Ugggh.

*Edit: This is a bunch of late night, stressed rambling. I'll look it over and decide what to do with this thread after I can reread it from a proper computer screen.

Spoiler: Teal fucking deer.

Okay so it's nearly 4am and I'm afraid to turn this off and try sleeping. Part of it is that I have my very first (that I can remember anyway) labwork appointment tomorrow to check for shit like diabetes and whatever else. Noonish, fasting, all that good stuff.

For various reasons of the anxiety?depression?ADHD?criplingfuckinginertia???? kind, I do not have health insurance. My dad would be well off financially if it weren't for various expenses (the family house no one lives in that needs to be sold, alimony to my mom---his ex-wife---etcetcetc. Nonetheless he offered to pay for some things, to help me get the ball rolling with everything. Like he paid for the first appointment, where I went and got weighed and blood pressure and such, and talked about my concerns (depression, alcoholic mother and absent father and doing so little with my life). But I don't know if he'll pay for tomorrow. I was afraid to ask.

See, like two or three years ago, mom had moved out and it was just him and me. He was neck deep in hard work and towering bills and the noxious influence of Mom blaming her every problem on my dad or her mother---blaming her mom when she's okay with dad but not with her mom, blaming dad when she's back on a family kick and resenting him for, you know, /working/ when she's shit at budgeting until she's almost out, and not being around or emotionally available when her brothers died, and whatever else.

So I was there depression and self loathing, dad was there less depressed by more saddened by life events with self loathing enforced by the woman he married and raised kids with. He drank, watched TV, worked, and told me I needed to get my shit together and get a real job, and maybe it would be good for me to be homeless for a little while, maybe that would teach me to appreciate and properly use the opportunities available to me. That my problem was that I didn't /want// anything bad enough to work to get it, and if only I wanted something I would do something about it.

The winter of 2013-2014, he moved out too to be near his family. Over an hour's drive; available for an emergency, but not around much. I was stuck there with the family dog, everyone else having moved out. Dad didn't give me money for things like heat or food. I was working a shit part time minimum age job. If I did nothing for my student loans, I could get myself oil. He told me to let him know when it got low, so he could order more oil, but he still kept only filling it up so much. It never occurred to him to fill the fucking tanks so I wouldn't have days where it got low and had to turn it off to preserve some for until the truck came by. And I was so full of being a burden that I almost never asked.

So like... Now he's dating a very kind woman, whose eldest son is smart and introverted and has trouble with inertia and overanalysis, a young man who is /so much like me/. A son who figured out when he was 14 that something was wrong, and got his parents to grt him checked out for depression. Who has been through therapy and medication for years. And who still struggles with the things I struggle with.

Dad says his conversations with her, about their respected brilliant andndepressed older children, have taught hhima lot. That he didn't get whybI was struggling?img, that he has some of the same things but managed to work through them and he assumed I was refusing to do the same. That he knows better,, that he wants to help, that he doesn't know what exactly to do but that he will do whaver is in his without doing it all f he can.

Sounds almost too good to be true. He took over the one student loan he'# a cosigner on, but none of the others (until the house is sold mortgage eats up a lot, maybe he can more after). He paid the $50 co-pay for the first doctor appointment. Yesterday they sent me aemails about some TED talk on introversion, with notes about how it connects to him wanting me to find a good balance for myself between who I am and what I need to do.

I didn't get back to him quickly, not til today. I was thinking. And then, today he didn't reply to my text about me heading down to his place to stay ttil theappointment today. No sign about what to do if there are more payments. No sign if it's a lesson about getting back to him in a timely mannen. And all his promises taste like ash and what if

What if it wasn't mom who is the manipulator the source of unkindness, what if they bring out the worst in each other, but the worst is still in each and able to be brought out alone? What if his kindness is like the early flirtation in that one comic about the guy with the "crazy exgirlfriend" where it's s lacedwith insincerties and indifference that he drives people away for a reason?

What if it's just him giving me introvert friendly space, if he's just trying to not do things for me, but waiting nervously for me to ask for he!P? What if he will help, but only what I ask? What if my unwellness is that I have trouble asking and trouble believing I"ll get help if I do?

What if he just forgot because he didnB5 care?

My dreams last night Inc!uded fighting monsters and being covered in red amts, alarming but not painful, like the foot they were on was not really me but a shell, but if theynclimbed inside they could hurt me ans i would be trapped iunable to get them out unabl le to wipe off. I woke in fear and anticipation of harm. And whenever I think of getting he!P from either parent, that fear returns.

Neither of my parents ever hit me or raped me or anythin. They screamed at each other and helped at me and my bro, unkind words full of shit we shoould do, implyithat things would be better if we obeyed. One time mom put a hand around dad's throat while he was driving. Apparently I missed the worst when I went to college.

Dad bought the car I drove and pays for the insurance and regulation. Mom helped me move and offered to pay for a therapist. Dad encourages me to talk more with my extended family,as they would love to help. They express willingness to help me, while treating each other like shit. Sometimes over traits I share with them. :)

Fwiw, I do not live in that house now. I am with three friends in an apartment, of varying brainweirds. I am just sick with shame because I have been unable to help wbecause student loans and I keep get angry me to erupt that anger they're feeling surely at me and make an ultimatum that I can't meet.

I mean I hear our worst fears are things we've lived before.

I wrote this so hopefully I can sleep. I will come back with a question or multiple questions later.

Maybe this should be moved to Is This Abuse? Idk. The car choking was fucked up and while I remember the exact part of which road it was and the season I don't remember the year or the sight of it, I only even remember that it was mom to dad because it didn't set of the gendered warning bells a certain kind of female solidarity taught.

I keep writing this looking for views and replies. Acknowledgement. Validation? Like I want to reach out and grab someone and cling to them in a hug cuddle coddle where they stroke my head and I dismiss the world til I feel better but no one is here and the only people I think might comenif I called are the people my problems are regarding. I'm gonna a turn pa Dora to final fantasy music and try to sleep.

 

That's the thing where it's like, I can't say he threatened me? He never said it directly to me as a "do this or X," it was more "maybe you would learn the thing if you experienced the thing I feared and worked so hard to avoid." A musing to himself tone, a frustrated don't know what to do tone. No direct threats.

I mean this is the guy whose alcoholic wife hit him at least twice that I know of, and still paid half the cost of a small house for her mother to live independently. He'll whine and complain and say ominous things and be a jerk, but the responsibility of providing a home for family is Big to him.

I'm not super willing to testify that's how he meant it, anyway. I get into moods where I'm half convinced that every time my roommate scoots back in her computer chair, it's done more loudly than necessary to show that she doesn't have to be quiet and I just need to cope.

That mood sounds a lot like my mom. I'll... get into that later when I can type with the keyboard.

 

And... Thank you for the perspective and the hugs and comfort. They are appreciated. I'm in a more cerebral sort of remove right now as I was talking about some of this with the 4oommate I mentioned, and a bit out of emotions.