Why is it so hard to visit my parents?
Nobody is shouting. The food is good, the bed is familiar, the house is quiet. And by the second day you're bored and irritated. You count the hours until you can leave, then feel guilty about it. It happens even with easygoing parents. Sometimes their kindness makes it worse.
Ivan Turgenev wrote about this in Fathers and Sons.
Three days after three years
Bazarov comes home after three years away. His parents are overjoyed and tiptoe around him so as not to get in his way. He still wants to leave almost at once. In chapter XXI he tells his friend Arkady why:
"my parents know not a single tedious moment, nor are in the least distressed with the thought of their insignificance"
— Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, chapter XXI, translated by C. J. Hogarth
He isn't finding fault with his parents. He is looking at how calm they are. They are at peace where he can't settle, and the house shows him that gap every hour.
When Bazarov says he's leaving, all his father can say is: "Three days only! Three days after three years of absence!"
What the house shows
What makes a visit hard is often less the parents than the person you become around them. Their calm makes your restlessness easier to see.
Shame about where you come from is a separate subject, with its own page. This one is about the visit itself.
What the novel leaves
Turgenev doesn't take sides. He leaves a question: what in myself is so hard to face when I'm in my parents' house?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.