D
Donedonedone
Member
Hi, completely new here and just looking for some advice/insight.
For background, I am 24F who lives at home with my mom (61F) and younger brother (23M). My mom has a physical disability that has caused her to retire early, about 9 years ago, and my brother has schizophrenia that was diagnosed 8 years ago. They both mostly just stay at home and do errands together. My mom recently got a boyfriend within the last year, which has helped her make friends and get out to do her own thing once in a while. I work 40 hours a week so I'm not home much, and when I am I'm doing online schoolwork or just playing video games.
My main issue with how everything is going is, I feel like my mom doesn't care about mine and my brother's futures. Maybe she does but she isn't educated enough to know what a bright future looks like. (She dropped out in grade 7). I dropped out in grade 12 when my brother had his schizophrenic episode, as it caused me a lot of stress and ptsd-like symptoms. Looking back, I don't think it was necessary for me to drop out, especially since I only had half a year left, but my mom encouraged me to stay home. To be fair, I was transitioning to online school at the time, but it was very hard to do as we were going out of the city to multiple different hospitals and staying in different hotels all the time trying to figure out how to help my brother. At the time it seemed like the most important thing, but now that I'm older, and I was 17 at the time, I feel like my mom should have pushed for me to stay physically in school. Not trying to blame her too much for that, but if I was the parent I wouldn't let my kid drive around to hospitals every day over being in school. Obviously the dust was going to settle with my brother and now I just regret not finishing my own schooling.
This led to severe depression for me as I was always a high achiever growing up. I stayed home for three years, no school or work. When I turned 20 I decided to get a job finally. I had a boyfriend throughout all of this btw, who also dropped out of school, but before the schizophrenic episode. I ended up working in a very social environment, which helped me connect to the outside world again and remember who I was before the deep depression. I honestly think the job saved my life. And I'm going to be totally honest and say that it immediately made me look down upon my family. My boyfriend and I were the only ones working, and being around other productive people made me start to resent my mom and brother.
A couple years later, I broke up with my boyfriend after he made me pay for my birthday vacation, because he somehow messed up, still won't tell me what happened. He also lost his job after the vacation which attributed to the break up. It took me a long time to find myself after the break up, it's been a year and a half now, and I just feel like I'm at a stale mate. I'm happy that I'm working and finally going to graduate through online schooling, but I just wish I was out of the house.
I am going on 25 and feel like I'm still being held back. And the part where I'm worried that I'm being selfish about is, my mom's health isn't that great, it's getting better as she takes care of herself, but she has talked about after she is gone. She says she doesn't want me to abandon my brother. I told her I never would. I would never want him living with me though. And she says she feels like he would be forgotten if he was put into a home or a single apartment. This makes me feel like she wants me to live with him the rest of my life. I don't want to do that at all. I have a vision for my life, and I want my future kids to feel safe. My brothers episode involved an animal being hurt, and while he hasn't done anything like that since, he still has symptoms of the illness and they still bother me.
I've always just wanted a nice simple family, and frankly I don't think I can have that with my brother living with us. He's also unpredictable with his medicine, every 2 years he says he thinks he can go off of them and it always ends up badly and with him going to the hospital.
ANYWAYS, sorry for the story book. I just wanted to have enough background so hopefully I can get some advice on this situation and my guilt. Thank you for any feedback!!
For background, I am 24F who lives at home with my mom (61F) and younger brother (23M). My mom has a physical disability that has caused her to retire early, about 9 years ago, and my brother has schizophrenia that was diagnosed 8 years ago. They both mostly just stay at home and do errands together. My mom recently got a boyfriend within the last year, which has helped her make friends and get out to do her own thing once in a while. I work 40 hours a week so I'm not home much, and when I am I'm doing online schoolwork or just playing video games.
My main issue with how everything is going is, I feel like my mom doesn't care about mine and my brother's futures. Maybe she does but she isn't educated enough to know what a bright future looks like. (She dropped out in grade 7). I dropped out in grade 12 when my brother had his schizophrenic episode, as it caused me a lot of stress and ptsd-like symptoms. Looking back, I don't think it was necessary for me to drop out, especially since I only had half a year left, but my mom encouraged me to stay home. To be fair, I was transitioning to online school at the time, but it was very hard to do as we were going out of the city to multiple different hospitals and staying in different hotels all the time trying to figure out how to help my brother. At the time it seemed like the most important thing, but now that I'm older, and I was 17 at the time, I feel like my mom should have pushed for me to stay physically in school. Not trying to blame her too much for that, but if I was the parent I wouldn't let my kid drive around to hospitals every day over being in school. Obviously the dust was going to settle with my brother and now I just regret not finishing my own schooling.
This led to severe depression for me as I was always a high achiever growing up. I stayed home for three years, no school or work. When I turned 20 I decided to get a job finally. I had a boyfriend throughout all of this btw, who also dropped out of school, but before the schizophrenic episode. I ended up working in a very social environment, which helped me connect to the outside world again and remember who I was before the deep depression. I honestly think the job saved my life. And I'm going to be totally honest and say that it immediately made me look down upon my family. My boyfriend and I were the only ones working, and being around other productive people made me start to resent my mom and brother.
A couple years later, I broke up with my boyfriend after he made me pay for my birthday vacation, because he somehow messed up, still won't tell me what happened. He also lost his job after the vacation which attributed to the break up. It took me a long time to find myself after the break up, it's been a year and a half now, and I just feel like I'm at a stale mate. I'm happy that I'm working and finally going to graduate through online schooling, but I just wish I was out of the house.
I am going on 25 and feel like I'm still being held back. And the part where I'm worried that I'm being selfish about is, my mom's health isn't that great, it's getting better as she takes care of herself, but she has talked about after she is gone. She says she doesn't want me to abandon my brother. I told her I never would. I would never want him living with me though. And she says she feels like he would be forgotten if he was put into a home or a single apartment. This makes me feel like she wants me to live with him the rest of my life. I don't want to do that at all. I have a vision for my life, and I want my future kids to feel safe. My brothers episode involved an animal being hurt, and while he hasn't done anything like that since, he still has symptoms of the illness and they still bother me.
I've always just wanted a nice simple family, and frankly I don't think I can have that with my brother living with us. He's also unpredictable with his medicine, every 2 years he says he thinks he can go off of them and it always ends up badly and with him going to the hospital.
ANYWAYS, sorry for the story book. I just wanted to have enough background so hopefully I can get some advice on this situation and my guilt. Thank you for any feedback!!