HELL

It's happening. Same as always. Breakdown, sick feeling, system shutdown, I just want to not be here anymore. I hate this place and it's pretty damn good at hating me back...

There is one small difference. I've come to a realization. A weight has been lifted. 

It's NOT MY FAULT. I'm not the broken one here. It's everyone else. My parents are fighting. In my 25 years of life I don't remember them ever fighting. But they haven't spoken to each other in 3 days. I fail to comprehend how this is possible. You sleep in the SAME BED for God sakes. How can you sleep with hatred boiling against the one next to you? Whatever happened to the counsel of never going to bed angry at your spouse? There doesn't seem to be an end in sight either. It's disconcerting, heartwrenching, and HELL. I love my family because they are a base, a support system for me when I am in trouble. But I look at them now and see only broken pieces. They are broken.

My little brother is annoying. He and my older sister are constantly fighting. And when they aren't my 2 sisters are fighting or he's bickering with my little brother. And my younger sister is amazing at bitching about everything. Sometimes my brothers even fight. It grates on my nerves like cheese. 

Today my mom came to me and yelled at/confronted me about a christmas ornament that fell off the tree 3 days ago (my fault). Now it got broken somehow (NOT my fault) and she's blaming it on me. She came outside where I was working a puzzle to avoid interacting with the people who can't do anything without squabbling and just about threw it at me. She did raise her voice and she did call me stupid to my face for not picking it back up because I have no "common sense." Her comments were mean, uncalled for, and they sent me into complete shutdown mode, which OTR witnessed because I was talking to her on the phone when my mom appeared out of nowhere in cyclone anger mode which she has been in since midway through Christmas day. The shutdown was unwanted, but also unconscious...it just happens. I was quite pleased with how I conducted myself. I didn't get mad, I didn't raise my voice back, and I remained civil, though I maybe shouldn't have quipped, "So you're going to hate me forever now also?" to which she did not respond.

Realizing that it's not me, and that it's them, has raised a lot of questions. Do I even love my family? When they act inappropriately toward me and speak to me in demeaning ways, is that somewhere I even want to profess love? Should I withdraw from them completely? Are they even worth investing my love in? The familial bond is strong and makes me want to, but now I'm doubting. My mom has vowed based on the drama explosion that was Christmas that she will NEVER get over what happened, and for the last three days I have watched hate, rage, and anger bubble in her heart and soul and pretty much consume her. I know for a FACT that she is using anger as a shield against the pain that she feels, but she has really just been a beast since Christmas. Originally, the morning after she got mad I tried to reach her in her pain, but was rebuffed and pushed away. At one point I asked casually if she was going to get a divorce...and she wouldn't answer. When she almost broke down bawling, I tried to give her a hug and be supportive and she yelled at me to just "leave her alone." I want to help, but now that she's turning her anger on me I'm shutting down (I don't do rejection, let alone being demeaned) and I don't know what to do. I do so much to help others, I love unconditionally, but this? OTR says it's because I'm strong. Well I am but still, no offense, God really sucks sometimes. My parents? I'm supposed to come between the two who are supposed to be one and patch and fix and mend and heal? Why the hell is this MY calling? No one else gives a damn enough to even try, but honestly...this could actually break me.

My lil bro has an apartment this year and he cut out yesterday when it all got to be too much for him to handle. He's offered to let me escape there, which is becoming more and more appealing the more consumed my mother is, but I don't want to abandon my other siblings.

I don't know what to do. Other than cry, and try to stop feeling sick. Not my fault, not my fault. Was it any of the other years? Or is it trying to function in a broken environment that cripples me everytime? 

9 days... God that's too long.

Homecoming.

I'm scared sh*tless. 

I'm going home. And much as I love my family, that ALWAYS = HELL.

When I go home, I do not go to friends. I do not go to a place a love. Only the people I care about most. My parents moved in 2002, and I have hated Christmas since. That's why I only go once a year. Because that's all I can take, and usually, it still ends up being too much.

Since coming out, things have only gotten worse. And worse. And worse. This is NOT my home, it is just where my parents are. There is no one here but them, and when I want to run, I have nowhere to go. I endure, I try, but somehow, something always ruins me. 

The normal Christmastime visit usually involves little-to-no-sleep, crippling depression, lack of eating, lack of desire to do anything, at least 2 fights, me wanting to die numerous times, and hours and hours and hours (read: days) of mindless game playing to try and hurry time up so I can go home again and back to my life.

Stagnant. 

That is how I have always described my Christmas visits. And those are the ones that don't involve fighting, misunderstanding, or the like. I love my family to death, but I hate that place. Last year I went for 10 days and came closer to suicide than I have ever been. It was just that bad. 

No matter how hard I try, that place is only associated with bad memories. Fights. Tears. Pain. 

Anger. I am a very nice person, and I don't get mad. Like ever. But whenever I do... it's B A D. People get hurt. Things get broken. Last year I smashed my laptop screen to smithereens. On accident. That only made me more angry and despondent. I hate going home.

This year, I'm praying desperately that something will be different. That somehow they will understand me better. That I can discuss how I feel, and my struggles with being a gay Mormon without it devolving into fighting. 

Please God, this is my prayer to you, that somehow - any way possible - this trip, this visit, this year... that it will be different. Please God.

Maybe.

I cried tonight. 

I have no idea why. All of a sudden, I was just...crying.

It's so heavy sometimes. It pushes down on you. Yes, you can escape, you can lessen the impact - focus on other things, but it's always there. Aching silently.

I'm totally depressed tonight and I have no idea why. 

Maybe I'm hurting for others. 

Maybe I'm hurting for myself. 

Maybe I'm lonely. 

Maybe I'm tired of not knowing what's happening next. 

Maybe I'm sick of no longer having a job that was supposed to be stable, and wondering when the power is going to get shut off as the snow keeps piling up. 

Maybe I'm done with waiting for paychecks that I never see, and unsure why I'm still here, but without direction in where I am needed, what I should be doing if my place is no longer here. 

Maybe I'm worn out from trying to reconcile two things that fit together only if you don't pay attention to the details, and choose to ignore the inconsistencies, the problems, the forfeits, and the cancellations.

Maybe I just needed to cry.