Truthfully I'm just venting so if you don't have anything nice to say, please don't say it at all. I'm really going through it right now.
Where to start? I guess between the ages of 16 to 18, I was groomed by an older man (he was 32 to my 16 when we met online) he promised me all the great things – he'd take care of me, whisk me away from the abusive environment I grew up in, we'd be so happy, etc. No one taught me different and I was too young and dumb to know better. We got married two weeks after I turned 18. Got pregnant with my oldest at 19, had her at 20. Suddenly it went from stuff being good to all of a sudden I was “taking advantage” of my husband, I was a burden, a waste of space, he was embarrassed for people to know we had sex, etc. Even accused me of cheating on him and lying about being pregnant and our oldest being “his”. I gave birth to my oldest alone, at 20, terrified and just ultimately a fucking idiot. I was too young to have kids.
Got a retail job at 21 making $7.75 an hour. Worked it for 8 months while my husband was a “stay at home dad” then he couldn't hack it. Told me to quit or else he would leave me. So I quit, like a dummy. We struggled a LOT and he always made sure to make me feel bad when the bills were too high or I would have to go without eating to make sure my daughter had food. But I could never apply for SNAP or WIC because we “weren't peasants” and he was “determined” to take care of us.
Then he got a job, things were looking up. He started pressuring me for another child. I really…didn't want one. To make a long story short, he raped me, sexually assaulted me, one time threw out my birth control. I ended up pregnant and had our second at 23. Made sure to get an IUD so he couldn't sabotage it.
I've been a stay at home mom for the past two years. I'm 25 now, almost 26. I don't have a GED, or any type of college level education. I've worked one minimum wage retail job. Then my husband decides he was done, didn't want to be a father anymore, and decided, at the age of 43, to chase after another barely legal 18 year old. Said our youngest, who I suspect might be on the spectrum, was “too much to handle”, and he was “tired of me”. I was useless, taking advantage of him, etc. Even though I washed his laundry, made his dinner, cleaned his shit stains off the toilet, home-schooled our oldest because he “didn't trust public schools”, would do any and everything he wanted just to keep him happy…it wasn't enough,
I wouldn't wish single parenthood on anybody. I saved every penny he gave me, and now I'm down to my last $19. I've applied for every single assistance service under the sun…SNAP, WIC, TANF, Mediciad, LIHEAP, etc. And thank GOD I've been approved for the majority of them because I would have not survived this long without it. There's an open child support case out against him but since he quit his job and works under the table, my case worker said they can't garnish any wages but the amount stacks against him every single week he doesn't pay
I'm just…so tired. Between food banks and social services offices and trying to get help for my youngest who is….challenging, I'm struggling. I barely sleep. I have panic attacks nightly. Stomach is constantly in knots and I skip meals to make sure my girls can eat. I cry a lot. My kids miss their dad. They dont understand why he's not around. Why is daddy gone, my oldest asks (she's always been a daddy's girl more than a mommy's girl) They need new clothes, new shoes, I'm trying to get my oldest registered for kindergarten in our local public school because that at least guarantees her breakfast and lunch but my husband fucked off and hid her birth certificate from me so now I have to scrounge together the money to order a new copy. It seems like every. single. time I try to get a step ahead, I am pushed back 3 more.
I've applied to every job I can think of. Wal-Mart, retail, waitressing, working at Wawa…just something to bring income in because I don't know how else I'm going to do it. And I just got a rejection email from working as a fucking gas station cashier job. Its the straw breaking the camel's back and I am so not okay right now.
Stress doesn't even begin to describe the fresh hell this is. It's not fair. Some times I wish I could go back in time and change the whole trajectory of my life. Life can be so cruel sometimes and I am just…over it today.