Is My Family Compromising My Future?
I’m in a rut. I turned 18 a few months ago, graduating high school in a month, and I’m not really set on a solid career path yet.
I have reason to believe that my family has set me back in terms of education, socialisation, and now my future as a blossoming young adult.
For background, I live with my two parents and my 12 year old (nearly 13) younger brother. I’d largely consider myself to be the unspoken ‘backbone’ of the household; you’ll often find me helping out with whatever I can.. running errands, laundry, cleaning, dispute resolution, and taking after my brother.
The problem rests primarily in the fact that most of my free time is spent entertaining my brother. It’s treated as a duty.
For many years up until now, my parents have relied heavily on me for ‘help’ with my brother. He’s extremely clingy, dependent, sensitive, and recently he’s even become more emotionally volatile. He’s always had trouble keeping friends, and he’s also very evidently autistic (my parents don’t believe in psychology/psychiatry, so I don’t think they would ever take him to get a formal diagnosis).
Hanging out with him feels like a full-time job. Yes, I’m his sister. Yes, I care about him. But there is absolutely no healthy distance between us, he always wants to be around me, and I’m forced to prioritise that. I’m even criticised when I want to go to bed and he’s still wanting to play (during late late hours), and I’m forced to stay up despite having to get up early the next morning. Being with him is a demanding task because he always requires attention, have to play the games he wants, have to speak to him nicely. And to tell the truth, he’s absolutely insufferable. I know that sounds horrible, but you’d understand if you were in the position. He’s the neediest kid you’d ever meet.
I’m just sick of holding this responsibility. When I try to pull away, even asking for an hour or two of free time, I’ll have him knocking at my door asking when I’ll be able to ‘hangout.’ Most of the time, I’ll just give over my time to him in fear of having a problem with my parents.
Whenever I do actually try to break away to stick to myself for a while (whether it be to decompress, study, or to go on my phone for a bit) it is almost immediately an issue. He brings up my ‘rude’ or ‘weird’ behaviour up to my parents, and it turns into a big fight. Fingers pointed. Arguments had. Accusations. I’m so sick of it. I can’t even study without being bothered every second of the day. And when I do finally get some time to myself where they have to actually deal with him themselves, (they can’t seem to stand having to handle him, he’s not content being alone) they take it out on me and throw in my face that I’d been ‘doing nothing,’ and had been ‘selfish.’
And the thing is, this isn’t new. A few years back, when I actually had a few friends to bring over, this was an ongoing issue. My friends would always talk about the odd behaviour in my home, and how odd they found this ‘sisterly responsibility’ to be. He would even stay in my room when I had friends over, bothering us intentionally and knowing I couldn’t do anything about it. It’s an ongoing thing and I feel trapped.
Regarding my social life, overtime, it began to degrade drastically. I can’t tell you the root cause, it’s just something that kind of happened. I barely have any recollection of when it started. Just started dropping people, parents told me they’re no good, couldn’t have them over, couldn’t hang out with them, and it’s ended in flat-out isolation. I just know that they had a large part in ‘selecting’ who was good enough to be my friend. I have nobody to talk to. I’m forbidden from having online friendships (in which I’m caught). I’ve also had many intense and serious situations with my family over them finding out I’d been reaching out to people online, even harmlessly. And now, it’s like they’re just trying to keep me in this state of isolation. It’s like they’re satisfied with the fact that I have no life besides going to school, coming home, hanging out with my brother, and repeating that cycle.
They often tell me to live with them as long as possible, to not date anyone, and now it’s to not go to university. They tell me it’s a scam, a waste of money.
And with all of these responsibilities having been on my shoulders throughout high school, despite my best attempts to keep my grades high with the lack of study time, it’s obviously had an effect on my grades. They’re lacklustre.
My humanities (English & social) are strong since I have a natural aptitude for writing, but for more science-based subjects that require frequent studying and practice.. I haven’t been living up to the standards of the programs I want to enter. I get 70s at best in my math and science courses because I never have the time nor mental energy to revise. I always wanted to get a BSc degree of some sort because I always held a profound interest in sciences and particularly medicine, but now I’m not even eligible unless I were to upgrade some of my science classes.
I just feel lost and hopeless. I had such big hopes and dreams for the future and it just feels they’re behind flushed down the toilet before my eyes, with my family pushing the handle. My situation is just weird and I don’t know what to do. I can’t even tell if it’s my fault or if I’m just pushing the blame.
This has just really taken an effect mentally and I don’t know what to do anymore. This isn’t even the half of it.
And if you read this until the end, thank you.
Any advice or commentary would be greatly appreciated.