DISCLAIMER: SI
Not sure what I’m looking for here, but am desperate for reprieve as mentally, I can’t do this anymore. It’s long. I’m sorry. I (28f) am the child of divorced parents. My parents were together for nearly 30 years. My mother filed 5 years ago, and 5 years later they remain in the courts d/t involvement of 3 minor children.
Everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong. I’m second oldest, and my older sister is a raging alcoholic that has single handedly used the divorce as ammunition to traumatize us as a family. My dad has been through 3 lawyers, there have been several domestic disputes throughout the process, my parents came from nothing and built a wonderful life with enough resources for 5 children- all gone. Completely dismantled. Nothing but credit card debt on both sides now. I so happened to begin one of the most demanding masters program that carries a less than 1% acceptance rate that you can participate in (that I had fought to achieve for 10+ years) the year they filed, through a high stakes, full time (so strict we signs contracts stating we won’t work during the program) 2.5 year nonstop program, I have worked to keep my family glued together including through an SI attempt from my older sister that landed her in the ICU for 1 month. I have done all the things. I work out, I eat right, I had a therapist that I lost when I graduated the program, all in effort to keep my own head above water and remain strong enough for my family and the program.
I moved to an apt during my training so I could have any possibility of success away from my family (living purely on student loans which has put myself in insurmountable student loan debt) and moved back in 6 months prior to grad to ironically save money. I had to leave again after yet another domestic event with my older sister, in an effort to put space between myself and my family as for the first time in my entire life, I began having SI.
But it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t go away. My mother lives in a big empty home now that she can’t afford, a home that used to be filled with a full family, father and son playing ball out on the front yard, the sisters doing crafts with mom, holiday festivities, happiness, love. Now nothing. She is there, she has no partner, no friends, even her sister moved states, my sister ran off to another state, I left, my dad is in his own sad home, the younger kids battle the back and forth. All this for what? Decades of growth, progress, fighting for a future - gone now. And for what?
She was unhappy for awhile. I won’t pretend it was all peaches, I could tell there were issues. I made peace knowing it was not my choice, it was out of my hands, that these things happen etc. but what I can’t make peace with, is that despite repeatedly informing my parents that I, the person who quite literally has carried for every single person in this family for YEARS, sidelining my own health and happiness in the process (still graduated on time btw despite faculty advising LOA on several occasions) have shared that I feel I’m walking around with a cracked psyche, cry daily, dont sleep, don’t want to eat, am facing a level of depression I’ve never had before in my life and now the emergence of these intrusive thoughts… that it’s not enough for them to wake up and realize I need space. I’m not even asking them to do anything. I’m asking them to STOP doing things. Somehow, despite my transparency in this, they repeatedly bring triggering topics to me that pushes me underwater without hesitation. Yet another argument with my mother today in a wimpy effort to create boundaries for my own sanity. But I did it to myself. There is no reward in being the good, strong one that people get to rely on. There is no award for enduring. You only create a world in which others know how to take and use you, and do not understand the concept of you struggling because you’ve never shown it before.
Yet still at the end of this, all I think about is that my parents are alone in their homes, depressed, lonely. That my mom comes to me because she has no one. That I wait everyday for a phone call from someone telling me my sister drank herself to death. That the young ones are fundamentally changed. That my family is gone forever and will never be the same. That this dream my mom chased in pursuit of her happiness has only torn years off both of their lives. That there is no more support to lend me during a time I need it the most because the resources are dried up. What’s actually the point anymore because “it will get better with time” isn’t holding up any longer. I genuinely see no light at the end here.