Strained Relationships (with flu on the side)

My last post is about being sick... and a few days later, I'm sick again! Aren't I just so lucky! I went to bed yesterday with a sore throat, and 24 hours later I have a fever, bad headache, chills... apparently I can't seem to catch a break. I'm hoping some more rest will do me well. I apologize if any of what I say sounds feverishly delirious, for I know not what I'm saying.


I am part of another really awesome forum about Myers Briggs (which I still have to do a post about) called Personality Cafe. I wrote a long rant/question/frustration about how my dad and I fight constantly and posted it. My dad and I are polar opposites when it comes to personality. Here is an example of what I wrote:

"... The housework issue is just god awful. I've gotten better about keeping most of the house clean, but with my bedroom/bathroom I really don't care. It is nothing against him whatsoever, but for me to clean is just not my nature. I don't think about putting something away after I've used it. I toss my clothes on the floor. My junk litters the bathroom counter. Keep in mind, we do not share a bathroom. So, unpredictable him says nothing half the time, and the other half he has these temper tantrums. He screams at me and orders to listen to his barking. He says if I don't clean or do xyz, he'll throw away my stuff. If I go into my room and lock my door, he screams loud and threatens me. He thinks everything I do (or don't do) is to piss him off. He thinks I don't clean my room to purposely piss him off. I just don't think about it!

I also feels like he values his 'stuff' more than me. If I break something or something gets messed up in the house and I can't provide a logical explanation of how it exactly happened, I get yelled at. For example, the sprayer on the sink got stuck one morning while I was making coffee. While trying to unstick it, it popped off. No big deal. I immediately called him and let him know so he wouldn't come home to a broken sink. He says it's fine. That night, he gets on my case about how it 'really' broke. He said he was sick of my friends messing around with his shit and breaking everything. Um, I was the one who caused it to pop off. I am not aware of doing anything unusual to the sprayer..."

Pardon the language, I was really frustrated when I posted part of this message. I know not all of you agree with your parents, in fact, I'm sure some of you have strained relationships with them. When they have too high of expectations, or try to control you, how do you handle it?

My experiment, in the mean time, is to read the books Safe People and Codependent No More (was suggested to me by another member, luckily I already had both of those books). Once I'm better, I will do a review on the books and tell you how reading them affected my relationship with my dad.

If you want to read the whole post, check it out right here!!!!