23f) I don’t really know how to put this into words, but I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed and alone lately and I just want to talk to people who might understand. I just want some human connection. Please be kind.
I’ve been dealing with a sudden shift in my life where I’ve had to take on a lot of responsibility for my siblings and my mother. She had a stroke due to drugs two years ago, i was in college across the country. My grandparents moved her and my siblings (17f and 17m, one with a mild mental disability and autism) in with me and Ive been taking care of them all while finishing my degree and starting my career. This past friday while i was at work and my sibs were at school, my mother booked a greyhound bus to my home town and completely abandoned us. I do feel like I was kind of “parentified” growing up, I moved away and thought I was in the clear. and now it feels like I’m back in that role. My sister will never live on her own, so I guess that’s my responsibility now. I had plans to live all types of places, many cities, meet new people. Travel a lot. Now in the back of my head, that won’t be possible. I don’t have any other family other than my elder grandparents who are completely checked out. So this is falling all on me. I feel like an unimaginable pressure, not only my own future that i care so much about, but two 17 year olds future as well.
I went to college and had a plan for my future, but now it feels like everything I built toward has disappeared. I hate this. I never wanted children. I don’t have a nurturing bone in my body. I’m not even kind to myself. So it’s hard to be this person they are looking to cuz I don’t want anyone looking to me for anything. I’m fucked up. I’ve been fucked up from my childhood and tried to get away from it with college and they just followed me.
I’ve also been struggling mentally with feeling overwhelmed, disassociated, depressed, but VERY functional. Like i’m such a people pleaser that no one even fucking asks me how i’m doing. and like I don’t really know how to process everything. It doesn’t feel real. I feel like I’m a burden when I talk about it in real life to my friends so I tend to keep things in. I feel a sense of uncomfortability from people when i do talk about it, and even had a friend tell me I was having a professional and personal disconnection from my life cuz i started partying on the weekends more than usual, cuz I just need a release I need something I don’t know what the fuck I need but I’m going down a steep slope as far as my mental health and feeling like I need an escape and the only escape is hoping I don’t waking up and at least my siblings wont think i left them. I don’t know how to crawl out of this. not only am I dealing with these things in my life but straight up judgment from other people on they see me handling and coping. I want optimism but optimism pisses me off sometimes. I’m grieving who my mother was (she wasn’t always like this, she was an ok mom but i love her to death. Like i knew she was fucked up, but i’ve always had so much compassion), who she could have been if she wanted help, and who she is now as a vulnerable disabled person and have no idea what her situation will be or if she is safe. it pains me so much. I can’t even describe it. There aren’t words to describe the pain i’m feeling. The hopelessness.
I guess I’m just wondering if anyone has gone through something similar. Or just words. Idk.