(1 of 2) I really need help

*HEADS UP - This was written days ago, sometime last week, when my mind was rolling in bad, dark stuff.*

Well, given the day before yesterday’s scare, it put things into perspective for me. Truth is, I never do admit how I’m feeling to anybody because each and every time I’ve tried to tell someone in my family that something is wrong or that I needed help, I always get insulted and / or ignored entirely.

Look, as bad as this might sound to some, I’ve been taking care of both my grandparents for my entire life, which means I’ve been doing this for fifteen-odd years, starting from when I was below the age of ten. I’ve always been close to my grandmother, seeing as she’s the one I spent most of my time with, but as she gets older, her being the same age as her husband, it gets harder and harder to the point where my anxiety is so high that it’s not even funny.

I never imagined my life being this chaotic and demanding. I can’t even have the time to sleep, work on my music, sit down for a moment, relax or have time to think before I’m yanked away to help out around the house or to care for both of them. At my age, I don’t even get the luxury of doing what most people in my age group get to do, such as hang out with friends, and that’s not fair. I’m really unhappy with it all, and this responsibility that’s been tossed on top of me above all else on my mind isn’t helping me. I’m now responsible for two people three years away from being in their nineties and I, myself, am in my very early twenties.

I seriously don’t know of anybody my age that has to do this stuff. I’m not happy about it and I want to scream my lungs raw until they rupture. I don’t mind doing anything for anyone, but time is very limited when you’re responsible for making breakfast, lunch and tea and you don’t have the energy to perform any of these tasks due to your own illnesses / conditions, mine being a form of constant fatigue mixed in with non-stop migraines, which I’ve lived with for half of my life with no hope of getting it fixed. It drives me insane.

I can’t even go home half the time to sort out my affairs concerning family and financial problems because I’m stuck here caring for two people. You have no idea what it’s like, and it doesn’t seem right to me that I was kind of roped into it from the start and now I have no clue what to do. I don’t want to get stuck into a career where I’m a nurse or something like that. I can’t do something that I don’t want to do without being apathetic, so it isn’t a good fit for me.

On the downside, I’m the only one to do this properly. I don’t have a nurse to take over from me that I can trust, seeing as all of them around this town are so careless and irresponsible, so that only leaves me, which I don’t see as fair. I don’t know how to give the proper care to somebody when I can’t even get the time to take care of myself so that I’m back in a good state of health, enough that I don’t have to force myself to be awake with stimulants.

I know this may sound absolutely horrible to some of you, but you truly don’t understand what this is like; nobody listens to you, you’re tired as all hell, you’re suffering from constant migraines, fatigue and dehydration and it’s up to you to care for two elderly people on top of all of that! It doesn’t work at all! I really want to scream so loud I don’t care what damage it causes to my larynx or my lungs, but this is ridiculous for me. I always try my best to do what I can, but it’s not going my way.

You want to know my routine, to give you an idea what it’s like? In the morning, I constantly get either called or texted by my grandmother at 8-ish to come downstairs to make breakfast for herself and my grandfather, then I clean the cockatiels and give them fresh seed, I come in, I wash up, I take out the bins, I occasionally hoover, I make cups of tea, I take care of the bird we keep inside (the one that I suspect is possessed by Satan) and I help my grandmother with whatever she might need, which is generally an easy task. It only got harder when ended up with ulcers on her leg, making it incredibly painful to walk, move about or sleep. Doesn’t help matters that she was hospitalised all day two days ago and she nearly died. It was such a close call that I spent all day worrying my ass off to the point where I didn’t drink or eat anything until I had an update.

The good thing is that she’s back now and she’s better than she was. Still feeling bad, mind you, but at least she’s still around. My only concern is I don’t know how lucky you can get with heart problems. This was the second time, so I don’t see the third one being a charm. But if anything happens to grandma, I won’t have anyplace to stay, so I’ll have to haul my stuff back home under the same roof as the people I’m trying to stay away from, so having no proper and steady income to get my own place is seriously daunting to me.

I don’t know what will happen to my grandad, either. He’s a bit short tempered, which is understandable if you know him, but he’s an old-fashioned guy that doesn’t accept help or listen to people when they try to reason with him. In other words, I can’t do anything for him, so if grandma has another episode like she did recently and it gets her this time, nobody can take care of him and he’ll likely have to be put into a home. I don’t want that to happen because I know what those places can be like.

Nothing about this entire thing is fun or easy; it’s especially not working well for me in the mental department, as I’ve never been so stressed and terrified of what’s going to happen. I have no space to put my things at home, which, when it comes to my guitars, concerns me because if you place them anywhere too hot or too cold, it’ll get moisture into the circuits and destroy them, which I don’t have the money or time to fix, and when you include the miscellaneous junk I have laying around the place, there’s no room for them, either.

Basically, I’m living in a bedroom-turned-storage unit. I have no idea what I can do or what options I have. All I know is that I have responsibilities nobody my age should be burdened with when they can hardly function and when they themselves are suffering with mental health issues, including crippling depression. It only makes it worse and I am bloody scared of one day waking up to find one or both of my grandparent’s dead.

To me, this is like one of those dead-end job stories you hear about but don’t actually know for yourself what it’s like until you experience it yourself. I’m desperate as hell to get out of this current episode of my life, it’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to live through. Now do you see why the only thing I want is to be on my own and away from the people and places that stress me out more than anything in the world? I shouldn’t have to deal with this type of responsibilities at my age when there’s already more than enough bad stuff going on within my family home.

Sorry if any of this sounds horrible or otherwise, but you have no clue what living like this is like. I needed to vent and I seriously need to find a way out before the stress kills me. It’s as if no matter what I try and do to make my life better, I only get dragged back into the black pit I just crawled out of like the universe has shoved me into a conspiracy. I’m lost in what I should do or how to get out of this so I can have a simple, normal life where I don’t have to worry about things that I shouldn’t have to worry about in the first place.

It’s driving me over the edge and I’m having a lot of trouble keeping myself together in one piece. I don’t know what to do. I really need help, somebody to talk to about this, anyone. I can’t do this any longer.

I need a way out.