Diary of a Demon Dog #37 (Patreon)

I'm so tired. My brain hasn't been firing on all cylinders for at least a month. I'm working two jobs, taking college classes online and keeping up with game dev and commissions as best as I can. It's been a lot to handle but I'm happy. I'm at peace. For the first time in a very long time, my anxiety is way down to almost nothing. It's all because I finally moved out of my mom's place after three years of trying to properly get back onto my feet. Holy shit it was awful living with her. Just being in the same zip code as her is emotionally draining in a way words can not do justice. It was financially draining too. I was paying hundreds of dollars a month to sleep on a couch in a roach, mice and asbestos infested apartment with her and her useless asshole of a husband that can't manage to rinse out a single cup after using it for milk. Literally left half empty and sometimes full cups and dishes of food and drink all over the apartment. No attempt to even get it in the sink. Dishes piled up every single day and everyone expected me to be the one to wash them all. He played loud music at all hours of the night and morning, smoked constantly and barely spoke a word to me in the year that we lived together. Despite all of this bullshit, my mom believed he could do no wrong. She kissed the ground he walked on. Whenever I tried to voice my annoyance with even just one of the many awful things about him, it would turn into a two hour argument of her crying and screaming about how much she sacrificed to raise me and how I should just butt out of her life. I didn't ask to be here. I didn't ask you to throw yourself on the fire. Plus, as I have gotten older, I realized her "sacrifices" during my childhood were often just her making horrible decision after horrible decision. Buying things we couldn't afford, moving to neighborhoods that were far too expensive, showering us with gifts one month then eating nothing but bread and broth for the next three. It made no fucking sense! All the while, I had to play the role of her therapist whenever she had a bad day. I remember vividly when I was 15, she came home crying and absolutely decimating a box of cupcakes because one guest at the restaurant she was a server at was mean to her and didn't tip over some dumbass reason. Like I get it. Life is hard. People are assholes and it can hurt so much when people throw their shit at you but I was a child. I had school in the morning. Why in the goddamn hell was I forced to comfort my own mother at 1am over one random person mildly being a dick? The thousands of dollars she has "borrowed" from me over the years to keep our lights on yet she still buys new clothes, designer bags and beauty products without missing a beat. I didn't fully see it all when I was younger but seeing the same patterns when living with her again as an adult made it all clear as day. She doesn't struggle because it is the only option. She struggles because she loves being a victim. She is addicted to it. She is the root of all of her own problems and she drags everyone in orbit into her mess. She begs and pleads for money while giving you the finger and telling you to shut up in the same breath. I've been dealing with that toxic mess of a parent for my entire life and only just now realized how fucked up everything has been and understand it didn't have to be that way. My decades of suffering were not a necessary evil but the byproduct of my mother's inflated ego and garbage self-esteem. Her absolute abysmal levels of planning meant I never knew if I would have electricity to do my homework, clothes for school or food to eat. Living with her as adult was the exact same thing. We moved around three times in one year after she kept renting places far outside of our budget despite everyone begging her not to do it but it was always her way or the highway. I finally chose the highway and holy fuck this is so much better. I can actually control what I eat. I can save and budget for everything I need. I don't have to worry every month about getting kicked out or the lights getting turned off. I don't have to deal with her asking for thousands of dollars at the literal last minute to save us from being put out on the streets. I'm done. I'm so fucking done and it feels fantastic. So yeah, I'm tired as hell but I've never felt better.