Dear ruth;

Your parents, your father and your mother and your aunts did not and are not doing you any favors. They all failed you. Shame on them. If I was you (and I was you in that I did live with my mother who gave me hell), I would plan on leaving and getting away and staying away. It is nice that you love your mother, but I hope you make a life for yourself elsewhere- away, far, far away. Just leave. Pack a few things and leave.

this is my intuition talking, or should I say, my feeling talking here. But wouldn’t it be really neat if you just left them all- leave your careless, irresponsible mother with her gambling fool boyfriend and… leave them all, the job too. Just leave.

None of them did you any favors. From the beginning. Still don’t. You did not mention any good thing you are receiving from your family.

Regarding not having a high school graduation diploma and such- that is not worth much anyway, these days. Used to, I hear, but where does even a college graduation take millions of people- nowhere. So, don’t, please, don’t make too much of that- plenty of people think they can’t get anywhere unless they have a bachelor degree… and then they think they can’t get anywhere unless they have a master degree. They feel less than others and unemployable in any desirable job unless they have a master degree. And I also heard of a psychotherapist saying she can’t make real money unless she has a PhD.

I read most of this post and the one before that and I asked you to summarize but you didn’t – maybe get more focused on what kind of feeback you want. In absence of a more focused post by you, with all this BS you are experiencing and have from the start with this family, I do hope you find a way out of that swamp, out of the mud of that swamp of a family life and a work life, and find some dry, pleasant land for yourself with green grass and blue sky and a pleasant sun shining on you.

anita