Young, Need Some Life Advice, Things Are So Complicated

hi all,

I haven’t posted in here since probably August. This is not so much an intense relationship advice question/rant but a life thing.

I am 23 years old, I graduated from college this past June. This year has been consistently the type of year where I get to take 5 steps forward, and then get pushed back three steps immediately. The one vacation I was able to take I got sick, I took a trip to Los Angeles and got trapped at LAX, my senior project was canceled, dealing with a death in the family, I had three ER visits in October, and now my mother has a rotator cuff injury and needs surgery. My dad is stage 4 cancer, absolutely a ridiculous alcoholic and substance abuser. He is verbally abusive and screams at my mother about bills, and talks about how they should separate yet when my mother mentions a possible divorce, he scoffs at the idea. It is classic textbook manipulative abusive behavior. It’s been like this since I was born. I had a little escape when I was in school in a city, but now since I am working from home for a large media company (I work in digital news), I am working from home.

I work 2-11pm wednesday, thursday. And then overnight, 11pm to 7 am Friday, Saturday. I have no social life at all in my early 20s post grad with this job. I knowingly knew this once I accepted it, but its been a lot harder in these past 4 months between major health issues, and since I am living at home with my parents, and a 30 year old brother who has Asperger’s and doesn’t work, I am losing my mind a bit. I do not have any friends around here, even left over from highschool and even if so my schedule makes it extremely hard to see people. I have tried reaching out to people and they all have essentially blown me off. I am forgetting how to socialize. I see people downtown at my local bars and want to mingle so bad, but I clock on at work at 11pm on those weekend nights and can’t really do both things.

The job is contracted for a year. It was a great opportunity post grad, and I am getting paid hourly at a fairly decent rate compared to my other peers. The lack of sleep though is making me so tired to do simple things by flip flopping my sleep schedule. I have such intense eye circles, and don’t even wear real outfits anymore. I miss feeling like a young woman. I even tried getting into my office (which is located in New York City), the head of all bosses even told everyone we could go in whenever, and after a lot of back & forth with the HR guy, I was told I cannot go in unless my boss is with me. I have felt like every single nice step forward, I go back.

Our house is cluttered with stuff with my grandmother moving, since my mom tried to help her out with her only one arm. My dad pees upstairs out the window and or into a bucket and I can hear it above me when I do sleep at regular hours. My brother is not even working and does not help to do chores or anything else around the house. He is a lost cause at thirty unfortunately, and spews this ridiculous conservative rhetoric and on top of everything he is type 1 diabetic and unvaccinated still.

I feel like I am utterly trapped and do not see a way out. I had guys ask me out on dates and I have said no as I don’t feel like I have the mental capacity to date while living in this house. My dad as an ostomy bag and I would not even let the guy into the house fear of him having to hear my father empty his poop bag. It is so hard to get close to anyone while dealing with all of this. I can’t do it all. I try to think of a plan come next summer, and I would like to take time off as I truly didn’t even get an actual “break” post school, but I have so much in student loan debt, and want to get out of the house, but among the pandemic still raging (which I have a feeling it always will), I don’t know what to do anymore. I am sick of just surviving and barely even living.

My older sister on top of this is in La-La Land and is having an interesting polyamorist relationship with her fiance, and they are scheduled to get married in july of 2022. Hearing her kissing other guys is throwing me off and she keeps texting me screenshots of their dating app profiles, and I don’t know how to tell I don’t want to hear this without shaming her, or being mean. She also barely listens to me when I discuss our father, and strongly defends his actions cause he is “sick”. I try to explain to her it is not an excuse for him to be an abusive, neglectful (I have no relationship at all with him, I don’t even know why he wanted another kid) father. He did not even attend or say BYE at least for my graduation which he so proudly “brags” about to his buddies how I am working for one of the big three (think ABC, CBS, NBC), which I have worked so hard to get and succeed despite of all of this happening. I have dealt with this for 23 year of my life and I know she has deep-rooted abusive memories with him too that I guess she has buried so deep she is now blind. It gets absolutely infuriating. I dream of the day I tell her I will not ever speak to him again, and I have to live with the risk she might not be ok with that as she talks to him DAILY on the phone, and I always say to her “well you are not living with him”.

My sister is sometimes so ignorant and tells me to date around and have fun and I reply with “hearing Dad’s poop bag being emptied, my brother blowing his nose into the sink, and dad’s screaming in pain from chemo doesn’t exactly make me feel ready to start a romance casual or serious” then she goes silent.

I also have had a lot of friends who tell me simply this is too much for them to hear, so I keep to myself, yet when I mention something they go “you never tell us anything”. I cannot win.

I am so sorry this was so long, I feel so lost on what to do. I am only communicating with my coworkers via slack, have no hometown friends, any type of fun classes to do would take place when I am working the wacky hours during the week or weekend. I know I took this job for future things, but this is so tough right now. I hope 2022 is better. I simply miss having fun without worrying about stepping on eggshells ALL THE TIME. I feel so alone.

Thank you for reading this.