I just asked my father for favour and he used the phrase, "No problem." I have never heard those two words leave his mouth, one after another. It is usually just the first word.

He also heard me complaining about having no more electrical outlets left in my room, and he came home with two Rotating Power Blocks tonight (they are so awesome)--and just gave one to me.

I think he may be into the hard drugs...

Sometimes Most of the time, I just want to turn around and ask my father, "Did you take a wrong turn somewhere in life and stumble into Bad Parenting 101?" It takes a lot of skill to perfect this kind of bad parenting. Honestly. After almost every argument I have, I am left wondering two things:

1. Why is this man not in counselling and anger management?; and,
2. How on earth does a parent say that to their own flesh and blood?

There was a big blow out on Victoria Day last weekend and we have not exchanged a single word since. Living under the same roof, you would think this would be impossible. I assure you, whatever laws of nature you may think prevent these sorts of things, we will defy. We have managed to live under the same roof for twenty-four years and still not find a way to get along or really get to know each other. And understandably, no one in their right mind has ever uttered the words "But he's your father" to me. Every person in my life, except most of my family, recognizes that the damage is done, our relationship is done, and nothing is ever going to fix it. I will not be one of those people who suddenly starts 'getting along with dad' when I move out. It will not happen because we are too far gone to be saved. Not only that, but at this point, I do not even want the relationship to be saved. I really do not. I am ready to let it go and forget him until the day he dies when I will feel more angry than sad, angry that he did not care enough to make it work, angry that even after mom died, he still could not put aside his petty defenses and just love me like a father should love his damn daughter.

Anyway, back to Victoria Day. I am not sure why it happened or even how it happened, how it got so out of hand... but it did. This was likely the worst argument that has happened since he assaulted me back in October 2006. Basically, we had a family dinner and Sean was there. On the way home after dropping Sean off, I stayed in the back seat and he turned down the stereo and just started lashing out at me. First, he kept insulting the sarcastic part of my personality. He kept calling me 'disgusting' and saying I did not know how to talk to people properly. He heard me snap at Sean once during the evening and somehow, this led to him saying I treat Sean like shit, speak to him like shit, and he has no idea why Sean is with me or how he puts up with me. Sean and I are both very open and outspoken, but we are also very witty and sarcastic people; even when we seem like we are being harsh, we are likely just kidding around. My father does not understand sarcasm or jokes. I am serious. The man has NO sense of humor at all and it is no wonder he views the banter between Sean and I as 'disgusting.' When Sean is upset with the way I am speaking to him, he will let me know, and vice versa. We do not allow ourselves to be walked on by one another. We have some communication issues, yes. Every couple does. But if you are my father, here is how you deal with issues in your own relationship: keep quiet, ignore it, and eventually you will forget about it. So no, he does not understand us being so open and honest about our feelings. It scares the hell out of him and he feels the need to insult me for being able to do it.

So my father kept going on and on how Sean is going to leave me. He kept using this word 'disgusting' and nothing I said would make him stop shaking his head and yelling. Why I even attempt to stick up for myself with him is beyond me. He said he has no idea how Sean puts up with me and that he never, ever would "put up with a woman like me." Sean has said some of the most hurtful things anyone has ever said to me, and does he hear these things being said on the other end of the phone? Is he eavesdropping? How the hell does he know so much about my relationship when he practically ignores my existence? He rarely ever sees Sean and I in person--how the hell does he know how we talk to each other or treat each other? I was getting more and more angry the longer he talked due to this lack of knowledge and yet never-ending judgment. So yes, he basically put down my personality and my relationship and told me Sean was going to leave me.

It did not stop there. He then proceeded to call me "one step above a pig." Interesting. My room is very small and I cannot keep things as organized as I would like, but otherwise, I am a clean person and excessively organized. Sure, I leave dishes in the sink sometimes just like anyone else. But I am no pig. The fact that he was comparing me to one was quite frightening, showing me his seriously messed up version of reality. And what father calls his daughter "one step above a pig" anyway? About two minutes later, I repeated this sentence and he denied he said it. Typical.

Then he began repeating over and over, "You have so many bad qualities. You have so many bad qualities"... like there was some kind of running list he was keeping that was getting too hard to maintain. He kept saying I had problems. He kept saying I always over-exaggerate and that I was "full of shit." But this issue of all of my "bad personality traits" got to me. It really did. I mean, just how many does he feel there are? You have to really hate someone to say something of that magnitude, especially after shitting all over them for thirty minutes straight to begin with. To tell someone they have so many bad qualities is like telling them they do not deserve basic human necessities like love and friendship. He was describing me like I was some of kind of grotesque, undeserving monster... some kind of subhuman that disgusted him to a degree he could not even describe properly because he just kept calling me "disgusting" and saying I had all of these "bad traits" but not going into detail. Well, thanks a lot, Dad! Did I once say, though, "I feel the same way about you"? No. I do though. I truly do. He disgusts me--but at least I have valid reasons to be disgusted.

The night ended with me saying "Fuck you" to him for the first time in my life. You would think with all of our intense, constant and serious arguments that I would have by now, but I have never been pushed to that point. (I take "fuck you" very seriously even though I swear constantly. I don't know why.) Even after the assault, I think I was too shocked, scared and upset to even utter anything after he finally stopped choking me. (I may have called him a psycho; I cannot remember now.) After slamming my door, he barged in and told me to start looking for a place to live. He's been threatening this since I graduated eight months ago so I am not worried. Even if he did throw me out, whatever. Good riddens. I would go and stay with my grandmother until I had a permanent job. I have been working my ass off non-stop trying to get out of this hell hole because of him. How dare he think he can threaten me and tell me he is fed up with me living here! Honestly, the nerve of him thinking he wants me gone more than I want to be gone. What a fucking moron.

So yeah, that was my long weekend. Makes me wonder how the hell I have survived this long. One day, I am going to say to him, 'I grew up learning how to live without your approval. Don't for a second think that I need it now.' He seems to think I do. Of course the whole argument really upset me. Why wouldn't it? This guy, this stranger, this so-called 'man' is supposed to be my father. When I was little and went on vacation to Germany to see my aunt, he used to go into my room and throw out stuff of mine. I had to start finding ways to lock up my dearest possessions. I kid you not. This man barged into my room and threw out my stuff while I was gone.

He has never apologized to me for anything in his life. A lot of people pretend they do not feel remorse or guilt, but I genuinely believe that he does not. He even went as far as to lie about the assault and pretend 3/4 of it never happened and pretended that I hit him. That's right, he went around telling people I hit him and that is why the fight broke out. (For the record, of course I did not hit him. What am I, a psycho?) They say one of the main signs of a sociopath is a person who does not feel remorse, and I honestly do not believe that my father feels remorse. Pathological lying. He will deny things he just said even seconds later; he will outright lie to my family about incidents that happened at home calmly and seriously, like he has convinced himself his lies are truths. And, of course, let's not forget self-serving and arrogant, only living for himself and his own needs and ignoring everyone else's. Also, what they describe as "shallow emotions": when someone shows happiness, love, joy, excitement, etc., it seems fake or acted. "Outraged at insignificant matters." Oh, yeah.

My boyfriend said to me tonight, "If you really wanted to get out of there, you would have been by now." All I have been doing for eight months is working my ass off, temping non-stop while I job hunt, trying to put a dent in my debt, trying not to lose my nerve no matter how many jobs I am turned down for or how many blows my self-esteem takes, seeing no signs of personal success even after five years of university. Like, yeah, good idea... let's move out with a temp job where the pay varies, the hours vary, and where I may be out of work for weeks or months at a time depending on the job market. Smart! Take out loans for rent and groceries, get further into debt. Sounds like a good plan. *shakes head* My boyfriend says I should take some risks and not plan everything. I'm sorry, but since when is it a good idea to move out with temporary work and no savings?! So much for being intelligent and practical. That always seems to get me nowhere and in low standing with everyone I know. How odd.

There has just been such a lack of support in my life these past eight months. People seem to think I am just sitting here happily, with the empty and tedious life of temp work and getting into worse and worse arguments with my father. Everyone has their nose in my finances. Well, no more. I will not let on where I am financially from now on, and that way no one can judge anything or dictate what I must be doing wrong. As for my father, we have not spoken two words since last weekend so I assume this is a good way to keep going. Sean thinks I am an idiot and that it is melodramatic. To cut out a toxic person in my life? How is that dumb? I realize we live under the same roof but this week has been fine to completely ignore each other, so it is possible to do.

People are so quick to judge. Even if they have the exact same problems as you, they are quick to start criticizing you and telling you what you should/should not be doing. But never would they think about taking their own advice.

Despite trying to be strong throughout all of this, I do wonder what damage the relationship with my father has already done. No stable father-figure in my life, no mother-figure. I start wondering how I have raised myself and how well I have raised myself. I thought everyone needed parents. I thought everyone needed parents to provide more than a roof over their head, but apparently that need just skipped right over me because I grew up without both parents. One dead and one alive but completely absent from my life, even under the same roof. It makes me wonder, now that I am older, what internal damage it has left behind and what 'issues' I currently have that it caused or contributed to. Issues with trusting men, issues with allowing myself to be vulnerable with others, issues with always wanting to be completely independent, issues with privacy, issues with automatic defensiveness.

It makes me angry that something everyone is entitled to was taken away from me. I have no idea what my father was thinking when he decided to keep me after my mother died. He never wanted to be a father and he wanted my mother to get an abortion; he has told me. He should have adopted me out to a family who actually wanted a child.

I had a dream that my father finally 'discovered' and admitted to his anger/rage management problem. Haha. He was all confused and baffled when his girlfriend pointed it out to him, but then suddenly he said, "Wow. Maybe I really am out of control."

Keep dreaming? Yeah, I know.

So, things have been extremely busy lately but I figured I would try to provide some updates on the situation. (I have been under so much stress trying to deal with this and everything else that I had about five or six ulcers in my mouth for days. Painful as hell.)

First of all, thank you to everyone who commented on the last entry. I also appreciate the e-mails I received from a couple of you. Thank you to everyone who did not need to twice before believing me and who were concerned for my safety. At a time where I have just lost my best friend and have no one else in the city to go to, I appreciate all the support coming from everyone online.

Someone called the police that night. Sure, this was the right thing to do, but it was the wrong time to do it. It was not what I wanted right then for one main reason: if the police were going to be called, I wanted someone to be there with me just in case my father lost it again and tried to hurt me after the police left. I honestly expected my aunt to come rushing over, but she had to let me go shortly after I called because she had a massage appointment. Anyway, the police showed up and one officer came into my room to talk to me. I was pretty disgusted by his lack of sympathy and understanding. He made it out to be my fault, as if I had done something to provoke him and deserved what I got. He also said that it would have been legal had a been younger and had it been a parent-child punishment situation. Lovely. He also said to my father on the way out the door, "If you two can't get along, you should kick her out." No, really, a direct quote there. My father did come in and tell me to start looking for a new place to live, but nothing has come of that. He asked me if I wanted to press charges, and I declined to save myself from homelessness. I do not want to hear anyone tell me I should have; I was looking out for myself too. Although, if I did press charges, Social Services may have taken my situation more seriously. Perhaps I should have. I do know that he will be in jail if he even attempts to do this again. I have absolutely no problem with that. To my surprise, a lot of my family members gave me hell for involving the police (not that I am the one who involved them in the first place, but I was blamed). I was asked how I could call the police on my own father by several people, non-family too, and I did not even think their inquiries warrented an answer. What the hell is wrong with people? I should have called the police because he is family! I do not give a rat's ass who hits you or assaults you--assault and physical abuse is illegal, and that is the end of it. How many criminals do you think committmed crimes within their own families before committing crimes against strangers? Most of them, if not all. Anyway, the police were no help and offered me no solutions, so it was useless to have them involved, as I expected. I have had previous experience with police trying to blame me (multiple times) in situations where I was clearly the victim of a man's brutality, harassment or assault.

After the incident, I decided to stay at my aunt's for a few days. I did not stay with my boyfriend because we have too many communication problems for me to just 'move in' temporarily. Some of those issues even came up Thursday night and reminded me that I could not go from one negative situation to the next. He was too pissed off at my father and some of that anger was being taken out on me. I am home now and things are awkward and nightmare-ish. My father and I have not spoken two words to each other, and it is clear we are both avoiding each other like the plague. I have been eating my meals in my room because I refuse to sit with him at the dinner table. I even try to eat after he goes to bed just so I will not have to even see him when I pass through the living room. We still have to share the bathroom some mornings, which is just excruciating. He acts like I am completely in his way; sharing was never a quality he possessed. It is like having a roommate you despise, really. He is here every evening, and so am I, but I stay in my room and basically only come out for food and showers. It is extremely hard living with someone you completely despise, but as I have learned, I may just have to suck it up for the rest of the year and deal with it.

So, what are my alternative options? I was looking into bunk dorms at my university for $20/night, but I was warned that they are dirty and noisy, and you may have drunk people coming in at 3a.m. since the bunk dorm's main purpose is to decrease drinking and driving. Despite the upsides such as being close to campus, you can only stay there a limited number of days. Unfortunately, my aunt's or grandmother's would just be a temporary solution as well. I cannot move in with either of them, and I cannot be that far away from my university for the rest of the year. Social Services could provide me with an apartment guaranteed not to go up in rent, but it would still be $750/month for a bachelor. I would still also need money for groceries, utilities, clothing, and other necessities. There is no way to get out of this place without getting a job, and there is no way to get a job without dropping courses (for part-time job) or dropping out (for a full-time job). Courses, by the way, which are already paid for and passed the drop deadline. These days, no one gets a free ride, temporary or not, even if they are in school full time proving they want to do something with their life. It is a sad reality.

Has my father said anything about all of this? My father has decided to lie about the entire story and so there are some family members who are not on my side. According to him, he grabbed me because he thought I was going to hit him. Two problems with this: I would never raise my hand to anything or anyone, and also, I am not a complete idiot who would raise her hand to someone twice her size with no protection. I also had a glass in my right hand, which I mentioned, so how would I hit someone with a glass in my hand? There are many holes in that lie. He also left out the other half the story! He failed to tell people about chasing me, grabbing me by the neck, slamming me against the wall, screaming at me to fight him, and calling me a stupid bitch. He honestly left that entire part of the story out and just left it at grabbing my wrists in the kitchen "in self-defense." He told this story to my uncle, and so my uncle is on his side. One of my aunt's is also on his side because she believes domestic violence is an acceptable way to treat your children. Her husband used to beat her son when he was three years old, and because this kid apparently hit her husband first, the kid "deserved it." I have basically written her off as completely fucked up and I have no respect for her. I never really did, but this was just the last straw. She thinks this was a one-time deal, he just lost his cool, and that all families fight (verbally and physically), and that it is completely normal. This, by the way, is the same aunt who my dad used to smack around when they were young.

My grandmother had a talk with him and as I said, he gave her the "it was self-defense" story. He also believes, even now, that he did nothing wrong. Perhaps a black eye would have made it wrong? A broken limb? Maybe nothing? Maybe he believes it is okay to assault people who piss him off. My grandmother asked if he would ever treat his girlfriend that way if they got into an argument and he said 'yes.' What a crock of shit. And hey, if it is not, I feel sorry for her. No one knows whether he told her about what happened, but if he did, he gave her the same story he has been giving everyone else. So I am sure his girlfriend does not care about hearing my side and is just going to stay with him without a second thought. This situation has shown me just how truly stupid human beings can be.

I have also had a few people in my family tell me to apologize (mainly my uncle because he refused to listen to my side of the story, probably because he was also beaten as a child by his father and does not want to believe my dad is just like him). Some people believe that we were both at fault and that we both need to apologize to each other. This baffles me. There is no way in hell I would ever apologize to that man, ever. I have no idea what kind of crack these people are smoking, but I do not owe him an apology and he will not get one. Regardless of what I did, I did not deserve to be assaulted. All I did was tell him to calm down and lower his voice, nothing more. That is not being "mouthy," as he has described it. That was just me remembering we have neighbours and thinking he getting to the level of 'fucking psychotic' over bus tickets. I saw him getting violent even before it happened because he was just going crazy screaming, swearing and pounding his fists on the table. I should have gotten the hell out of there when the screaming started.

I am sick of being told what I did wrong in this situaton because I did the best I could. I did what I was able to at the time, and I am doing what I am able to now. I was also bitched out by several non-family members for deciding to stay at home and not do something drastic like drop out of school and move out. What the fuck? People need to take into consideration this: the more I postpone school, the longer I will be living under this roof. What I need to do and what is best for me right now is to finish school so I can get the hell out of here. I am in my last year, I am close to graduating, and then I will be on my own. It is that simple. Anyone who believes otherwise is entitled to their opinion, but I am doing what is best for me by finishing school. School is the most important thing to me, and I will not drop courses (and lose thousands of dollars) or drop out and go back later. Not only are those stupid things to do, but that is also backing down and letting my father win. I will not continue to be a victim here and I will continue my studies and successfully graduate, despite what happened. End of story.

My mood has gone from hurt and scared to hostile and furious. I guess that is good news, that I am moving into the expected phases after trauma. The first four or five days after this happened, I was a complete mess. I was confused and terrified it would happen again. I was also having more problems with the best friend issue, I had people who were being unsupportive, and I was crying non-stop. Now, I have come to my senses. Despite my utter fear while I was being assaulted, I was fighting back. And I need to remember that. I need to remember that I had the courage to fight back and that I did not just sit there and take it, nor did I ever blame myself for what happened. I was pushing him and hitting him, trying to get him off of me. Throughout this, my strength has been questioned by several people, including myself. I had people comparing me to a battered wife simply because I was too scared to leave my bedroom the night this happened. Gee, how silly of me to be scared. If someone had offered to pick me up, perhaps I would have left right away. But no one did. Everyone just expected me to pack my bags and walk out the door with him still out there, fuming mad, without any kind of 'plan' or place to go. The point is, I do not blame myself for this situation and I did not do anything wrong, during the assault or how I have handled it.

Overall, this situation has proven to me that my father will never change. He thinks what he did was okay (he said this to me and all the family members he talked to), but what is even more obvious is that our relationship will never improve. Even while we were in family counselling (which, by the way, I initiated and forced on him), he refused to admit any part of this relationship's dynfunction was his fault. I have constantly beem blamed for everything that goes wrong, every argument, every situation. People in my family especially need to start acknowleding the reason we have not worked out our problems: my father. According to him, he is the perfect man and the perfect father. He outright lies to me, to my family, and obviously to himself. He needs help. He needs counselling for his anger and his denial. I obviously have my own faults and have sometimes crossed lines I should not have, but the reason this relationship has not gotten better and never will is because of him, plain and simple. I have tried, I have put in effort, and I have even attempted to talk things out. But he sits there quietly and offers no input other than "that's bullshit" or "you're full of shit" every few sentences. He will outright deny things has has done or said, or things that I have done to try and make things better (such as doing him favours or making sure I clean up after myself). Many parental-offspring relationship get better when the offsping move out, but ours will not. If has has not changed by now, or even just attempted with some effort, he never will. He has done too many things to me that I will never be able to forgive him for, the main things being all of the emotional/verbal abuse which has been constant, allowing my alcoholic uncle to live here for over a year despite my protests and fear for my own safety, and being so heartless when it comes to my mother's death and saying horrible things about her (e.g. "You're a bitch just like your mother" or "You're lucky there are men out there who will date you"). I had little faith before that we would eventually work things out, but this was just the nail in the coffin. And that is a good image because that is what this relationship is: dead.

I guess this is all the ranting I can do for now. I have been exhausted lately trying to keep up with my school work, dealing with the fallout with my best friend, trying to get over the assault, and dealing with my relationship. There is too much going on right now and I cannot handle it all. I am on a waiting list for a counselor at my university, which I should be seeing in late November or January after winter break.

Feel free to ignore this boring, long-winded entry. It is really just me releasing a lot of feelings I have not written about lately.

As much as I have tried denying it, I am spiraling into a deep depression. Oh, how utterly cliché. I thought these feelings were long gone, looking back to my high school years. But there is a sense of familiarity surrounding me, one I have been trying to suppress. Every time I have started typing journal entries, I have refrained from putting these words down. I backspace. I type something less negative. Not only did I not want to believe my current state--because putting them down on paper always makes them more real for a writer (if you can still call much such)--but I did not want anyone else to know either. I am ashamed to be back here.

Most recently, I have lost my best friend of six years. Not only was it the most important friendship in my life, but it was the only close friendship I had left. I did not have much of a say in the matter. Apparently the friendship was slowly coming to an end over the past few months, unbeknownst to me. Apparently I am 'no fun to be around.' Too jaded and unworthy. I am out of words. I have tried. I have rationalized and suggested. No response. There are things that happened that lead me to believe it will not blow over this time. Friends are allowed to disagree. Why do so many people think you must sever all ties once an argument happens? No friendship is smooth sailing. You debate, you see it headed nowhere, so you just agree to disagree and move on. That should be the way of it. You need to focus on all the good and treasure that with all your might because it rarely comes around. You rarely ever connect so intimately with one person. What I think happened, though, is transference. I do not think the end of the friendship had anything to do with me but rather, it was sparked by something else unrelated and I just happened to get the short end of the stick. I feel sick over this. It consumes me even though I am so hurt by what she did, without any explanation. I should be obscenely angry and just think 'Good riddens, I obviously meant nothing to her,' but that is so far from reality. How someone can throw away such a long and intimate friendship over nothing, I have no idea. There were no warning signs, there was no time for preparation. I am confused but I am still offered no explanation. I have somehow managed to make someone else believe cutting me out of their life is the best thing. How? Unspeakable things were said to me, hurtful things that I do not know if I can forgive. But while I mull over that, there is still silence. And I hate silence when there should be words. I hate time because She never tells.

My family is, in one word, a disaster. Everyone is fighting, various people are not speaking to other people, gossiping is taking place behind everyone's backs. We have become the epitome of the dysfunctional family, something unfathomable even just five years ago. We are all very close. We used to have monthly family dinners. We used to celebrate every birthday, all of us together. Then my two aunts declared war on each other, loosely connected to childhood battles and a lack of forgiveness. I somehow got involved and was given the silent treatment by the both of them. Then it was just one not speaking to me, then it was the other. This troubles me greatly, having the only female figures in my life only sometimes speaking to me and others giving me the cold shoulder or just ignoring me all together. My poor grandmother, still recovering from breast cancer, has to see her two daughters fighting like this. Neither one will go to a family dinner if they know the other will be there. Then, after some negative incidents at the cottage this summer, one aunt decided to give my father the silent treatment. She never showed up to dinners if my father was there. And, as always, my alcoholic uncle is either causing pain or chaos. We were not on speaking terms over the summer thanks to a drunken night during which he tore me and my life to shreds, swearing and screaming at me in the car all the way home from a dinner. He was getting so crude and so out of line that even my father threatened to throw him out of the car. Unfortunately, that was nothing new for me. Despite the fact that my father is usually the one around him most, I always bore the brunt of my uncle's alcoholism and always receive the most abuse.

Basically, the whole family has not been together, in the same room, for almost a year. I feel horrible for my grandmother, and I cannot seem to just let everyone else battle it out while I sit by the sidelines. They are my family. It is my business. It is affecting me. No one knows what to do. My one aunt has gotten so bad that my grandmother has told her to just not come over anymore. She is overly negative, sensitive and uptight. She never has anything good to say about anyone or anything. I feel this is because she is completely unhappy with her life, but that is no excuse to abandon or insult your family. Everyone in the family needs therapy. That is what my grandmother said to me. I agree. We are all walking on egg shells now, and I hate this feeling. At any given time, someone is upset with someone else. Sure, this is how all families are, but it is tearing mine apart because it is more than just anger. There is deep-seeded resentment, and there are repetitive problems with the same people. Everyone has just had it, and right now, everyone has just given up. I ache thinking about how to fix it all.

My relationship is one of the biggest problems. Too much fighting, too much negativity. Get out, you say? No. It is one of those situations where things are a lot more complicated than just getting out. When two people have been through so much, it is never a matter of just getting out. When two people have worked so hard and have dedicated so much to each other, there is no easy way. We continue to work on things, but we continue to have problems. We both want to be together, but we are at a loss for what is going to solve at least some of the issues we have. Distance is a very big problem. We live too far and we only see each other once a week. If it goes any longer, the fighting gets worse. Now that he is working and in school part time, and now that I am back in school full time, our time on the phone is less and less. I have no idea what to do. I do not even have any more words to describe the confusion and heartache over it all. He is not there for me like he should be. I do not feel I can confide in him. I hate feeling this way. When I am feeling down, talking to him should make me feel better, not worse. I have no idea what I deserve anymore. I have no idea if I am asking too much or too little.

School, obviously, is always a problem for me. Between my SAD and the obscene amount of homework, I have very little time for myself or anything else. I feel like all I do is read, read, read. I am getting lazy. I do not want to be in school anymore. I worked hard in elementary, I worked hard in middle school, I worked hard in high school. I worked so hard even when working that hard was not required or respected, and now I am burned out. I have had enough. I feel I have earned my degrees, and I just want out. School used to be fun and interesting for me, but now it feels more like a prison. I dread going. I am exhausted coming home and can barely stay awake to do tomorrow's readings. I cannot drop any classes. I need to just do everything I can to finish up and graduate. I feel like I will have a nervous breakdown if I do not just get out of there.

Which brings me to my father... the ongoing negative in my life. Despite the fact that I still live here, I am pretty much independent from him. And yet, this issue bothers me more than most of the others in my life. Since he started dating his current girlfriend, I have barely seen him. He is never home. He stays away for days or weeks at a time. He rarely tells me where he is going, when he will be back, or leaves a number where I can reach him. When I do see him, it is nothing but fighting and nagging. I keep this house clean, I vacuum, I wash the dishes, I change the kitty litter, I water his hundreds of plants... but I miss some crumbs on the counter and he flies off the handle at me. I feel like I live here alone, and it is too much work. I would want a smaller place if I were living alone. I do not have the time. He is becoming more and more ignorant of both me and the whole family. When he has a woman in his life, that is all he has. He is neglecting his friends. They leave annoyed messages on the machine talking about other messages they left three weeks ago without a response. He keeps changing family dinner dates in order to go to her place instead, and stupidly, my family says okay to it all. He cut short one of my uncle's birthdays just so he had more time to spend with her; he turned it into a birthday brunch instead of our normal birthday dinners. He left early on Mother's Day, even though my grandmother was upset that one of her daughters went to her husband's mother's instead, to go to her place right after dinner. If we are watching a movie in the living room and she calls, he will pause the movie without asking and proceed to talk on the phone for hours. He says I have no right to the phone anymore; we cannot share it or create phone times, but rather, he gets first dibs and I just have to deal with it, even if that means not talking to Sean. He is quite willing to go out of his way for her, no matter what for, but not even do small favours for anyone else. He promises to do something and then says he forgot, so too bad. He uses up all of the food I have made for my lunches when she comes over for lunch; I get home, it is gone, and he just says, "Yeah, we ate it." He barges into the bathroom in the morning without knocking, telling me to get out because he has to get ready for work, as if me being ready for school is unimportant. Oh, sure, little things. Little things add up.

And she, his girlfriend, is completely blind. She has heard him snap at me on the phone and has probably noticed his ill temper, but she is blind and worships the ground he walks on. I feel sorry for her. "He seems like the type to hit women." I agree, and he has thrown things at me and he has wacked me in the back of the head with rolled up magazines. I want to call her up and tell her she is dating a monster, but I suppose she may eventually find out for herself. Things with my father have just gotten so much worse over the past year, even though I thought they were already at their worst in high school. So now not only do I never see him, but when I do, it is non-stop negativity. I cannot deal with this anymore. I would move out in 24 hours if I had the money. I really would. It must be getting pretty bad, too, because a few of my family members are becoming less ignorant about the issue and finally acknowledging that he treats me like complete and utter shit.

The ongoing issues with my SAD and self-esteem. I will not even bother rambling on about my SAD since I just wrote a long entry about it. As for my self-esteem, well, it has definitely declined over the past couple of years. There are things I am not even brave enough to share that have caused its decline. But all of the issues above, in addition, have caused wear and tear on my ability to love myself. I wish I could put myself in a protected bubble so it would not get worse than it already is, but alas, that is impossible. It is especially impossible for me who sees everyone else's problems as my own problems. I help everyone but myself, and I do not know why. Every time I go to work on myself, I take one look at the stack of problems and just push them aside. There are too many things to deal with, and I have no idea where to start. There are things I have tried that have not worked, so I get discouraged. My support network is non-existent, and this is yet another reason motivation is too hard to come by. Self-love may come from within, but it is still fostered by your friends and family. I need people who will, at least, be there for me when I need to rant or release some of these emotions. Looking at how long this entry is already, you can tell there has been a lot bottled up. I need more people in my life. There is no question about that.

Sadly, the one thing that used to keep me sane throughout all of this is something I am no longer capable of: writing. Not journal entries but creatively. Prose, poetry, stories. My writing, for two years, has been non-existent. I am completely lost because of it, and I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life now because it was always writing. Writing was always my passion, the only thing I ever wanted to do. It was in my past, my present, my future. It was everything. It was my saving grace, my single 'talent,' my therapy. Lost, lost, lost. It is like someone has taken away my flashlight and I am left to find my way in complete darkness. I miss it. I think about it every day. I ache to have it back. I feel so useless without it. It almost acted as a protection from everything too. I could retreat to my room, take out a pen and feel safe again. Now I feel overly exposed, and not fully whole at all. It was so much a part of who I was that I honestly feel like pieces of me are missing or empty. It is a horrible, horrible feeling to have. What scares me most is thinking it may never come back to me. I can say over and over again that it will, but once again... time leaves me guessing and unsure.

In my life... when it rains, it pours. That is quite clear looking at the past ten years. How I am going to get through it all, I do not know. But right now, I feel so broken. I have things coming at me from all directions and I cannot control them all. There are things I have absolutely no control over, things that will continue to poke and probe me. I am obviously in a rut. I have no idea how to get out of it. Every time I feel some willpower to find solutions, something else happens and makes me question why I am even here to begin with. Over the past few months, especially, such hurtful things have been said to me, things that are making me question my personality, my character, my goodness. These things are inhumane but are they true? I no longer feel capable of thinking I am a good person. Too many people are leaving. Crying comes too easily now. I feel weakened. I am not a weak person but I feel like I am being worn down to a small twig. My branches are weighing down too heavily for me to hold up. At night, I lay awake for hours before falling asleep. I barely get any sleep at all these days. My mind races and the emotional exhaustion is what usually puts me to sleep. All of the negativity in my life keeps my mind off of school, so I take longer and longer to do what needs to be done. I just feel very trapped. I feel very unloved. Very, very unloved. (However, I do acknowledge those of you here who have always reminded me that I am never alone. You know how you are... J & M especially ♥.)

I am physically and emotionally exhausted.

It is never a good thing when I start listening to Jann Arden this often.