RANT - Family Really Sucks
Had a rather annoying and infuriating encounter with my parents the night before, one that had me scolding them verbally for a good 5 to 10 minutes at 2 in the morning and in my head for at least a half hour afterwards before finally forcing myself to fall asleep.
And I've woken up still pissed off, so I'm going to vent rather than risk spouting off at my folks and possibly getting my ass handed to me on a platter. Though putting my oh-so haughty father in his place would be worth the sore bottom.
So, I was abroad for 10 weeks until March 10th, when I finally arrived home. Nice being back, seeing my family and friends, so on and so forth, but while I was abroad, two very frustrating things occurred; My external hard drive became damaged (requiring me to purchase a new one) and my laptop that I has been my lifeline for the past 3 years finally gave up the ghost with a graphics card failure that causes it not boot up properly. So I need to perform two cases of data recovery and purchase a new computer, neither of which I really have money for right now, but I'm getting a job in the next couple weeks (hopefully) and- I'm getting off track.
The important thing is that I'm currently having to share a desktop computer with my folks, mainly my father.
I'm not to pleased by it, considering how much I use the computer for pretty much everything I regard important in my social, business and creative lives, but I haven't got much choice, so I've been dealing with it.
Last night proved, to me at least, why I desperately need my own computer again.
Yesterday was a long day to begin with, and one that was very productive for me; I went to Seattle, got my hair cut, drew four dog portraits for a forum I participate in, had lunch at a favorite cafe and saw my grandmother off to a month-long trip to Maryland. Not bad for a day that consisted mostly of driving and dozing off in the back seat between sketches.
When we got home, there was nothing really planned, so I went ahead and logged onto the computer to spend a little time catching up with my long distance girlfriend and working on a roleplay that I started with a friend of mine a few days ago. As usual, the roleplay began to run a little late, and my mother complained of me not having a proper sleep schedule, blah blah blah. I told her that I was wired from all the coffee and tea that I'd drunk during the day and I would be up until I'd worked off the caffeine. She nodded like she was okay with it and left me be, which was fine.
1 AM rolls by, I'm still working off the caffeine and have hit an important climax in the roleplay, Mom comes trundling out and starts grumbling at me that it's 1 AM and that I should be in bed. I reply back that I'm working on wrapping up and will get to bed in a bit.
Apparently 'getting to be in a bit' translates to Mom as 'getting to bed in 15 minutes' rather than 'getting to bed when I've wrapped up the climax and have said good night to my friends' what was what I was meaning.
Wrap up the climax, starting to get tapered down and about to tell my friends that I'm heading to bed, when Mom comes out again and starts getting ticked at me because I'm not in bed yet. I tell her to calm down and go to bed, I'm wrapping up and need to concentrate to write, which I can't do with her glaring at me and talking. She ignores me COMPLETELY and continues to berate me, mentioning that it's 2AM and she'd expected me in bed when she asked me to bed, proving that she hadn't listened to me before and wasn't listening now.
I repeated myself, asking her to please be quiet so I could finish my sentence, tell my friend good night, and get everything wrapped up. She ignores me completely and starts getting louder and angrier, telling me that I'd said I'd be in bed an hour ago (not true) and that I should be getting on a schedule now because I've applied for a job and will need to get proper sleep to work properly (good point, but I don't know if I'm getting the job to begin with and I was so hopped up on caffeine I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway, as evidenced by me going to sleep at 2 and waking up at 6 with no ill effects or lethargy). I'm starting to get frustrated, since I'm trying to concentrate and reply back to my friend with a post and an addendum saying good night, but I can't concentrate on what I'm writing because Mom is getting louder and more insistent and GLARING at me like I've just spit in her face rather than spent an hour working on a collaborative creative project with a good friend.
Things start to escalate, Mom getting more and more irate and me getting more and more frustrated, and I finally snapped at her, telling her to "Shut up and go to sleep". Not my best words, but I was starting to get really irritated at her for continually distracting me and not letting me get things wrapped up so I could sign off. She snaps back with a "Don't talk to me like that", I snapped back with "I'll speak with you 'like that' because you're distracting me and making it hard to concentrate. Shut up and go to sleep!".
Back and forth a couple rounds until Dad comes out, obviously fed up with the arguing, and shuts off the powerstrip to the computer.
Gahd, I wanted to hit him so hard right then, I would have smashed in his face with my Doctor Who mug if I hadn't liked the thing so much.
In the end, I wound up berating the both of them all the way down the hall, escorting them to bed and continuing to berate them from the door until their snide replies to my attempts to explain how their actions were rude and uncalled for had me so fed up I said 'screw it, they don't care' and climbed into bed myself, where I lay cursing into my pillow for a solid 5 minutes before continuing to berate them in my head until I got a headache and took some Tylenol, which knocked me out.
What really tees me off about this whole incident is the continual repetition of what I call "I'm An Adult, Listen To Me Or Else" Syndrome. Both of my parents continually bit back in the argument with replies like "Take responsibility for your actions, you're too grown up for this" shortly followed by "I'm your mother, do as I say because I care for you". At 21, I can quite easily identify the confliction of these two statements, and the fact that I have to point this out in conversation and continually press to provide my own views (which are promptly ignored flat out) is infuriating.
Yes, I live with my parents, am currently unemployed, and depend upon them for food, shelter and clothing. But I am also 21, have applied for work at a nearby location to limit transportation needs and have declined to go to class this quarter to help make up what I spent overseas. I'm also going to be taking up commissions in my spare time to make a little extra cash on the side for personal use, since the majority of my salary is going to be going either straight to my parents or towards purchasing a new laptop for myself. I'm going to be getting my driver's license (finally) with some help from my boyfriend and another friend of mine, and I go out of my way to help my folks around the house as they need me, then bugger off out of their way so they can do as they like.
My father is currently unemployed, as is my mother, and only my father is looking for employment while my mother is spending like we haven't been without income for almost 2 months (which shocked me, I hadn't realizes Dad was unemployed until mid-February while I was in New Zealand, and apparently his contracted was up in mid-January, thanks for keeping me in the loop guys).
I hate the fact that my parents can't step back and let me make my own decisions (despite my age) simply because I'm living under their roof. I don't drink, I don't smoke or do drugs, I'm still a virgin despite being in a relationship for a little over 18 months, and I help out around the house whenever they ask me even when I have previous plans (unless the plans themselves are expressly non-negotiable, then I complete the asked for task when I'm next able).
I'm 21. I could be out every night getting smashed in some bar and out clubbing until late (like the vast majority of my Study Abroad group), but no, I'm more mature than that and actually have a smidgen of common sense. They don't realize that it could be SO much worse, no, they pester and push and yell at me for staying up on the computer with a friend WRITING so that I can work through a caffeine high.
And Dad's high and mighty act is just- URGH.
If it's not important to him, than it's not important at all, no matter other people's opinions.
He moves us into the house 2 weeks early 'because he has the people', he starts remodeling 'because he has the supplies', he starts working on the garden 'because he has the time', AND NEVER FINISHES A GODDAMN THING.
We're still shuffling things around in the garage looking for things, and the floor is still not waterproofed like he said it was going to be, and our back lawn is absolutely disgusting because his stupid chicken coop was slapped together in a single afternoon rather than planned out according to the blueprint we were supposed to be working on together.
It's his way or the high way, and IT PISSES ME OFF.
Yes, he's technically the breadwinner, but he's not the one who keeps track of and pays the bills on time. He's not the one keeping the house semi-livable and clean. He's not the one looking after the animals and caring for the garden.
FUCK NO! I vaccum, fold clothes, clean the guest bathroom, dust, clean the cat box and empty the dishwasher. Mom takes care of the bills, cleans out all the other animals, does the laundry, cooks, takes care of the upstairs plants, and refills the bird feeders (among other things). Grandma takes care of the downstairs plants, does her own laundry, brushes the cat, and tends to the garden when its nice out.
All I've seen Dad do is start projects and then leave them to sit when he gets distracted by something new.
He doesn't use the computer for work, despite the fact that he has programs on the thing that he could use (he like to show off), more often than not I find him browsing YouTube and watching stupid political satires rather than doing anything productive, and he has an Android pad he can use for all of that. The only actually productive thing I've ever seen him do is print boarding passes for his plane flights to and from work (now not happening due to his current unemployment) and doing taxes online.
Meanwhile, when I'm on the computer, I'm chatting with friends to figure out the plots of a story we've been working on and doing research and looking up laptops and administrating my RP forum and occasionally going onto YouTube and Tumblr and deviantArt.
I know I have times when I spend a whole day reading fanfiction or otherwise wasting time, but no one else is using the damn computer and I haven't got any other plans and no one is asking me to help around the house, so what's the harm?
It just-
It irritates the ever loving hell out of me that no one bothers to stop and think about WHY I'm on the computer so much.
I'm not on the computer 'for funsies', though that is a small part of it. I'm on the computer because it is the primary way for me to contact my friends, family and potential employers, as well as the primary way for me to conduct research and write papers for both creative and academic forms. I applied for my job online, and I met my long distance girlfriend through IM.
Dad turning off the computer on me like he did was the equivalent of forcing me to hang up in the middle of a phone call, or me interrupting him while printing a boarding pass, or Mom having one of her bear projects snatched from under her nose.
It wasn't just an inconvenience, it was downright rude and seriously childish in a way that in unbefitting a man his age.
The fact that NEITHER Mom or Dad see anything wrong in this and think that they have the right to butt in with their preconceived notions and assumptions is absolutely INFURIATING.
I hate being talked down to, I hate having information kept from me, I hate being treated like a little kid when I most obviously am not and have not been for quite some time.
I hate the way my parents treat me, and I don't know how to communicate this to them without them snapping back with some ridiculous comment about me needing to 'grow up' or 'get my priorities straight' or 'get back on schedule', like I'm some halfwit teenager who think they know everything but really knows nothing at all.
I'm not stupid, I'm not blind, and I am seriously fed up with this bullshit.
If anyone has any advice on how to deal with the above issue, I'd be very thankful.
And I've woken up still pissed off, so I'm going to vent rather than risk spouting off at my folks and possibly getting my ass handed to me on a platter. Though putting my oh-so haughty father in his place would be worth the sore bottom.
So, I was abroad for 10 weeks until March 10th, when I finally arrived home. Nice being back, seeing my family and friends, so on and so forth, but while I was abroad, two very frustrating things occurred; My external hard drive became damaged (requiring me to purchase a new one) and my laptop that I has been my lifeline for the past 3 years finally gave up the ghost with a graphics card failure that causes it not boot up properly. So I need to perform two cases of data recovery and purchase a new computer, neither of which I really have money for right now, but I'm getting a job in the next couple weeks (hopefully) and- I'm getting off track.
The important thing is that I'm currently having to share a desktop computer with my folks, mainly my father.
I'm not to pleased by it, considering how much I use the computer for pretty much everything I regard important in my social, business and creative lives, but I haven't got much choice, so I've been dealing with it.
Last night proved, to me at least, why I desperately need my own computer again.
Yesterday was a long day to begin with, and one that was very productive for me; I went to Seattle, got my hair cut, drew four dog portraits for a forum I participate in, had lunch at a favorite cafe and saw my grandmother off to a month-long trip to Maryland. Not bad for a day that consisted mostly of driving and dozing off in the back seat between sketches.
When we got home, there was nothing really planned, so I went ahead and logged onto the computer to spend a little time catching up with my long distance girlfriend and working on a roleplay that I started with a friend of mine a few days ago. As usual, the roleplay began to run a little late, and my mother complained of me not having a proper sleep schedule, blah blah blah. I told her that I was wired from all the coffee and tea that I'd drunk during the day and I would be up until I'd worked off the caffeine. She nodded like she was okay with it and left me be, which was fine.
1 AM rolls by, I'm still working off the caffeine and have hit an important climax in the roleplay, Mom comes trundling out and starts grumbling at me that it's 1 AM and that I should be in bed. I reply back that I'm working on wrapping up and will get to bed in a bit.
Apparently 'getting to be in a bit' translates to Mom as 'getting to bed in 15 minutes' rather than 'getting to bed when I've wrapped up the climax and have said good night to my friends' what was what I was meaning.
Wrap up the climax, starting to get tapered down and about to tell my friends that I'm heading to bed, when Mom comes out again and starts getting ticked at me because I'm not in bed yet. I tell her to calm down and go to bed, I'm wrapping up and need to concentrate to write, which I can't do with her glaring at me and talking. She ignores me COMPLETELY and continues to berate me, mentioning that it's 2AM and she'd expected me in bed when she asked me to bed, proving that she hadn't listened to me before and wasn't listening now.
I repeated myself, asking her to please be quiet so I could finish my sentence, tell my friend good night, and get everything wrapped up. She ignores me completely and starts getting louder and angrier, telling me that I'd said I'd be in bed an hour ago (not true) and that I should be getting on a schedule now because I've applied for a job and will need to get proper sleep to work properly (good point, but I don't know if I'm getting the job to begin with and I was so hopped up on caffeine I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway, as evidenced by me going to sleep at 2 and waking up at 6 with no ill effects or lethargy). I'm starting to get frustrated, since I'm trying to concentrate and reply back to my friend with a post and an addendum saying good night, but I can't concentrate on what I'm writing because Mom is getting louder and more insistent and GLARING at me like I've just spit in her face rather than spent an hour working on a collaborative creative project with a good friend.
Things start to escalate, Mom getting more and more irate and me getting more and more frustrated, and I finally snapped at her, telling her to "Shut up and go to sleep". Not my best words, but I was starting to get really irritated at her for continually distracting me and not letting me get things wrapped up so I could sign off. She snaps back with a "Don't talk to me like that", I snapped back with "I'll speak with you 'like that' because you're distracting me and making it hard to concentrate. Shut up and go to sleep!".
Back and forth a couple rounds until Dad comes out, obviously fed up with the arguing, and shuts off the powerstrip to the computer.
Gahd, I wanted to hit him so hard right then, I would have smashed in his face with my Doctor Who mug if I hadn't liked the thing so much.
In the end, I wound up berating the both of them all the way down the hall, escorting them to bed and continuing to berate them from the door until their snide replies to my attempts to explain how their actions were rude and uncalled for had me so fed up I said 'screw it, they don't care' and climbed into bed myself, where I lay cursing into my pillow for a solid 5 minutes before continuing to berate them in my head until I got a headache and took some Tylenol, which knocked me out.
What really tees me off about this whole incident is the continual repetition of what I call "I'm An Adult, Listen To Me Or Else" Syndrome. Both of my parents continually bit back in the argument with replies like "Take responsibility for your actions, you're too grown up for this" shortly followed by "I'm your mother, do as I say because I care for you". At 21, I can quite easily identify the confliction of these two statements, and the fact that I have to point this out in conversation and continually press to provide my own views (which are promptly ignored flat out) is infuriating.
Yes, I live with my parents, am currently unemployed, and depend upon them for food, shelter and clothing. But I am also 21, have applied for work at a nearby location to limit transportation needs and have declined to go to class this quarter to help make up what I spent overseas. I'm also going to be taking up commissions in my spare time to make a little extra cash on the side for personal use, since the majority of my salary is going to be going either straight to my parents or towards purchasing a new laptop for myself. I'm going to be getting my driver's license (finally) with some help from my boyfriend and another friend of mine, and I go out of my way to help my folks around the house as they need me, then bugger off out of their way so they can do as they like.
My father is currently unemployed, as is my mother, and only my father is looking for employment while my mother is spending like we haven't been without income for almost 2 months (which shocked me, I hadn't realizes Dad was unemployed until mid-February while I was in New Zealand, and apparently his contracted was up in mid-January, thanks for keeping me in the loop guys).
I hate the fact that my parents can't step back and let me make my own decisions (despite my age) simply because I'm living under their roof. I don't drink, I don't smoke or do drugs, I'm still a virgin despite being in a relationship for a little over 18 months, and I help out around the house whenever they ask me even when I have previous plans (unless the plans themselves are expressly non-negotiable, then I complete the asked for task when I'm next able).
I'm 21. I could be out every night getting smashed in some bar and out clubbing until late (like the vast majority of my Study Abroad group), but no, I'm more mature than that and actually have a smidgen of common sense. They don't realize that it could be SO much worse, no, they pester and push and yell at me for staying up on the computer with a friend WRITING so that I can work through a caffeine high.
And Dad's high and mighty act is just- URGH.
If it's not important to him, than it's not important at all, no matter other people's opinions.
He moves us into the house 2 weeks early 'because he has the people', he starts remodeling 'because he has the supplies', he starts working on the garden 'because he has the time', AND NEVER FINISHES A GODDAMN THING.
We're still shuffling things around in the garage looking for things, and the floor is still not waterproofed like he said it was going to be, and our back lawn is absolutely disgusting because his stupid chicken coop was slapped together in a single afternoon rather than planned out according to the blueprint we were supposed to be working on together.
It's his way or the high way, and IT PISSES ME OFF.
Yes, he's technically the breadwinner, but he's not the one who keeps track of and pays the bills on time. He's not the one keeping the house semi-livable and clean. He's not the one looking after the animals and caring for the garden.
FUCK NO! I vaccum, fold clothes, clean the guest bathroom, dust, clean the cat box and empty the dishwasher. Mom takes care of the bills, cleans out all the other animals, does the laundry, cooks, takes care of the upstairs plants, and refills the bird feeders (among other things). Grandma takes care of the downstairs plants, does her own laundry, brushes the cat, and tends to the garden when its nice out.
All I've seen Dad do is start projects and then leave them to sit when he gets distracted by something new.
He doesn't use the computer for work, despite the fact that he has programs on the thing that he could use (he like to show off), more often than not I find him browsing YouTube and watching stupid political satires rather than doing anything productive, and he has an Android pad he can use for all of that. The only actually productive thing I've ever seen him do is print boarding passes for his plane flights to and from work (now not happening due to his current unemployment) and doing taxes online.
Meanwhile, when I'm on the computer, I'm chatting with friends to figure out the plots of a story we've been working on and doing research and looking up laptops and administrating my RP forum and occasionally going onto YouTube and Tumblr and deviantArt.
I know I have times when I spend a whole day reading fanfiction or otherwise wasting time, but no one else is using the damn computer and I haven't got any other plans and no one is asking me to help around the house, so what's the harm?
It just-
It irritates the ever loving hell out of me that no one bothers to stop and think about WHY I'm on the computer so much.
I'm not on the computer 'for funsies', though that is a small part of it. I'm on the computer because it is the primary way for me to contact my friends, family and potential employers, as well as the primary way for me to conduct research and write papers for both creative and academic forms. I applied for my job online, and I met my long distance girlfriend through IM.
Dad turning off the computer on me like he did was the equivalent of forcing me to hang up in the middle of a phone call, or me interrupting him while printing a boarding pass, or Mom having one of her bear projects snatched from under her nose.
It wasn't just an inconvenience, it was downright rude and seriously childish in a way that in unbefitting a man his age.
The fact that NEITHER Mom or Dad see anything wrong in this and think that they have the right to butt in with their preconceived notions and assumptions is absolutely INFURIATING.
I hate being talked down to, I hate having information kept from me, I hate being treated like a little kid when I most obviously am not and have not been for quite some time.
I hate the way my parents treat me, and I don't know how to communicate this to them without them snapping back with some ridiculous comment about me needing to 'grow up' or 'get my priorities straight' or 'get back on schedule', like I'm some halfwit teenager who think they know everything but really knows nothing at all.
I'm not stupid, I'm not blind, and I am seriously fed up with this bullshit.
If anyone has any advice on how to deal with the above issue, I'd be very thankful.