Any Advice On This?

[PhuturePriest]

So, I know I shouldn't be too open with family matters, but seeing as how I literally can't go to my parents for this, I think I'm excused for once.

 

So, my relationship with my parents is awkward. I feel so uncomfortable around them. I can't be myself around them. They think I hate life and am not talkative, when in reality I have no ill-will towards life and I am very talkative, just not to them. I can't smile or laugh or anything around them because I just feel so uncomfortable. I don't know why, but I am. I can talk to anyone else openly but them. Am I just being a teenager, or is there something else? Also, is there anything I can do besides manning up and ignoring my uncomfortable feeling and just being myself around them? I think perhaps maybe I'm afraid of being judged by them somehow, which explains why I ardently refuse to sing in front of them (Singing obviously being a huge part of who I am). I can't talk religion with them, every time we pray together I feel uncomfortable, etc. I feel uncomfortable talking around them to which they then sometimes ask if I'm okay, which makes me uncomfortable!!!

 

 

But really, any ideas? I'm pretty much open to anything at this point.

[Winchester]

I'm drunk, so I'm not going to offer any advice.

[missionseeker]

Part of it probably teenaged stuff. We all go through that and can relate. For me it got better after college, but then it was a little weird because I was really a much different person than I was when I was in high school. It was a strange process for all of us getting to actually know each other. I have friends who are still developing that with their parents. 

 

You're at a place where you yourself are discovering who you are. So give yourself a break. It really is ok to feel awkward around your parents. it happens. 

 

 

But a part of it is probably whatever stuff you have from a kid just kind of sticking there and not going away. That will either ease up with time, or not. (For the most part, it usually does) Just pray for them and for you and for the grace to better your relationship. 

[Lil'Monster]

I'm drunk, so I'm not going to offer any advice.

 

Very wise choice, Sir

[Evangetholic]

Biblically you're obligated to honor your parents. I'd ask God to show me how to do that and not sweat small details like whether or not I humanly like them. Parents, children, and spouses in my opinion, based in scripture, are given to us to challenge us. Very few humans truly have perfect relationships with first teir relatives, at least not at 16.  But your duty in this as a Christian, especially as a Christian who wants to be a minister of the Gospel is to honor them (which at your age includes obedience) and to honor God in/through the honoring of them. Pray about it lad.

[FutureCarmeliteClaire]

I am blessed to have a very close relationship with my parents along with my siblings, so I really can't give much advice on the OP exactly.

But I will say that something that helps me in my relationship with my parents is to remember what my vocation is. Nope, not to the religious life, not to the married life. At the present time, my vocation is to my family and to be the best daughter and sister I can be. I often need to remind myself what my vocation is and to live it out.

I'm praying for you!

Edited February 8, 2013 by FutureCarmeliteClaire

[PhuturePriest]

I am blessed to have a very close relationship with my parents along with my siblings, so I really can't give much advice on the OP exactly.

But I will say that something that helps me is to remember what my vocation is. Nope, not to the religious life, not to the married life. At the present time, my vocation is to my family and to be the best daughter and sister I can be. I often need to remind myself what my vocation is and to live it out.

I'm praying for you!

 

Yeah, this is always important to remember. I also have to remind myself that my current vocation is also being a student, but let's not mention that sore subject. ;)

[Winchester]

Student is not a vocation.

[Nihil Obstat]

Vocation:

 

 

Communio (summer 2010, "Living and Thinking Reality in its Integrity", David L. Schindler).

16: "There is much that needs to be sorted out here. A state of life, properly understood, gives objective form to an "existential" as distinct from "office-bearing" participation in Christ's eucharistic love. Each of the baptized participates in Christ's Eucharist both existentially and "officially", in the sense that ordained priests are always first members of the Church, and that all members of the Church, by virtue of their Baptism, exercise a priestly office, manifest, for example, in the capacity themselves to baptize in certain circumstances. This emphatically need not, and does not, imply attenuation of the clear and profound difference between the laity and the ordained priesthood. What I mean to emphasize here is simply that a state of life, for example, consecrated virginity, is as such not a clerical state. It seems to me that an awareness that this is so opens the way to a deepened appreciation for the state of consecrated virginity as a distinctly lay state, recognized already officially by the Church in Pius XII's Provida Mater, and indeed in Vatican II's renewed teaching regarding the laity and their "wordly" vocation. My statement is also meant to carry the implication that the vowed life of the three evangelical counsels, which expresses the gift of one's whole self- possessions, body and mind- indicate the most objectively fitting existential form for the priest's office-bearing participation in the Eucharist and the sacramental life of the Church. But again, all of this needs more sustained development that can be offered in the present forum. For a reflection on the relation of the life of the evangelical counsels and the vocation of the laity, see Balthasar, Laity and the Life of the Counsels (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003).
17: The suggestion here that there are only two states of life [consecrated virginity or sacramental marriage] raises many questions within the Church today. On the one hand, there is the common perception that the priesthood as such is a state of life, which in the proper sense it is not. On the contrary, it has its sacramental-ontological reality as an office, indeed as an office that, as I have suggested, bears an objective fittingness for a vowed life of the three evangelical counsels. On the other hand, there is also an increasing tendency today to affirm that singleness as such can qualify as a state of life. But neither is this properly so, because a state of life requires saying forever to God in a vowed form. And the character of this vow that constitutes a state of life has its ultimate foundation in the dual character of the human being's original experience, in original solitude and original unity, or filiality and nuptiality, both of which have their center in God. A state of life, properly speaking, is the mature person's recuperation in freedom of one's call to fidelity to God forever, which occurs either through consecrated virginity, and thus remaining "alone" with God; or through marriage, and thus promising fidelity to God forever, through another human being. But it is nevertheless crucial to see here that the single life, if not (yet) actualized by either of these vows, does not thereby remain merely in a kind of neutral place where one remains suspended in a mode of inaction and unfulfillment. On the contrary, as we have indicated, there is a call for the gift of one's whole self implicit already in the act of being created: and this call is immeasurably deepened in the act of being baptized. The point, then, is that this call is actualized in the tacit and mostly unconscious fiat which, in receiving creation, and in turn the new creation in Christ, already begins one's participation in a promise of the gift of one's self to God. The call to be faithful to God forever with the wholeness of one's life is implied, and is already initially realized, in a natural form, at one's conception, and again, in a supernatural form, at one's Baptism. As long as one remains single, then, the relevant point is that one can already begin living the fiat of total availability to God, and, in this sense, realize the fundament of what becomes a state of life when recuperated in the maturity of one's freedom in the form of a vow of consecrated virginity or marriage. What one is meant to do as long as one is single, in other words, is to live one's total availability: to wait with active availability for God's will. Of course, it has to be recognized that humanity, and the cosmos as a whole, exists in a deeply disordered condition by virtue of sin. And therefore it has to be recognized as well that the call objectively to a consecrated state of celibacy or to marriage may never be historically realized- as is the case that everything in the cosmos exists in a broken condition, sometimes a seriously disordered condition that must be accepted, even with much suffering. 

 

[4588686]

I'm drunk, so I'm not going to offer any advice.

 

 

Hassan would have offered drunk advice.  And some embarrassing personal details as well.

[MIKolbe]

So, I know I shouldn't be too open with family matters, but seeing as how I literally can't go to my parents for this, I think I'm excused for once.

 

So, my relationship with my parents is awkward. I feel so uncomfortable around them. I can't be myself around them. They think I hate life and am not talkative, when in reality I have no ill-will towards life and I am very talkative, just not to them. I can't smile or laugh or anything around them because I just feel so uncomfortable. I don't know why, but I am. I can talk to anyone else openly but them. Am I just being a teenager, or is there something else? Also, is there anything I can do besides manning up and ignoring my uncomfortable feeling and just being myself around them? I think perhaps maybe I'm afraid of being judged by them somehow, which explains why I ardently refuse to sing in front of them (Singing obviously being a huge part of who I am). I can't talk religion with them, every time we pray together I feel uncomfortable, etc. I feel uncomfortable talking around them to which they then sometimes ask if I'm okay, which makes me uncomfortable!!!

 

 

But really, any ideas? I'm pretty much open to anything at this point.

 

So let me get this straight...

 

you are sheltered, warm, and have clothes on your back. you are well fed, physically and spiritually.  you are getting educated.  All for free.  if you need money, they either give it to you, or have you work at the family 'job' (i think i recall you stating something like that). 

 

You have the lowest water, gas, electric, tuition, credit card, cell phone, and mortgage bill of anyone I know.  Anything you may 'pay' for you really don't pay for because it would mess up your parent's credit, not yours, if you decided not to pay.

 

You seem to have a nice camera, judging by all the pictures you take of yourself. 

 

If you need a ride, i doubt you pay cab fare, gas, or insurance on whichever vehicle transports you.

 

And with all this, and much more; you feel uncomfortable.

 

This is almost laughable. no.. wait.. it is laughable.  talk about first world problems.......

 

But then, I have to consider the source. 

 

You're a boy.  Your parents most likely 'get' the uncomfortableness.  They were kids once too. 

 

Here's the thing... Every parent likes to think and hope that their kids will be better them.  Parents know all the mistakes they made when they were kids.  All the stupid things they did, and all the hard knocks they took to teach them the lessons they know today.

 

As a parent, I hope my girls don't get this 'uncomfortableness' you speak of.  I experienced a type of this crippling 'uncomfortableness' you speak of to an extent. In retrospect, it was one of the stupidest, selfish, unvaluable, accomplish-nothing things I have done in my life.  And that really is saying alot.  I have taken dumb and stupid to some pretty high levels.

 

As it pertains to this suffocating 'uncomfortableness' to which you are refering, i hope my girls are better than I was.  I understand, "umm..is that Dad doing the Cabbage Patch and Running Man on the dance floor?" (because, yes, it will be).  It's the 'I can't talk to Mom or Dad about this', that I hope they never experience.  Because now I know, it was all me, not my parents, that kept me from talking with them.  I hope my children come to me, and talk to me.  Will they feel uncomfortable?  I HOPE SO!  I am their parent first, and their friend a distant second.  I love them more than a friend would or could.  I hope they WORK PAST their uncomfortableness.  I hope I show them how to be that strong.  I hope they learn to be that strong.

 

And.. I hope you do too.

[CatherineM]

I'm convinced the teenaged years are designed to make it easier for parents to let kids out of the nest. Parents aren't your best friends. That's a mistake our modern culture has made. I'm not saying they should be enemies, but when parents and kids blur the line as to relationships, you get 30 year olds living in the basement playing video games instead of having a career and families of their own.

[Basilisa Marie]

I went through something similar my senior year of high school - it was all kinds of nasty.  It got about a hundred times better after I went away to college and came back.   For me, at least, a big part of it was that I was growing up and trying to figure out how to be my own person, the kind of person I wanted to be, and wanted to be "free" to make mistakes and try new things. I felt like my parents still saw me as a little kid, or even just a bigger version of the person I felt like I "used" to be.  I felt like not only did they not understand me, but that I couldn't communicate what I was feeling even if I wanted to.  Once I was out of the house and at college, my relationship with them improved so much, because I felt like I could start trying to establish a more "adult" relationship with them. It's like I felt they were okay with me changing or being whoever I wanted to be because college is when a lot of changes happen. It was also a whole lot easier to communicate. 

So all this rambling is me trying to say that I think what you're going through is perfectly normal, that your feelings are perfectly valid, and try to find a way to make the best of it and communicate with your parents.  It'll probably stink and feel really awkward, but keep trying to open up to them.  

[MissyP89]

Some days I feel a disconnect with one of my parents. It's hard. It was easiest when I was away at school -- I was anxious to share what I was up to and they were anxious to hear from me and support me. 

 

Remember that all relationships take honest hard work, even when it's with your folks. Maybe you need to sit down and try to think about exactly what it is that makes you feel all weird. Is it one parent over the other? Does it happen more or less at certain times? When did it start and what do you think might have triggered it?

 

These are all questions you could ask privately.

 

It could be teenage angst, or some combo of your feelings + your personality = ArghhhhhIhavetoTALKtothem?

 

I do think that this is something you can change. You can take small steps toward sharing your heart with your parents, even about little things like something you're reading and really like.

 

These are disjointed thoughts, but I hope they help you.

[sixpence]

Sometimes I feel very similar to what you describe... I don't have any ill-will either and I don't think they THINK I do, but nonetheless, I feel uncomfortable being myself around them.  I feel fine acting goofy, but it is very awkward to share anything emotional or serious in nature.  I am not sure why it is.  ESPECIALLY involving anything to do with religion.  I was raised Catholic, they are both Catholic (albeit pretty liberal ones), we never missed Sunday mass etc etc, but I feel completely uncomfortable discussing anything about our faith or praying together (which might be because we never really did this when I was younger).  At this point my boyfriend knows much more about my personal religious life than they do..

 

so yeh, I can relate, but I don't know what else to say!