My parents have been too concerned about my safety since I was shot. I am 51 years old, male.

Your primary care physician might be able to recommend a social worker who specializes in medical issues and the disabled. They are familiar with this and all sorts of other problems that people like you deal with. Let us know how it works out!

I will start by saying that my mom is a bit bonkers about this stuff too. She emails a few times a day asking if I am OKAY. If I don’t reply in a few hours she starts to freak out and calling everyone to see if they have heard from me. I am 38 years old. I also live with my sisters son. If my heart exploded in the middle of the night they would smell me in a few hours and then family would be notified.

I have resorted to a email filter script thing. If a email comes in from my mom it pulls a random number between 5 and 240. In that many minutes it will respond back from a array of canned messages like, “I’m good, getting ready to go grocery shopping.” or “Lucy is being difficult, cleaning the bathroom to stop the nagging”. I have hundreds of these. She has never noticed that the responses are automated.

But maybe you could just tell your parents that you will call them every hour if you are out. And once you are in a dwelling for the night let them know so they don’t worry.

You use the term “too concerned” for your safety. According to whom? In fairness to your parents, it’s obvious that their level of concern at this point in time is evidently greater than your own.

But as with any trauma, peoples response and healing time varies greatly from one person to another. There really us no “proper” or “right” amount of time. It takes whatever it takes.

However, it would most likely be helpful to them to be able to talk things over with an understanding therapist. Would they be open to that ? (not because they’re not getting over it quickly enough, but to give them some comfort and healing)

And secondly, I recognize that you are currently in a very difficult situation but if all goes according to plan , you’ll only be living with them for another year.

Hopefully you can work out a compromise with them to gradually transition to a more reasonable expectation of when you’ll be home at night.

I do have one question however. Would you be chafing at the bit so much if your friends were not continually chiding you about your curfew ?

(If I were a friend of yours, knowing what you’ve been through so recently and almost died, ribbing you about your curfew would not even be in the back if my mind much less coming out of my mouth.

(However, if their comments are due mainly to your complaining to them about your parents fears, then you created your own mess and you need to stop talking to them about it altogether. If you need to gripe, gripe to a therapist or a support group.)

Quite frankly, the dynamics between you and your parents is no one’s business but your own. Whatever hours you keep are, ultimately, your decision alone and you really don’t need “friends” opining about your “curfew”.

If you aren’t staying out late enough to suit them, you need more understanding friends. And, quite frankly, nothing much good usually happens after midnight anyway. (There are exceptions for social events on weekends but that’s about it.)

(And I’m saying that as a lifelong night owl from childhood.)

I have no idea where you live but even when I lived in NY city, I was generally at home well before midnight on most Sundays thru Thursday since I had to work the next day. But that had no relation to my bedtime. I was still a night owl; just not a night owl out on the town.

Let’s face it, in an ideal world, your parents would never think to be concerned about limiting the freedom of a fully grown adult. But circumstances beyond your control and theirs intervened horribly.

It frightens them tremendously and they’re trying to control as much as they can. But the plain fact is that no matter how much control they try to exert over you, the robbery could as easily have happened at 9PM as at 12. Random things happen. Sometimes really scary random things.

But you can’t be cowed and stop living because of it. It gives them (the criminals) way more power over your life than they are entitled to.

Somehow you have to try to get this idea across to your parents as best you can. And then work out a type of schedule that ALL of you can be comfortable with.

I think @johnpowell has a good idea about reassuring phone calls. It may help. But the other thing you need to do is to contemplate FOR YOURSELF (without input from friends) exactly how important it is to you personally to be out that late on a weeknight. Really. Input from anyone else should not be part of the picture. They don’t get a vote.

If they continue to razz you about a curfew, you need to sit them down one by one, look them in the eye, and let them know how truly unhelpful those comments are. If they don’t get the point after that, then they are not really friends.

(regarding your lady friend, do your parents have any objections to you having her over to the house? There are lots of things the two of you could do at home while getting to know each other better before marriage that don’t require being out late. Presumably your parents go to bed much earlier?)

If your parents are adverse to you having her over then you need to put your foot down because that’s going too far.

Anyhow, as previously suggested, try to find other resources designed to help people who’ve been through the type of trauma that you and your parents have experienced. It is a life changing experience and you all need to go through the process of finding a new normal.

It may take time but with enough communication, you and they can come to a compromise which you all can live with. And remind them, that it will help them get used to the idea that a year from now, they’ll have little to no control when you are no longer under their roof.

I wish you the best in this difficult time.

TO some degree this is selfishness on their part. You are 51, so that makes them 70+, maybe as much as 80. They want to be sure that you are still around when they get older and weaker and need you for care. So they’re tightening the screws on you, for their own benefit.

I mostly agree with @Buttonstc They’re getting away with this because you are letting them.

You say you are on Disability with no job and are living at home. Sorry, Pal, but their hovering is the price you pay for living in their home (and likely not paying rent).

I’ll bet you two days after you get off Disability, get an 8 to 5 job, and move into your own place they will consider you an adult again.

Another thought. Is there any chance they are concerned about a addiction issue?

Their hovering is because the dude was shot. If I was shot my mom would be parked outside my apartment with binoculars. I think this goes way beyond, “My house, my rules.”

No drugs, no addictions. Before the “Especially Aggravated Robbery” I was regularly out all night helping people on disabilities on a volunteer basis who had no overnight attendants to help them, and drove a church bus to pick up the disabled. Plenty of ‘access’ to drugs. I’ve lived independently for 30 years.

@Yellowdog: Any chance you are able to move out any time soon?

That would certainly be the solution. Unfortunately, not for several months or perhaps as much as a year. Might be moving if I get a church anytime soon. Only Social Security disability money now…