Been a while since I've been on here. Was able to say I didn't really need to vent like this anymore for a while, but alas, here I am again getting punted back into a pit of desperation with no way out in sight.

Gonna be a long post. tl;dr at the bottom.

Last year around the middle of the year my hours dropped at work for months and in September I ran out of money and had to move back in with my parents. The loss of hours was not Covid related due to me being an essential worker, it's just how the cookie crumbles in this profession sometimes. I was already living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes needing to borrow money from my parents to cover the last little bit of expenses, so the loss of hours killed it. I tried to find a new profession, but with a lot of other people doing the same due to Covid there's just too much competition and not enough good paying jobs for people without degrees and experience. I also maxed out a brand new credit card with all the moving expenses to further add to my money stress. I had 5 years of freedom and it's gone now.

Worst part about being home with my parents? Being home. As in, there's not one good thing about it except that I save a little money. It's triggering a lot of bad memories for me of all the emotional and physical abuse I endured from both of my parents. They're treating me ok right now, but it doesn't change the memories, and issues are already starting to creep up. For instance, when we were discussing terms of my move-in I agreed to $200 rent which was supposed to cover the added expense of having me there, not for them to make money off of me. It was said explicitly that they were only going to charge me what they thought I would cost, this isn't me picking and choosing words or something. Now, I do not cost $200 a month in utilities and other stuff, but I agreed to it anyways because I knew negotiating would be difficult. I also agreed to pay half of the internet bill, which is a separate $50 a month. The other day my mom caught me refilling my toilet paper supply and said "I hope you're going to replace that". So, we had a discussion on how I thought that was included in my expenses and apparently the terms do not include toilet paper or any other products I'm forced to use because of how sensitive they are about everything, even though I explicitly remember that coming up in the discussion before. I then brought up how I don't cost $200 a month, my highest utility bill ever while living on my own was $121 one time during the middle of the summer heat wave, but usually was $50 or less, I buy my own food and soaps and everything else already... But no, she's right and there's no room for negotiation, as always. She can change the terms at any time and I get no say in it.

Ok, so being home is bad enough, but it gets worse. I don't know how much longer I can stand working at my current job. I'm a caregiver for an elderly woman who is dying, and she refuses to go peacefully, despite saying nightly that she wishes God would just take her because shes in so much physical pain. She has turned from the nicest most awesome lady into this monster who one second can be cooperative and relaxed and the next is trying to bite or hit or push you away and doing things to harm herself. Most of the time this is her state, completely uncooperative and unable to communicate properly, refusing help and insisting she be left to do whatever she wants uncaring of consequence. Of course we can't just let her do what she wants, so that's where she starts lashing out. Because of this refusal to cooperate she has fallen 4 times in 4 days, one each day. The meds she's on for pain now have forced dementia upon her essentially, plus her physical capabilities are worse than they've ever been. She used to walk with a walker and was even able to drive, but now she has to use a wheelchair and is confined to her house. Still, despite this, she tries to walk without a walker and do things like she used to which leads to her injuring herself. One of these days she's going to have a serious fall and that is what will kill her, not her heart failure or any of the other things that were supposed to kill her before she turned 50. She's 82 now, so that shows what doctors know. She is on hospice, but there's only so much they can do. Hell, I dare say they made her worse because they are the ones who gave her these drugs. It might seem cold, but for both her sake and the rest of us (caregivers and her kids) I wish she would just go peacefully in her sleep on the rare occasions she allows herself to sleep.

I'm beyond stressed with no way to release the stress. Home is generally where people can go to relax, but for me it's hell there too. Sure, I have space, but they can come and go whenever they want in said space, the walls and doors are paper thin so I hear everything they say and they can hear anything I say, not to mention the constant tension that is this temporary truce we have making every interaction tense. Brief reprieve is shower time where all I can hear is the water running or when I manage to pass out from exhaustion. I have nowhere else to go and I'm about to break.

The cherry on top is one of my good friends who I was going to play some games with this week after not being able to for a while has picked up an important contract job and had to cancel, further saying he will be extremely busy for a few months because of it. So, the one thing I had to look forward to has been ruined. I have another friend to play that same game with, but he's not the same. This other dude just has a way about him that cheers me up no matter what and I really needed that. It's far less about the game and more about hanging out with him again.

The only thing keeping me going is my cats. I know exactly what will happen to them if I die, they'll be tossed out in the cold and left to fend for themselves. One has a missing eye, the other has urinary tract issues requiring prescription food, and and both of them do not have experience fending for themselves, so they won't last long. If one of the other cats around here doesn't beat them to death, they'll die of starvation or other medical issues.

tl;dr - Hitting my limit with both home and work life, no relief in sight.