First of all sorry to dump this problem in these forums.

My life is shit. You may think of it as an exaggeration, but i'll explain it properly so you can understand me a bit.

I live in what you can call a dysfunctional family, my mom, grandma and 2 uncles.

Both my uncles are paranoid schizofrenics, one of them is tolerable and has been improving over the past years, the other is heading the opposite direction and has been going blind, something that will only make the desease worse. They cannot survive alone so live at home.

My mother has a clinical depression. diabetes and is bipolar, she doesn't work and cannot work. She cannot support herself.

The person who supports everybody is my grandmother, who, while not mentally ill, is somebody who's very difficult to deal with, and i'm being extremely kind here. She has very high blood pressure and can die at any given day.

This however is not the bad part, just half of it.

My mother cannot co-exist with my grandmother and they fight so much that i think they might end up killing eachother. Just last night i had to break a bottle to try to make them stop.

The uncle on a downward spiral hates my mother, something that is hard to deal with.

We were once finacially stable, but now just merely survive thanks to pensions.

Then there is me: the anchor of sorts of the family, always trying to keep things cool, helping in whatever way i can and managing the money, because they know nothing about it and if they had their way with it it would be gone in a week or 2 what should be a for a month. It's always the same thing.

Because of all this i, myself have been depressed for a few years and even considered suicide on a few occasions, not that i would go ahead with it, but i'm sure you can imagine how i feel in the midst of all this.

Now i'm thinking that i have to move out, get a job and move on with my life. I want to enlist the army to just completely change my life and start anew. What i need is a new environment to feel better about myself and about life.

But the problem here is this: should i leave, knowing that when i do the household will completely fall apart? Not just financially but emotionally? I just know they won't be able to cope, just maybe scrape by a couple of months before their ultimate demise.
Should i stay, living miserably, knowing that probably i won't be able to take this for much longer no matter how cheerful i try to be?
I also know that i won't be able to support my mother, and i'm not even sure i want to. I just want to start over, get a new life, possibly start a family and get a stable job.
But right now i don't know what to do, and i don't know how my conscience would take it.
Should i sacrifice myself for my family or what? There are solutions for some members of my family but not all.
What the hell should i do?

Again sorry for this rant of sorts and troubling you with my problems.
I just wanted to get all of this off my chest and maybe find a solution.

Let me ask you this: If your family falls apart because you left, do you think you can deal with the guilt?

I honestly don't know. The guilt would always be there, yes, but i have no idea.

Do you have anyone that could help you or someone to confide in? Try consulting someone you are familiar with since they would understand your situation better. Personally, I say leave if the situation is severely affecting your health and you can't cope with it, but remember that you may be sacrificing others for your own sake.

Quote from nail80

Just last night i had to break a bottle to try to make them stop.

... I think you are overestimating your own abilities and temperament... This is NOT normal behaviour either.
And from the sounds of it, you haven't got a job right now?

Yeah... from the sounds of it, you don't sound like you're the glue that holds your family together. You're probably part of the problem too.

So, you should get out, get a job, etc etc. Fix up your own life.

You know why?

A drowning man cannot rescue another person! (dunno whether you've heard this saying before, but it's sort of well known among councillors)

Seriously, go stabilise your own life FIRST, then you can think about helping your family. BTW, if you joined the army, at least it would be one less mouth to feed. More optimistically, you could send some money home, or just save up money for when your family would need it most.

if you stay at home forever, BEST case scenario is you keep the situation continuing as it is for the next 40 years, and everyone else dies from old age or illness. Then you will find yourself an old man with no career, savings, family, life, or prospects. It will SUCK.

So, yes, you should 100% go out and turn your life around!

Staying around is NOT helping... or it's helping a lot less than you think anyway. Frankly, a miserable person will only cause others to "share" his misery, and the negative symbiosis between a house full of miserable people with no hope just leads to total despair. heck, breaking a bottle? Sounds like YOU might be the first one to crack and bring about the family's demise.

Seriously, if your mum, uncles, or grandma WERE in a position to get out and make their lives better, they would! But they CAN'T.

You CAN.

So do it. And, seriously, once things are looking up for yourself, you will suddenly find many MANY new options and ways to help your family.

Also, don't give a crap about what anyone says about feeling guilty about abandoning them. Cause you're not abandoning them, you're going out to seek help.

Your situation is sorta like being the only person who can walk, who is stuck in a pit trap with a bunch of cripples.

You can sort of help around in the pit trap, helping them move, make them comfortable, give them morale support, etc.

But the SMART thing to do is get out of that bloody hole in the ground and get some serious help to pull them out.
Or heck, get out then pull them out yourself.
But the important thing is to get out of the pit.

...

And, if worst comes to worst and while you're out of the pit trap, something bad happens and when you get back someone died or something, DON"T FEEL GUILTY. It's not your fault.

I hope you can see that this analogy really fits your situation.

Go see a profesional councillor.

We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, out doubt is our passion and our passion is our task, the rest is the madness of art. Henry james

Assuming you're not trolling, this sounds pretty serious. My advice is to look elsewhere for advice. A manga forum filled with anonymous people with unknown credentials who are basing everything off of that one post of yours are not qualified to give you life changing advice. Even if you don't or can't afford professional help at least go to a forum dedicated to people who need help with their problems.

Amen sister (willdabeast), at the very least find a place of prayer, wether you are religious or not, I am sure they can at least give you support.

We work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, out doubt is our passion and our passion is our task, the rest is the madness of art. Henry james

I thank you all for the comments and insight into my situation. I'm sorry for dumping this into all of you, i guess i needed a place where i could remain annonymous and sort of dump my frustrations and know it probably wasn't the best action to do. I should know better and i'm better than that.

I agree with you jasonred79.
I admit to my immaturity on the situation. I didn't keep my cool, but somebody would have died or been in serious condition. And indeed i'm jobless right now and indeed need to fix up my life first. If i continue in this pit of despair i will end up turning like one of them.
I will sort out my life because ultimatly my life is what matters, in 15, 20 years time, maybe more, they won't be around anymore and i if i do keep on supporting people i won't be allowed to truly live my life.

I had just in case planned a contingency plan, which is to allocate them to proper places so they won't at least be on their own, the money they get should be enough to cover the expenses. Like nursery homes and such places. They will be alone in terms of family but it's probably for the best. Whether i liked it or not there would come a time when i wouldn't be able to take care of them anymore. That will happen sooner rather than later i'm afraid, but it's something that will have to happen
It's a sad situation when a person has to make this sort of decision, but it's time to move on.
Maybe i'll find new options in the future-

Sorry about the thoughtless and mindless rant of before.

i live in somewhat of a similar situation you live in, except your two uncles and your mother all combine to be my mother lol. i also know that i am what is keeping my family together (i'm the only one in my family that my mother cannot break down and lash out of anger at her).i grew up in this environment so i was in a sense conditioned to be able to cope and function "normally" in this kind of environment. However, it seems like you cannot handle the situation you are in which is understandable, it is very hard to live in this kind of environment.

i'll give you my 2 cents:

sit down and with a level head talk to your family about what you're feeling (mainly your grandmother and mother). If you do not think you can do this then i suggest contacting your doctor and asking them to recommending a good family therapist.

some last resort options: move your uncle that is getting worse into a psychiatric hospital, it seems like he may become a danger to himself or to somebody else in the foreseeable future. And to go to what some people may deem an extreme option: send both uncles and your mother to psychiatric hospital.

another one is to move out and show support by sending a percentage of your paycheck to them and visiting them on a consistent basis. No one has the right to judge you if you choose this option, its your life as well, if you feel like you cannot live in this situation then you have a right to leave. It is as you said an ethical issue.

Oh and your suicidal thoughts, please always remember that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

"when i'm sad, i stop being sad and be awesome instead."

• Barney Stinson

as for your family, definitely locate a social worker or someone like that. a professional who will be able to give you all of your options (whether its locating nursing homes, getting government assistance for income like disability payments for your mother, etc)

as for yourself, you definitely need to speak with a therapist to deal with your depression. if you're religious you can also talk to your pastor, rabbi, etc.

i don't know why your currently unemployed, if you're staying at home to take care of your uncles, just got out of school, or if you have just been struggling to find a job, but i think you shouldn't jump too quickly into the military. the military is not something you should go to just to escape your life. its a tough job where you are literally putting your life on the line, so you really need to think seriously about it. it also can leave as many mental scars as physical ones. i'm not trying to be anti-military, i just think that the reasons you gave for going into it are not enough

but i definitely think you should find some sort of employment. not just for the money, but also because being home all day in such a stressful environment is not going to help your mental state. and mental illness runs in your family so you have to be careful.