How can I keep living like this?

If you've read any of my other posts you know that I am 36 years old and have been living in a hotel room with my parents for the past 4 months. I can't regurgitate everything I've written so far because it would be too long and repetitious. And I'm tired. I'm so tired.

My life is a living hell. I don't think I really understood that term until now. Long story short I've been living with bipolar disorder for 8 years and have been hospitalized about 10 times for mania. For the past 8 years I've spent about 5 months out of each year either manic or depressed. This has made it very hard to work or keep a job. I have no money or car of my own. My parents are poor and have to rely heavily on my sister for money.

I moved back in with my parents 2.5 years ago after living with my best friends for four years. At least at our old apartment I had my own room and could avoid my father. We lost that place since the landlord kicked us out after 2 years of fighting with my father. My father would talk to people like my landlord’s gardener and call him disgusting, racist names. Before I moved back in with them my parents were kicked out of their two previous apartments. We have been living in hotels for 4 months because we can’t find a place to live either because we can't afford it or because he refuses to live anywhere other than Malibu where he's lived most of my life.

My father has been an alcoholic since I was born. My childhood was miserable with physical abuse and psychological torment. Now, he is too weak and diseased to hit me and my mother but almost every minute of every day he bit*h*s, complains, yells at us, insults us, puts us down, and basically emotionally tortures us. Ever since we moved into the cheapest, crappiest hotel yet 2 days ago, I feel like I'm going to lose my mind and explode EVERY TIME he opens his mouth. I constantly have to leave the room. And he still gets drunk at least twice a week, so my mom and I have to leave for hours until he either sobers up or falls asleep. I also have to listen to my mother's phone ring at least 20 times a day. He calls her several times an hour and he's usually yelling. She picks it up every time, even when she's driving.

I don't know how much more I can take. I've applied for aid and food stamps but it's not going to do me much good in terms of getting on my feet since he already expects me to give that money over for rent, etc.

It has gotten worse since we moved into this hotel. In fact, he is drunk today and we had to leave even though we have very little money to eat. All of us eat fast food much of the time since all we have in the room is a mini fridge and a microwave.

I think I've been twice as upset since Christmas eve (my birthday) and Christmas. He made both of those days unbelievably miserable. Worst Christmas / Birthday I've ever had.

I don't have a friend in the world to take me in. Today when I had to leave the room again this idea flashed in my head that I should consider going into some type of shelter. I don't even know if that exists for someone like me since I'm technically not homeless and technically not battered. But I don’t know if I can do this anymore.

I swear to God, if there were no legal or spiritual consequences I would kill the man. He has likely done more to make me mentally ill than bipolar disorder. All told, over the course of my mostly unhappy life, I have had more ideations about hurting him than myself.

I've been depressed since I last got out of the hospital in August. Right now, I'm not even sure if I'm depressed because of my illness or because of my life situation.

I don't see a way out. I remember being a young kid and praying to God asking him what I was being punished for, and that I would try to be good if he would help me. Considering everything I've been through, I still feel like I'm being punished. You know, that feeling you get when so much of your life has involved much more pain than pleasure and you wonder why you're still doing it.

I don't expect those of you reading this to offer me solutions (although I welcome them if you can), because it seems like a lot of the posts I've made have left people dumbstruck as to what to say. Which kind of confirms my suspicions that my life situation (not my level of depression- I wouldn't make comparisons about that) must be on the low end relative to most of the people here. From my perspective, simply having a home, a car, and a job are things to be proud of. Having a spouse and/or a family are triumphs in my eyes.

Thank you for reading. I will appreciate anything you have to say. If you can relate to anything I’ve written I would love to hear from you. But even a sad hug would be nice.



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Big hugs to you!!

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I think you should contact domestic violence shelters. I know there is one here that absolutely would help you and your father would not know where you were. The one here is pretty open to special circumstances; my father's now-ex-wife stayed there and when she had to go away for military training they let me move in to stay with my little brother. They handle various situations and do so very kindly. I would think you could also go to a homeless shelter; you are not a child so you aren't required to be with your parents and if you moved out of that situation (which it sounds like you need to do as soon as you can for your mental health) then you would be by definition homeless. But I'd try domestic violence first b/c I think they tend to be a little nicer.

I can't remember if I suggested this to you or not but if you have a computer with internet access (even a phone or tablet lets you do this, just not maybe quite as much) you may want to look into swagbucks.com It's a site where you do surveys, watch ads, do various activities (even play games) and earn credits that you can cash out as gift cards to a ton of places or as paypal. I earn $25-50/month on there but if you put more time in or do things differently you can earn a lot more. I don't know exactly how but I know lots of people do (and many people earn less than I do and are happy with that). It's been a really helpful source of money to me over the last few years since I had to stop working. If I am not doing well I just don't do that day.

Have you applied for SSI/SSDI? At least here that will extend your food stamps/medicaid until you are approved or denied and when approved will bring in enough money to help you maybe get a tiny apartment of your own.

Another thing you could do it get in touch with community mental health and request a caseworker along with therapy. The caseworker can help navigate some of this specific to where you are. (I know how some things work here but might as well be in another world compared to California).

I hope you get the help you need. You deserve to have a better life. Feel free to
PM me if you ever just need someone to talk to. I don't know a lot about your situation but I do know about abusive drunk fathers trying to control adult children (although I will be honest and say that I've not seen my father in 22 years).

The fact your father is yelling at you and your mother constitutes abuse. The fact that you and your mother have to leave is abuse. I think a domestic violence shelter will take those things into consideration. I had to leave my house a few years ago because my ex-fiance was drunk and emotionally abusive. The shelter here let me and my daughter stay until I can get the cops to evict my ex-fiance out of my house.

Hugs and much support. I hope you can get to a place of safety and peace.

BeyondtheRainbow has some very excellent suggestions for you. You are suffering domestic abuse, and you should definitely be able to get into a domestic violence shelter. That would be a huge step for you and take a tremendous amount of stress off you. From there you can explore getting mental health care and a caseworker, perhaps applying for SSI/SSDI, and make much better use of any aid or food stamps you receive. But most of all you would get out of an abusive situation. It's critical for you to do this as soon as possible.