of where someone gave/threw away something that I valued was when I was about 13 or 14 years old - I turn 33 next month. My grandmother, who always supported my desire to collect knives, decided that I had too many to keep track of, or maybe she thought I was going to get in trouble or something... but either way, she gave away about 30 of my knives including some very nice ones that would now probably be worth quite a bit of money... Cases and Queens mostly which is all the more tragic since she left some 'big scary' and cheap knives.

When I was away in school my parents moved, so I wasn't there to guard my stuff. I regret my baseball cards and a first generation (1963) skate board never resurfaced. At the time it was no big deal, but now I wish I had them. After all my folks had done for me, I held my tongue. Besides, who knew then that some cards would be worth money. Don't know if that short, hard-wheeled skateboard might have some value.

Geoff

Buy a lockable safe. Perferably one with a conbination and heavy. Keep it in your closet or somewhere next to your clothes/etc. I know the space won't be big inside, but anything really expensive can be secured that way. MONEY is the one thing that comes to mind but I don't know if you have a problem wiht that disapearing too! But it would be good for small expsnive parts like flashlight drivers, luxeons etc..

yuandrew said:

Have anyone of you ever had this happen before? I'm still trying to get over this if anyone can help.

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Yep, my mother did something like this periodically. I can certainly understand your anger. The big throw-out was when my folks moved to a new house. This was when I was a thousand miles away, doing my first 90 days in the Air Force. She tossed out most of my possessions, including memorabilia which I miss to this day.

That was a long time ago. I still think about it every now and then. But, having gone through the parenthood thing myself, I have slowly come to realize that she was only struggling to live her life as best she could . . . much as I am now doing.

It appears from your post that what you are concerned with is the pain of your anger. In my case, the anger gradually decreased. I can now even chuckle over how victimized I felt. Your words indicate that you feel your pain is subsiding. That woudl mean that you are already in the process of getting over it.

After some time passes, you could consider talking with her about the fact that some of your possessions are of high importance to you Maybe she didn't understand. Perhaps you could arrange some sort of indicator of what those items are, such as putting a special tag on them or posting a list of them in your room.

If you dont have a job then who pays for all your stuff? <-Something to think about.

chesterqw said:

woah! solid 1.5" oak door and you just kick through it!? are you superman or somekind of superhuman?

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I am the Terminator!

Seriously, I used to ride 3500+ miles a year and still ride at least 1000 annually so my legs are quite strong. However, to this day I'm still amazed at my one-time feat of superhuman strength. I'm 100% sure I could never do that again. Strange thing was my foot didn't even hurt afterwards. I must have hit at a perfect angle. Although I'm not that skilled in martial arts, those wood breaking feats are all about impact more than brute strength. I'm guessing that's what happened, or maybe the wood happened to have a defect right where I hit it.

I'm 19 now (turning 20 this June) but I can predict that I may still be living with my parents for several more years since I don't have a job (hopefully will get one by this summer), car, or even a "girlfriend" yet.

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You play everquest or world of warcraft don't you.

I keed I keed