Feeling a sense of negative foreboding over family issues

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Right now, I am frightened and scared about the future, even if there are glimmers of hope. No, wait. I have always been scared and yet hopeful about the future.

Things in the last 8 years have been chaotic for me, to say the least. I could write a novel about this, but my parents divorced when I was 18. My mom took my sisters to Egypt with her to elope with an Egyptian man, and I lived on the East Coast for a month or so. My dad stayed behind in Montana, and because what my mom did amounted to international child kidnapping, she was threatened with prison time. She, in turn, made accusations that my dad sexually abused my sisters. I ended up returning to Montana and my mom brought my sisters back and they ended up in my dad's custody.

Fast forward about 3 years, and my family and I moved to Idaho (well back, since we moved from Idaho in 2000). I transferred from community college to uni in 2009, finished my bachelor's degree in 2012 and began working on my master's in 2013. In late 2009, my youngest sister (whom I shall call TEOMF) met up with a guy who promised her a penthouse suite and they ended up getting together and she got pregnant. He later turned out to be a drug dealer and he is in prison currently. TEOMF decided to keep her son, but she has not really taken a lot of responsibility for his well-being, and my dad and I ended up taking care of him. When I was an undergraduate, I would put in about 2-3 hours in the evenings with him, but when I graduated from university, I had the child for upwards of 12-13 hours a day (the only time I had away from him was when he slept with my dad in the evenings). My sister found another guy (who was in the Air Force) and they dated for about a year and moved in together, along with her son. Unfortunately, my sister did not take the marriage seriously and did not babysit her child adequately or take responsibility for the housework. There were increasing arguments and she ended up divorcing and moving back in with my dad. At the same time, my other sister came into increasing financial difficulties and also moved back in with my dad. So, there are five people living in the house right now, sharing three bedrooms.

It is understandable that my dad is stressed out and frustrated. But as long as I have been alive. That is, since I was born, my dad has been extremely judgmental and critical of everything. I try to help him as much as I can, which includes doing his laundry, washing dishes, cooking dinner, and sometimes helping him with the common areas of the house. In addition, I take hours out of my day to help him with babysitting TEOMF's kid (the scope of which includes bathing him, taking him to his potty, and feeding him). The kid is about 4.5 years old now and is getting fairly difficult to handle. I would like to see TEOMF take responsibility for her child, but with her laziness/irresponsibility, as well as a part-time job she is working, I don't see how this will happen for at least another year. Besides that, she has an explosive temper and has fought often with my dad.

For my part, I do not feel myself emotionally capable of raising the child by myself. Even if there were designations made by TEOMF to make me a guardian in the event of her death, I would turn the custody down. I feel that it would be better if he had two parents rather than just one.

I have accrued about a year's worth of volunteer work, and about 2-3 weeks of paid work. To try and be there to help my dad, I have foregone a lot of years of working. I am afraid that when I finally do start trying to enter the workplace, I am going to be fighting an uphill battle because employers will not hire someone with as little work experience as me.

Throughout all these years, I have quietly been shepherding a dream of moving to the Seattle area. For me, it was my last best place. It would have been a place for me to just start over. My dad and mom and other sister talked about moving to Montana. TEOMF for her part, talked about either staying in Idaho, or moving to Baltimore, MD with her kid.

However, about last May, my other sister and mom came to me and told me they had looked at pictures of Washington state on the internet, and had fallen in love with it . They decided they would move to Washington too. When they told my dad about their plan, he was relunctant, but he thought it would help me out if he went there. So, the family (excluding TEOMF, but including her 4 year old son) took a trip up to Washington this last July. My dad was not impressed with Tacoma or King County exclusive of Seattle, but he was okay with Bremerton and the Kitsap peninsula.
Lately though, with the difficulties of raising a kid who is not his and the trouble of getting the house, my dad has been in an upset mood (he is 74) and has threatened to move everyone up to washington and stay in Idaho by himself.

I know I should be happy that I have family to help me out as I set my life up in Washington, but I am also feeling that a place that I looked forward to as my one and only dream is going to be tarnished by family living there, and since I have set aside my career and dreams of moving to the Seattle area unilaterally for the time being to combine myself with the family's plan, I feel like I am fighting an uphill battle.

Indeed, life is an uphill battle and your family drama is steeped in many layers. However, your family moving to your "last bastion" really isn't an issue. Seattle is an entire city, there's bound to be plenty of areas you can breathe easy and find yourself contented. The hurdle here is ensuring you don't disenchant yourself with the knowledge that your relatives will be there as well.

Yes, it does feel like they're raining on your parade, but if things become more stable and you finally have that ability to relax a little, it shouldn't be an issue that they're nearby. Your family won't tarnish the dream, your mind throwing everything away because it isn't perfect will. It's tough, I know. Keep your chin up and head clear.