19-Year-Old Burned Out from Cleaning Family Home Solo. Now Her Mom Says She’s ‘Selfish’ for Stopping

A 19-year-old woman turned to Reddit for support after feeling overwhelmed, unappreciated and unsure whether she had failed her family.

In her post, she explained that she lives with her mother and one of her older brothers, writing, “I (19F) still live at home with my mum (55F) and one of my older brothers (24M).”

She described a household where everyone is stretched thin, noting that all three of them are dealing with major depressive disorder. “Her, my brother and I, all have major depressive disorders, so a lot of the time none of us are motivated to do any chores,” she wrote, adding that the home could slip into “a pretty awful state” when no one had the energy to clean.

On top of that, their elderly dog frequently has accidents in the house. She said that “pretty much every day, there’s something one of us needs to mop,” which added to the never-ending chores.

Despite working part-time and attending a part-time course, she had taken on almost all of the housework for the past year. “Once or twice a week… I would spend 4–7 hours cleaning the whole house,” she shared. Her routine included washing dishes, vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing the bathroom and cleaning up “all of the dogs messes/accidents.”

Her efforts weren’t limited to her own responsibilities. She said she was also “cleaning up after all my brothers messes,” including dishes and dirty socks he left around the house. Over time, the workload “was beginning to feel pretty tiring” as she tried to keep up with school, work and her own worsening mental health.

She also revealed that she had recently gone through “a decently bad breakup” and had fallen out with long-term friends, which intensified her depression and made day-to-day tasks even harder. As her stress grew, she began to feel resentment toward her brother for leaving so much for her to handle.

About two months before posting, she finally hit a breaking point. “I sort of just gave up, and stopped cleaning entirely,” she admitted. She limited herself to washing her own dishes and avoiding leaving trash around, but otherwise stepped back. The house became “messy, and dirty,” and she could see it was affecting her mom, who already worked long hours.

The situation boiled over on the night she wrote the post. It was bin night — usually her brother’s one reliable chore — but he was out at an important showcase. Her mother decided to take the trash out herself and struggled with a heavy, overstuffed bag. The young woman recalled that “she asked me to come help by holding the bin can down, while she pulled out the bag.”

As she tried to help, she was hit by a powerful smell. The “stench was so strong,” she said, and the bag split and began to leak. Overwhelmed by the odor and the heat, she walked away, saying she “just sort of gave up,” which quickly angered her mother.

According to the post, her mom’s frustration escalated. “My mum started growing even more frustrated and started shouting at me, calling me a selfish b—-,” the poster wrote. She retreated to the bathroom and locked the door to escape the yelling. Her mother banged on the door and accused her of always finding an excuse not to help, while the young woman insisted she couldn’t be around her while she was shouting.

Even after being hurt by the insults, she still expressed understanding for her mother’s stress. “I also understand her growing frustration over the state of the house,” she wrote, admitting that she felt “incredibly guilty.” She questioned whether stepping back from cleaning, even while exhausted and depressed, made her selfish — especially since her mother had said so in the heat of the moment.

Commenters on Reddit largely reassured her that burnout and depression don’t make someone a bad person. One user wrote that “everyone should try to help when mentally available,” noting that “it’d be a lot easier and quicker to clean if you all try to put in effort in making sure the house doesn’t get too messy in the first place.”

Another commenter said, “NTA but it seems like you should all have a talk with eachother. Your brother should have to help more than he does and you should all, in general, try to work more together than apart. But I get why your mom got stressed with the bin situation. She’s not inside your head and she has no idea what you’re going through unless you’ve been telling her and it dosnt sound like you have.”