I had some major financial troubles two years ago, and at the age of 25 had to move in with my grandparents and aunt in a small house. I lasted a year when I was still driving for Amazon, but once i got a remote job things got bad. Due to the acoustics of the house, my bedroom/office allowed all conversations and sounds to be clearly audible. My grandparents watch TV for up to 12 hours a day, and with their poor hearing have the volume up loud. Also, I'm a 6'3" 220 pound man and the room that i spend 8-14 hours a day in due to remote work/privacy is 8' x 14'- tiny for someone my size.

These two things slowly drove me insane over the latter half of 2024. I held off due to major trust issues and wanting to take accountability for my circumstances, but at the beginning of this year i couldn't take it anymore and I asked my dad to let me move in with him and his wife of 5 years, who I'll call Lucy. He said yes and i was thrilled to have a slightly bigger room and a quiet house.

Now, my dad and i have always had a relationship that is completely void of emotion. Growing up, every once in a while he would yell at me, but he was largely a passive presence in my life who was always physically there, but not available in any way outside of that. He and my mother got divorced when I was 13 and this made things worse. When my brother and i were staying with him, he would get drunk most nights and sometimes pass out on the couch, even 6 years after the divorce. I had to stop him from drunk driving one time, and he would sometimes scream at me for no reason. When he wasn't drunk, he was just cold and completely emotionally unavailable. He never checked in to see how we were doing and made little to no effort to get to know us as people. This being said, he did financially provide for us throughout all this.

When i got to his house in the beginning of February, things seemed normal between him and I. He and i would be working remotely during the day and at night would sometimes eat together and make small talk about politics or TV shows. Things were normal between Lucy and i too. We've had a similar relationship as I have with my dad since they married five years ago.

To give context for what happens next, i need to mention that my younger brother killed himself in June 2024. This devastated all of us, of course. This will be an important detail for later when the main event of this story unfolds.

One night I'm in the kitchen making dinner and Lucy is expressing anger at my grandparents and Aunt for not taking her health advice. She's one of those people who has all kinds of issues, including health issues, but thinks everyone should take her unsolicited advice. I do a very specific diet due to it effectively treating some health issues that were previously debilitating. Things had been normal up until this point between us, except she kept making passive aggressive comments about my diet whenever we were in the same room. For example, I would be making something in the blender and she would come into the room and passively say "A lot of noise in here. That nasty stuff." This passive aggression happened like 5 or 6 times in the first two weeks, and i didn't engage with it at all because it was so obvious and petty. I let it roll off my back and just continued on with keeping pleasant energy in my conversations with her.

When she was expressing her anger that night, she kept going on and on with it. Way longer than is appropriate for talking about family members behind their back. This irked me, so i said "That's enough Lucy" in a somewhat harsh tone, which is not normal for me. After I said this, she immediately began screaming extremely loudly at me, among other things, "You come into my house and tell me that's enough?!" "You're a narcissist, you're so arrogant!" "I knew this was going to happen!" I can't emphasize enough that this was full blown fury to the maximum extent possible. I had never witnessed something like this before. My dad came upstairs when he heard her and just said to her over and over again "Stop it, stop it" to no avail. I tried talking to her, but she just kept screaming over me. At one point as i was just standing there not saying anything since i knew it would get yelled over, she began throwing pillows at me and yelling "Go ahead, beat me!" I was just standing there, so this was confusing. After about 10 minutes of this she collapsed crying and my dad held her in her arms. I went to eat dinner and we didn't talk anymore for the rest of the night, or the next day.

The day after next, Lucy and i talked about what happened. I apologized to her for using a harsh tone when speaking to her. She apologized for going crazy and saying derogatory things to me. She also really emphasized her past- she told me that her husband died 15 years ago and that she also lot a brother around the same time and that she's been in therapy for over a decade. After this conversation i naively assumed things would calm down.

A few days later, the dishwasher was full, so i put my dinner plate in the sink. Later that night, I heard Lucy trying to persuade my dad to get me to move out because of the plate. When i asked my dad about it the next day, he said it was one of her pet peeves to have an empty sink at night. I was blown away that she was genuinely asking him for me to move out over this.

About two weeks later, we ran out of toilet paper. I mentioned this to Lucy, "By the way, we're all out of toilet paper" and went downstairs to go watch TV with my dad. 2 minutes later Lucy comes downstairs and says "You know what, I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible, but telling me we were out of toilet paper made me feel like i'm just a maid." She then proceeds to tell me I don't help out around the house at all (I was walking her dog almost every day, they never do it. I also shoveled snow, changed out the propane on the grill and kept every space i used clean and tidy). She also said, "You have money, you buy that grass-fed crap, why don't you buy the toilet paper?!" She also said, "You have a problem living with people, your brother couldn't live with you because you were yelling at him all the time" This bugged the hell out of me, not only because this is not true at all, but also the fact that she has no right to talk about my brother like that to me, whether it's true or not. The disrespect was off the chart, but i kept my mouth shut during all of this and just let her rant. After 10 minutes of this, she went upstairs.

At this point i was done. If her goal was to be unwelcoming, disrespectful, and abrasive enough to get me to leave on my own, she succeeded. I've been emotionally, verbally, and physically abused in the past. Many people in my family are narcissists, so i recognize the signs of one and understand that those types of people can't change, so trying to argue with them is pointless.

The day after i told her we needed more toilet paper, i told my dad that i was moving out because i don't deserve this kind of treatment. He said he doesn't want to deal with the drama in the house. As i told him i was leaving, we were in the kitchen and Lucy overheard us from the other room. She came up to me, and, no joke, in the same tone as the Joker from Batman, said to me, "Don't talk about me behind my back, say it to my face"

I just stared blankly at her and said, "I'll tell you what i told my dad, I'm moving out of here." After i said this, she screamed, "Because I yelled at you you're moving out?!" to which i said, "It's not just that, i don't deserve to be treated like this."

She then began a tirade of screaming vile things at me and physical assault. "Your brother was the one I could talk to, i miss him!" My dad started saying "Stop it, stop it" over and over again. She looked at him and yelled, "It's him and his fucked up mother!" I replied calmly to this, "You don't know my mom." She yelled, "Yes i do! I met her in the hospital when your brother died. What kind of a person doesn't cry when her son dies?!" I said, "You don't know my mom." again, which got her to the point of straight up rage.

She screamed at me, "You treat me like crap! Dead husband, dead brother, you don't know me!" She took a glass of water and threw it all over me as i was standing there. The funniest moment of the whole thing was this, when i said, "I treat you like crap Lucy?" to which she replied, "It's just water!"

My dad at this point is screaming at the top of his lungs, "STOP IT! STOP IT!" This had absolutely no effect on her. She accused me of causing relationship problems between her and my father and got in my face, waving her fist an inch from my face aggressively. I'm 6'3" and in decent shape, so during this whole thing i kept myself calm and didn't get angry, as this wasn't something I felt threatened over. I can't make it clearer that she was absolutely unhinged, pure rage at this point.

After a few more minutes of general stuff like this, she just stopped. I said nothing, went upstairs, and went into my room. My dad came in, sat on the floor, and said, "I can't live like this, can you go back to your grandparents?" I didn't really respond, and he left the room.

Lucy left to go check on her father, who was in the hospital with pneumonia and would pass away a week later. I stayed in my room for a half hour and then went downstairs to find my dad sitting on the couch just staring and not moving. I tired talking to him about what just happened, and, no exaggeration, all he could say was, "I'm extremely upset at what just happened"

I realized right then and there that i would get absolutely no support from him, as usual. I felt horrible. I said to him, "I'm taking my computers and leaving right now, i can't afford it if she decides to smash one of them." All he said to this was, "I'm sorry."

And that's it. I left with my computer and enough clothes for a week and moved back in with my grandparents. I went back up the next few weekends to get the rest of my things and didn't see Lucy at all, as she happened to be out running errands both times i came by. My dad was there, and he acted like nothing had happened and we didn't even talk about it. Communication with them has been minimal since then.

Now, to me this is crazy. Despite me not doing anything, my dad was completely fine with kicking me out of his house. I had to change my address with HR at work twice in one month, which makes me look like a lunatic. I had to make 7 two-hour trips back and forth between their houses to move all my things, as i took everything i owned out of my grandparents house and moved it up there. I had to cancel a therapy appointment that i had waited 3 weeks for. All of this because my dad didn't want to deal with, in his words, drama in the house.

A few days ago he texted me, "How are things going?" and i didn't reply. This dredged up a lot of feelings of shame and worthlessness, which i know is bullshit. His decision to treat me like this is on him, not on me. I'm tempted to just not talk to him anymore. It feels like every time i reach out to him with some trust or vulnerability, I get burned.