To anyone who does or doesn't care.
So, I live at home with my parents at 21 doing full time day care for my home schooled younger siblings so that my parents can afford to work full time so that we can all afford to eat and enjoy a roof over our heads. I'm trapped here 24/7 with no car, no place to walk because I can't leave my siblings alone and I'm practically on call all the time for whatever needs doing.
My 18 year old brother is finishing his last year of high school. I appreciate that he's tired, he has to wait til 6 to get picked up from school by my dad. But he does nothing. He takes out the garbage and that is the extent of his contribution to the household. He often comes home and goes to bed. And he regularly texts me during the day asking me to do things like his laundry, fix a game that's not working on the computer, and even take out the garbage for him cuz he really doesn't want to today. God forbid I say no. Then I'm the bitch. The only thing making my room bearable to sleep in right now for the heat-god does my room hold the heat-is his fan, which I'm borrowing because his room is always pleasantly cool. I say no, I'm a bitch, it's gone. There goes what little sleep I get. He goes to DnD with friends 2-3 times a week, stays out til 2 am and then begs me to do his work for him the next day because he's exhausted. He has a great new gaming laptop his friend bought him for graduation-$600-and I can only touch it on his whims. He'd rather take it with him to DnD where he gets to show it off for 2 minutes and then promptly puts it away the rest of the time.
My sisters. 11 and 7. I don't fucking know what to do with them. I do day care for them but I have no fucking authority. They don't listen. They don't do their chores. My parents bitch that the house is a wreck. It's the girls chore to clean up the living room because they spend the most time their and the messes are 99% of the time all theirs. I spend 4 valuable hours of high blood pressure and escalating tone of voice to screaming trying to mediate between them as they both have to know exactly how much work the other is doing and sit down refusing to do anything unless they're sure the other one is doing the exact same amount of work until finally I have to scream at them to get them to go to their room while they stomp and cry about how unfair I am and how much they hate me and slam doors and say hateful things to each other and me just so I can get them out of the fucking way and then do all of their work, because if the house is a wreck I get the brunt of it.
Shoot the fucking messenger. I have a high ass charisma and a mastery in speechcraft, ok? I spend ungodly amounts of time running messages between my family members in tactful ways to keep a huge shitfest from blowing up in my face where I'm the neutral middle man and everyone throws me under the bus. IF my parents have a rant, I have to hear it. No matter wether or not it's about me or to me, somehow it involves me and gets taken out on me. I get drawn into every argument in the house. My dad and my brother cannot communicate tactfullly at all. If they have issues with each other they literally can't talk to each other. I have to scamper between them relaying their messages and listen to their rants while muttering soothing "i knows" and "i understands" and "i agree with you but he feels....". And my mom...I appreciate she also works full time but it is NEVER a good time to talk about anything. She has to go to work, she's tired. She just got home from work, she's tired. She's reading, it's her day off, she's tired. Never has time to deal with anything unless I make it a shitfest and put myself up as the bitch and force her to deal with it. I'm not these kids mother and I don't want to be! They don't listen to me, they listen to you! I never fucking got away with the kind of murder these two do when I was their age. I spent a lot of time in my room without my stuff if I spoke to anyone the way they regularly speak to me.
The animals. 99% of the time our animals are one of the few things that can lower my blood pressure and help stave of dizzy spells and migraines of pure frustration. But I'm getting really sick of being the only one that ever takes care of them. The girls are supposed to be in charge of feeding the dogs-once a day, not hard-and taking them outside a couple times a day for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom. That's not a lot. But hell if they do it like they're supposed to.
I am anemic. I have a vitamin deficiency, I'm not physically strong, I react to temperature stronger than other people, and my immune system is shit. I get sick a lot. But I don't qualify for any health care because I don't "work", I'm not a "student", I'm not a "minor". I have terrible teeth and awful eyes but I can't afford dental care or insurance, I haven't been to a doctor in more than 5 years and my glasses are 6 years out of date because my 3 year old pair broke and-guess what!-I can't afford new ones. My sisters get everything. I work my ass off trying to keep the house clean and the animals and the girls taken care of and I got a used PS2 for $30 for my birthday and a $25 Acekard for christmas. You know what my sisters got for christmas? $80 DSs each, flash cards, mp3 players, a bunch of games for their gamecube, and countless other random shit. I planned christmas to make sure everyone else in the family got some nice stuff on our sucky ass budget and settled for a few cheap ass stocking stuffers-mostly twizzlers-and a $25 flash card. My extended family doesn't even send me cards anymore. Most of them don't even acknowledge I exist. My sisters and brother get $25 gift cards from 4-5 relatives. Last birthday, I got a $10 gift card from the only relative that sent me a card. Yay. I bought myself a couple energy drinks and some cheap ass junk food and played my used PS2 with a finicky wire and got the day off cleaning and my brother didnt ask me to do anything for him. Happy fucking birthday.
I'm on call all the time. If the computer isn't working at 2 am and my dad is trying to drunk facebook, who has to get up and show him what he's doing wrong? If the animals knock something over or break something or piss on something at 2 am, who has to get up and fix it? Not my brother, he has school in the morning or he was dead tired from school last night. Not my parents, they have to work in the morning or they had to work last night. Not the girls, they're 7 and 11. Me. Always me. Like a slave I get up at 2 am and fix whatever needs fixing with no complaints and a smile on my face or I get a lecture about all of the above reasons why I have to do it and I don't have to go anywhere in the morning/didnt have to go anywhere yesterday. I haven't gotten to see my boyfriend in months and my communications with my friends have been limited to texting-at least the plan is unlimited.
My mom manages our shaky finances to make sure the internet, tv and cell phone bills are payed alongside staples like electricity and water, but if there's an accident and a check bounces or one of the utility companies makes a mistake-like all the time-we have to balance gas money and food for the week with whatever money is left. Who's the only one to eat sparingly and leave the good stuff for the others? Me. I'll go a week eating peanut butter, ramen noodles and iced tea so the little girls and my school bound brother and my working parents can eat decently instead of coming home and looking in the cabinets and going "who fucking ate all of -item-?" or "where the fuck did all the food go?". Never mind I have chronic migraines or that a week with little protein in my already anemic system leads to massive dizzy spells and perpetual tiredness and kills my already weak immune system. God forbid I get sick -again- and have to lay in bed for -a- day. The house goes to shit and I get layed into.
Most of the time I love my parents but no one in this house really appreciates the fact that if I walked out or even got a part time job that the house would go to shit faster than you could spell shit. But I don't. I "live at home rent free by my parents generosity" because I can't bring myself to leave my family and our pets in that situation. I know how important I am to the functioning of the machine that is the household. If it weren't for me our pets would all be gone because no one else takes care of them, reminds everyone that we needs cat/dog food etc. If it weren't for me we wouldn't have clean dishes or our laundry done or the house even picked up.
I apologize for the wall of text but I needed to rant somewhere. Today has been a particularly bad day. It's hot, Ive got a cranking migraine that no medicine in the world except maybe morphine can help, we were supposed to clean up the house and I'm the only one who did anything today and my dad layed into me about the state of the house when he got home.
I want to cry. And scream. And shake them and tell them I can't handle it all alone. But I can't. I've tried that before and all it does is make them tell me to go lay down for a little while til I can get myself together and they all deliver their sympathetic mumblings and then do nothing.
I know they all have their own problems but I feel like the family slave and I've tried everything I can down to screaming to be heard and no one is listening to me. Thanks for listening GBAtemp.
So, I live at home with my parents at 21 doing full time day care for my home schooled younger siblings so that my parents can afford to work full time so that we can all afford to eat and enjoy a roof over our heads. I'm trapped here 24/7 with no car, no place to walk because I can't leave my siblings alone and I'm practically on call all the time for whatever needs doing.
My 18 year old brother is finishing his last year of high school. I appreciate that he's tired, he has to wait til 6 to get picked up from school by my dad. But he does nothing. He takes out the garbage and that is the extent of his contribution to the household. He often comes home and goes to bed. And he regularly texts me during the day asking me to do things like his laundry, fix a game that's not working on the computer, and even take out the garbage for him cuz he really doesn't want to today. God forbid I say no. Then I'm the bitch. The only thing making my room bearable to sleep in right now for the heat-god does my room hold the heat-is his fan, which I'm borrowing because his room is always pleasantly cool. I say no, I'm a bitch, it's gone. There goes what little sleep I get. He goes to DnD with friends 2-3 times a week, stays out til 2 am and then begs me to do his work for him the next day because he's exhausted. He has a great new gaming laptop his friend bought him for graduation-$600-and I can only touch it on his whims. He'd rather take it with him to DnD where he gets to show it off for 2 minutes and then promptly puts it away the rest of the time.
My sisters. 11 and 7. I don't fucking know what to do with them. I do day care for them but I have no fucking authority. They don't listen. They don't do their chores. My parents bitch that the house is a wreck. It's the girls chore to clean up the living room because they spend the most time their and the messes are 99% of the time all theirs. I spend 4 valuable hours of high blood pressure and escalating tone of voice to screaming trying to mediate between them as they both have to know exactly how much work the other is doing and sit down refusing to do anything unless they're sure the other one is doing the exact same amount of work until finally I have to scream at them to get them to go to their room while they stomp and cry about how unfair I am and how much they hate me and slam doors and say hateful things to each other and me just so I can get them out of the fucking way and then do all of their work, because if the house is a wreck I get the brunt of it.
Shoot the fucking messenger. I have a high ass charisma and a mastery in speechcraft, ok? I spend ungodly amounts of time running messages between my family members in tactful ways to keep a huge shitfest from blowing up in my face where I'm the neutral middle man and everyone throws me under the bus. IF my parents have a rant, I have to hear it. No matter wether or not it's about me or to me, somehow it involves me and gets taken out on me. I get drawn into every argument in the house. My dad and my brother cannot communicate tactfullly at all. If they have issues with each other they literally can't talk to each other. I have to scamper between them relaying their messages and listen to their rants while muttering soothing "i knows" and "i understands" and "i agree with you but he feels....". And my mom...I appreciate she also works full time but it is NEVER a good time to talk about anything. She has to go to work, she's tired. She just got home from work, she's tired. She's reading, it's her day off, she's tired. Never has time to deal with anything unless I make it a shitfest and put myself up as the bitch and force her to deal with it. I'm not these kids mother and I don't want to be! They don't listen to me, they listen to you! I never fucking got away with the kind of murder these two do when I was their age. I spent a lot of time in my room without my stuff if I spoke to anyone the way they regularly speak to me.
The animals. 99% of the time our animals are one of the few things that can lower my blood pressure and help stave of dizzy spells and migraines of pure frustration. But I'm getting really sick of being the only one that ever takes care of them. The girls are supposed to be in charge of feeding the dogs-once a day, not hard-and taking them outside a couple times a day for 5 minutes to go to the bathroom. That's not a lot. But hell if they do it like they're supposed to.
I am anemic. I have a vitamin deficiency, I'm not physically strong, I react to temperature stronger than other people, and my immune system is shit. I get sick a lot. But I don't qualify for any health care because I don't "work", I'm not a "student", I'm not a "minor". I have terrible teeth and awful eyes but I can't afford dental care or insurance, I haven't been to a doctor in more than 5 years and my glasses are 6 years out of date because my 3 year old pair broke and-guess what!-I can't afford new ones. My sisters get everything. I work my ass off trying to keep the house clean and the animals and the girls taken care of and I got a used PS2 for $30 for my birthday and a $25 Acekard for christmas. You know what my sisters got for christmas? $80 DSs each, flash cards, mp3 players, a bunch of games for their gamecube, and countless other random shit. I planned christmas to make sure everyone else in the family got some nice stuff on our sucky ass budget and settled for a few cheap ass stocking stuffers-mostly twizzlers-and a $25 flash card. My extended family doesn't even send me cards anymore. Most of them don't even acknowledge I exist. My sisters and brother get $25 gift cards from 4-5 relatives. Last birthday, I got a $10 gift card from the only relative that sent me a card. Yay. I bought myself a couple energy drinks and some cheap ass junk food and played my used PS2 with a finicky wire and got the day off cleaning and my brother didnt ask me to do anything for him. Happy fucking birthday.
I'm on call all the time. If the computer isn't working at 2 am and my dad is trying to drunk facebook, who has to get up and show him what he's doing wrong? If the animals knock something over or break something or piss on something at 2 am, who has to get up and fix it? Not my brother, he has school in the morning or he was dead tired from school last night. Not my parents, they have to work in the morning or they had to work last night. Not the girls, they're 7 and 11. Me. Always me. Like a slave I get up at 2 am and fix whatever needs fixing with no complaints and a smile on my face or I get a lecture about all of the above reasons why I have to do it and I don't have to go anywhere in the morning/didnt have to go anywhere yesterday. I haven't gotten to see my boyfriend in months and my communications with my friends have been limited to texting-at least the plan is unlimited.
My mom manages our shaky finances to make sure the internet, tv and cell phone bills are payed alongside staples like electricity and water, but if there's an accident and a check bounces or one of the utility companies makes a mistake-like all the time-we have to balance gas money and food for the week with whatever money is left. Who's the only one to eat sparingly and leave the good stuff for the others? Me. I'll go a week eating peanut butter, ramen noodles and iced tea so the little girls and my school bound brother and my working parents can eat decently instead of coming home and looking in the cabinets and going "who fucking ate all of -item-?" or "where the fuck did all the food go?". Never mind I have chronic migraines or that a week with little protein in my already anemic system leads to massive dizzy spells and perpetual tiredness and kills my already weak immune system. God forbid I get sick -again- and have to lay in bed for -a- day. The house goes to shit and I get layed into.
Most of the time I love my parents but no one in this house really appreciates the fact that if I walked out or even got a part time job that the house would go to shit faster than you could spell shit. But I don't. I "live at home rent free by my parents generosity" because I can't bring myself to leave my family and our pets in that situation. I know how important I am to the functioning of the machine that is the household. If it weren't for me our pets would all be gone because no one else takes care of them, reminds everyone that we needs cat/dog food etc. If it weren't for me we wouldn't have clean dishes or our laundry done or the house even picked up.
I apologize for the wall of text but I needed to rant somewhere. Today has been a particularly bad day. It's hot, Ive got a cranking migraine that no medicine in the world except maybe morphine can help, we were supposed to clean up the house and I'm the only one who did anything today and my dad layed into me about the state of the house when he got home.
I want to cry. And scream. And shake them and tell them I can't handle it all alone. But I can't. I've tried that before and all it does is make them tell me to go lay down for a little while til I can get myself together and they all deliver their sympathetic mumblings and then do nothing.
I know they all have their own problems but I feel like the family slave and I've tried everything I can down to screaming to be heard and no one is listening to me. Thanks for listening GBAtemp.
