It’s no secret that our experiences growing up can affect our lives throughout adulthood.

For many people with positive childhood experiences, this is a good thing, bringing them confidence and self-assurance in their lives.

But for others, the opposite can be true – and unfortunately for the case of the woman in this story, her negative childhood experiences are affecting her adult relationships to this day.

Read on to find out how the state of her new friend’s house is threatening their friendship.

WIBTA for telling a friend I don’t want to come over to their messy house?

I am a 28-year-old woman, and recently I’ve been becoming closer with a fellow performance artist (32, female) in my city that has kind of taken me under her wing as a mentee of sorts.

I live in NYC, so I’ve seen tons of messy apartments, but her’s is a new level.

There’s no corner of this apartment that isn’t utterly disgusting, and I hate to say it.

I’m uncomfortable everywhere.

Let’s see how the conditions in this woman’s apartment are.

It’s beyond unsanitary in the bathrooms and kitchen, the walls and surfaces are all brown and textured, and you can see multiple roaches at a time crawling around. Even on the decor I’ve seen multiple roaches just chilling.

Her 14-year-old child is there too, in a room so filled with junk that there’s just enough space on the bed to sleep on.

Then her room is worse, a literal bare mattress on the floor surrounded by trash and covered in brown stains (it’s where she expects us to hang most because of the AC).

She also is living with her partner (27, male) who is not the child’s parent and moved in within the last year.

Yikes! And there’s even more to this woman’s discomfort than meets the eye.

I don’t think it’s my business to tell someone how to live, and I’d rather stay out of it, but because we’re working together now she expects me to come hang and practice at her place sometimes.

But even just a visit once a month is very difficult for me. I was raised in a very similar environment, and it took literal years for me to find a rhythm with regular cleaning.

I don’t consider myself perfect by any means, but i am sensitive to extreme mess – its like they say, your space is a reflection of your mind.

But being in any space also influences your mind – and being in her home is just so unsettling, I feel like I am having an out of body experience. And I feel bad, because I don’t think my hyper vigilance goes unnoticed.

So she’s trying to give her friend the benefit of the doubt.

I know that this isn’t a moral failure on her part, nor do I want even in the slightest to give her the impression I think that way.

I know very intimately the struggles that can affect keeping things clean, and she’s very vocal about her struggles with depression, chronic illness and neurodivergence, as is her partner.

But the thing is, me too – it’s just that our our adaptation to these experiences and responses to stimuli are different. So I don’t want to discount their experience, but I also can’t discount my own, and the only point where it really matters is me coming over, right?

I also heard her casually speaking the other day about how her daughter didn’t wash her face before bed, and woke up with roaches on her, and my friend said “well that’s what she gets for not washing her face like I told her to” – and this kind of left me with a bad impression.

Uh-oh. This whole thing has left the woman with a dilemma.

I just don’t know if bringing it up will do more to create drama and problems than anything.

But simply saying “I prefer to hang at my own place” to someone with depression and chronic pain feels like a super impassive way to confront the matter, and is outside of my usual character.

She wants me to come over today, and I will go. But if I were to explain why I cannot enjoy time with her in her home would I be in the wrong?

AITA?

Honestly, this kind of situation would feel uncomfortable for most people.

But for someone who has childhood trauma related to a messy and unsanitary environment, it’s no wonder that it is unbelievably triggering.

She has no intention to shame her friend, but it’s clear – if their friendship is to work out, they need to meet up on neutral ground.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.

This person agreed that she needed to open up about her trauma, if she were to confront the issue.

While others expressed concern about the conditions the child is growing up in.

Meanwhile, this Redditor was very clear about the actions she should take.

The woman has her own trauma related to growing up in such an environment, so it’s no wonder it’s affecting her ability to relax in the apartment and work with her friend.

But she also has some understanding of what the woman’s child might be going through too, and this is something she surely wouldn’t wish on anyone.

It’s important that she does something – whether talking to her friend, or calling CPS.

This shouldn’t be on her – but unfortunately, it seems that it is.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.