[Audrey]

Hi, ok, so I have been feeling pretty good lately. but I feel like feeling happy was one big denial problem. I'm so tired lately. I don't know if there is something wrong with me. I'm too tired to go to the doctor. Actually, I did go last week and he told me that I have a bladder infection. So i tried the medication and i had a bad reaction to the sulfur. So i had to go home early twice over the weekend and i called off on Saturday from work. So I came in on Monday, and I got written up for that. That really sucks, because the last thing i need right now is work problems. For anyone who may have read my first post, my mother has just been diagnoised last month with terminal cancer. Apparently she is in her last stages of it. She is throwing up constantly, but it seems like this past week things were improving. Then today I think she threw up everything she ate this past month. I feel like a huge loser. I'm 20 years old and i'm still living with my parents. My dad just decided to start charging me room and board, and i don't even have a room to stay in. I'm sleeping in my brothers room who likes to jerk off in the morning and deliberatly wake me up every morning. The only reason why i'm here is too take care of my mother. Although, i don't know how to take care of her. My dad doesn't like my fiancee, even though he was the one who told him to marry me after us dating for only 2 months. so my fiancee isn't allowed over here. I feel so guilty when i go out and have fun because i feel like i should be here helping out. But when i am here helping out i feel so drained. I don't know what to do. My friend just got engaged and now i'm jelous, because when i got engaged my boyfriend told me well, i'm going to pop the question to you on our way to vegas becasue he was a flight attendt at the time. So it was totally expected. and then something got screwed up with the tickets and i had to end up paying for us to come back to Michigan. I just feel so drained i don't know what to do. I got into a stupid argument with my fiancee last night about when we go to germany where we are going to stay. What's so stupid about that is that neither one of us even have enough money to support ourselves. He just gets upset at the least little thing, and that bugs the heck out of me. So anyway, I guess i just needed to vent. My life is a dead end and i'm a loser. and it doesnt' help that every person i talk to seems to think that i'm a fatty. I don't think i'm a fatty! my fiancee doesn't think that but of course he wouldn't admit it to me even if he does because i would never let him live it down anyway. besides he is fatter than i am. Anyway, i guess that's all i can think of for now.. i'm really tired i think i'll rest for a bit.
-Audrey

[FearsomeAnna]

(((((((((Audrey))))))))))

Wow. Hon, you are not a loser. You are a 20 year old girl stuck in a situation that most of us would find intolerable with just one of those issues. Your illness, plus your mother's illness, plus the stress of your financial situation and your fiance's financial situation, plus the strain put on by your father and brother (he really jerks off in the morning with you in there?? Yech!!!) - who have to be facing significant strain themselves = a nightmare.

First off, you deserve to go out and have fun without feeling guilty about it. It's not fair to you to be expected to be home all the time - your father and brother can take over every once in awhile.

Second, does your work know what's going on at your house? If not, I would suggest scheduling a meeting with your boss and filling him in so he/she is a little more sympathetic in understanding why some days you just can't make it. If they don't know, they can't help you.

Third, you need to have a serious talk with your brother about his, um, personal habits in the mornings. It certainly wasn't your choice to be in their and you shouldn't be forced to be around it.

Fourth, I would suggest family counseling for all of you. You are all under tremendous - and I mean tremendous - strain right now. No wonder tempers are running high. I know your mother may not be able to attend, but at the very least your father and brother and you need to find some way to work out a reasonable compromise to help you through all this. If your father and brother aren't willing to go, then you need to go yourself in order to get some peace in your head about what's going on.

Fifth - You said your mother is in the terminal stages of cancer - have you considered home hospice care? It'd make your mother feel better, and take a lot of the day to day 'taking care of Mom' tasks off the table.

Sixth - Your fiance. Honey, now is NOT the time to be thinking about a huge mental commitment like marriage. ESPECIALLY if you are doing this because your dad told your fiance to marry you. I can honestly think of no faster way to end up in divorce court in less than a year. On top of that, he doesn't sound very sensitive to your needs or wishes. Could this be why your father doesn't want him at your house?

Please, please keep us posted - hang in there, hon. I want to know how you're doing. And remember - you are not a loser! Stress can make the most self confident of us feel like the lowest person on earth when that's the furthest thing from the truth.

Take care and let me know how it's going.

Anna

some of it's magic
some of it's tragic
but i had a good life all the way......
~jimmy buffett

[(JD)]

Hmmm there are many "flags" from your post... I wonder why young people feel they deserve so much. Wanting what you can't have right now is a sure way to stay depressed.

Find some no- money- fun things. Then spend what money you do have on a financial advisor. Better yet, see a free financial clinic and take a course of how to live within your means.

I agree that no one seems very supportive. It might be the only life you know. How about finding some counselling help... more like a social worker who isn't afraid to tell you directly what changes you can make in your life SO YOU HAVE ONE!

With that talk with your boss, I wouldn't go into too much detail, but definitely give the idea of what you are contending with...you want him to sense that you can handle it with a little more support from others (not that you can't take anymore though that might be true.)

I think you can find some of your own answers just by reading your post over like someone else wrote it and you're offering her advice!

You have a job. You can also have your own life. Go for it!

...I can misspeak like the best of us

[Audrey]

wow thanks for writting back. ok, first i want to clearify that i have been engaged since march, because we wanted to not becasue anyone else wanted to. I was just venting that it doesn't make sense why my dad doesn't like him. He is a great guy and we are both going through college. I just finnished 16 credits. He used to have a great job as a Flight Attendent, but he got laid off of that and since then he's been going back to college and he's on his second semister now, so that he can be supportive and make this future marriage work when ever it will happen. I try to go see him as much as i can. He moved so that he can be closer to me, so that is convienet.
I really appraciate your feedback. It means a lot.
Oh and my work does know. I work at Home Depot. They are pretty cool there. When they found out i didn't celibrate christmas and i packed up my room instead and was figuring out how i was going to rescue my bed out of the snowy ditch, they got together and got me some gifts. I thought that was really sweet of them, although i really don't know who a little elf or santa is. It would be nice to know who likes me becasue i tend to get parnoid that people don't really like me that much sometimes. which i think that's true. I mean people hang out in there little clicks and they are nice to me, but only at work. But i have my friends there too, so i guess i shouldn't worry about it.
oh and about hospice, my mother is convinced that they killed my grandfather.
and about my brother, ok... i'm too chicken to say anything. i have know idea what to say. and there is no talking to these people.
but on today's news, my dad got himself a colonostrophy and they found a polup on his colon. they removed it and we won't know the results of that until next week. so, i hope that turns out non spreadable.