You could say for a long time that I could be described as depressed. In fact, a good 80 percent of my all-time posts on this site are in the Haven. And each one of them goes back to family problems, central to which is my feeling of being trapped with a bunch of manipulative people. I have dealt with a screaming 20yo younger sister for the last 6 years, and for the last 2 years, her child. I feel like my dad will never make the effort to understand me. I have felt like everything has been on me since my parents divorced. I often have needs that seem a lot more pressing than the needs of my family. I want to do things for my own good, I care about myself. I know I'm slowly slipping into mental illness. I don't think there has been a day in the last 6 years I haven't thought and talked to myself about my problems. I feel like I am stuck in an endless set of obligations. I've felt like I've needed to help my dad deal with the difficulties of my sisters and their tumultuous emotional lives and relationships. I've stood by him for 6 years, helping to persuade my younger sisters to go along with my dad, and keeping the pot on the emotional pressure cooker that is my littlest sister. I've kept things calm by doing things like washing her laundry, letting her use my computer, borrow money from me, and most importantly, babysitting for her. And in return, she never does anything for me, except at Christmas. And then, even if she is home, she never helps raise her son. In fact, he doesn't even sleep in the same room as her most of the time (he sleeps with my dad, and even though I have no other enforceable boundaries, that is the only one). My younger sister has a roller-coaster relationship with my dad. She can go months being extremely nice and helpful to my dad, but then there is an explosion. My dad has basically let her get and do whatever she wants just to keep the peace.
Anyways, her toddler has entered the period called, as most of you know, the "terrible twos." He was extremely calm for a long time, but now he is taking full advantage of my room. He climbs on top of my TV (which is on a 1 1/2 foot stand), presses the buttons on the front of the TV all the time, and is escaping the room now. No matter how many times he gets up on my TV, presses the buttons, or tries to escape, I always get him down or keep him away, and does whatever I don't want him to do within a minute of me scolding him. Now he throws temper tantrums in which he cries as loudly as if he was hurt.
I'm getting tired of being made to feel guilty (by my dad), pressured (by my youngest sister). Everybody here wants me to be obligated. They all treat me like some sort of glorified servant boy, and when my sister has had her angry outbursts at my dad, he takes it out on me and yells. Then my youngest sister will feel bad for me (and boycott my dad and drop the things he did to help her onto my shoulders as my own responsibility).
Which leads me to my final point, I've put up with this crap for too damn long...even my young(er) sister moved out due to the stress and never really helped out. I don't know why it should be on my shoulders to deal with the burdens of all this...everybody else in the family, even my dad, has shirked their responsibility at some point, but I'm not allowed to...and I'm feeling increasing trepidation as my first semester of graduate school approaches in 3 months time....I'm not moved out yet, don't have a job lined up, and the toddler I mentioned is now becoming practically ungovernable and stressful. I'm getting sick of hearing about Romney this and Obama that on the news and I've had it up to here with watching kid's cartoons all day.
01 Oct 2012, 5:37 pm
