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Ridiculously controlling grandma.
I'm 18. In high school. I live with my mom & grandma.
I've been having serious issues with granny lately. She is ALWAYS in my business. And not like typical parenting stuff.
She goes through all of my stuff.
She looks through my notebook, pulls out tests I did poorly on, and bitches to my mom about my grades. (And I'm a damn good student. One 80 isn't going to kill me) She finds dates of upcoming tests and discloses them to my mother as well (who doesn't even care to ask me about them).
If I leave the room, I have to turn my monitor off or she'll read what's on the screen.
If I have a friend over, she comes down every three seconds to see what we're doing.
I have no privacy.
She also does shit like yelling at me in front of my mom. She is desperate to be in control of the household despite the fact that she makes absolutely no money and jsut...well, lives here. When she has a problem with soemthing i did, she says "IF I WERE YOUR MOTHER, I would ____" when my mom is clearly in earshot. Indirectly telling her what to do.
She yells at me over everything. If I wear somethign she doesn't like, she yells. If I stay up late, she yells. She threatens to wake my mom up and tell on me. I wouldn't give a shit about this except:
1) my mom works two jobs and has trouble sleeping. I comply when my grandma is having a bitch fit over something minor because i think it is just TOO CRUEL to wake her up.
2) if I don't comply, my mom yells at me, angry because she was woken up, and just makes me obey my grandma so she won't have to put up with her yelling and get some sleep.
She is convinced she knows everything. It's ridiculous. She is SURE she knows my friends and their habits better than I do. "Your friends don't stay up late." "Your friends do all their work on time." "Your friends don't dress like this." "Your friends do better in school". There's no arguing with her. And she uses these "facts" against me when telling my mom on me.
She bitches at me constantly when I'm not doing work. Funny thing is, I would gladly do my work were she not bitching in the first place. It's just that her yelling stresses me out and I can't concentrate. So I put it off. But if I don't do the work, she bitches more. Which causes me to put off my work more. And so on.
She doesn't know when to leave a person alone. If I ask her to please stop talking, she doesn't. She keeps HOVERING and yelling and bitching. This, of course, angers me, until she's yelling at me and I'm yelling back at her to shut up and leave me alone. ...And then she tells my mom that I yell at innocent little her for no reason.
She causes an intense amount of stress in the house. She immediately jumps to conclusions and causes problems that shouldn't be there. Once, I got a pimple near my upper lip. She freaked out, called my mom, and told her I had herpes. My mom came home from work panicked and angry. I had to explain myself to her. This could've been avoided if she just shut up and thought RATIONALLY for a second.
She literally has a problem with EVERYTHING not done her way. It is not normal.
This shit was okay when I was younger, but I'm an adult now. I'm going off to college in a couple of months and I will NOT be able to make the transition if I have this old lady breathing down my back and controlling me 24/7.
I've tried talking to my mom about this. She doesn't listen. She only sides with me on this issue when my grandma is bitching at HER over something and telling her how to live HER life. Otherwise, it's "you have to listen to her. my house, my rules."
I'd have moved out the second I turned 18, but I don't have any money. I have like $2k in the bank. I need that for college.
How the hell do I deal with this?
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how big is your back yard and how soft is the soil?
Nononono seriously, you have a few options, none of them perfect:
1) spend less time at home. go to your friends after school or to the library or the gym, wherever you can get some peace and quiet. no doubt you will catch crap for it, but you are anyway, so it hardly matters.
2) there cannot be an argument with only one person. The moment granny starts in on you, quietly pick up and leave. Do this repeatedly and consistently and what will happen is mom and granny will have to confront the real problem between them and reach out to you because they will be petrified of losing you.
3)If yo uare broke, contact the financial aid office at your college and see if they can help you find a cheap dorm room or other housing.
You're 18, what mom and granny think is less important than what you think of yourself. From all that you wrote, you sound like you have your head on straight. The best solution to a dysfunctional family is minimizing the contact.
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If this behavior is relatively new (or its severity is a new development) make sure her doctor is informed. It may be some form of dementia.
Otherwise, well, you've got a highly opinionated, stubborn grandma on your hands. I understand your frustration to an extent as my grandmother often gets neurotic over things like rain, soup, and the unfairness of squeeze bottles (please don't ask)
What you need to do is not rip your hair out, flip your shit, or disown your family in the next few months (or at all, ideally). Think towards the future, which hopefully includes on-campus housing.
Also you have to realize that your mother is probably only siding with your grandma in order to keep the peace. She knows you're right- she knows that you'd be doing your work if you weren't being reamed out by grandma. She knows that the way you're dressing is nothing out of the ordinary. She also knows that if she agrees with you, Grandma will NEVER leave EITHER of you alone.
So what you need to do is compromise, and try to see things from your grandmother's perspective. If she doesn't like your clothes, put on a hoodie and cover up (until you leave the house, then take it off again). Think about it- her generation seldom showed their knees while wearing a skirt and considered anything lower than a turtleneck racy! While her reaction is strange, it's just how she is.
Your mom sounds terribly stressed. Next time you both have a free moment, sit down with her and talk. You probably both feel the same way about this situation. If you both have cell phones, try and use them to your advantage to avoid future freakouts (example: send your mom a text that says "Grandma thinks I have herpes but it's just a zit, no need to come home! :)" Or at least devise a sort of system to try and warn one another of conflicts with Grandma.
In the meantime, lock yourself in your room when you need peace. Barring that, buy some earplugs or noise canceling headphones (which is a good investment 'cause they'll come in handy for college anyway). Study at the library or a friends house. Hide anything you don't want being dug through in an inconspicuous spot. A good method if she's digging through your stuff is to leave them with a friend or relative you trust, or in a safe that looks like a book from the outside.
Best of luck.
-LM
[18/f]
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Have you sat down and talked to Grandma about how she is acting has effect on you? If not, Then I recommend doing so.
For one, This isn't just a controlling Grandma, It's invasion of privacy. Unless you have given her a damn good reason not to trust you. This is wrong, You need to talk to her, Either that or sit down with your mother and talk to her about her behavior. Sit down and explain to her how you are an adult, Let her know that you are not happy with the fact that she is invading your privacy. For all you know she might not even realize it. (I highly doubt she doesn't though) What you can do is put password protection on your computer, The way to do this is to go from the "Start" menu at the bottom..Click the "Control Panel" Enter "User Accounts" and go from there. It would really suck if you had to get a key for your bedroom door... but if that is what it leads too then let it be so.
EDIT: You might want to start looking into people who need roommates. This might be your best alternative.
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