Yes, I am borrowing that overly pretentious quote of BBC Sherlock's.
My family life is not exactly ideal, and I am now torn on who is right and who is wrong ont eh issues that plague us.
My father is an alcoholic. My mother is overly controlling. Both whine a lot when something doesn't go their way. My brother outright avoids the work at home because he doesn't do well with their whining, and so, half of the brunt of the work falls on my shoulders, be that knowingly or not.
Both of the parents are already elderly - well, mid-elderly if I should term it right, and they have a plethora of health issues to boot. Most prominent, of course, are mum's issues, what with Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS), backaches from that car accident what... seventeen years ago, weak joints and of course her over-sensitivity on cold. Father is, as I said, an alcoholic and has problem with prostate - he went through his first operation this year, and now recuperating at home. Thankfully, both of them are mobile. Both of them don't speak with each other, except when there are money matters or there's something to be done at home in a work sense.
Brother already has job and he is on an equally bad terms with both father and mother, who regulate their 'complaints' via me or try to get them into his thick skull when he comes to discuss something. /head meets desk/. He doesn't really work at home, because he is overly prideful and sensitive to criticism that had been issued his way in the past, which pisses me off, because then most of the heavy jobs got delegated on me. Heavy jobs as in shoveling the dirt in the garden, taking care of the fields, mainly by pulling the weeds here, planting potatoes, taking care of potatoes, weeding the field. Let's not even mention the kitchen duty, hanging the washed clothes and ironing them when they dry out and taking care of the general cleanliness of the house, not to mention dish-washing duties at morning, after lunch and at evening. And of course, shoveling the chicken shit - literally. The only job I am more or less exempt for it picking the apples directly from the trees (my balance is not up to the par to play she-Tarzan, so I am picking them off the ground), shoveling the snow and handling any heavy and sharp machinery with exception of kitchen apparatus and hoover. Mother handles planting the garden - more or less, not the onions though - and picking apples off the trees, and making jams and conserving the vegetables along with storing both meat and vegetables, and father handles preparation of the logs, along with taking care of the small vineyard, random repairs around the house
I am still waiting on the response of the committee for disabled for my work permit, and hopefully, I will get it before my birthday to get going. /pinches the bridge of the nose, irritated/. It won't solve all of the problems because mother is still trying to rope me into working at the fields, garden and at the house, but brother told me that I should place a vivid border to where I am willing to go and not further. it made me think that maybe I am too soft with her - fetching her this and that and doing things for her. Brother also told me that she also uses me to solve her problems for her when concerning computer, as she doesn't even try to find a solution first before running to me to repair the latest mishap she got on her laptop. /Sweatdrops/. And all the while, when I point her out that she could just as easily get the answers from the 'net, she begins to complain that she is so busy, doesn't have time, et cetera. I seriously wonder about her technological knowledge at the rate she is going - sure, I also mooched off my brother's tech know-how the first few years when we got our first computer, but since he told me to search for the knowledge in question by myself, I am working out and repairing the laptop kinks all by myself. She has the formal education in some 40-60 hours of workshop, which should be a good basis for her to do things alone, but the first year had been sometimes borderline painful and exercise in patience when I had been teaching her the basics of the basics of the laptop's ins and outs. Even now, she only knows Skype, Windows Media Player, basics of Facebook and basics of Gmail. Download of the pictures form the photo machine still eludes her - that, or she is simply too tired or too lazy to get it figured out and committed to memory by herself. She complains that I have the unfair advantage of being younger and more involved with computers overall, and her brains are sometimes feeling like Swiss cheese because of the concussions she got in her youth, along with her age. Still, it pisses me off, because she took her sweet time to learn how to navigate chess site, while she downright forgot some other important basics. Maybe I am being unfair, as my knowledge is quite extensive on the know-how of the importing and uploading the documents (as a writer, it's a prerequisite knowledge anyway,), while my handling of Excel could still improve more. (Word too, even if I am a solid user of the program). But she is wrong on the issue of
This week, I've listened, and come to the conclusion my parents are complaining too much. Sometimes, there are small issues, sometimes there are big ones, but it's done little to actually solve them. They don't speak with each other - if who, then brother and me speak to each other, though I am still of the opinion that he cleverly railroaded me off my attempts to include him into the housework to direct my ire at mother, and partially at father. I don't know how to prove him that mother is not lazy, loudmouthed and overly bossy and controlling woman like he pictures her in his mind, and even less on how to prove that father is actually alcoholic. At least we solved the issue of mutual self-respect, because today we both went too far - he accused me to be too violent, and I accused him to have no sense on where the fun ended and harassment began. It took a good row, some harsh words and pointing fingers at both the accused parties to resolve that, but I hope we are better now for it, though I still don't like to argue and I am wondering if my first response is really violence.
Is it really? Well, if I got pissed off enough, then yeah, I can and will use violence, though I hope I will always know where the line is. But with the red fury I occasionally get - today it was because my brother invaded my room and began teasing me with attempting to toy with my food while the dog was in my room - this broke the camel's back and I punched him in the gut. Not with the whole force - I trained Karate, and by my standards, the punch was quite mild, but he reacted with whacking the back of my head which exploded into the aforementioned argument. I also had the whole episodes when I could've strangled his neck quite cheerfully sometimes int he past when he really, truly and completely pissed me off. Luckily for both of us, I got good enough self-restraint on my side. I am proud to say I didn't cower and irritated that I cried.
Violence... Sometimes I was praised for it, and maybe I was a bully sometimes because of it. Maybe my filter is loosened somewhat - I have quite a fierce temper and when I was teased in the primary school, my answer was violence. Most of my schoolmates were amused at my reactions - it was more or less all in a good fun, but not to the extent I would harm someone extensively and I never used martial arts. Accidentally, once one of my schoolmates bumped into an edge of the window's frame, but that was all.
I am sick of it. Sick of my actions in the past - sometimes I was a bully when I thought I was a protector. I was an idiot then, but I stopped when they asked. This still doesn't make it right, and maybe still doesn't reason adequately that my first response, when someone goes too far - in this case my brother - is violence.
I didn't trust the words, because more or less, my brother ignored me, when I asked him to cease his teasing. Thus, my next answer was a violence. Wrong, yes, but it was then my till then long fuse was blown up.
Nowadays, my temper is calmer, and I can usually calm down and rationalize before I get really pissed off. I learned that being too hot of a temper I can hurt the adversaries, be that verbally or via punching them.
I am confused. My family is a hodgepodge of good and bad decisions, tempers and characters. I don't know who to trust or even what to do to straighten their crooked relationships to level where all of us could function more or less normally. Sometimes, I am feeling guilt about it, and also a helpless anger because. They. Just. Don't. Go. Along!
I am not mediating between the three idiots anymore. They will be speaking between themselves, it's not worth headaches, suppressed temper and lost time to listen to their whining. Sherlock Holmes said it right - 'Caring is not an advantage', but I am adding this -
Too much caring is not an advantage.
It poisons mind, heart and spirit, it's a sickness that masquerades under the mask of goodness and we were too conditioned to be good, even if only in the public. I am sick of being good and proper and sacrificing my mental health just to fake the facade of 'all is well' in front of everyone and their dog. I can beat myself all I want for my past demeanor, but that won't change anything, except making me even more depressed I already am. Today I thought of taking the rest of the tablets - very strong painkillers - and finish everything. Fuck them and their arguments and them loading the work on me and get my own peace. It's not the first time I've thought of suicide, and it's not the last, either. I am fed up about caring about them, about their needs and demeaning my own just because it's a right thing to do. I can't fucking base my own self-worth on their opinions of me being a good daughter, sister or 'good person' overall.
What I can do, is to stand up for myself - even against my mother. I love her, really, but she guilt-trips me and takes advantage of my helpful nature. I am not the only one at the house to work, and it may take some arguments and everything before the new balance would set in. Really... wish me luck. Because going against the ones that know you the best - i.e. your family - is not a quest to be taken lightly.
