Anyone who knows me knows that I am a snark-tastic, closed off and very awkward lizard. And after the events I've had to deal with today, I think I need to explain why.

Today I arrived home from work to find my mother sobbing. She might have lost her job and is handling the way all mature people do. She's sobbing uncontrollably and threatening to kill herself, kill me, kill everyone and screaming she just wants to die. For most people this would be a problem beyond hope.

For me it's Wednesday.

I've known for quite some time my mother is mentally ill. I first saw it when I was about eight or nine years old when she would have long sobbing sessions for no reason. She would sleep all day and when she woke up she would take pills to go back to bed. Naturally I assumed everyone had families like this.

As I grew older though, I learned the answer was no. It's just my mother and just my family. One might assume that with a mom with mental illness, my father would be on top of it trying to help. If so you would be wrong.

Every day my dad goes to work and for close to eleven hours he stays there. When he gets home, he works on other things and tries to stay away from my mother. He didn't used to be that way but he is now and it drives me insane. If he's too busy to deal with her, guess who that falls on?

It's just wonderful to be me sometimes.

I've been trying to increase my writing output, get myself into graduate school, learn more about Catholicism and Methodism and just in general improve my life. Every time I think I'm on the right track the slinking black tentacles of my mother twist around my neck and squeeze until I go still.

And the worst part is I know the illness exists within me. And now I will reveal a personal fact on the internet, always a bad idea.

I suffer from a condition called hypersexuality. It is a condition not medically recognized by all doctors and is caused by...well a variety of things. But one of the big ones is a chemical imbalance in the brain, usually find in bipolars. Bipolar disorder runs in my family, my grandmother and mother both suffer from it and I suspect I will find I do as well.

I suffer from social anxiety and live in a house where I can never rest. The only escapes I have are through my time with God, my time in this fandom and my writing. And I'm finishing a story right now but my mother has messed me up so badly today I can't focus on it.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this. I guess to tell people what it's like to live in a house where you have to be a parent to your parent. Ironically, I still want to have children one day, just ones who are nothing like the other members of my family.

I'll endure. One day people will look at me and see the man who freed himself, the intelligent man and the best writer around. Just not there yet.

All who read this, pray for me. I need it.