It is not like I am planning to do anything illegal. I’m not trying to drink, smoke, party all night, or sleep with random guys. I am literally talking about traveling to another city, participating in an organized obstacle course event, staying somewhere safe, and coming home. My mother immediately started questioning why I wanted to go alone and said that she and my family could come and watch me.
Honestly, I do not even have a problem with them coming to watch me. If they want to be there, fine. The problem is that they tend to make fun of me afterward by imitating how I did something, making comments, laughing about me, and so on. So, the idea of having them there is not necessarily comforting to me.
More importantly, I want to experience the world alone. I am twenty. I do not want to reach twenty-five or thirty and realize I have never traveled anywhere independently because I always needed my parents to accompany me. I want to learn how to book my own transportation, navigate a different city, stay in a hotel, solve problems myself, manage my own schedule, and generally function as an independent adult.
I also have a brother with special needs, and if my parents come, my mother would have to spend the entire time looking after him as well. So, I genuinely do not understand why she would want to take on that additional responsibility just to watch me participate in an event.
The bigger issue is that this is not just about Mumbai. My parents constantly bring up things like my weight, my appearance, my studies, my driving, and so on whenever we are discussing something completely unrelated. My mother will tell me to live in the present or suddenly bring up another issue, and then the original conversation gets completely derailed.
I have tried communicating calmly. I have tried explaining myself. I have tried sitting down and talking about these things multiple times. It does not work. So, I am not really looking for the usual advice of just communicate with your parents and make them understand. I have already tried that repeatedly. I want to know how other people have dealt with this situation.
I do not want to rebel by doing something dangerous or stupid. I do not want to lie about where I am, disappear for days, or deliberately put myself in risky situations just to prove a point. I want non-aggressive ways to establish independence and create my own space. For people who grew up with very protective or restrictive parents, how did you actually start gaining freedom? Did you gradually start doing things independently? Did you set boundaries? Did you simply start making certain decisions yourself? I am looking for practical advice from people who have actually been through this.