Hello. I am trying to keep my adrenaline in check. If anyone just has a minute to say that it's ok that I pull away from my one living parent as soon as I financially can, even if it makes me feel guilty? I am comparing myself to other people in my father's life in a way I think is unnecessary.

My father was not the emotionally abusive parent to me, but he was intermittently available and unreliable, some *on* years, some *off* years, with several of the *off* years being right after the death of my mother/primary caregiver when I was 21. I was no-contact from age 23-36 but wanted to try a different approach and honestly, needed some financial support after my recent divorce. Financial help was something he was able to do without us deep diving any conversations, so it seemed like an ok thing to accept. Especially since I know there were years that he sabotaged child support in a way that caused resentment between my mother and stepfather, resentment that also got dumped on me.

Right now I am living with him and a half sibling and it is not working out. Part of it is that I am exhausted watching how much admiration he gets from other family and family friends. I know it will look crazy, ungrateful, bizarre to some of those people if I fall off the face of the earth after living with him for a year. Especially since he is not an overbearing or aggressive guy. He is currently really into presenting himself a certain way to the people around him and has zero interest in discussing the past with me. And nodding and smiling through those interactions reminds me of being a kid, being so approval seeking from various adults, while watching them compromise my well-being for their external, adult reasons.

I don't want advice as much as I need one person to say that I can be a *bad* daughter, or be widely perceived as one, without having to label myself a bad person in the future. I feel like I am responding disproportionately but I also just want to be around the people that don't remind me of all this shit. I don't have a spouse or a kid, I didn't choose my parent, so I hate feeling like I *owe* someone something when we just have different realities. If I could afford to pay him back for various gifts over the last few years I would, but I work in the non-profit world and have a lot of health expenses and debt. Maybe one day.

Thank you for any encouragement.