Gonna be 26, I’ve wasted opportunities, experiences & life.
[I don’t talk about this, so if you read all this that’s enough for me to know I was heard. I just need to say something before I can’t.]
I’m the last one of my family living in our family home. My mom divorced my dad after a failed suicide attempt when I was 6-7, and moved in with his friend she was having an affair with.
Then my sister moved away to her boyfriend at 16 when she had enough of our parents and going back and forth from joint custody and fights and left me behind when I was 12, never explaining where she went cause she always used to leave for days but just never came back one day.
My dad, that I lived with up until I was 21 finally moved into my grandpas farm once he passed away. Hes also lonely and we were all each other had even though he resented me over the years as I just isolated and did nothing my late teens & early adult life. I struggled doing chores, cleaning up after myself, didn’t cook, never looked for a job, never looked into collages.
I just stayed home, playing video games, avoiding people from a traumatizing school experience, ignored potential friends, fought to stay home from family outings, would hide in my room for fucking days to weeks not showering, changing clothes and sleeping in a bed that I never washed just grabbed new sheets. My dad would sometimes never see me for weeks in the same house, and he’d sometimes pick the lock to make sure I didn’t kill myself. We’d fight all the time about me being lazy and ungrateful.
My own mother was never active in my early life, she was busy trying to rebuild hers after her attempt and divorce, said that she feels like she failed as a parent to my face.
My sister that I was close to, but once she left I never really saw her for four years, coming back into my life to rebuild and only found what was once a loud creative confident happy kid was now this depressed asshole that hated everything and was miserable to be around.
Im alone in this house, walking around what feels like a tomb of a once happy family, the pictures still on the walls, the pencil mark of height as me and my sister grew still on the wall, and all the old decor my mom put up when I was still a baby, and it’s deeply saddening. Pathetic to see everyone move on around me constantly and still be the same worthless waste of oxygen just rotting.
My parents constantly bugging me to look into art school because they know I doodle, or my dad trying to force being an electrician to literally doing ANYTHING. Just something. But I was always to scared to do it, unable to commit to even leaving the house for food. I was terrified of the outside. Everyone made fun of it for me. They always said my depression was a phase but I think they got worried after I turned 21 that nothing has changed and I’m still like this. Not worried ABOUT me, just worried that they were wrong and waited too long to care.
But one day I got fined for not having insurance or registration on my car cause I’m a fucking idiot and got my car towed. After that my dad kicked me out to my moms cause he didn’t wonna “deal” with me, isn’t the first time, and my step dad is horrible, narcissistic, and just yells and drinks all the time. My mom always defending him even though she knows she’s being abused.
So I started drinking everyday to cope with the terms of my life. But I finally got a job out of luck (COVID mass fired a bunch of people cause they refused to get the vaccine), and he allowed me to move back in, got my car back after everyone pitted me for a bit and for once, after a routine of living in my incredibly horded house alone, going to work, coming home and drinking my brains out and living everyday with a hangover, I had a realization that this was how I was gonna die.
My basement was covered in rum bottles and booze of all kinds. Living in literal trash, letting fruit flies crawl on me. I passed out on my floor more than I slept in a bed, I only ate after work so I wouldn’t drink on an empty stomach. I was starving, I had an eating disorder. I’d just cry most of the night, then go to work and drink off my hangover while on the job. I became a functioning alcoholic like the rest of my family, started smoking cigarettes even though I have asthma, destroying my lungs and using my puffer probably x15 times a night. But no one knew how bad it was cause no one was ever coming home to see it, and I was a loser kid that never drank and went to parties so no one thought me capable of it. And I had a job, the one thing they wanted of me my whole life so they left me all alone once I did what they wanted. I thought it was freedom. But I was being buried in guilt, regret hatred & self loathing, & I was so fucking sick of it after a couple years.
So I started to work out, I joined dating apps for the first time in my life. (Had to take a shit ton of pics cause I didn’t take any for 7 years as I hated how I looked.) started to say fuck it and talk to people and hangout outside of work. Said yes to every match just to see someone cause I was so lonely and started to fear dying alone. Spent my time just hooking up, the sex wasnt this life changing thing everyone thinks.. I was still me. I couldn’t commit to anyone, I’d ghost and feel like a piece of shit. (I was) Mind you I was still drinking & smoking like a fucking pig. I physically felt like garbage everyday.
Then one particularly bad drinking night, I called the suicide hotline. I’ve planned my suicide, I was gonna use my dads shot gun I still had in the house and shoot the back of my throat (did a lot of research cause I’m terrified of just shooting my face off and living.) and I had it loaded and in my mouth that night, and I was so utterly scared (not of dying) but of actually being capable of doing it that night. I was CLOSE.
So the operator called the cops on me. They showed up, took me to the hospital, locked me into suicide watch. Took me two full days for the alcohol to fully leave my system before they shipped me to a looney bin for mental health care.
No one visited. My dad was pissed cause I almost got his gun confiscated cause I didn’t have a license. Blamed ALL OF IT on booze even though I’ve been struggling for years. Just called me an alcoholic.
My mother ironically was sent to the same institute when I was 7 when she tried killing herself too, and comforted me by saying it was just a dumb decision from being too drunk and told me to say whatever they want to get out cause I don’t belong there.
My sister telling me how proud she was of me that I was “getting help” and thought that it was good for me. May have been from a good place when she said it, but i felt bitter cause she used to say I could reach out to her if I needed but she’d just shame me and say I romanticize my depression.
So I did what my mom said, and danced the dance, said what they wanted to hear, and acted better, and finally got out after like 3 months. But I wish I took it seriously… they WERE helping me. I was feeling better, I even met a girl and we got ‘close’ while I was in there.
But once I got out, it all came crashing down, I thought getting out would be better cause I hated the restrictions, the forced therapy, the sobriety, the food (I ate chicken breast every night cause I’m celiac and they had no options)
But once I got out, the first thing my family asked me to do was if I could to a “beer run” for them after they knew of my struggle with booze. So I caved immediately, bought rum and was trashed. They called me an idiot and piece of shit. I immediately wished I was back in the facility…
I then never followed up with outside therapy, or any ama sources the facility provided me, and fell back into my horrible cycle of self-hate, depression and drinking. But I still had a job, and that’s what was important, as long as I wasn’t a headache to them. The only thing I learned from asking for help was that it was a mistake. No one cares. I never did either.
Not long after I really fucked up and got a dui. Almost lost my job, basically lost all my savings, living pay check to pay check. Couldn’t afford wifi OR groceries.
I Have no more support for any schooling since that ship has sailed with family. I hate my job, it’s dead end asf and I’m not gonna move up. Horrible workplace mistreatment but I put up with it cause I need it. Cant drown my thoughts on a daily now cause I have a blow box. I was fucking close to cracking all over again.
But in my lowest I met this one girl that changed my life a bit. She helped me sober up, she moved in and cleaned up my nightmare mess I created. Gave me comfort I didn’t know how to receive. Gave me stability.
It’s just, when she says I love you I don’t believe her, and when I say it back i feel nothing. Im afraid that the only reason I settled with her was my fear of loneliness and desperate need for any change in my life. But I’m so fucking numb, and glazed over life.
I work, come home, she regulates my alcohol consumption, we eat, she talks about her day, we cuddle in bed and sleep and I do it again. I SHOULD FEEL BETTER. THIS IS WHAT I CRAVED FOR SO LONG. WHAT I FEARED ID NEVER HAVE. AND I FEEL NOTHING.
I dunno if it’s my self sabotage talking but it feels like shes using me too. Shes been on income assistance for 2 years, hasn’t had a job in 3, said she’d split rent and bills but was cut off income and still hasn’t gotten a job and now the bills are doubled to tripled and she owes me around $2000 and rising from what she promised to pay. She just plays video games on my Xbox all day, barely cleans anymore, lets the cat litter pile up and it’s a struggle to get any privacy as shes super anxious and clingy. It feels cruel to say, but I feel just as alone, trapped and suffocated as I did before (just less hangovers)
I feel like every chance I’m given I watch drip away. I had so many opportunities to not be who i am and where I am right now. But I always choose to feel miserable. I fucking hate it. I feel like it’s too late to do anything to change it.
I can’t get another job, I have no education and live in a small town. I can’t go to collage cause I have a girl that’s fully dependant on me to live and my childhood home would be sold if I’m not inhabiting it, which would leave me mega fucked if I screw up collage. (I’d have no job=no money, so I’d have to live with one of my parents which both would make my mental health so much worse) I can’t end things or even take a break from my relationship because we live in the same house and she has no where to go as her family is THOUSANDS of miles away and she has a strained relationship with them. And well, she did help me a lot .. I really feel like I have no reason to break up with her other than I’m a douche bag.
Like it was good at first, being with her. But I just can’t cope anymore. I feel all my worst feelings wrapping around me again, and I’m getting close to 30 not having done ANYTHING with my life but trip over myself and fall down over and over. Deep down I feel that desire and motivation, but just a complete utter fatigue and hopelessness that is so overbearing and numbing.
I’m an idiot, I’m an asshole, I’m pathetic, I’m a loser. She chose me when she didn’t really know me, and I try to keep it that way. But more and more I find myself quietly crying in bed when she falls asleep. Or getting up at 3am to chain smoke & think about killing myself. I hate myself. I hate what I took away from my potential future.
If you read all this, please just be honest. I’m so fucking scared I’m gonna do something that I know I won’t have any reason to back out of anymore.
I think I’m just gonna die having gained nothing and offering nothing.