Blizzard is ruining my life!

I'm really hating this blizzard. I was wanting to go no-contact or maybe just contact a couple times a year with my family but this evil blizzard has ruined all those plans.

First, I haven't been able to go out to pick up my tiny little paycheck, so that means that my health insurance didn't get paid on time. I think I can still fix that, but it's aggravating. Then, there was a bit of melted snow in my hallway that I didn't know about & I slipped on it and took a VERY bad fall -- pretty sure I got a concussion & definitely have lots of nerve pain. So I was going to go to my pain doc today to get shots -- which I had to beg for a loan to cover. Except some private snow plow (the city swears it wasn't a public plow) ran down our alley & snowed my car into the garage with 3-4 feet of snow.

So that brings us to today & dumb me I decided I would try to shovel myself out of the garage. Well, that didn't work at all & I missed my emergency appointment and have to wait until Monday. Plus, my garage won't close b/c there's snow stuck where it's supposed to close. And I collapsed out in the garage & some group of Guatemalen snow shovelers had to carry me to my apartment. Which brings me to my next bad encounter with my family -- I can get one med (not what I really want, but it's my only option) but have to get a ride to the pharmacy & borrow $35 to go get it (that's my discounted amount).

So I've taken more flack that I can stand today. I apparently am just the most horrible, laziest person in the world. My parents are now (god knows why) trying to file to take custody of me. They've started proceedings in the past & didn't get far so I'm hoping that will be the case again this time. When I've lived with them in the past I've basically been on "house-arrest" except to go to work. Sometimes they would even take my car keys from under my pillow and refuse to give them back to me b/c they said "wouldn't it just be easier if we drove you to & from work". WHAT??!!!! In what world?! They just don't like that I have Christian friends & will do anything to ensure that I can't spend any time with them at all.

This whole thing just sucks. My old phone died suddenly & I don't have most of my friends cell numbers (they don't have landlines). I am trying to rebuild my contacts list, but in the meantime I am stranded unless I can take care of something myself.

It's depressing enough to be trapped in your home but it's probably a million times worse to be trapped & in horrific pain (pretty sure I have a concussion) and to have my family totally berating me. Somehow I also need to fight through the pain to hide my grad school textbooks b/c they don't know I'm in school & that would probably just start a whole new round of fights -- even though the grants are paying for my classes, fees, books & everything.

I just hate having to depend on them. :( I feel like the scum of the earth -- maybe lower than the scum of the earth. I keep telling myself that I don't want to die but it's hard when it feels like my own family hates how much of a failure & inconvenience I am to them.

Hello, Frances,

If you had a brain concussion, you should tell your parents immediately what happened to you, and they should get you into an emergency room for x-ray. You could have delayed reactions that could be very serious, Frances. No kidding; it's not something to hope
that will just go away, especially if you fainted shoveling snow after having had the fall. Please don't postpone getting your brain checked
for swelling or possible bleeding.

I'm saying a prayer for you that everything will be okay. The problem
with your parents should be put on a back burner until you get the fall checked out.

It's Genetic

Thanks, all. I didn't faint while shoveling snow. I just collapsed slowly to the ground in pain -- no hitting my head or fainting. I just have a bad back as it is & this made it worse.

Karen, they don't want me going back to teaching bilingual. They are racist against the children I used to (and want to again) teach & don't really have much regard for teaching even in mainstream classrooms. Everyone else in my family pulls down six-figure incomes (including my sibs) and they can't see how a sane person would "throw her life away teaching children". They have a racial-slur version of that to refer specifically to hispanic children. It irritates me to no end. When I became Christian, I decided that I wanted to live my life to please God, rather than just to make as much money as possible. I changed my major from accounting to education & never heard the end of it. I hated my accounting internship, so I probably wouldn't have continued as an accounting major in any case, but they are just very, very unhappy that I choice education.

They keep telling me I should take out loans & go to business school to study finance or IT or something that "would make me happy" -- since they equate huge income with happiness, which I find peculiar since none of them are happy.

Yes, they can file the case. The last time the hearing officer threw it out on day 2, before I ever had to appear. My guess is that would happen the same this time but I had a full-time job the last time they tried and a counselor I was seeing twice a week who had met my mom & wrote the court a letter saying that the whole thing was absolute nonsense & I was totally capable of making my own decisions in life and plenty of people choose professions that pay less but are more fulfilling (she was a nun, so that statement carried a lot of weight).

All this complete craziness is why I want absolutely nothing to do with them. They seem normal until you get to know them closer & then you realize just how insane they are (esp. my mom, though dad enables her). My counselor was not sure I wasn't exaggerating things even though she had seen people as sick as my mom when she worked in a psych hospital. But when my mom came in to talk with her & didn't immediately get the counselor to agree with her, she turned on the counselor, telling her she was a horrible woman & a liar & destructive & that she ought to have her license revoked & on & on & on until my counselor finally pretended to agree with her just to get her to leave her office. So, I'm not the only one my mom is so hateful toward. She always has to have someone to hate -- my gma, uncle, sibs, me, dad, etc. And though she doesn't tell her clients off, which is why she's so successful, she complains about them & her bosses to absolutely everyone, including the mailman, meat delivery man, florist, grocer, or anyone else she spends 30 seconds or more with.

Part of me knows she is totally insane & I can't believe anything she says, but I've just heard it over & over & over & over again all my life, usually while being beaten to within an inch of my life. I am trying to focus on what is true, but that is sometimes easier said that done.

I'm gonna try to see if I can't dig up some of my friends' numbers maybe in boxes in basement. I can't continue to be around them when things are already going so wrong.

Sorry that I mentioned your seeing a physician in the emergency room at the hospital, but you did say you were sure you had a concussion, and that could have been dangerous.

How can a family group who have members who are all making six-figure salaries not be more aware of the problems of your mother and still support the thinking that is going on in the home? You would think that the educational level of people who are capable of making hundreds of thousands annually would have taught them something about people and at least to have compassion for others, especially another family member who must struggle to get her education. Why would you have to need loans to get through school? With incomes as high as those of your family, there should be more than enough to see to it that you get a good education; and they certainly should recognize that not everyone is gong to want the same or comparable job in life. There are things here that just don't make sense. I understand that they disapprove of your choice of career fields, but that doesn't explain the unwillingness of at least one of them to have compassion for you and to offer assistance. Was your mother's influence that devastating to the children? And if so, how are your siblings able to sustain careers with those attitudes that enable them to have high income levels? You usually think that people who are intelligent and able to have careers like that are at least aware of social needs and have knowledge of the world, at least enough to know that social exclusion is not a high level of psychological functioning which makes earning a high salary inconsistent and unsustainable. Something is wrong with this whole situation.

You would think that someone in your family would have insisted that your mother get the psychiatric help she needed years ago to correct a serious self-image she has, not to mention the tyrannical nature--which is a tragedy.

This case is a really puzzling one. I hope you find strength to be open and fair with your own life and seek help to overcome the effects of what's happening in the family.

It's Genetic

Post Edited (It's Genetic) : 2/5/2011 8:24:14 AM (GMT-7)

Cass-
Thanks for the encouragement; it really, really helps. :)

I can get a pro bono Mental Health attorney to help me with the case again this time -- the same legal aid clinic that helped me that last time telling me what to do. I just don't really need one more thing on my plate right now. Fortunately, they are going to be traveling again for a couple weeks, so I don't have to deal with this nonsense for a little while. yea.

I just found out that my PT employer is trying to contest my UI claim -- I'm pretty sure they don't have anything to say that will prevent me from eventually getting the money, but it may be delayed & I'm pretty frustrated about that.

The quote is one step forward, two steps back -- and that applies to me perfectly. So frustrating. I am trying not to listen to the craziness my family says, though. Keep trying to remember that one counselor in the psych ward who said that money & power mixed with mental illness make for a dangerous combination. My family always says that if you are smart & well-off, that must mean that you are sane. It's hard for me to accept that the poorest person of the bunch may also be the sanest.

But I got a call from a friend today & one of my managers at the store where I work is going to help me protest corporate's decisions about my UI benefits & my future employment with the company. So I do feel like I have a few people on my side. I think that's what I struggle with most... no one believed me when I was young about what was going on. My mom always had excuses for everything to give to doctors, police, school officials or nosy neighbors. Once people started to realize I was telling the truth, it was very freeing & empowering. Somehow things are feeling like they did when I was young, again. My counselor keeps working with me on telling myself that I have made & am making the right decisions about my life. All the phone calls don't exactly reinforce that concept & when you throw my crazy family in the mix, it just makes things worse. I feel like I am fighting a battle for my spirit & though I haven't been defeated, I'm definitely not winning right now.

So I guess we just keep at it. Keep dealing with the stress of being broke & jobless & everything. Keep dealing with the collection calls. Keep dealing with the fears. Keep dealing with crazy family members (as infrequently as possible). It's just so tiring -- every time I think things are starting to inch toward being better, something comes along & sends me back, back, back. idk.

anyways, thanks so much for your support. it means so much. ;)

here 4 ya, jamie. keep fightin'.

Keep well Frances. I feel for you. You know that your not alone. We're here for you. As Jamie says 'keep fighting' :)

many hugs, arielle.

Frances,

I love these lyrics and I hope they make a difference in your day, today.

Let the rain come down and wash away my tears

Let it fill my soul and drown my fears

Let is shatter the wall for a new sun

A new day has come !

Your welcome Frances :) Anytime x x