u/Fit_Protection5550

My mom cares more about her boyfriends and being able to go out with them to drink than she cares about her own kids. I don’t care, I’m already 22 and I can figure things out on my own even through my horrible mental health. My mom’s behavior used to bother me way more when I was a teenager, but I’m only disappointed in her now. I grew tired of begging her to change.

What still bothers me is how neglectful she is of my brother. He’s 14, I used to think he had autism but it turns out he has intellectual disability and maybe ADHD but my mom refuses to do any further testing or medicate him. That wouldn’t be that big of a deal if she actually took care of him and taught him skills or how to take care of himself but he has pretty severe developmental deficits in my opinion. He has no problem-solving abilities and needs help for everything, no initiative to do his schoolwork or basic self-care, on top of that my mom lets him miss school all the time and does his schoolwork for him, he has memory issues, he never knows where his stuff is or even his teachers names, when I ask him anything about his own life or something he should know he always says “I don’t know”, he basically can’t do anything without someone holding his hand through it. All he does is spend his days sitting in front of a computer playing games and stuffing his face with food, he’s not even in any extracurricular activities where he could meet people and make friends.

Since my mom is almost never home and doesn’t teach my brother basic skills or aids in his development, my brother seeks me out a lot. I get that a teenager would be more drawn to spending time with their older sibling than with their mom, but I feel harassed sometimes. I can’t even step out of my room without being followed around, I can’t even cook for myself because he’ll suddenly appear to ask what I’m cooking and if he can have some, partly because my mom is barely home to cook for him and when she is, she’ll have a nasty attitude whenever he asks for food. I’ve already had serious talks with him about figuring out what he wants to do for work, paying more attention in school, learning to do stuff on his own, but without guidance that’s basically nothing and in a way I feel like I’m failing him. I feel like I’m traumatizing him or giving him lots of insecurities because sometimes I’m so easily irritated and act passive-aggressive, he’s always apologetic about stuff and I feel like he fawns a lot. That makes me feel so guilty because I don’t want to make him feel like he needs to apologize just for wanting to be around me but I just don’t know what to do to be better when I feel so tired and I wish I could just focus on myself.

I try to be honest with him and he does feel safe around me, I’ve told him that sometimes I may seem angry or impatient but that it doesn’t have to do with him and I’m overwhelmed about other stuff, I try to make time for him and almost daily watch an episode of a show he chooses for us to watch together… I feel like I’ve been mean on this post, my brother is a sweet kid, he’s cooperative and willing to learn, he loves me so much and I love him a lot too, but I don’t have the patience to be his caregiver or be the one to teach him how to take care of himself. I can barely take care of myself and my awful mental health. I care about him but I don’t want kids, I am not his parent and I’m not qualified to take on that role.

I know the only solution is to move out and I am working towards that. I feel bad though, my brother has expressed that he’d like to move with me but I can’t allow that, I don’t want that. I wish things were different, that my mom helped him build skills and gave him tools to live with his disability but she doesn’t and I can’t stand around and watch because it infuriates me and my heart breaks for him but I don’t want to take on the responsibility of being his caregiver, I already feel like I’m a caregiver rather than a sibling and a part of me grieves over that. I’m not sure if I’m being selfish but I just can’t sacrifice myself for him. I’m already too overwhelmed by my own issues to take on the consequences of my mother’s irresponsibility. I feel
bad for my mom too, she needs help… but she needs to find a way to find that help or help herself. It can’t be me who helps her. I’m exhausted.

I don’t even know how to describe the way I perceive social interaction. I avoid it quite a lot because I feel I’m embarrassing and like people don’t want me around.

I’m not good with social interaction, I’d say I’m polite but awkward, I try to be nice but I’m not really a friendly person and I end up being rude sometimes on accident but I only realize after the interaction. I’m not good with cues, I’m lowkey hard of hearing or something cuz sometimes I have trouble understanding things I can’t hear, I’m not really good starting conversations or doing small talk, I actually kinda hate small talk because it makes me feel really awkward. I mean, once I warm up to someone and they get me going I do talk a lot and engage, I just have a hard time trusting others and feeling safe around them so it takes me a long time to open up, I’m lowkey just very reserved and like the safety of keeping to myself, I’m really protective of my alone time too. Even when there’s people who actively seek out my company and are really nice to me I just avoid them and look for the fastest way to escape the interaction.

Anyway… outside of those anxieties I also kind of pay attention to other things? I don’t know if my awareness is inherent to my experience or if I overly focus on these things. I personally don’t care about social hierarchies but I also know how much they influence daily interactions so I’m very aware of them, stuff like being a woman, being queer, not being conventionally attractive, it all plays into how I’m seen by others. I just don’t know where I fall socially and that confuses me, maybe because I focus too much on how others perceive me while being kind of ambiguous and reserved about stuff. People tend to categorize things and I feel like not knowing where to categorize me makes me off-putting to them, and me not knowing where to place myself and being anxious about it doesn’t help with me socializing because I’m so awkward.

I’m probably not making any sense and I’m over analyzing everything right now. I just wanted to vent. I wish I could avoid social interaction entirely but it’s a part of life and I don’t even know where to start approaching it. I mean, I feel lonely but when I’m around others I just wanna be left alone. I just wanted to vent about how this feels for me and I don’t even know what I want because the only solution to this is to expose myself to social interaction rather than avoid it, I should be rewiring these thoughts instead of feeding them but that’s easier said than done. I go back and forth between feeling lonely and wishing I was more social and had more friends, then feeling exhausted by having to maintain those friendships because of how much energy it takes to perform while I have these thoughts, it’s just really tiresome.

I’m mostly venting and I might ramble a lot, but there’s probably multiple content warnings for what I’m about to write so beware.

I feel awful and struggle a lot with mental health but I don’t know what it is I’m struggling with. I just know I can’t rest. No matter what I do I find a reason to feel bad about myself, even when I try to do what feels like the right thing I end up twisting the facts and feeling like it’s not good enough. I feel like a huge failure and my life is a mess.

Other than self loathing I struggle a lot with intrusive thoughts, I feel a lot of shame and I feel like everyone hates me all the time, I wouldn’t say I have social phobia but I do have some kind of social anxiety. I went to therapy for a few months, it was a therapy service provided by my college campus but I stopped going since January and even though the therapist gave me a referral I just haven’t mustered up the courage to start therapy again. During that time I was heavily struggling with suicidal thoughts, self harm and I was pretty deep into a restrictive eating disorder, that was the worst of it but I’m better now. I discussed BPD with that therapist because I ended up at outpatient due to the severe suicidal thoughts, while I was there a doctor suggested I look into it. I’m more stable now but those struggles still come and go.

I do relate to BPD and it does make sense given my symptoms and other factors in my childhood and family history, but I also feel I have symptoms of OCD. I am a twitchy mess sometimes because of my thoughts, when I’m at home or in my car I literally scream just to distract myself from a thought, when I’m in public I can’t be as loud but even then sometimes I end up making weird noises like a huff or a small grunt, most of the time I try to stay quiet in public but I still end up blinking my eyes shut, twitching my nose, jerking my head, grimacing, in general I end up doing jerky movements or weird twitches that are probably noticeable even if it’s quiet.

I just needed to vent about this… I feel like no matter what I do I can’t escape this crappy mental health. I feel horrible about myself all the time, I’m always worried about something and anticipating the worst outcome possible, I’m always tired, I’m isolating myself because I feel like everyone hates me even when they show they don’t. Ugh. I’m probably not making any sense and I don’t even know what I wanna hear other than “yeah that’s rough buddy, get help” since I’ve already stated the obvious.

Anyway, the point is that I feel broken. I should get proper testing done but first I need to make sure a physical illness is not the issue and even then in my country there’s a huge shortage of mental health providers, waitlists for evaluations are long so either way it could take upwards of a year for me to just get an initial interview and I would be struggling blindly with this bullshit all that time. There’s only so much I can do to rationalize my way out of these things when they’re so persistent.

I’m not looking for medical advice, I know only a professional can give me that. I’d like to hear about similar experiences or just know I’m not crazy, I don’t wanna feel so alone in this.

I’m mostly venting and I might ramble a lot, but there’s probably multiple content warnings for what I’m about to write.

I feel awful and struggle a lot with mental health but I don’t know what it is I’m struggling with. I just know I can’t rest. No matter what I do I find a reason to feel bad about myself, even when I try to do what feels like the right thing I end up twisting the facts and feeling like it’s not good enough. I feel like a huge failure and my life is a mess.

Other than self loathing I struggle a lot with intrusive thoughts, I feel a lot of shame and I feel like everyone hates me all the time, I wouldn’t say I have social phobia but I do have some kind of social anxiety. I went to therapy for a few months, it was a therapy service provided by my college campus but I stopped going since January and even though the therapist gave me a referral I just haven’t mustered up the courage to start therapy again. During that time I was heavily struggling with suicidal thoughts, self harm and I was pretty deep into a restrictive eating disorder, that was the worst of it but I’m better now. I discussed BPD with that therapist because I ended up at outpatient due to the severe suicidal thoughts, while I was there a doctor suggested I look into it. I’m more stable now but those struggles still come and go.

I do relate to BPD and it does make sense given my symptoms and other factors in my childhood and family history, but I also feel I have symptoms of OCD. I am a twitchy mess sometimes because of my thoughts, when I’m at home or in my car I literally scream just to distract myself from a thought, when I’m in public I can’t be as loud but even then sometimes I end up making weird noises like a huff or a small grunt, most of the time I try to stay quiet in public but I still end up blinking my eyes shut, twitching my nose, jerking my head, grimacing, in general I end up doing jerky movements or weird twitches that are probably noticeable even if it’s quiet.

I just needed to vent about this… I feel like no matter what I do I can’t escape this crappy mental health. I feel horrible about myself all the time, I’m always worried about something and anticipating the worst outcome possible, I’m always tired, I’m isolating myself because I feel like everyone hates me even when they show they don’t. Ugh. I’m probably not making any sense and I don’t even know what I wanna hear other than “yeah that’s rough buddy, get help” since I’ve already stated the obvious.

Anyway, the point is that I feel broken. I should get proper testing done but first I need to make sure a physical illness is not the issue and even then in my country there’s a huge shortage of mental health providers, waitlists for evaluations are long so either way it could take upwards of a year for me to just get an initial interview and I would be struggling blindly with this bullshit all that time. There’s only so much I can do to rationalize my way out of these things when they’re so persistent.

I’m not looking for medical advice, I know only a professional can give me that. I’d like to hear about similar experiences or just know I’m not crazy, I don’t wanna feel so alone in this.

I put the trigger warning just in case, I’m not sure if it applies so please tell me if I’m in the wrong place but it might be triggering. This is also just kind of a vent post.

Earlier I saw someone talking about how they went through CSA and a bunch of other things that were going on in their life, watching their video kind of triggered me.

Every time I see something related to CSA or SA in general it brings back feelings I don’t wanna think about and an ambiguous memory that I wish I had never remembered because I don’t know how I feel about it. From what I remember nothing physical happened, it was a mistake… but even if it was a mistake what happened on its own was pretty bad I think.

To keep it short, my dad got in bed with me while I was unclothed, I remember how it was dark except for the light from the hallway, I remember how I was unable to speak up from fear and the way the sheets felt on my body, then I just turned around and fell asleep because it was all I could do at that point.

I don’t get why themes of SA bring this back for me when nothing else happened. I mentioned earlier it was a mistake because the next morning my mom found out and my dad claimed it was a mistake and he hadn’t noticed, but he was consistently an unsafe figure during my childhood so I don’t know what to believe. I still feel pretty bad about the whole thing and I hate it when something triggers it back because it always brings me back down the same spiral of trying to make sense of it which I know is useless and I shouldn’t do that… I know it probably boils down to seeing a trauma therapist but I haven’t mustered up the courage to schedule the appointment.

Does anyone else have a similar experience? Honestly any advice or anything that might help me feel less alone and confused would help.

I just hate it. I hate the way it has completely fucked my life and I’ll never lead a normal life without having to take a fuckass pill every single day or else I’ll go insane. I’ve struggled with my mental health for years and I know it’s my fault because I’ve left my thyroid issues untreated. I’m trying to take care of it now and I’m taking my meds again but it’s obviously a process and something that can’t be fixed overnight.

My life is a huge mess and I don’t even know where to start putting it together, this is probably right where I have to start. But I hate it, I don’t know why. I just feel like all the struggles with mental health and all the environmental issues that also contributed to all of my struggles are a lie if it’s all just attributed to this stupid hormone imbalance, like I’m just crazy and dumb by default and it invalidates everything else I’ve gone through. I know it doesn’t make sense… but I don’t know. I guess I have to get over myself because thinking like this is stupid.

Aside from that I’m just so tired and slow all the time, I feel like a completely different person in some ways, I used to be much more alive even through my mental health issues. I struggled even when I took my meds consistently but everything has gotten so much worse, I’m so anxious I have symptoms that strongly resemble OCD and last year I was so depressed I had severe suicidal thoughts that landed me in outpatient. I just feel like I’m crazy, and I hate that this disease is what’s making me this way and on top of it it’s my fault for not treating it like I should. I know this rant is completely stupid and I’m not being reasonable about this at all… having this illness feels like a huge burden I got stuck with and I despise it.