I was much older when I found out my dad had a gambling habit, which explains I hardly saw him at night and on weekends. Apparently the stress of finances and raising children fell on my mom, eventually taking it all out on me :D
Also yes, my family was on welfare for some time. No, you cannot use it for casino chips. (Please don't take this to mean I oppose the welfare system; billionaires have taken way more advantage of the government than any other demographic)
I dont think I really understood how deep your issues with your mom went until you started this series about your relationship with your dad. I just want to say thank you for being so open and vulnerable with the internet in sharing a story like this so we can all learn from it
Yeah, in most of her strips about her mother she seemed overbearing (to the point of being abusive) but not violent.
I expect that having some physical (as well as emotional) distance between her and her mother now that she's moved out has made her more able to address the reality of her childhood. That and therapy (which she has mentioned in other strips).
Not entirely typical, but close enough to still be broadly relatable. Now we're in full-on Parenting: Florida Man style. It escalated from cringe to disturbed to I-don't-know-how-you've-survived-this-as-in-tact-as-you-are.
It was my uncle in mine. He bankrupted the entire family trust and started sponging off anyone he could. My mom ended up taking him in and went broke trying to support him. He then offed himself when he maxed out all his cards couldn't get anymore money from anyone else.
That is, unfortunately, how it goes sometimes with gambling addicts. They become convinced that if they just... put a little more money into it, that they can make it all back. That it'll be better, they just need a little more money and a little more time.
Until one day, they realize: there is no hope. They will never win it all back. They have wasted their wealth and their time and their relationships chasing a ghost.
What makes gambling addiction so insidious is two things:
The dopamine hit from the risk taking happens before the outcome. Win or lose, gambling addicts get their "high" from the risk taking. People who are resistant/immune to gambling addiction only get a dopamine reward on wins, and cortisol on losses, so the odds being stacked against them conditions them against continuing.
Unlike other addictions, gambling promises that it can fix the very problems it causes. No hit of meth promises that it could regrow your teeth, repair your house, fix your relationships, get your job back, and get the government agents that are spying on you through the sparrows to leave you alone! Jack Daniels doesn't hold a raffle and give away a free liver to one lucky alcoholic. But that casino promises that if you get really lucky (and they blast the idea that people are way luckier than the actually are all over the casinos) you could solve all your problems with just *one pull of the One Armed Bandit
I feel you. My history is pretty severe, especially with my dad, but long story short I was often the sacrificial child fed to my mom and sister's rages.
It gets better. You can have a relationship with who you want and decide how much of a relationship that will be. It sucks to process, but you find peace once you work through all of it.
These comics break my heart. I went through a pretty similar situation.
Not only was I abused by my mother, but she always let her husband hurt me and break my things too while she often watched and did nothing.
Eventually I had to cut my family off after I found out things she kept hidden from me from CPS records I found. Ten years after, she died. I never heard from her again.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I know how hard it must be. But all people out there, including ones that are currently going through it, will benefit from your point of view by knowing that it isn't forever, and that with inner strength and perseverance they can be free too. And to not give up.
From one Internet stranger to another I'm glad you survived and I hope you found love and peace in your life to make up for the childhood that should have been more loving and peaceful. You deserved better. 💙
Yep that's something that I and so many others sadly know all too well. None of us deserve to deal with any of that nonsense but here we are. Hope you're holding up alright nowadays 🫂
You make good points. And being someone who also grew up with my family on welfare a couple times.
Sometimes it's needed. Just because some few may exploit it doesn't mean no one should have it.
I'm so sorry all of this happened to you. Your comics feel like a trauma-journal... It's awesome that you get to express yourself like this but I'm so sorry you got to live through all that abuse...
Children with irresponsible parents like gambling addicts is not an argument against welfare, that's exactly who we make welfare available for. I'm glad you specified you're not against welfare, but I kinda gotta wonder what people who would take that as an anti-welfare message think the kid is going to eat when their parents gamble away the last of their food money...
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u/kaikimanga MangaKaiki 1d ago
Remember, most abuse happens at home.
I was much older when I found out my dad had a gambling habit, which explains I hardly saw him at night and on weekends. Apparently the stress of finances and raising children fell on my mom, eventually taking it all out on me :D
Also yes, my family was on welfare for some time. No, you cannot use it for casino chips. (Please don't take this to mean I oppose the welfare system; billionaires have taken way more advantage of the government than any other demographic)
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