

TLDR: this Is longer than I wanted it to be and my English is bad so you don't have to read to whole thing. If you I appreciate you but if not even just a "good luck" In the comments would make me happy. Thank you. 

So to be honest I kind of just needed a place to write down how I've been feeling with the hope other people will listen. That's why I came back to Reddit I guess. I do have some people that have helped me Irl but I feel I've already dumped so much of my problems on them and I don't want to bother them. I'm not going to write EVERYTHING on here because that would be a whole ass autobiography or something so I'll just write how I've been feeling. 
     I just turned 24 last month but for the last couple of months it's like my eyes have been opening for the first time. Since I graduated high school In 2016 things started to really go downhill and the short version is I didn't have a lot of interaction with people outside of my family, I honestly spent all day just indoors and because we moved in 2017 all my plans I had for after HS disappeared. From then until March of this year I haven't had really any interaction with people other than my family except for things like going to the doctor or buying food. I had no friends. Because of this and because the idea was always hammered into my head that "family is family" I literally dedicated my entire life from 2016 onwards to serving them. I tried my best to be there for my younger brother and sister and to be the kind of person I felt I needed when I was younger. I would do anything and EVERYTHING to help my family. The city we moved to was rough to say the least. Shootings and things like that weren't uncommon. We lived there for 3 and 1/2 years. Because I'm the oldest one I was always kind of thrust into the role of having to protect everyone else, especially since my dad was never there for us. So In this new, bad city I would literally stay up all night for most nights just to keep an ear open out of fear someone could try to hurt us. This wasn't just paranoia as in 2021 someone actually did come into the house and I was the one who did what I could to keep him distracted as he searched for my mom. That's a whole other story. After moving away from that city In April 2021 I kept up my role as the "protector". Even tho we moved to a much MUCH safer place I still felt scared and if I'm honest I still do. But even this was threatened when the landlord said she was going to come by for an inspection and we had still not finished unpacking everything we had In boxes in the backyard. The night before the inspection I literally stayed up until 3am, during December BTW, cleaning up on my own and organizing the backyard just so we wouldn't be homeless again or anything like that. 
       What I'm trying to explain is that I literally gave everything to my family. Everything I was, did, and wanted was to help them. I almost felt like I owed them, at least my mom. To my siblings I felt I had to be there for them since our parents aren't the easiest to deal with. But I always felt like they never liked me. I always felt like I was doing something wrong. My mom, grandma, and dad would always call me the same things: "lazy", "useless", "good for nothing", and things like that. I see now that's part of why I worked so hard for them. I felt that maybe if they saw the work I did they wouldn't say that stuff but they always did. They've said that my whole life. What has always fucked me up also is that they never say anything about my brother or sister no matter how old they get. When I started learning to drive as a teen if I got scared or anxious my mom would tell me I needed or because she didn't want me to sit on my ass all day and do nothing, I needed to help her. But my brother and sister are both older than I was when she'd say that and neither of them know how to drive and she doesn't say anything to them. My brother just finished highschool and I keep trying to encourage him to look for a job if he's not gonna go to school but my mom tells me to "leave him alone" and not "bother" him. I felt that by working hard for them all I could "earn" my place I'm the family. It's always been like that. If I didn't give everything I had back to them, back to my mom, I was either "useless" or a bad son, or something. 
     But then things changed. Even by March of this year I had never had a job. The move from 2017 sucked the air out of everything and I was basically dormant for all those years. In March my mom knew I was applying to jobs and the office she works at had an opening and they were apparently very desperate because they were very short staffed, so I got hired there immediately. I did this partially for myself because obviously I needed a job, but again so I could feel like I was contributing to my family. I had the idea to pay back my mom with my paychecks that I'd get. But then I met my coworkers. 
      One of my coworkers there has a son that works there too. He and I got along quickly. Fast forward to now and he told me last week that he thinks of me as a best friend. But I finally started to get more interaction with people outside of my family. In May everything changed when I went into the hospital and this is when my eyes started to open. 
    In May I went into the emergency room with the worst pain I ever felt in my abdomen, they told me I'd need to have my gallbladder removed, I got the surgery a couple days later, and a few days after that I was home again. Two weeks after that I was back at work. But here's the thing: neither my brother nor my sister even texted me while I was in the hospital. I know that a gallbladder surgery isn't a big deal In general but surgery has always been one of my biggest fears and they knew this. Even then my gallbladder had gangrene and I had sepsis so it was kind of a big deal. But neither of them even texted me more than a couple sentences while I was in there. What surprised me was that my coworker found out I was in the hospital and they texted with me from the day I got admitted to the day I returned to work, all day, every day. No one else, no one in my family, kept me company like he did. When I got discharged and went home my brother and sister didn't say anything. My brother said "I'm glad you're ok" and then immediately went back to playing on his phone. I was kind of hurt but again I felt like I needed to earn their love I guess. But when I went back to work as soon as my coworker saw me he literally ran to me and hugged me. That first day back was tough as I was in a lot of pain from my surgery even 2 weeks later and my coworker, my friend, kept telling me to take it easy and rest, they really carried the workload. His mom offered to make me food when I felt I couldn't eat because I felt sick from the surgery. Other coworkers also offered me so much concern and support and it confused me. Why? I hadn't earned it. If anything I was slowing them down. Why did they care? At the end of that same week my mom, who is my supervisor, told me I needed to go to another one of our offices, the most physically demanding one. I said I couldn't do that, I was in too much pain. She saw how I needed to constantly take breaks at work on my first day back. But she didn't care and said I needed to. When my coworkers found out they actually defended me. This was the first eye opening point. 
        I think what I've been realizing is that my family always made me feel like I needed to earn their love. That I wasn't good enough as is so I felt I had to work hard to earn it. But my friends now all like me for just who I am. There are no conditions. I'm not useless to them. I don't even like the job that much to be honest, I stay there to be around them. 
   Anyways things have been going down this road for a while. I've been thinking back to my whole life and I'm seeing more and more how there's a difference between helping people and being used by people. Now I see all the times in the past when I needed my family but they were never there for me, even before my surgery. How far i'd go for them but they all never felt like returning the favor. I would never express myself or how I felt to my family because anytime I did I was told I was "ungrateful". But seeing the difference in how these people are work who I've known for less than a year still, cared about me compared to my family, I let everyone know how I felt.  I asked my mom and my siblings to come together because I had something to say. I told them about how much it hurt that they ignored me when I was in the hospital. I told my mom how all the things she would do and say to me growing up hurt me physically and mentally. I told them I felt that I was the lowest priority or the least important there and that I didn't understand why my mom always put pressure on me to not be "useless" but only me. My sister walked away In the middle of my speech. My mom kept interrupting to defend herself. Just last week she told me that I'm "only focusing on the bad stuff and not all the good she's done" that I'm being "ungrateful" and that a good son wouldn't act the way I am. She also literally said how she doesn't care about what I said because she thinks she's a good mom and that's all that matters. She wrapped it up by asking me why I "turned out this way". 
    I guess the point I'm here right now is that this is an ongoing process. Even now writing this I almost feel guilty, as if I'm doing something wrong or being disrespectful to my family. But literally now that I'm trying to take care of myself and put myself first for the first time ever, they're all angry at me. My mom is angry at me. My sister hasn't spoken to me since my speech, months ago. My brother doesn't talk to me because he seems worried he'll upset my mom if he does. But now that I'm Not there for them all they don't want me anymore it seems. But what I'm saying is why? Why wasn't any of it good enough for them? Why wasn't anything I did good enough for them? Why don't they want me as me, or why do they only want me if it serves them? But wait, there's more. 2017 sucked the air out of everything where the short version is that I'm 24 and still don't have my driver's license. I've never even taken the road test before. But with help and encouragement from my coworker and his mom, who let me practice in their car once, I have my appointment for this Friday, the 30th. So now there's more stress. And my coworkers birthday is coming in about a month and I've been told that he wants to quit as soon as his birthday passes. So now I'm stressed about my test, and worried that I could lose my friend. My family is angry at me now, not talking to me. They all literally have started to go out together as if they've started to bond over the fact that I'm basically not there anymore. But what they say, or don't say I guess, doesn't hurt so much because I know the people at work do care about me for who I am. But if I lose them, then what? What if I fail my test? There's more on the line than just the license card. If I pass and I get myself a car I don't have to be here at home anymore, I can go anywhere anytime. And to me it's like showing them I'm not useless. That's why I'm here I guess, to get this all out. My test is now in less than a week. There's just so much on my plate, there has been for the past couple years since 2016, that I'm so tired. I don't want to deal with any of it anymore. I know how that sounds but I'm not suicidal, not anymore. I have been before and even planned it but I found a reason not to go through with that. To be honest again I kind of feel like I'm here out of spite now. Like if I did decide to do that I'd be letting them win in some way because that's why I felt like that in the first place. 
    Anyways I just wanted to get this out. For the first time I'm starting to see my own worth and I'm taking care of myself. I want to pass this test for myself. There's just so much on my plate. I don't want to make this even longer than it already is but there's some more circumstances that are making the chances that I'll pass the test go down. But I'm trying. 
     I know I just said a whole lot and I know my English sucks. Sorry.  I don't know what to expect from this, I honestly just wanted to get my feelings out there. If you read the whole thing I'm genuinely grateful. I've never felt care or concern like I have from my coworker but I know that exists now. So thanks for taking the time to read this and listen to me ramble. I hope things are good for you. Thanks again.