I'm new here, just registered, and I learned to manage depression and anxiety disorder a few years ago, thinking that was the low point of my life.
It wasn't.
I got through bad flooding, the death of my father, the pandemic, divorce, my son's drug addiction, abuse. A rare bone disability...learned to live with that.
None of this compares to suddenly finding myself getting older in a country turning from free world to dictatorship seemingly overnight at the same time I am becoming physically too disabled to hide it.
I feel like an actress in a low budget movie where each way I turn the way immediately gets blocked with something evil or unpleasant!
I'm in a lot of pain too and need financially to work for 3 more years until social security (assuming that's not blocked also by then)
I had been adding to my qualifications ('look at me going back to college and stuff in my fifties', was so proud for a while!) and relying on applying to companies with DEI policies once I can no longer walk, except now many companies in the US have dropped them, and Mr Trump has banned them in anything funded by the government.
My state has no Medicaid expansion and was difficult before all this, I never even applied for disability benefits because I would have to be able to support myself for so long without working (or working means it proves I'm not disabled) and there's no way to say here: my disability is progressive and worsening, I need to apply now for when I need it.
It really has all become horribly hopeless.
Even then I was getting through it but now my only son has become an obnoxious nightmare . Far from asking him for support as I have given him when his life got hard, suddenly I find myself constantly dodging his abuse and criticism., and fearing physically worse Yesterday he said, not for the first time "I hate you.' And suddenly nothing else matters. I've been dragging myself around for weeks trying to help him in what seems to be yet another self-inflicted (drug-fueled) drama, and I decided not to retaliate or criticize or fight. It seems like that is the equivalent of putting a sign on my back 'kick me' to an adult child. Literally a few times, when he's been coming off drugs, I have been physically harmed, but there is very little positively a parent can do about that kind of domestic violence. It's barely recognized, filial abuse.
Anyway, I am staying with him right now, he thinks it's for my benefit, but I thought I was helping him get back on his feet after a job loss. Then I thought he just needed more time. Last month he needed help to make rent despite a check from his father and we argued about money waste. Food delivery and cigarettes being two causes.
I've been buying so much food, never knew he was still ordering it in as well!
I have now reached the end of my resources, though I try to 'think outside the box' with complex problems.
I'm a fairly joyful soul all told, adaptive, capable, creative, caring. People love that side of me. So I have been unable to tell anyone how hard things are. My son hates me being cheerful.
I'd decided not to let my son know how bad I feel until he's feeling better. He had said he needed to rest for a while. Okay. 3 months later he does not wash and sits around complaining about how terrible life is.
All my windows for resolution or happiness are closing as I sit on hold. But it would be worth it to see him take responsibility and move forward.
The opposite is happening and this last week has simply pushed me over the edge.
I feel I've had my life, I made out okay, I enjoyed being a parent too for a long time, so why stick around now for a horrible painful demise?
I don't know if I make any sense.
It wasn't.
I got through bad flooding, the death of my father, the pandemic, divorce, my son's drug addiction, abuse. A rare bone disability...learned to live with that.
None of this compares to suddenly finding myself getting older in a country turning from free world to dictatorship seemingly overnight at the same time I am becoming physically too disabled to hide it.
I feel like an actress in a low budget movie where each way I turn the way immediately gets blocked with something evil or unpleasant!
I'm in a lot of pain too and need financially to work for 3 more years until social security (assuming that's not blocked also by then)
I had been adding to my qualifications ('look at me going back to college and stuff in my fifties', was so proud for a while!) and relying on applying to companies with DEI policies once I can no longer walk, except now many companies in the US have dropped them, and Mr Trump has banned them in anything funded by the government.
My state has no Medicaid expansion and was difficult before all this, I never even applied for disability benefits because I would have to be able to support myself for so long without working (or working means it proves I'm not disabled) and there's no way to say here: my disability is progressive and worsening, I need to apply now for when I need it.
It really has all become horribly hopeless.
Even then I was getting through it but now my only son has become an obnoxious nightmare . Far from asking him for support as I have given him when his life got hard, suddenly I find myself constantly dodging his abuse and criticism., and fearing physically worse Yesterday he said, not for the first time "I hate you.' And suddenly nothing else matters. I've been dragging myself around for weeks trying to help him in what seems to be yet another self-inflicted (drug-fueled) drama, and I decided not to retaliate or criticize or fight. It seems like that is the equivalent of putting a sign on my back 'kick me' to an adult child. Literally a few times, when he's been coming off drugs, I have been physically harmed, but there is very little positively a parent can do about that kind of domestic violence. It's barely recognized, filial abuse.
Anyway, I am staying with him right now, he thinks it's for my benefit, but I thought I was helping him get back on his feet after a job loss. Then I thought he just needed more time. Last month he needed help to make rent despite a check from his father and we argued about money waste. Food delivery and cigarettes being two causes.
I've been buying so much food, never knew he was still ordering it in as well!
I have now reached the end of my resources, though I try to 'think outside the box' with complex problems.
I'm a fairly joyful soul all told, adaptive, capable, creative, caring. People love that side of me. So I have been unable to tell anyone how hard things are. My son hates me being cheerful.
I'd decided not to let my son know how bad I feel until he's feeling better. He had said he needed to rest for a while. Okay. 3 months later he does not wash and sits around complaining about how terrible life is.
All my windows for resolution or happiness are closing as I sit on hold. But it would be worth it to see him take responsibility and move forward.
The opposite is happening and this last week has simply pushed me over the edge.
I feel I've had my life, I made out okay, I enjoyed being a parent too for a long time, so why stick around now for a horrible painful demise?
I don't know if I make any sense.
