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How to handle my parents?

I live with my Mum and stepdad, I’m a full-time college student in my second year. My step-dad has always been very rude and unfair to me and his biological kids. I’ve never really gotten on with him and just accepted this. He looks for arguments and can never be pleased. He always takes his problems out on me and when I bring this up to my mother she says “he’s just going through a hard time” because he has depression. I know this but it’s not an excuse to be horrible, he refuses therapy and always stops taking his medication.

I have bipolar disorder so I know exactly what it’s like to go through hard times, yet I stick to my meds and am waiting for therapy because I want to control myself.

My mother also has depression and most of the time they both are moody and irritable. I avoid going downstairs when they’re around and always keep conversation minimal because it doesn’t take much before they get irate and dismiss me.
It’s almost as if they don’t care that I have the more severe mental illness and them making me feel like this isn’t fair.

I’ve brought it up many times and tried to ask them to stop but they refuse to listen and try to justify themselves. I always try to talk to my mother about stuff and get into a conversation and as soon as I loosen up she snaps and tells me to be quiet because “she’s stressed”. Surely if they are this incapable of treating their kids like human beings they should’ve given us up for adoption? They always snap at me and my brother and sister who are younger than me.

I visit my Dad every weekend and half-term and he is much different, yes we argue but that’s rare and most of the time we get along and I notice that I feel so much better when I’m up there.

The problem with this is that I can’t go to my Dad’s in the week to get away from this house because of college. I’m in every single day and his house isn’t close to my college so I’d have to get up extremely early and catch multiple buses.

They’re always “tired” and that’s their excuse for not having a normal conversation with us.

Any advice would really help.

Reply 1

username4899406

Either you suck it up at your mum's until you finish college (you're not going to ever get through to her or your stepdad so staying out of their way is the only option in this scenario) or you go to a perfectly healthy and loving environment with your dad whose only downside is that he isn't in a convenient place

Sounds like a no brainer to me op if you value your sanity