this post has nothing to do with channeling. this one is about roommate problems, and my crippled social skills.

i'm throwing this open to any of you who know me and consider yourself  to be my friend. i can be the world's dumbest genius and i often need things explained to me, things that everyone else can see easily.

my sis bought me a house for my 60th birthday. it was supposed to be 'so i would never have to fear eviction again.'  i thought that i should go it alone in solitaire for this part of my life.  having no son, no parents, no husband or job to be responsible to anymore, i thought i should take this time in my life to get to know who i am now.
but those i lived with at my last place, could not, or did not, find themselves another place to go, by the time moving day came. They ended up coming with me, by default.
because i was not happy at being forced to move from a place i had taken care of for 14 years, and having allowed this house to be the one taken by default, i moved in, clutched in fear, and overwhelmed by change i never wanted to have.
i know i took out my unhappiness on roommate number 1. i know i loaded him up with all the jobs i didnt want to face.  i was secretly hoping to make his life so hard, he'd say ' fuck this' and go. but he didn't. he grumped about 'him having 15 job, mon' and accepted whatever i gave him to do. be the dishwasher. take out the trash. change the catboxes. clean the bathroom once a week. mow the back lawn. pull the weeds. and anything else that came up, that i didnt want to face.

he came to refer to the sense of oppressive duty as 'the voices in his head that nagged at him like 1950's parents and civic leaders, carping on him to get up and do this, do that, you're lazy, you're a welfare cheat, get married, make babies, get a job, work work work!'
i asked if he wasnt gettng it from me, psychically. he says no.

then came roommate number 2. a friend of number 1's in our previous city, his wife put him out and told him to go think on what he wanted of life, and tell her when he knew his answer. he was bipolar and being wrongly medicated, leading to violent and strange beaviors that imperiled their baby. they had loved each other once, but his disorder brought on dangers she couldnt permit around the infant.
my friend, roomate 1, offered his bedroom floor as shelter to number 2.  he didnt bring me the request beforehand, he brought his buddy home with him, and then explained. he askd if it was alright--- with the guy right in front of me. i didnt know this person, and no time limit was mentioned. i said ok, but was irked that i wasnt asked in advance and we hadnt discussed how long this would be for.
days turned into weeks turned into months.  number 2 was quiet, polite, unobtrusive, went to work and came home, helped do work in the yard when asked, and we counseled him when he wanted to talk.

months later his family said they would help him, so i nudged him to pack up and go to them, anxious to get the household back down to 2.
fast forward to the new house. again roomie 1 announces his buddy is coming from out of state and is it ok for him to stay in our house?  not asking beforehand, waiting until his friend is already making the trip.
he still hasnt learned from the previous time.
or he's deliberately manipulating me, by setting it up to happen like this. assumes i'm a soft touch and won't say no.

i find out number 2 is supposedly doing this to connect with his estranged wife and child, whom he hasnt seen in some years, who live downstate from us and are supposed to be renting a car to drive up to see him. one weekend only.
he arrives. she fails to come. didnt secure the rental car. trip made for nothing.
i have been him, i have been her. i have been the child. i have compassion for all and each of them. i've been the kid whose dad disappears. i've beenn the mom who shoulders parenting by myself because dad is more problem than solution. i've been the parent without custody nor access for years. so i wanted to give all of them a way to see each other.  i pointed out to number 2 that if he just moved in with us, the entire year would be open for his wife and daughter to get up to see him. so he did that. mom and daughter drove up some time later.
fast forward again. mom gets stunning word that her landlord has suddenly decided to take back his house and wants them out in 30 days. she has situations lined up, but not ready before 30 days is up.  i say it seeems evident to me that she's meant to come up here, with us, if nothing else is appearing.
so mom and kid come move up into the house. dad-roomate 2--gives them his bedroom and moves out to the living room.
now we have roommate 1, 2 3 and 4. and me.
why did i do it? because i have a heart. because i too was in their position when i was a young parent, and people did this for me when i was in need. and i hoped that them being together again, with mediators, they might solve their marriage issues and reconcile, for their own sakes and their child's.
one bathroom for 5 people. the entire house, which was supposed to be my space, shrinks down to me having only my bedroom as my turf.  over time, i feel like i'm giving up more and more to keep peace under this roof. none of these people would have a place to live if i hadnt opened to them. my repeated efforts to get them to undersstand that i didnt want this to become permanent, get met with uproar, complaint, anger, disgust and dismissal. --'oh, THIS again!'
the mom has been endeavoring, nonstop, to secure work, to move on. she's miserable.  so am i. so is roomate 1. so is roomate 2. yet nobody talks openly abouut what they are miserable about. nor will open up and put their preoccupations on the common table, in effort to get to a better understanding. each one keeps their misery internal, and pushes on. bearing their unhappiness themselves.

i liken this house to a car on a trip. a car can only have one driver at the wheel at a time. someone has to drive. everyone else can have input, and the car and driver get all of them to a future destination, but SOMEONE has to be the driver.
i see my responsibility    for this household as the driver and owner of this car. i picked up other passengers but its still my car, my responsibility to maintain it, and it falls to me to keep peace, and try to strike a balance that everyone is comfortable riding with.  not too hot, not too cold, enough bathroom breaks, everybody gets enough food, if i go too fast or too slow, somebody tell me so and i'll accommodate.

problem: roommate 1 is a believer in the kind of anarchy where no one lords it over anyone else. he hates leaders. he snarls at the characters on tv who bully others. his major charge at me in fights is 'because you have to have control! you always have to have it your WAY!'
and i frown in puzzlement and say ' this isnt for ME----this is for the good of everybody in this house!'
or, when it IS for me, i point out how rarely i ask for something, considering what i give.
considering what?
well...
there's the fact that no one else here has a credit history. they can't open utilities in their own name. they can't get cable in their own name. only  I have the history enough to do that.  and so i did. if i ended my accounts and i left, nobody here would be able to put the water, lights, gas , internet or tv service in their own name.
yet i dont have tv in my bedroom. roomie 1 owns the one in the livingroom and the one in his bedroom. if i want to watch tv, which i have made possible, it leads to uproar with roomie 1, who doesn want to share time on his bedroom tv, and roomies 3 and 4 can only watch cable in roomie 2's room[ my onetime livingroom, now his domain when he's home. ]
so for the sake of keeping them happy, i go without. when i do speak up, roomie 1 snarls 'you have to have YOUR WAY', not realizing that he has his tv on from the moment he wakes till he goes to sleep, and spends most of his hours bitching that there's nothing good to watch and what the fuck are we paying for?  clutching onto his tv--- but disgusted with it.  when i ask if i can watch something, he doesnt see it reasonably but as proof of my 'having to have control, and getting everything MY way'.
he chooses to categorize it that way, unwilling to grasp that yes, when i do ask for something for myself, i AM asking to have something 'my' way. think about it. who else is going to ask for me, but ME? isnt that my place to ask, if i want something?  and since he is so disgusted with tv, perhaps he shouldyeild to someone else, who hasnt exhausted all the programing offered, who will find things interesting, which he has dismissed, and just maybe, go find something else to do----talk to his friend, perhaps. go read a book in another room. work on his artwork or his poetry.  try getting up in daylight and see what he world has to offer out there, not sleep the day away and choose deliberately to stay awake all night. what, among these ideas, is so repulsive and unreasonable and unbearably tyrannical?
he will not consider these suggestions.  he answers them with ';  oh, THIS again!'  he gets his way, with either tantrums, ridicule, sulking, or anger. he makes a lot of noise and disturbance when awake. wakes up mad. crashes around, cussing at inanimate objects.  slams doors. tv goes on. he sulks and sneers in his room---which is central to all the other rooms.
and then begins snarling aatvillains on tv or else at the conscience nagging in his head ' you need to go get milk. you need to go buy tobacco. the lawn needs to be mowed. the bathroom needs to be cleaned. the bills need to get paid. work work work. get up and do it!'
and he then snarls at those voices out loud, adressing them as if they are people in the room with him.  we have to listen to this, as if he is fightng with people in the house that we cant see.  it makes the cats get afraid, because they cant tell who he's mad at, only that there's a fight starting.
sometimes i stick my head in and curtly remind him ' hey! quiet down! they arent real, but WE, ARE!'
or i just put up with it.
he knows he does it.
 he claims he's working on it, but the cycle repeats. he's stuck. doesnt want any help.  he exerts his own kind of tyranny, getting HIS way by anger, tantrums, ridicule, and throwing his fits.  or sinking into overdramatic Depression, muttering 'nevermind. it doesnt matter. cant change anything. i'm the asshole.'
i offer alternative approaches.
--look at this as the best we've ever had it since we met.
--tune out those voices.
--take the buddhist view: be mild to those voices and wave them off.
--give yourself slack. take a day off on purpose. just to discard them.
--if there's a job you'd like someone else to take on, say so. 

he grumbles and wont try any of these. easier to blame and hate those imaginary others, than to change yourself. and to tell yourself its useless, because 'they ' have all the power...

roomate #2 has changed, a lot, from the way he was when he first slept on our floor.
12 years ago, he didnt drink. now, he keeps beer stocked in the fridge and starts drinking as soon as he gets home from work. he thinks it doesnt affect him. but he gets slurring and cant grasp complex ideas as he drinks more cans.
i never agreed to have this in my home.
my mother was an alcoholic and was never without a beer or vodka in her fist.
it revulsed me then and it's abhorrent to me now.
all my efforts to talk to roomie #2 sail right past him. he thinks its nothing, he thinks it doesnt affect him or affect the household or his relationships with anyone. it does, but he won't see it.

i never wanted my home to becom a stoner den or a drinking house. neither does the mom or the daughter.
 roomies 1 and 3 were heavy drinkers, many years ago. but they each came to stop by their own life choices. i've never been into alcohol, because of watching my mother. cannabis and i dont get along well either. parted ways decades ago. but these guys wont stop. they ignore and rationalize it away, every time i bring it up.
won't stop, won't move out, won't listen when i bring it up.

mom homeschools their daughter. on school nights, they go to bed at midnight.  roomie#1 stays up all night with tv on. his room is central to all the others. if roomie #2 comes in, he's drinking and he wants to talk. the two of them unconsciously raise their voices to be heard over the tv. if i'm in the room, i become aware of the rising loudness and i say something to get them to bring the noise level back down.
roomate #3 takes this as me ordering him to leave, and goes back in his room alone.  it's not, but he believes it's that.  roommate #1 thinks i'm jealous and don't want him to give his buddy any attention.  that's not it, either! i'm just aware that they're getting louder and louder and they are going to wake up mom and daughter in the room ten feet away!
i ask for the guys to shut the bedroom door. sometimes they try, but dont shut it completely. or one goes out and forgets. or comes back and forgets.  number 1 goes into his angry sneer at what he calls the 'preciousness' of mom's need for quiet thru the night. but he has set himself against her and the whole world, by deciding he's not gonna be awake for daytime and going to stay up all night. its his way of saying fuck you to the world and the tyranny of everyone who lives by The Rules.
except, his entrenched rebellion isnt affecting any of the people he hates and blames for it; its only affecting US--- the people he lives with. and the cats who live with us.  and of course, perpetuating his own misery. because he's acting it out, and giving it all the control it wants to take, not trying to change anything or understand why he does it.

number 2 drinks several more cans of his beer, they both get stoned, and serious understanding becomes impossible in the face of both of them taking in intoxicants which are further and further impairing their brains. it probably is also a factor in why they get louder as their company goes on.
if i remain in the room with them, i have to tolerate the falling level of intelligence and conversation, and lose a lot of what's happening on tv. if i leave, there's nothing to do but go back in my room alone and wish there was something to do. and they don't notice their inconsideration.


last night, when they started their talking over the tv, geting stoned, i tried inviting roomie #2 to have a seat and get interested in tv.  he opted  to interpret that as my wanting him to leave.  roomie #1 got angry and accused me of driving him out. i tried to explain that i had no such intent. the argument rose. he said i wanted 'my' way again. 'no,' i insisted, 'i didnt. this wasnt about me. it was for the sake of a school night, needing quiet.'
i was shouted down. they each wanted to cling to their respective mistaken beliefs. what i was trying to head off and prevent from happening, surged forward in worse force than if i had just left. this was the wrong time to try to bring up the solution i had wanted to propose to them. my bellowing it over the arguing voices went unheard.
what i had wanted to propose to them, was, that instead of them talking, over tv, in the central room, when mom and daughter had gone to bed, they steer their talk back to the livingroom, where roomie #2 sleeps, which is as far to the other end of the house as you can get, without going into the garage. it takes the sound far away from my room and the mom's, doesnt break their conversation and comraderie, and the livingroom tv has the same programming accessible to number 1 as his room. if he wants netflix, fine, we can get a usb stick for that tv too.
'would mssr like anything ELSE to please his tastes. while i'm scrambling to placate his tantrums????  your morning jacket and slippers, mah'ster? your newspaper, sir? perhaps a line of cocaine?  your flavored coffee, master? shall i bring you something to fling at the wall and break? to vent your usual wrath upon? will there be anything else?"

goodness knows, with a petulant, spoiled, tantruming child in the white house, we dont want to do anything to upset tantrumers, anywhere!
they're sure that the whole world is conspiring against them, so they can't have what they want!  it's so UNFAIR!


so you tell me---am i wrong in this? am i being a bully? a tyrant?
am i demanding to get everything my own way? am i being selfish? am i being a 'control freak'? this IS my house. i am the only one here who has the responsibility to fix parts of the house that stop working, and the power to do so.
i pay for all repairs and replacements.
no one else here can order utilities or internet or tv in their name, much less provide it for anyone else. 
i look around at what happens, and try to arrive at a way to let each person have as much of what they want as possible---tho it may mean we each give up something--- in order to have the rest.
it feels like i am constantly giving up things i feel i am justified in asking for, in order to placate someone else.   i'm sure the others would say the same. yet every try i have made, to call a house meeting, to have everyone tell what they would like to be solved, meets with zero response. no one wants to have one.

i think about what would happen if i just left. what if i took all these accounts out of my name and waited? how long would it be until they realized what happened? what would they do?

so what am i missing here? what would you do, in my place?  much as roomie #1 hates to face it, i AM the leader, here. SOMEONE has to drive this car, and it's me. no one else here can step up and take over my job. all of these people have lived on their own in other places, not needing me. roomie number 1 came into an inheritance of 110,000dollars and doesnt want to touch it.  he lets me spend everything--- but gets in my face and tells me i'm the bully, when i declare a rule, to keep the dynamics fairer.
i've told every one of these roommates how i want them all to make their plans to move along, to their next place.

but nothing changes. the men havent so much as gone looking for apartments, and years have passed. mom never stops looking, but the money hasnt come thru.
so how do i get this to someplace better?  is it me? or is it one of them? or is it more than one?
why cant i get them to act??


know what?
i think i'm being played, here.

do you see something i'm missing, here?
if we're all unhappy, why can't we just put that on the table, and come to an agreement on what to do, to move us all up to the next steps we want to go to?
nobody wants to be unhappy. nobody HAS to be. there is means here for the men to find a place together and move out. that would take their toking and drinking and rowdiness out of this house and free them from the constraints of having to 'be nice' for the females. it would take the pressure off the bathroom conflicts and too many people under one roof.
it would lessen the anger index, with no more disgust at dealing with people in an impaired state, who stay that way by deliberate choice.
it would give back the privacy that grown adults crave, and the free agency of solitude, so sorely lacking here.
it would remove the day people from the night people, and end the sense of the boys conspiring to rebel against, defy and defeat the girls.

everyone here has their own stubborn ideas. its like they dont want to let anyone in. they believe nobody can help, that the way they're toughing it out is the only way it has to be.

and here we are, fucking unhappy.

i know i am. i know each of them, is.
wtf can be done?????

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