My Story
Hello guys, I'm a 22 year old student living with an alcoholic mother and a hoarding father. While both parents drive me almost to the brink of insanity, I find that it is my mother who I am more critical of.
My mom has been an alcoholic since the summer of 2009. While it may have been a short 2 years since she was hooked, I've had to bear the pain of my mother's drinking since I was a child. She wouldn't drink everyday, only on payday or special occasions. However it was on these "special occasions" that bear the most painful memories of my life.
One memory which comes to mind was a barbecue when I was 9 years old. My parents are married, however at that time my mother had a boyfriend. Both my mother and her boyfriend had decided to go to a barbecue that a fellow coworker was hosting. She was "the life of the party", dancing with guys half her age. I was the only kid there, and I had to sit and wait for hours till my mother decided to leave. Unfortunately, she didn't feel like leaving and her boyfriend and I had to force her into the car. I myself had gotten so frustrated and tired that I began hitting her, we got into a sort of fistfight. It ended with my mom eventually getting into the car and going home after I had unintentionally locked myself in the car while her finger was caught in the door. If I recall correctly, when we got home we slept in the same bed and I woke up in her urine, something which has happened a few times.
Throughout my teenage years I'd have to put up with her drinking, and her hanging out. She would sometimes get drunk and refuse to go to sleep, missing a day of work as a result. Presently not much has changed. On occasion she disappears, leaving me to think that she's dead or hurt just like I had felt when I was a kid. A regular day would consist of her coming home a bit late, with a beer or two in her. She denies that she had a drink, and it drives me up the wall. I either cope with it by telling her the agony that she subjects me to, or by sobbing and having myself believe that I'm unable to be loved by anyone.
I've had my own bouts of depression due to my parents. I find that I'm progressing in life, but I'm not allowed to have a normal one. I can't lift weights around my dad because he'll say that I'm going to hurt myself, and I really don't want to hear him. I can't go to a baseball game without calling my mom, checking to see if she got home alright. Then coming home to her drunk, lying naked on the couch. I can't have a pet, I can't speak on the phone, I can't go out unless it's for a job interview or school. It's not against my will that I'm held at home, it's due to me refusing to have a life because I'll just come home to a drunk mother who isn't even home!
I've tried counseling, I even spent two weeks in the psych ward because of the situation at home. All it really ended up doing was putting me on medication, when instead my parents should be on medication. I've tried talking to my family, and they choose not to be involved, blaming my father and me for her problems. I don't even see my family unless it's a funeral, and while they're around they're gossiping about one another.
I feel that despite 22 years of abuse from both parents, as well as my retaliation has made us all look like crazies. Sometimes I feel that I'm the one who brought chaos to this house.