Whoever said it will get better" can fuck themselves

The BBQ Pit
1

I told someone what I’m about to tell you now and the advice that they gave me was “It can’t get much worse.” So let me fill you in.
As much as running you through every detail of the last 22 years of my life would be spectacular I’ll just give you a summary:

Mum with cancer since I was born, abusive stepdad who beat me, bullied at school because i’m clever and ginger, lost my best friend in primary school because I moved, lost my best friend in secondary school because I moved, fell into a crowd whose primary goal was to fuck each other and older men and women for money, went to sixth form and fell into a crowd whose primary goal was to fuck each other and stay drugged up to “feel nothing”, got a boyfriend from said crowd who despite wanting to change the world killed himself for me to find him, went to uni, fell in love with a girl but ended up dating and moving in with another girl who turned about to be a Misery fan, went six months without leaving the house without permission, a pregnancy scare from the girlfriend and eventual freedom when I cleaned up.

All caught up? Great.

According to the philosophy of my dear friend you might have thought that Fate would throw me a lifeline to stop me drowning in my oblivion.

But no. Instead tomorrow I have to accompany my mum while she drops off the baby she fostered and I help raise for 15 of the 16 months she has existed. We return her to her neanderthal, ever-an-excuse-for-sterilisation parents, who have admitted that they have no love for her, could probably not cope to raise the child but will take her and her 5 other siblings because the council has given them a fully furnished 5-BEDROOM HOUSE on subsidised rent. But of course an unloving and uncaring home has no meaning to Social Services when the words NATURAL PARENTS and OUT OF THE SYSTEM make their lives so much easier at the expense of the wellbeing of children.

If this wasn’t enough my mother and second stepfather declared bankruptcy just a few days ago because he’d racked up over £30,000 of debt that could be paid and my mum being married to him and all took the ‘in rich or in poor’ literally after about a month of threatening letters and three or four call harassing calls per day.

So it should be easy to understand that mum is nothing but distraught at the moment. She is barely eating and beginning to lose her patience quicker and start drinking more. These would be signs of concern for anyone. But these are signs of frantic panic for my family because my mum is due to undergo an operation in two weeks to remove cancer from around her bowel, her third related operation to date. She weighs less than 5 stone now and will probably lose another half stone before the operation. She is an insulin dependent diabetic since most of her pancreas was removed in the last cancer clearout. With her strength I can only think she has more chance of dying on that operating table than living.

But I can’t just think that because in three weeks time I begin my Army selection week where I have to prove myself physically and mentally capable. I have to show myself to be a committed and determined individual all the while panicking that I’ve left my near-death mother to recuperate with the thoughts of possibly abused infants that were in her care and mounting financial insecurity for the next decade.

Can’t just worry about that though. There’s three birthdays the week to get the right presents for including my soon-to-be 10 year old brother who can’t understand why dad just watches TV and goes to bed without talking or why mum will shout at him for no to little reason because of the stress she’s under. So I have to make sure he has the best birthday of his life and realises he is loved by his family or he may grow to resent the people who care for him and the mother who may not get to see this birthday, let alone the next.

And through all that shit, that’s not what has driven me down so low. That’s not what has made it so I can’t keep my sanity intact unless I get too drunk to care. What did it was the fact I poured my heart and soul into someone. I let myself be vulnerable to her, I gave up medicating myself, I told her my entire life story, something that I have never told anyone, until the fragment you have here in front of you

2

I’m sorry I didn’t finish…

And through all that shit, that’s not what has driven me down so low. That’s not what has made it so I can’t keep my sanity intact unless I get too drunk to care. What did it was the fact I poured my heart and soul into someone. I let myself be vulnerable to her, I gave up medicating myself, I told her my entire life story, something that I have never told anyone, until the fragment you have here in front of you. I loved her with every fibre of my being and she told me she loved me.

And then she hurt me, badly. She moved on, not just to another man but away from me. One month she is lying next to me telling me she loves me, the next it’s nothing but impersonal text messages about her and her other man. She left me physically in pain. Not just because we had lost the only future I ever dreamt about but because she was slowly becoming the next in a line of people who would slowly never have any involvement in my life and now the thought of losing her forever is devastating.

What I consider my only future seems to be slipping away, slowly but surely and I don’t seem to have a chance to get over it because when I try to be strong for one thing there’s another right there ready to stick a knife in my side and bring me down. And we’re not talking a bad month, or year, or decade. Twenty two years that I’ve hoped to attain something permanent and fulfilling and good and every year gives me an opportunity for happiness lost and a problem even harder than the last year. So to whoever decided happiness is a limited commodity I’ll admit my surrender. And whoever still believes that everyone gets their happy ending, no matter how long, can go fuck themselves.
P.S. To my friend who wanted to know the truth. Now you know.

3

Well it sounds like you’ve been down a fucked up piece of road. I know it isn’t easy but you just have to grit your teeth and keep your head down and keep on going. I hear you out there.

4

I don’t even know what can make it better. I’m going to try to make it better. Another human being is caring about you.

5

Dude. That sucks.

(This post is irony free. That really does suck. And for what it’s worth (less than nothing, I’m sure), I’m really sorry you got dealt such a shit hand.)

6

I’m listening, too.

7

Please send this to your congressperson.

Please.

8

I think they live in the U.K.? :confused:

nocturnal_tick, count me amongst those who wish you well, and who are hoping things do somehow get better for you.

9

The fact that Nocturnal_Tick’s parents count their debts in pounds makes me doubt that they have a congressperson.

Leaving that aside, I’m terribly sorry for everything you’ve gone through. I won’t tell you things will improve, but I will hope for them to.

10

{{{nocturnal_tick}}}

As an agoraphobic, I’m pretty much always around. Please feel free to email me (the address is in my profile) if you need to talk. I’d be happy to just listen. And I’m so sorry that life can be such shit and to those that don’t understand this can happen, fuck 'em indeed.

Sending warm thoughts to you and your mom.

11

I really can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound trite or stupid. so here’s a hug on me.

{nocturnal_tick}

12

FUCK! That had to be said. Life is pretty well fucked sometimes!

That said you have to think about YOU. It sounds like you are a very loving, giving person who has had to put up with a world of crap and now you are at some what of a crossroad.

You have two choices, keep giving up yourself and continue to suffer.

Or continue to care about others but make your self stronger, for everyone’s sake.

I’m not a huge fan of the military but perhaps something to be focused on is what you need right now but that is a complete judgement call. Can you really help your mum or should you care about you right now? It depends on your relationship and how sick she is and about your feelings ultimately.

At the end of the day we all care about our families but the only person we can really look after (in the emotional sense) is ourselves.

That sounds mean…I’m really saying that you can’t look after anyone else if your own emotional health is not there.

Your mum and your little brother clearly know how much you love them, you are/have helped them as much as you can to this point.

Now you have decide if some time out in the military is best thing for all of you in the long run or is it better to focus on them for the short term.

This is thoroughly patronising but you are 22, the life you have had hasn’t been good but there is a lot more life in front of you and a lot more people who will care about you and even love you, don’t let one lost love change the person you are, seemingly a damn good, caring, loving person!

13

It could be raining.

14

Just remember,it’s always darkest before it turns completely pitch black.

15

That is seriously fucked up.

I know we don’t know each other, but know there are people in this community who are pulling for you and I’m one of them. I hope that gives you some small comfort at least.

16

Instead of making lists of all the bad things in your life, what are you doing to try to make things better? You can go through life as a victim, or you can say, screw that, victims are powerless, and I am going to demand better for myself because I deserve it. Look at it this way - you’ve survived everything that’s happened so far. Now you’re an adult, and you get to start making choices for yourself to improve your life - you don’t have to just take every shit thing that comes along.

17

Well then, they should send it to their MP.

Unless, of course, the OP is an anarchist, in which case he should send a letter to the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen.

18

calm kiwi wrote what I was going to say. Only putting it a lot more eloquently than I would have been able to.

19

He’ll just send it right back.

20

Ditto.
What always helps me during a tough time, as macabre as it sounds, is thinking, “I’ll either get through this or die from it”. See, ultimately those are the only two paths. And it’s pretty unlikely that this will kill you, so you’ll probably get through it. Now doesn’t that make you feel better? :slight_smile:

Here’s to better days.