u/ClumsyK9

The past few days have been absolute hell. I moved out of my apartment filled with black mold into my dad’s incredibly dusty house. My respiratory symptoms haven’t improved at all. I’m still constantly short of breath and my nose is always runny. I’m fatigued and sore and it feels like I never get a full night’s sleep.

I don’t know if this is allergy-induced asthma or what, but it’s got me worried. I’ve had issues like this before, but they’ve never persisted for this long. My stepmom is worried too, and she used to be a nurse. The only person who seems indifferent to the problem is my dad. He treats my illness like it’s an inconvenience.

In comparison, he treats our dog Jolly (not her real name, but it fits her personality) with the utmost care. Jolly is an old gal, somewhere between 14-15 years old. She’s nearing the end of her life, and requires daily medication for her heart.

This past Sunday morning my dad woke up early in preparation for his weekend golf game. He found me on the couch coughing and wheezing. I didn’t get any sleep, it was too hard to breathe. He barely acknowledged me on his way out.

That night he returned home from golf, drunk, and found my stepmother and I deep in conversation trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. He ignored us, then started panicking when he realized Jolly had a nosebleed. He started rambling about how she was bleeding out and it was an emergency.

My stepmother spent the next half hour calming him down, while my respiratory issues got completely sidelined.

Thanks Dad. You’re a great father to Jolly. Not so much your human son.

(All names have been changed or omitted)

I met Elise in my junior year of high school. We shared a single class together, which I always looked forward to, mostly because I got to see her. I was hopelessly infatuated.

To be blunt, a good chunk of that infatuation was based purely on physical attraction. Elise was beautiful, easily one of the prettiest girls in our school, and she wore outfits that called attention to her looks.

Tons of guys found her attractive, though unfortunately a lot of them saw her as the kind of girl you sleep with, not one you date. A former friend of mine told me I was stupid for thinking Elise was worth anything more than a hookup. He didn’t understand why I’d be interested in her outside of sex.

Elise never judged me for my self-harm scars. She just looked at them and moved on. There was none of the pity or fear I’d become accustomed to, just simple acknowledgment. That was rare in those days, when the scars were at their most visible. Most people made me feel like a curiosity to be gawked at, but Elise made me feel like just another high school boy with a hopeless crush.

Elise wasn’t judgmental. She could be fiery and rude and make dumb decisions, but she didn’t hold people’s pasts against them. She’d been through some terrible shit herself, though I didn’t know the true extent of it until recently.

We fell out of contact during community college, and only started talking again this past year. It’s so good to hear her voice again, but the things she tells me are like daggers in my heart.

From family dysfunction to medical debt to abusive relationships, Elise has been through so much since I last saw her. She says she’s safe now, and I take some comfort in that. But then she tells me that she hides our conversations from her boyfriend, and I feel my guts twisting into knots.

I believe her when she tells me she’s better off than she was, but that doesn’t actually mean she’s in a good place. It feels like she’s just resigned herself to her current life. She’s far away from any of the people she grew up with, in a city where she has no friends, with a boyfriend she’s financially dependent on after an injury.

She sounds so happy when she talks to me. We reminisce about the people and places we have in common, and I can hear the joy in her voice. She tells me I’m one of her best friends.

Years ago that statement would have set my heart ablaze. Now it just makes me sad. I should not be one of her best friends. There should be so many people ahead of me in that line, but Elise is so alone that somehow I make the cut.

She deserves so much better than the life she has now. I hate the people who hurt her, and I hate the world that’s trapped and isolated her.

I want to help Elise, but I have no idea how. I don’t have much money, and I know she wouldn’t accept it if I offered. She lives halfway across the country, so visiting her regularly isn’t an option. Even if I did, would we have to hide the visits from her boyfriend?

My therapist thinks I’m doing the right thing just by being a friendly voice for her to talk to, but I don’t think it’s enough. It can never be enough when her material circumstances are so awful. I wish I could do more, but all I see are problems and no solutions.