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Frustration (vent)
13 years ago
General
Since I was a child I've been told that I do not work hard enough, that my work ethic needs improving, that I'm lazy and irresponsible and inferior in everything I do. My mom used to tell me all the time that I'd spend my whole life alone living in her basement since nobody would ever want to support me since my personality is so childish. (Meanwhile, she mooched off my dad and poured out his money like water, lol.)
My dad built himself as a businessman from the ground up, several times, pulled himself and my mother out of a horrible financial situation and worked his ass off to get where my family was blessed to be. I grew up watching him spend all day every day working frantically to not only make ends meet, but to keep us safe and happy and provide us with every little thing we wanted, let alone needed.
For a long time he's apologized every chance he can for not being around as much as he'd have liked to be when my sister and I were children. I think he feels genuinely bad about this on one hand, but most of the regret comes from my mom punching him in the balls with that one. Maybe he doesn't realize how perceptive of a child I was when it came to that, but I never felt that he was being neglectful or making himself too busy to be around us. I appreciate everything he did and I've known very consciously for my entire life that he sacrificed a lot of his own personal time and desires to provide us with the life we had.
This has bred something deep inside of me that pushes me to work harder and longer and better than everyone about me, which sounds like a good thing on one hand, but I'm starting to see why my dad gets teary-eyed when he apologizes for it. I've caused Carrot a lot of pain lately because of my overactive work ethic. If I'm not doing something to actively make us money, I feel as though I'm wasting time. I feel like I live my life between one shift and the next, and no matter how much money I make it is never enough. I have a lot of guilt complexes already for multiple reasons but this is one of the biggest ones - as many of you know, Carrot wasted a lot of money awhile back on a huge trip that I ditched out of childish fear. Finances are something I feel an obligation to take responsiblity for.
But I'm starting to scare myself. I don't feel overly ambitious or anything. But I'm starting to see how work is eating up my life, even when I'm home - I spend hours streaming, trying frantically to make up some impossible difference between the money we have and the money I feel we should have. There is no limit to how much I feel like I should be making. I am never doing well enough for myself and it depresses and upsets me. I get angry at myself for acting like my mother, but I have no qualms about acting like my dad? From lashing out when stressed about work to coming home miserable and not wanting to do anything, I worry that I'll cause the same reaction in my best friend and the love of my life that my dad had with my mother.
I'm scared, guys. I want to know how I can let go of this. I always knew I was more like my dad than I realized, and he tells me all the time that I've "got it honest" when it comes to my personality.
My dad built himself as a businessman from the ground up, several times, pulled himself and my mother out of a horrible financial situation and worked his ass off to get where my family was blessed to be. I grew up watching him spend all day every day working frantically to not only make ends meet, but to keep us safe and happy and provide us with every little thing we wanted, let alone needed.
For a long time he's apologized every chance he can for not being around as much as he'd have liked to be when my sister and I were children. I think he feels genuinely bad about this on one hand, but most of the regret comes from my mom punching him in the balls with that one. Maybe he doesn't realize how perceptive of a child I was when it came to that, but I never felt that he was being neglectful or making himself too busy to be around us. I appreciate everything he did and I've known very consciously for my entire life that he sacrificed a lot of his own personal time and desires to provide us with the life we had.
This has bred something deep inside of me that pushes me to work harder and longer and better than everyone about me, which sounds like a good thing on one hand, but I'm starting to see why my dad gets teary-eyed when he apologizes for it. I've caused Carrot a lot of pain lately because of my overactive work ethic. If I'm not doing something to actively make us money, I feel as though I'm wasting time. I feel like I live my life between one shift and the next, and no matter how much money I make it is never enough. I have a lot of guilt complexes already for multiple reasons but this is one of the biggest ones - as many of you know, Carrot wasted a lot of money awhile back on a huge trip that I ditched out of childish fear. Finances are something I feel an obligation to take responsiblity for.
But I'm starting to scare myself. I don't feel overly ambitious or anything. But I'm starting to see how work is eating up my life, even when I'm home - I spend hours streaming, trying frantically to make up some impossible difference between the money we have and the money I feel we should have. There is no limit to how much I feel like I should be making. I am never doing well enough for myself and it depresses and upsets me. I get angry at myself for acting like my mother, but I have no qualms about acting like my dad? From lashing out when stressed about work to coming home miserable and not wanting to do anything, I worry that I'll cause the same reaction in my best friend and the love of my life that my dad had with my mother.
I'm scared, guys. I want to know how I can let go of this. I always knew I was more like my dad than I realized, and he tells me all the time that I've "got it honest" when it comes to my personality.
My issue with overworking myself came out in a similar manner. My dad would criticize me for everything. I was always too clumsy, too slow, never good enough. Was often told I'd grow up to be a "fat, lazy selfish bitch like (my) whore of a mother". :|
If there's a way to work through it, I don't know what it is. I kinda of dislike that Jason pays me now because I no longer need money, but I feel like I need it. So, once I'm done working, instead of relaxing, I sit around and mope about how everything sucks. Videogames suck, movies suck, going out sucks. I hate it all because it's a waste of time that doesn't make money.
My only suggestion would just be to budget it out. Write down a list of everything that you owe monthly. Set aside all of that money as early as possible. Once you get to that goal, then shoot to have a certain amount of extra. My goal at the time was to always have $200 of SPARE money in my account. Once you hit your spare cash goal, try to take it easy then. If you try to place a goal of how much spare money you need, maybe that could help alleviate the stress? I haven't experienced your exact situation so I don't know if it will help, but I do know that feeling like I have accomplished something makes me feel really good. So, setting a goal for myself and reaching it is very rewarding.
What have you got that they haven't? Usually, friends. One of my many friends is rich, and all I see other people do to him is use him for money, which frustrates me to no end.
The truth is, even if you where to magically get all this money you want, you wouldn't be any happier, because then you'd have to sort out who you can actually trust in your life.
You only get to be twenty something and in love once, so don't waste it. I'v been both rich to the point of living on a farm worth a million dollars and poor to the point of having to join a gang and steal two of my three meals a day from the grocery store. Honestly, I was happier poor.
It seems like a big reason for your doing this is an obligation towards Carrot; That should be your biggest reason to stop, considering it's making him unhappy. Chances are he wants the same thing you do, and that's for the other person to be happy, which is impossible if you do this to yourself.
"Bread and water had with a happy heart is better then beef and wine had with a bitter heart." - Some quote who's origin I don't remember, but that my grandmother has told me all my life.