When I was a child (that is, under the age of 18) living under my mother's roof, I was happy. I did my chores, I went to school, I had my friends, I was allowed to follow my habits and do what I wanted as long as it was safe and within the boundaries and limits my mother had set for me. I was there for my family, and they were there for me, and I was happy because I felt appreciated.
Then I got out on my own. I graduated from school and joined the military, and for a while I was happy. Then the stress and monotony of the job took over, and I realized that I was just another face in a sea of faces, protecting a country that was not my own. I wasn't happy anymore. I wasn't appreciated. I realized that if I left, or if I died, I could just as easily be replaced. If I died, the military would send a letter home informing my parents of my death, and my life would accumulate to an article in the newspaper, certain family members in tears, and (whether my death was honorable or dishonorable) either a military funeral or a regular burial.
Then I got home, and moved back in with my mother and her boyfriend. For a while I was too depressed to feel anything but sadness and lethargy, but soon I tried to find ways to make myself forget I was depressed, or make myself too busy to be depressed. And it worked for a while; as long as I had a job or a girlfriend, I could lose myself in the job or the relationship and I wouldn't be hounded by the depression.
I was able to gain a job five months after I moved back in with my mother, mainly because I was engrossed in depression and didn't want to do anything. It was the threats of being thrown out on my ass that finally got me moving. I wasn't doing much in the house at all, I'll admit, but I wasn't being helped in that front either. Gone was the acceptance and appreciation I was familiar with when I lived with my mother as a child. In its place was an unfamiliar feeling of shame, as well as this nagging feeling that I was a burden on my mother and her boyfriend as long as I lived with them.
For a little over a year I was able to hold on to that job. During the time I was working, half of every paycheck went to my mother, a quarter went into my bank account, and the last quarter went to bills of my own (cell phone, car insurance, saving for my own place to rent, etc). Every time I pad her I got a thank you, but the thanks felt forced, as if she felt I owed her the money and that she shouldn't have to thank me for giving it to her. I was, in essence, her employment; I paid her rent so that she didn't have to get a real job.
Eventually I tired of the arrangement and moved out... no, I was kicked out. I stayed in my car for a while, but soon got a place with my girlfriend and we moved in together. The job was losing its ability to keep my body occupied and away from my depression, and my sleeping schedule began to suffer from the effects of the stress I was forcing upon myself. Soon I was getting home at midnight and not getting to sleep until ten or eleven in the morning simply because I was too disturbed to sleep, and would have to wait until my body exhausted itself and I passed out. And it didn't help that I would have to wake at three in the afternoon to get ready for work, accumulating only a mere five hours of sleep at most.
My relationship suffered as well, and soon exhaustion gave way to anger, and anger produced a messy split and the loss of a good friend for a long time. And as normally followed any relationship split, I became sad and withdrawn into myself, allowing my depression to seep deeper into my subconscious.
The relationship was a bad idea from the beginning. I was close friends with the girl, and foolishly believed that it would be enough to form a lasting romantic relationship with her, but another major factor in the decision was that I was a twenty-something virgin and she wasn't... I was becoming desperate, and I thought that the loss of my virginity might help to ease the pain of depression, and that having a regular partner might make me happy.
I failed to realize that my partner would derive her entire daily attitude on how recently she got laid. This attitude struck a massive blow on my libido. I didn't feel like I was appreciated. I felt like I was being used to keep her happy. Hypocritical, now that I realize it, and I despise hypocrites.
I moved out of the apartment that we shared (yet I paid all the bills), and into a house with my sister. We split rent, and then one day she decided to move out without telling me she was moving out. So I was left with this house that cost $700+, with multiple rooms and utility bills that I need to transfer into my name, and she wasn't going to help with them at all. I lasted another couple months in that house by inviting a bunch of friend to move in with me under the condition that they all get jobs and help with bills, but none of them even attempted to get jobs and that was the last straw for me. In a fit of depression, anger, and wanderlust, I packed my things and moved to Michigan, with a pit stop in Nebraska (which I refuse to talk about, it just made things worse).
Where am I going with all this? I think I've figured out why I feel so much happier living with this friend and her two kids and doing so many chores around this house, when I was doing the same chores for my mother and feeling like I couldn't stand another minute: I feel appreciated here.
I don't pay rent. I do the dishes when it's my turn without complaint, and I watch her kids for her on nights that she works (which is every night except Monday and Thursday). Every now and then she'll slip me a $20 or buy me a box of Gushers, and I'm perfectly content here. If I had a job other than babysitting I'd gladly pay rent and wouldn't care about it, and it's because I feel appreciated here.
I've ranted and raved about my mother and how she sits on her ass all day without attempting to get a job. I gone on and on about how I felt like I was the fallback guy, the one who was there to do the chores around the house that she just didn't feel like doing, and how it felt like her feelings of laziness were increasing bit by bit. Every time I go to her I feel like a burden or extra baggage, and her boyfriend's attitude towards me and actions towards me, both away from her and through her, increase my feelings of loneliness and depression. Every day that I lived with them it took more and more will to hold myself back and just not physically strike him as hard as I could. And as the days passed, her hypocrisy and 'do as I say, not as I do' attitude wore me down until I could no longer take it.
The feeling of appreciation I have been missing since my childhood days has been the driving factor in my being unhappy, I'm sure of it. My depression still lingers (which is why I'm up at 3am writing this, and the Loritab I took hasn't made me drowsy at all), but otherwise I'm happy. I just need to tackle the loneliness...
