“Just because things are bad now, they always get better. You just need to keep pushing.” — Sanders
The first morning in her new home, Sam Sanders, 29, stood in her kitchen and listened to peeping birds.
It was a strange sound. A calm, quiet welcome. Nothing like the slamming cabinets, yelling, and breaking objects she had grown used to.
“It was really weird to be in a place that didn’t have like a dark cloud over it,” Sanders said.
Nearly half of young adults now live with parents to save money. Historians call this the “Baby Boomers and After” era of delayed home-leaving.
Sanders represents the inverse.
She scrambled to buy a house to escape. She left home to save her mental health.
In January 2021, Sanders moved in with her stepfather, Dave, after her mother’s death from COVID.
She and her husband, James, planned to stay only until they found an apartment. Just long enough to care for her mother’s dogs.
They stayed four years.
Dave, who had multiple sclerosis, had been her stepfather since she was four. After her mother passed, Sanders felt obligated. Dave had given the couple $3,000 for their wedding just months before. He couldn’t walk the dogs or care for the cat, Piper, alone.
At first, he was pleasant. Often out with friends.
Then he failed a drug test for CBD gummies and lost his commercial driver’s license.
He was home constantly. His hygiene deteriorated alongside his illness.
The home fell to foulness.
The kitchen became a disaster. No one could cook in it. The couple survived on takeout and microwaved meals in their bedroom.
The television blared Fox News. Dave yelled at his phone. Yelled at the dogs.
“It was like I regressed into my 14-year-old self,” Sanders said. “Being trapped in my room all the time. I didn’t want anyone to visit because Dave and the house were embarrassing.”
When Dave’s anger turned toward the dogs, Sanders would arrive home to find him screaming at her Akita, Ripley, for being “too happy.”
By 2024, the trailer had become unlivable.
Dave left dirty used Depends everywhere. Gallon jugs of urine sat around the kitchen because he had stopped using the toilet entirely. The space was unusable. A health hazard.
The breaking point came when Dave’s anger turned toward the dogs again.
“Stop talking to my fucking dog that way,” Sanders shouted.
It was the first time she had pushed back.
Dave pulled back on some of his nastier behaviors. But not enough. Not enough for her mental health.
According to Psychology Today, adult children typically cut contact only after a “final boundary violation” that makes continued relationship a threat to mental health.
This was hers.
Within six months, Annie — the woman Sanders babysits for, who had already paid for her college — connected them with a mortgage broker.
Annie helped them secure a two-story house with no HOA. A deliberate choice after years of Dave’s arbitrary rules.
Three months after moving, Sanders sleeps through the night for the first time without hypervigilance.
Her husband reduced his therapy appointments from twice a month to maintenance visits.
The first decoration Sanders hung was a heart-shaped stained-glass window. It holds the birth flowers of her chosen family.
A physical symbol of reconstructed kinship. Replacing biological obligation.
“Even though it’s really hard when you’re an adult, the beautiful thing is you can make your own family,” Sanders said. “Plenty of people out there care about you, and you can lean on them for support when you need to!”
Behind her, the bedroom door stands open.
At Dave’s, it stayed cracked only a few inches. Enough for cats. Never wide enough for the dogs to sleep beside them.
Now, the dogs come and go as they please.