Journal Entry #4

Another factor in my life that made growing up a little rough was that I have a brother a few years younger than me (we're both adults now though) who was diagnosed early with disabilities such as high functioning autism.

Our mom's emotional abuse took a toll on him as well, but at the same time she always seemed to give him more favorable treatment (for lack of a better way of describing it). My brother's issues were constantly causing problems at home or school and it had both of our parents frequently stressed out trying to deal with them. Unfortunately, it seemed like I was often getting yelled at or punished for my brother's problems since our mom often seemed to act as though my brother couldn't be held responsible for acting out. He would periodically be scolded or given a light punishment if mom was particularly stressed/upset, but it felt like she usually would take her frustrations out on everyone else in the house instead.

As the years went by and our parents had to focus on all sorts of old and new problems my brother was having it became more difficult to turn to my parents for help or support with anything. They were always so stressed out from dealing with my brother's problems and everything in their own daily lives that their typical response if they learned I was having a problem was to become upset and even more stressed out. My mom was particularly bad about this in that her reaction was generally to go strait to being really angry, which made the idea of turning to my parents for help or support all the more off-putting.

All of this trouble at home took its toll on my brother as well and he developed other problems, such as severe OCD and anxiety problems. His problems eventually got to the point where he had to involuntarily entered into in-patient treatment at a psychiatric hospital for a while because he was a risk to himself and those around him. The situation was really ugly, but to make it worse it was around this time that our mom started openly threatening, to my face, that id she found out I have some kind of problem too she will have a complete breakdown. She actually threatened me with this more than once.

Of course it doesn't help that I'm forced to still be living at home due to continuing college and not earning enough to move out and live on my own. Sharing an apartment with a friend isn't really an option either since most of them have gotten married by this point or seem to have roommates already. The level of monthly income I have currently is barely enough to cover paying half of the rent if I could find someone to share an apartment with anyways.

I've been looking for a full time job so I can move out and live on my own though. Unfortunately I haven't gotten hired by any of the places I've applied to yet. There's also the issue of how all this stress and pressure is affecting my mental health. I've been able to keep my condition and problems bottled up and hidden from my family so far, but the stress/pain is taking its toll on me and I am in increasingly bad shape.