Hey guys,
Grateful to see this thread. It has been a very tough year. Our apartment wanted to go up on rent by nearly $200. My mother was going to move out and give us the home(she's 74 now). She backed out last minute, leaving us stranded with nowhere to go except back to her house to move in until we could save for a house.
She made no attempt to accommodate our move, despite encouraging us to just come stay there. It was so messy that my wife completely broke the final night we moved out of our apartment. Nearly all of our possessions are in storage.
Since my father's death, my mother's bipolar disorder has intensified. She cannot control her finances(blows through money on nothing), is a very bad alcoholic and the home I grew up in is cluttered with junk and disarray, whereas it used to never be.
Her status is so bad even my older half brother, who is 54, has given up on helping her. I've tried also, but to no avail. She spends money, gets herself into big financial trouble and somehow blames my father, who has been dead almost 4 years soon. It is everyone's fault but her own.
We've survived, but barely. My wife is barely holding on. The children are homeschooled due to the pandemic, all extracurricular activity restricted also(playgrounds, etc.) She's stuck out in the country with the kids in a messy home.
On a small silver lining, my father's office has sold and we found a home we truly love, especially my wife. My father specified it go to me, but my mother, in her drunken stupors, still threatened me over the proceeds, despite it already being a done deal. I told her she is unbecoming of a mother and a grandmother and she's threatened my children for the final time.
We put the bid in, but haven't heard yet. She wants it so badly and I haven't seen her so hopeful and happy in months. I pray she won't be heartbroken, as I don't know if she'll survive it if we lose it.
*crosses fingers for you*
I'm really glad this thread exists as i've had such sadness recently. My circumstances are unusual in that I still live with my parents and my brother and i'm in my mid-30's. The reason is two fold; one is that I have been saving for almost a decade to get a deposit for my own place and the second is that my family had dire financial straits and I had to bail them out. In return, I pay the loan instead of rent and they are slowly able to gain a better credit score.
Whilst this has been happening, in recent years i've finally gotten out of my shell and gotten a love for travelling (although only with friends as i'm too anxious to go by myself). From the age of 13 to 29, I never left the country; in the last 6 years i've been to Canada, America, Japan and half a dozen European countries. I also have an incredible passion for live music, so I go to many gigs both intimate and massive. So of course, when the virus hit, to have everything cancelled was a massive blow. One thing that helps me with my mental health is knowing i've always got something to look forward to. I plan my days and weeks meticulously and struggle with spontenauety (although I wish I could do it).
So living at home with your parents and brother in your mid-30's in lockdown isn't easy. 4 people with 4 different personalities makes things hard. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and they've always been supportive, but because I am an INFJ (I am incredibly sensitive and gentle hearted), it makes confrontation hard and I panic. My brother has a mental health issue, but wheras i'm melancholic and sad, he always seems angry, so it's hard for me to talk to him. I'm scared he also might have a drinking problem. It's getting so bad that I can't go to sleep until I know he is home safe which is leaving me exhausted at times.
My other problem is that my girlfriend lives in Japan. Prior to meeting her 3 years ago, I only ever had one proper girlfriend and that was a miserable time, so to have someone in my life who finally cared about me made me so happy. Her visa ran out over 2 years ago and since then, we've only seen each other twice. She works for the Pokémon company and is also a children's illustrator, so she is always busy and exhausted. Because of that, she doesn't get the opportunity to talk that much (4 hours commute and working until 3am every night to get 4 hours sleep must take it out of you). As it stands, I haven't heard from her in over two weeks (the worst was a month) and i'm always anxious she will say the relationship is not worth it due to the virus and the distance. All the while, i'm saving up for a house for the two of us and I also have a chunk of money set aside to go back to Japan given the chance (I sold all my Sonic F4F statues to do this).
So the last few weeks have been tough with my wings clipped, walking on eggshells around my family, an increase in anxiety and stress at work. I kinda had a mini breakdown last week and just wanted to cry my eyes out. It warmed my heart to get so many comforting messages from friends and family from as far as Canada and Chile. Tomorrow, I begin therapy to combat my social anxiety disorder.
So i'm sorry for the rambling message, but it's good to write it down in a safe place. My heart sinks at today's news of potentially 6 months of further restrictions. I've been avoiding taking leave in the hope that things would get better, but knowing it's not just makes me so sad. Despite my social anxiety, i'm a paradox in that I crave human interaction or at least to be around people (like in a cinema or a café where I don't need to talk to people). I miss the freedom of travel and I miss my girlfriend so, so much.
It also goes without saying that the world is frightening at the moment. The last few years in the UK have been terrifying with such anger and hatred. I class myself as centre-left and hate the extreme left and right. Even stuff like forums (not this place luckily) seem like a den of hatred and it makes me sad that so many people are so bitter. I don't know how people can put up with such a constant barrage of negativity...
In a way, I guess i'm lucky in that I have a relatively stable job (I work in local government in education) and working at home has allowed me to rapidly increase my savings, but at the cost of my mental health, i'm not sure if the savings are worth it.
Even when it's all over, it'll take me ages to feel comfortable doing things again. Many of my friends have seen been married or have children, so wishing things would go back the way it used to be is fruitless. I guess I just feel lonely.
Thank you for reading my ramblings~
It's too bad that it seems like there's one blow after another; all I can say is to keep fighting the best you can: eventually, there will be little lights at the end of the tunnel, as Valascaziel mentioned at the end of his post.
In 2010, when I was 21, I was over the moon with my life; I had just finished my second year of University, I was down to 192 pounds (the lightest I had been since I was 12/13), I was in great talks with a great chick I had met in one of my classes, Jose Bautista went on to have a storybook summer as he led the MLB in Home Runs and the Cincinnati Bengals were coming off their first division win (and playoff appearance), since 2005; everything was going swimmingly.
Then, within a span of 4 months:
1. I got kicked out of my program and my post-secondary education future was in doubt.
2. While I did gain a bit of weight (I was above 216 in 2013. Now I'm 245, working my way back down), that wasn't too big a deal
3. I contracted cancer; a stupid, yet potentially dangerous disease that affects people that were more than double my age and who had abused alcohol/cigarettes/smokables (the latter of which, I've never touched in my life {really, I have never physically touched a cigarette or anything else} and the former, I detest, having only drunk alcohol 2 days in my life).
4. As a result of the cancer, the chick started talking to me less and less, while starting up a conversation with her eventual husband.
5. Bautista had a phenomenal season, but the Jays missed the playoffs.
6. The Bengals were tied for 3rd-worst in the league with a 4-12 record and the team was easily the biggest disappointment in the entire league, that season.
1, 3 and 4 were especially devastating to me, as I was completely unaware that you are graded for participation for tutorials (I would have gotten grades up to 1 full letter higher, had I merely showed up), the healthy and clean young man that I was, got a fluke disease and my first shot at FINALLY starting a relationship with someone, went by the wayside. While the latter 2 were out of my control, since I do not come from a wealthy family, the tutorials I missed were spent working at my part-time job... over 40 hours a week, so that I could pay my way through University.
That year allowed for the biggest change in my life, both from an outlook point of view and lifestyle point of view (not that they were bad or negative in the first place, but I definitely changed as a human being); I learned to be much more appreciative of things and be more positive than I used to be (which, with how positive I always was lol, was hard to do!). Thus, I:
1. Worked my ass off to raise my marks that year (I was a double major, got kicked out of the one I went to Uni for and was in my second major for 2 years), even with cancer making me miss almost a month of classes.
2. Continued to eat well and my weight was still fairly well-maintained (I'm more than comfortable at around 211ish).
3. Kept a super-positive outlook, ate a ton of blueberries (which I hate) and asparagus (which I hate even more! lol), went to all my appointments, tests and abstained from anything that could make my cancer worse.
4. Put the girlfriend stuff aside and really wait for the right one to come along.
5. Looked forward to the Jays improving for 2011
6. Knew that since the Bengals had such a bad year, they would have high draft picks, which is a VERY good thing.
Fast forward another 4-5 months and things improved dramatically:
1. Riding the wave of hardwork, I continued to put in the same effort the next year, got my first A in University and got back into my program, for my 5th and final year (while I earned it through my hard work, I was lucky to have my courses/credits fall the way they did).
2. More of the same lol.
3. Cancer was removed (surgery) and I was deemed cancer free, just a month after said surgery (I was to lose a good portion of my tongue, but it grew back to about 91% or so).
4. Reconnected with my now wife (though we wouldn't start dating until over a year later), whom I had met a year and a half prior.
5. Enjoyed an even BETTER year by both Bautista and the Jays (he was robbed of MVP) and while they still didn't make the playoffs, things were trending up.
6. The Bengals DID have a stellar draft and despite many pundits and fans saying that the team would go 0-16, they went 9-7 and made the playoffs!
7. As a bonus, my mother was distraught over the fact that we had put off a trip to Italy for 4 years straight at that point and declared that, "life is short! So we have to splurge a bit, we're going to Italy this year!" I finally was able to see my homeland and discover my roots, as well as meet my dear family, whom I had only ever heard about for the first 22 years of my life.
Now, the sports stuff is out of my control and the Italy trip only happened due to my cancer, but my life was flipped upside down in 4-5 months, then flipped upside down again, 5-6 months after that; it was a crazy year, but it just goes to show that positivity, hard work and a willingness to be the best you can be, is sometimes all you need.
Life may be rough now, but things will be trending upward for you soon; never give up hope and keep fighting the good fight! As Eric Draven says,
"It can't rain all the time."