Great Way To Start The New Year Im Desperate For A Way Out Very Long Post

my family situation is so irreparably f*cked up.

i know, i know- "it could always be worse", but try living a day in my shoes and then try telling me that again. my life is a hell that NOBODY can close to empathizing with.

yes, there are situations out there so that are seemingly significantly more dire, such as families caught in wars, homeless families, families where members die in accidents, etc.

now i don't mean to sound selfish nor do i mean to belittle all of your problems, but what i'm going through is so infinitely worse than any of that (or anything else i can think of).

my hell has existed since i was born 24 years ago. my parents, two people who "NEVER "should of under any circumstances ever met (let alone consummated and produced a child), have completely ruined my life.

they came from two completely different backgrounds in europe.

my mother was from an extremely loving and good affluent jewish family; she had a great education, was set to marry a doctor, etc.

my father was the completely opposite. he was raised in a tiny mountain town with no eduction and a pretty messed up family himself. his mother abandoned him for many years and he was brought up by another woman. he came from a group of six siblings.

my father has always been an extremely hard working man, working in the construction field (specifically as a contractor specializing in flooring in high end homes). he travelled all around the world for his work before i was born.

my mother lived a more sheltered but proper life, having gone to a good school, being very tight knit with her overly loving family (especially after much of it perished in the second world war) and was on the right path in general. that is, until she met my father.

he was working in her country on a high end spa resort/hotel when they met. from what i'm told, it was a love at first sight type of affair; he was a gentlemen of the highest calibre- treated her like a queen. they fell deeply in love and she eventually wanted to introduce him to her family.

from the beginning they weren't too please by her decision to marry someone from his country. after a while together they moved to the capital city of his nation before eventually coming overseas to north america, where her wealthy uncle was a guarantor for them.

she had plenty of family here, all of which was well off, so it wasn't an issue having a place to settle down for the first bit. my father found work pretty quickly and would soon after dive into his rotten lifestyle.

despite having a jaw-droppingly beautiful and educated young wife at home, he decided instead to go to bars and clubs after work where he would blow all his money and drink heavily (something which has gotten him in trouble countless times; he's currently in his mid-60's and without a license for the past six years).

the fights began and he would go out night after night, leaving her all alone in their apartment.

soon after they did the worst thing possible and decided to have a child. i can't stress enough to you what a terrible decision this was. they really didn't think ahead when they decided to have a kid.

they were older by the time they decided to have me; he was almost 40 and she was in her mid-30's.

i came into the picture and things were alright for a bit, but no sooner than i my first birthday he started going out, blowing money like a big shot and boozing heavily.

my earliest memories are just of them fighting. ALWAYS fighting.

even when her parents and grandmother came to visit from europe (which was a huge occasion) he would come home at 3/4am completely wasted.

they urged her to leave him, but as the case with so many women in an abusive relationship, something kept her by his side no matter what.

in their culture, no matter how unhappy a marriage, husband and wife would stick together for the benefit of the child so divorce was never an option. i sure wish they'd divorced when i was a toddler.

the fights were "constant." when he drank he'd get violent and i remember so many times him coming home in the early morning hours in fits of violence for no apparent reason. my mom would run into my room and we'd push my desk against the door so he couldn't get in.

he was never really violent towards me, but always towards my mother, be it verbally or physically. their constant and extremely loud and violent arguments became the soundtrack to my life. even when i was at school, i'd still hear their traumatizing exchanges in my head.

you can't imagine how much time i spent in my youth crying while sitting against my door preventing either of them from coming into my room.

so many fights. a fight a day. not just little ones, but substantial ones. every. single. day.

sitting here writing this is bringing back so many terrible memories, but i want to go on. i'm reliving it all vividly.

i remember pretty early on that suicide became very lucrative to me. when their fights got "really "bad i would run into the kitchen and grab the sharpest knife, which i'd put to my throat as firmly as i could threatening to cut my self if they didn't stop. this was around age seven. this wasn't a tactic to scare them into stopping; i was completely serious. i couldn't stand the arguments anymore. the fights progressively got worse and my suicidal displays were no longer staged in front of them. it was now getting very serious. i'd go into my room and sit against the door like i did so many times before and just try to imagine how everything would play out if i killed myself right there and then (i held the knife very firmly against my throat or wrists while "thinking" always). i'd imagine my beige carpets drenched in my young blood and how they'd have to break down the door to get to me. i so badly wanted to end my life. it was "ALWAYS "on my mind. there's 365 days in a year; i'd spend about 2/3's of them wanting to end my miserable little life for years.

seeing as we lived on the 10th floor of an apartment building, jumping was always an option as well, though not nearly as lucrative as the more theatric slitting of the wrists or throat.

i suppose i never "did it", because i was either a) too much of a coward or b) because my naive self thought things would get better. lets not kid ourselves, the latter is just what i tell myself so i don't think i'm a coward (when in fact it's been well documented through my life that i'm the biggest of cowards).

my father continued his impossible-to-break habit of boozing, going out and spending money. it started out that a cop would pull him over, he'd blow something shockingly over the legal limit, and would have his license revoked for a couple months. this happened over and over and over again until it landed him in prison for a few months (not "full" prison, but the one where he'd get to work during the week and only had to spend weekends there). it also got his license revoked for three years. this was when he was around 57. he's now in his mid-60's and hasn't gone for his license since having the ability to own one reinstated. both my mother and i think it's because a) he doesn't trust himself and knows he'd repeat the same mistake (which would land him in prison for a long time this time) and b) because in his older age now he's unable to remember things nor does he speak the language with any proficiency.

why did i skip all these years and jump straight to when he was in his late 50's? because there's no point in me documenting my time in the household year by year; it was all the same, never got better, only worse. my contemplation of suicide was constant, just like the fights.

i jumped to his drinking he never bothered to study it when he was younger and came here). she'd probably live in a tiny apartment without him.

back to me... i'm a massive failure of a son. i was always the worst student in school and never did well in any classes from elementary school through to the little post-secondary schooling i have behind me. i don't know why, but i could never comprehend what i was taught and always hand tremendous difficulty concentrating in classes.

i failed classes left and right in high school. got in with a bad crowd for a bit, but broke those ties before i graduated. seeing as my grades were so poor i never made it to university like *all* of my friends, but had to go to a crappy college. i took business just to please my parents, but the failures just continued. i eventually, after almost two years, dropped out as there was no point in going on. how could i do well studying something i hated? i pursued my artistic passions (i was always extremely artistic) and am currently doing something i love. unfortunately, doing what i love hasn't paid very well at all so i'm forced to stay at home, in a toxic and hindering household.

my parents view me as a failure because i neither finished any serious school or 'cause i don't make nearly enough money to support myself. they'll never admit they think of me as a failure, but they constantly are suggesting i go back to school or learn some trade similar to my fathers and do that (which i wouldn't be caught dead doing).

i've experienced some success in my career and intend to go forward with it (along with other artistic ventures).

the thing with my parents is that when it was just me and one or the other, they were the best parents a kid could ever ask for. i had the best relationship ever with them on an individual level and would never want a different set of parents. i love them each so very much that there are no words in any vocabulary on earth to describe how i feel for them. i can't imagine my life without one or the other. i wouldn't be me. they've never slept in the same bed together so growing up i would always sleep with my dad (up until a pretty late age actually). then i would spend my days with my mom going on all sorts of adventures. it was a terrible house to grow up in, but it worked (sort of).

as resentful as i may sound towards my father, i do love the man a lot. he has provided for me since i was born. he has ensured i can live a comfortable life with my mother from a physical standpoint. mentally he has been a tyrant of the highest order, which i wish so desperately could be changed, but i've come to accept never will.

i think it's true that my mom has made some financially bad decisions which have affected us negatively, but that's absolutely no reason for him to treat her how he does. he treats her like a piece of waste. i can't stand to see it. he even dares to lay his dirty old rotten paws on her at his older age. if i were around when he hit her recently i would of seriously harmed him. when he's physically violent towards her (which is very very seldom these days; hadn't been years prior to a recent attack) i want to
him. i tell her i'm going to stab him in his heart in his sleep and she just pleads with me not to. all i see is red when he does this. how DARE he attack the woman that does every single thing for him. he's a Barsteward for being how he is. my mother and i constantly talk about how we can change him, but we both admit there's just no way at this point. he'll never go see a therapist or doctor. even if he did, he would just blame every single thing on us and would tell the doctor to
off.

he's honestly like a wild untamed violent animal of some sort. his constant daily verbal attacks have grown so violent that we both just ignore him. even when my mom calls just to see when she should pick him up he's absolutely ballistic. he constantly curses her and yells at her, even in front of other people. this drives me nuts.

when at home he's so verbally abusive that there's zero chance for having a normal conversation with him. you literally can't even say hi to him without getting some sort of a violent and vulgar reply. it's so bad. i've, very sadly, grown to completely ignore him. it bothers my mom seeing that i've had no real relationship with him for the past couple years, but how can she expect me to given how he is? i live in the same house as him yet i don't have more than five minutes interaction with him daily. our daily interaction consists of him coming to check the lotto results on the tv by me and telling me to get a real job since he'll be unable to work in a year or two max and then we're screwed. these constant threads/forewarnings annoy me so much and just drive me further away from him. i understand we're financially royally f*cked, but i just wish we could have some other topic to discuss. i used to be so close to him and wanted nothing more than to be with him growing up. i'd stare out the window waiting for him to come home and then would run and hug him so hard. whenever my mother and i went to europe to visit her family i'd anxiously await his phone calls so i could hear his voice. i'd cry because i'd miss him so much. i'd run around town trying to buy him gifts. we used to play soccer together and always talk and play games. it was great when it was us. but in his senior years he's grown into someone i resent and want nothing to do with.

my mom seems to be bi-polar when it comes to my dad. when i complain to her about him she tells me not to and that i should try to understand his position. then she goes off on extremely bitter fits where she curses him and tells me how she would of rather broken her legs on her wedding day than marry him. she constantly tells me how she regrets ever having married this "cancer" (her word). constantly tells me how she was to wed a doctor from another prosperous family and how my father has only killed her spirit.

likewise, my dad always curses her.

it's such a poison situation and i regret so much not having done better in school. it would of lead to me getting a decent job and supporting myself so i could get away from them. from one side i'd feel very wrong if i were to move away. i want to be with them, but can't stand them. it's just us three here and we have nobody else. most of the people/family we knew has died off. death left and right since i was a kid. i want to be with them while they're alive, but i also want to live my own life. neither of them seem to want me to move out much. i don't know what to do.

the thing that sparked this insanely long post is todays incident... i suppose it was no different from other incidents we've had in the past. probably one of the more ballistic and violent ones. i was sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast and from a task so small and harmless as them cleaning the family room table one of the most violent fights between them escalated. i don't even know what it was over, but before i could really even notice i noticed them cursing each others dead parents (something they often do). she stormed off into the kitchen while he threatened to physically harm her. i think he held off because i was present and he knows i could stop him easily if it came to that. he lifted the vacuum and was motioning that he's about to smash it in her face. i got up and started demolishing everything in my path, yelling at the top of my lungs for them both to stop at once or i would swallow an entire bottle of lysol (which i was already putting in my mouth). they ignore this and kept going. i just stormed off to my basement smashing more things on the way down and telling my mom to stop since when she's quiet he's quiet. the fight went on for about an hour. just them yelling about how they regret everything with a bunch of profanity. i spent that hour downstairs doing something i haven't done in a very long time- crying. the constant hell i've lived through for the past 24 years has made me so cold and distant that i don't feel human anymore. i haven't cried in almost a decade, even when those closest to me died, nor have i felt any empathy/sympathy/compassion for anyone/anything. i've become completely desensitized to even the worst of things. i, very regretfully, inherited my fathers temper and seem to constantly argue with my mom. i feel terrible about it and always regret it immediately after.

this new years fight made me immediately google "depression forum" since i can't hold all this in anymore. i've been depressed my entire life because of my surroundings. why did i say my life is a hell worse than any other that anyone has experienced? because i've lived under this constant duress for over two decades. it has really been a constant hell the likes of which no one reading this can imagine. again, not to belittle your problems, but you'd really have to live in my shoes to know how bad it really is. i'm limited to describing these things with words.

what can i do to make this stop? i have such huge dreams and so much ambition, but can't get anything going while i'm in these surroundings. i don't want to leave them since god knows what would happen (my mom just the other day told me that when he gets super ballistic she fears he might
her), but i can't let them weigh me down.

i can't revolve my life around their marital issues. i need to somehow conquer this behemoth demon and start MY life. i've honestly had no life for 24 years. everyone i know is prospering and developing while i'm left behind. i haven't done a single thing with my life worth noting. i feel stuck. so much that i want to do, but can't. i'm in a constant battle with my self. part of me wants to end it and take the easy way out, but the other part of me- the one with all the larger than life dreams and blind ambition- won't let myself take that route. i want to do great things. please help me figure something out.

the messed up part is that all this is just related to my family issues. there are countless other issues, almost as dire, that lead to my depression. so many other bad things (for instance i was the victim of an attempted murder which left me very close to death when i was 15) have happened to me that have made me how i am.

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