My problem

[lolabunny]

Where to start... well, my father was abusive, not to me (not physically, anyway), but i grew up watching him beat my mother and drink and gamble. He has two other daughters from a previous relationship that i used to be close with, and they knew nothing of the abuse, my other sister (just call her J) is only a few years older than me, so she knew, my eldest brother and sister (S and B) knew about the gambling but not really the extent of the abuse. When I was very small, mum started getting ill from the stress and would have seizures and collapse a lot, but the doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with her so she never got any kind of treatment for it. Not really apart of the story, but sums up my dad, she had one during a family party and he and my eldest sister took her to the hospital, except he didn't, he dropped them both off at the bus station and went god knows where.

To me, he would buy clothes that were 4 or 6 sizes too big and then say something along the lines of "oh, sorry, you looked bigger" and laugh. Mum worked long, hard hours to pay off the debt so she didn't have time to go shopping, but she would leave money on the side for us to go, which he either gambled or drank away, and whenever me or my sister would complain, he would make us feel so guilty for just being hungry, and when food was in he would pile the food on double what he should have and then scream at me until finished it all (which has given me problems with food, I can't eat around other people without throwing it back up but when I am alone I have an overwhelming need to scarf down everything I see). He once went out to the chippy for food and didn't come back til one in the morning, and he was furious because I had had to go to the neighbors and beg for a few pound for food.

And then he left. Well, he didn't leave. He kicked me, my sister and mother out and we had to crash at my eldest sisters for a few days until we got a flat. The house and everything in it was in his name, whereas all the debt was in my mothers. He told his family that he had kicked her out because she wouldn't stop drinking, and had racked up all the debt (all £400,000 of it!) on getting her hair done and buying nice clothes for herself while her children and husband went without and she had taken us with her. So now none of his family would even speak to my mother, and my dad's two other children (who my mother literally had to fight him to get him to pay child support for and see regularly) just struck her from their lives completely.

This kind of life growing up (I thought) affected my way of dealing with people, and so I got bullied quite badly for years because I was "odd". I didn't know that things weren't supposed to be this way, so I didn't tell anyone, so I didn't get any help I needed. In year 10 I got suicidaly depressed, and got sent for evaluation by the school. I got diagnosed with aspergers and never heard anything else about the depression again.

When I was 16 she went through bankruptcy, which was hard, we had to move into a council house and all out things got taken away (apart from things in my sister's name (who was then about 20/21) including the cars and my laptop) and I had a break down. I couldn't leave my house for months and struggled leaving my room if there was anybody else in the house (including my own mother). I dropped out of sixthform and as a part of them letting me come back was that I sought help, so I did, and once again they tried to treat me for social anxiety despite the fact that I would cry for an hour or two for no identifiable reason.

The second year they only let me take two subjects so I wouldn't get overwhelmed, and I am now in my third year and universities have changed their policies and will only accept A levels taken within the same set of years, so I can't go to university. I was stressed enough not knowing what the hell I was going to do in my future in a time when even people with the degrees can't get jobs, and then mum got sick again.
It turns out the decades of stress have made her organs become detached (or something, I couldn't really understand) so on December 8th she is going in for major surgery to have what is basically a plastic cage to keep her organs in place put in. Work would only give her 2 months unpaid absence, so we are going to be completely broke over the holidays and well into the new year and she normally operates heavy machienery, but they will have to switch her to a lower paid job because she won't be able to do it anymore.

I know it's selfish and I know I'm a horrible person for thinking this way, but a big part of me doesn't want her to survive the operation. For the rest of her life she won't be able to pick up anything over 10 pounds (which is less than two 4 pints of milk), she won't be able to hoover, ride her bikes (which have been her only stress release) or even carry her granddaughter when she arrives (eldest sister is pregnant), and I don't know if I can be selfless enough to care for her, and there is no money to hire a professional carer. It's like my entire future has been washed away and I feel so guilty and horrible and pathetic for even thinking of the alternative.

Like I said, I have aspergers and I struggle getting things across face to face, so there is no one I can really talk to about it.

[SoSad]

Oh i sympathize with u hon, and if it helps( i know it sounds trite) but there are people with far worse problems. U r not a horrible person , for your thoughts concerning your Mom. Its going to be a life altering change and if u didnt think, question, or worry about it youd be stupid. So just do your best and beleive in fate, and remember you arent given more tgen u can handle.
Good Luck. 