duuuuude....

By engaging in such kerfuffle with your mom you pay for this potential money with your life energy. I mean...... it is your decision, but I would rather be on the street before entering such life-outsucking battles.

And why again you aren't moving? Decoration? Really? I mean do you have water/electricity/internet at your new place? Then MOVE. Don't be a high maintenance pussy. Move, even if you have zero furniture.

And what do you have against sovjet closets? They are cool and a lot better quality than IKEA.

I know that, but she currently seems quite amenable, so I don't think I'll need to spend too much energy on closing the deal.

I meant to say 'construction works'. In post-Soviet Russia, apartments are normally sold as bare concrete rectangles, with no plastering (let alone wallpaper), no internal walls, no plumbing, no electric wires inside (let alone lights). It takes at least a month to make them inhabitable by law.

And no, I'm not going to give up that easily. I'd rather punish someone who's done a lot of net evil to me than take excessive money away from innocent poker fishes.

And that's the only person whose life I'll suck out if she thinks she can get away with bringing me into the suffering of the world just to use me as a toy, bring me up in a fashion that makes me barely employable and let me die early of a bunch of mental disorders that she'll never take partial responsibility for, or rather, from whom I'll suck my life back. I'm not going to marry nor have children, so the rest of the humanity will be unaffected by me.

So you own something like this in "shell and core condition?"

More or less like that, but sans the internal walls, the plumbing (only the main pipes and the water meters are present) and the lightbulb.

It takes a few days just to bring that ferroconcrete box into the state that Westerners call the 'shell and core condition'.

And lapka,

Regardless of whether or not I'm going to obstruct my mother's real estate deals until she pledges a future compensation to me in writing, this exact moment is a poor one to break up with the relatives cold turkey and subject myself to the living conditions akin to those of Tajik immigrants. Firstly, when I created a liquidity crisis for myself last year, I did already get out of my comfort zone once and for long, and I can surely state that it didn't work out for me - it only beat me deeper into depression. My instinct of self-preservation failed to manifest itself. Secondly, if I make myself suffer even more now, the Tajik way, I'll surely remember who's made suffer, and that person won't be me because I'd never choose this way of committing semi-suicide.

Why do you get anything? It's hers.

That part (25-33% of the whole thing) would be mine by my father's unspoken will if she hadn't bullied me into submission (actual physical violence never happened because I gave up too early) - see the latter part of post #5041. Hence all the fuss that I'm making.

Surely, I did essentially commit suicide when I agreed to make that gift to her, but realizing this doesn't help me at all.

co.on,

You rent now? or? Or are you living with your mom? No. That can't be. I recall you writing somewhere that you have to go to visit her. Is it OK where you rent? Or why would you be in a Tajik living conditions? (Tajiks = workers from former eastern Sovjet parts mainly Tajikistan. Usually live in Moscow in a very crowded uncomfortable living conditions.)

"Люди как люди. Любят деньги, но ведь это всегда было... Человечество любит деньги, из чего бы те ни были сделаны, из кожи ли, из бумаги ли, из бронзы или золота. Ну, легкомысленны... ну, что ж... обыкновенные люди... в общем, напоминают прежних... квартирный вопрос только испортил их... "

"Humans like humans. Love money, nothing changed in time. Humans love money no matter if it is made from leather, or paper, or bronze, or gold. Impulsive..... hm.... it is normal..... nothing new....only housing problems corrupted them."

The mother is living in another apartment that she likes more than this one.

She actually wants me to live here, which is her property too, and rent my own property out, into my pocket. (Because of the said legal loophole, she has no legal way of evicting me except convicting me of gross negligence.) However, that would be a grossly inefficient use of her property, and my brother wouldn't mind some extra cash from its potential sale too, though now he tends to say that he'd reject it and let me and my mother split the cash.

She seems to misunderstand the reason why the status quo is inefficient - that true Muscovites don't live in Moscow. They live at distant dachas (country houses) while selling or renting their overpriced Moscow properties to those who've just become Muscovites and would like to buy or rent within the city proper for bragging rights and to avoid being bruised by rush hour suburban train crowds.

My property is a suburban apartment but it's located at a dacha area. If I ever have money for another property, it will be much closer to the downtown and rented out to less fortunate people.

****,

Why do you think you deserve to be given stuff instead of earning it yourself?

I don't deserve it, but the thing is that my mother can neither enjoy her stuff nor name anyone to whom she'd give it instead.

She's almost alone because she's quarreled with everyone who was close to her. She hasn't talked to her own mother for years, because the latter was abusing the former in childhood in an opposite fashion (letting her out in the cold while staying in with lovers), and the latter now has a random gold-digging caretaker as she was rude to her actual relatives.

My mother fails to understand that authoritarian excessive care constitutes hidden emotional abuse too. When, in my childhood, a doctor gave me a psychological book condemning parental authoritarianism, my mother got angry and threw it out.

Besides, can you tell why it makes sense to have children at all? Aren't they eating into your livelihood?

****,

So why not just stop worrying about all that stuff and live your life?

You were able to make enough money to buy an apartment, congrats! So that makes it seem like you can probably make enough to finish construction and get furniture and stuff?

And it sounds like your mom is letting you live by yourself for free in the meantime?

Seems like you should be thanking her instead of complaining about her.

The sad truth is that I wasn't the one who made that money. It came from other parts of my father's inheritance. The only thing that I managed to do with it is to maintain it through the years, not letting it be eaten by the inflation while barely paying my life expenses off by poker.

The problems are that:

1. I'm not satisfied by the slow pace at which I'm earning money for the construction finish. Heck, I'm not even sure if there's any positive pace atm. It might take months for me to restore my poker skill.

2. I was trying to save the relatives' respect for me, trying to convince them of my self-sustainability, in accordance with my optimistic expectations of that time, however, the poor state of my mental health is slowing my progress down, and I don't want the real extent of my mental illness to be known to the real-life environment, as that would subject me to possible corruption at psychiatric wards and a subsequent loss of economic rights, especially considering my history of what's considered gambling in Russia.

Yes, I've become proficient at hiding facts and telling white lies to everyone, including myself, but that's useful when the addressee is incapable of interpreting the truth correctly.

My brother kept his dating life in secret until he proposed because he knew our mother would detest his gf, for wrong reasons. Our parents had been trying to set us up with 'proper' daughters of their friends.

****,

Btw, your English writing ability is exceptional.

**** wtf are you talking about on this page?

i just came to say hello

As for why I'm such a jerk: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But I'm going to withhold myself from making people suffer other than those who deserve it. This means that I'm going to put myself in voluntary social semi-isolation IRL once this case is settled.

I love that this thread has turned into several people not taking responsibility for their own actions and then still hinging all future decisions on past occurrences.

Goodness.

I'll have plenty of time left to work on these issues anyway. And not all my future decisions are going to depend on my past.

And be careful because, in the process of taking responsibility for my actions, I might overestimate the extent of my guilt and sentence myself to death. What I've done to myself might qualify cumulatively for hundreds or years in jail already.

Edit: in general, I believe that it's best to take partial responsibility, in an adequate amount, for one's actions. Taking no responsibility at all is harmful, but taking full responsibility is another extreme. There's a lot of variance IRL. Actually, what's happening in my poker career is that I'm eating myself alive for my downswings but attributing my upswings mainly to luck, which is a recipe for a shattered self-esteem.

Well, if you believe that's best, it must be.

Society thanks you. It's a credit to your character that you're self-aware AND you're doing what's best for others. I am not being facetious.

But do heed the advice that others are providing: the sooner you cut ties completely with your mother regardless of money, the sooner you can be happy.

One thing I have learned in the last few years is that money very rarely improves your happiness or well being. Often, it makes things more complicated. If you have enough money to survive and indulge in whatever hobbies you enjoy, there are hugely diminishing returns in anything extra you gain. So often I'll buy something expensive I think i wanted, and rarely/never use it.

TLDR cliffs, dont sweat the money

In that case I'll help you out and take that money you're gonna be getting.

Deal with your issues, deal with your issues, deal with your issues, deal with your issues! You need to gain distance to your mom. In every sense. Duuuuuude ...seriously deal with your issues. And about tajik living in Moscow: The hostel, I stayed in during my visit in this month, is one where a lot of "gastarbeiter" stay. It is not so bad. It forces you to be social and communicate and I felt there perfectly good. Think about what is your sanity worth?

You can't construct a normal relationship with your mom as long as you are in her property. One of the best decisions of my life was to move out of my parents house in a student accommodation where I had 8 m^2 for me and had to share 2 toilets and two showers with 13 other people. It was seemingly significant decrease in comfort, but it resolved a bunch of issues that seemed then to be unsolvable. I had no other choice than to learn how to deal with people. And it was soooooo good for me although wicked scary at the time.

This is very true for excess money. However, up to the point where my basic needs (food and shelter) are met for the lifetime (i.e. where I can make a somewhat passive investment that will be providing me with the minimum living wage with probability close to 1), money will be actually helping me. I'm not going to earn money past that point.

The thing is, you didn't have to use a laptop to earn a living. Residing with random roommates in a hostel would pose a big risk of theft of this vital tool.

I testify that living in a hostel while traveling is awesome, however, doing so while working online at non-standard hours looks -EV in comparison with renting a studio in a far suburb (with an area of 15-25 sq.m / 160-270 sq.ft) where your possessions are relatively safe.

I've been considering options of moving into rooms in condos with shared kitchens or even shared bathrooms in case the poverty hits me really hard and I have to sell my shell-and-core suburban studio, but I'm not that desperate quite yet.