Howdy folks, Galdyr here

As the title says, I'm gonna be just entirely candid here, usually I am but this time I'm just gonna be sayin' outright what's been goin' on in my life, what's been on my mind, and just what's ahead of me, and all of it is just entirely uncertain. Why I've been overall just quiet a lot.

I've had a week to just, somewhat take time to reflect for better or worse on my life and what's goin' on with it. This may all come off as somewhat of a ramble in some places.

I want to be just entirely honest on this, for whatever sake of just wantin' to be heard at this point, get things off my mind. Just apologies if I tend to lay thick on the metaphors here and there.

Just a heads up, gonna be delvin' deep into some dark thoughts that've been lingerin' and I would plead to ask ya bear with me in how much I'll be writin' here. Much as folks tend to get worn out by a wall of text, I need to get it off my chest, but first things first.

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Job Situation

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So, several months ago I was told I wouldn't have a job anymore with my folk's business, and that finally came true back in October and it's been now almost three months I've been without a job. Even back in June when I was told this, I was job hunting from then, to about August. It was there I had some chance of a job, made the mistake of stop job huntin' till that came about in October, which as noted in my previous journal... didn't go as planned. Effectively fucked over just about.

About collectively between all of those days spent, its been about five months of me tryin' to find work. LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, etc. you name it, I've been on there just doin' my part (and special thanks to my friend for helpin' me to the best of his abilities, and others who have been tryin' to give me advice) to search for any opportunities. And yes, that includes goin' outside of those sites and applyin' directly to the businesses applications and the sorts. Even tried goin' to a few places in person (Costco, BJs, Sam's, etc) and expectedly bein' told just to back to the sites and apply. That last bit of advice bein' from my folks to try and once again provin' they are beyond outta touch with how reality works these days.

And still nothin'.

Nothin' but my business email destroyed by constant spam of messages and bile of junk notifications, with a few automated responses from some businesses just bein' a sorta "We got your resume, but can't say or not if we'll actually contact you" message. Overall it's been nothin' but a reminder of either my skills are truly lackin' for anythin' or just how the job market around here is these days. And that's tryin' to even land a job that pays even just roughly enough for what I'm tryin' to achieve, even if its just barely $17 an hour.

Maybe it's my location, Virginia Beach ain't much for options beyond labor at the warehouses or such and even those have been duds for me to apply for. Though even tryin' to apply for remote jobs has been a failure on that front too, least again, somewhat expected with how things are these days. And I know all of this bein' said - It's not unfamiliar to anyone else with how the world is these days.

All of this just makes me feel like it's not worth it to keep searchin', I will keep doin' so but it's not encouragin' to know that I keep knockin' yet can't even get an interview let alone a job at this rate. And it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for my other current problems which are rearin' their heads more and more.

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Current Problems and my Parents

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One of those problems bein' my folks themselves.

I'll be blunt, it's just constant irritation and anxiety bein' shackled to live here with them. Most folks know of my situation, I do live with my parents but they're just an ever present constant pressure on my anxiety and frustrations. Bein' ignorant as they are, about just everything and not understandin' in the slightest.

Alot of folks already know how rough my relationship with them is. But it's grown just worse now ever since they sold off the business. What they always praised as a good change of pace for them has now, in my eyes at least, made them far more worse off than the better. Before they were a bit tired but at least didn't have much concerns about anythin' besides an upset customer or the likes. Now? All I can ever hear from them is how much they work nonstop these days and seein' a table full of bills, legal expenses (most likely due to the amount of customers who are peeved at them for sellin' and havin' been owed life coverages on their systems) and overall both of them pushin' themselves to stress about work, when paradoxically it was their hope in sellin' the business that they would work less.

I bring this up cause now, money is all on my folk's minds and all they can do is just remind me constantly of how I 'need' to get a job. How much I should stress to have a job. How much I need to get a job. And actin' as though everyday I go without workin', they see as me bein' lazy and not doin' a thing about it.

Which to me, I could show em every email I've done, every application, whatever. To them all they see is a son who is jobless and leechin' off of them, and yet I am tryin'. It's so fruitless but yet I have to live with them bein' an ever constant reminder that all they think is I'm takin' from them and not findin' a job.

Even this Christmas, before my folks left for their trip - Mom wanted to give me a gift of $100, yet pointedly stated "Here's for you to spend, even though you owe me and your father"

I still haven't touched that money. My sister gave me a bit too, but at least she gave that to me outta actual want to give me somethin' at least.

Overall - my parents just make me miserable, they are miserable folks to be around. They act far more like they're richer than they actually are, truly pinnacle of idiocy you'd expect of parents who just live in ignorance.


Which brings me to my other problem. And a confession of my own idiocy - one that I have told friends privately but I feel now I need to make it publicly aware of why I'm in the situation I'm in.


The reason why my folks are ridin' me so hard is due to the car, a vehicle that to this day I wish I had never bent at the knee agreein' to get. I want to make it clear. It's infuriatin' in that I never truly wanted this thing, hell if I wanted a car, I wanted a clunker - somethin' old but no ties. Yet my folks bein' the types who don't want to settle for less - and not appear "poor" (yes, they are truly that deluded) - pushed me to get somethin' that had a pretty hefty tag of a payment plan on it, about $700 a month.

I should explain, that when I worked for my folks beforehand, they paid for my vehicles expenses cause - by all accounts - it was a work vehicle. Only ever used it for their business, to work, do their errands, etc. And when they sold the business, and about the time I had the promise of my other job in August - we got rid of the truck and I moved down to a Ford Bronco, which even at the time I was like, *I didn't want really want somethin' that expensive*, and yet they insisted I do so since I'd be coverin' it with my new job - which I got fucked over for.

Problem is now, that car is bein' an actual sense of dread for me now. My folks have covered payin' on it, as much as I want to be rid of the damn thing at this point. With them ridin' on my back sayin' I need to take up the payments soon, and yet they were the ones who pushed me in the first place to get this fuckin' thing. In my eyes it's somethin' I can live without, yet they see in their eyes that I *need* a car. And I'm sure some may ask, why not just get rid of it? Sell it off?

Because my folks just won't let me, with my mom just harpin' about my credit score bein' destroyed if I do so - which I'll get to in a moment. And overall them just insistin' I need a car, which for them I feel they want me to have just solely so they can have me still runnin' their home errands for things they need or the likes.

I'll just say at this point to get the point across, I have but $2600 to my name, in total.

With that much, if I take on the car payments now, I'll be broke in three month effectively. Which in my eyes, I'm not payin' for it. It somethin' I never wanted, never asked for. Which all I know is gonna draw more ire from my folks.

As for what I mentioned about credit score - this brings me to my other dilemma I've never really told publicly but solely with friends.

Thing is for years as I've told about how much my folks have controlled my life - Mom especially - she effectively 'nurtured' my credit. Yes, like actually used my name in a lot of cards and expenses to try and make it great.

I never knew about this, growin' up for years. She never taught me about money, never told me about things like credit score or such, or just even that she was doin' this. And wasn't even made privy to this fact until, I wanna say roughly half a year ago or so. And I should state, I never knew much of anythin', thanks to how much of my life was sheltered and controlled by my folks.

I feel statin' this will just show much of my own ignorance, or just my own incompetence of not knowin'.

Either way, anytime I bring up about the idea of just *not* keepin' the vehicle now, my mom just rides my back about how much my credit score will get sunk, actin' as though its the only thing that matters more than anythin'. Even statin' how it puts me in a better position than most people these days - my friends included - and I'd be an idiot for destroyin' it (Genuinely makes me upset, angry, at the way she speaks like that, especially my friends). It leaves me in a constant sense of frustration that effectively choosin' to get of the vehicle, is mainly just goin' to serve to make livin' with em far worse.


My parents have always rode this line of wantin' to manipulate me alot, gaslight me, and makin' my life a unique kind of hell for keepin' me strapped down in alot of ways. I wish I wasn't just stuck tied to them at the hip now.

They've controlled my life through a mixture of just, false love and fear. Just as they live themselves in fear of so many things, remainin' ignorant to the world around them. And even now with how they are, their work ethics just so out of whack they are workin' themselves into bein' so stressed out. They truly believe that they need to work without rest, without breaks (Mom purposely lyin' to her work that she takes lunches workin' from home, when she works through her break time and complains how worn out she is by the end of the day or stressed in general)

In the end of this part, I'm just makin' it aware to folks that every day I am stuck with two stressed out workaholics who keep a tight lead on my throat about my situation.

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Desire to Learn, Despite Everything

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This leads to somethin' I have been talkin' about a lot to folks.

Much as I am jobless now - I am tryin' to make the most of it, for better or worse, do or die. Little late than never, but since November, I have been tryin' to take up learnin' codin'. Specifically C# and directly learnin' game dev for workin' within Unity.

Why? Because, in truth up until recent I never really had a desire for what I truly wanted to aspire to in life. Growin' up (which I cover alot back in this journal) I was always busy with so many other things, helpin' my parents, my grandfather, strugglin' on my own in homeschoolin', that I never really had any kind of aspirations. The closest I ever did have one, was through my love for video games, and a want for just creatin' my kind of game or some kind of experience I could give to someone else. But I never had access to the kind of PC or studies to ever really *do* that kind of thing. Alongside with always bein' told how much of a waste college was (and that includes dissuasions from my own folks too), I just never did push to do that kind of thing, and I blame myself for that.

However, well, what else do I have to lose? As much as I am tryin' to find a job and nothin' is happenin', I am tryin' to use what free time I have to study, with a bit of help from places like gamdev.tv or my own research that I can conduct here and there.

And that's also in spite of my own parents who just do nothin' but scoff or wave off the notions of me learnin' this sort of thing.

Albeit still a struggle to learn with how much they try to occupy my mind with their concerns, the money, etc. It's crushin' at times mentally but at this rate, if I can't find a job, this is the best I can do with my time then. And I know this is in the face of tryin' to learn knowin' this sorta thing ain't happenin' shortly. The whole, Rome wasn't built in a day, thing.

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Yet Still Struggling with Myself

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I'll just say here, my mental state hasn't been the brightest.

As much as I feel I try to stay on the positive, in truth it's been a struggle for me day in and day out to not just want to shut down at times. Recently, I've started takin' an herbal nutrient for stress and anxiety, Ashwagandha, least for what best I can do since seein' a therapist or the likes is out of the question now out of sheer cost alone. No health insurance or the likes, so all I can really do is try this stuff.

Though as much as I try to tell myself it'll be alright, that one part of my brain wants to beg otherwise.

I have thought of just, at times, endin' it. To be just blunt, how much I'd want to just shut down and be over all of this. That feelin' that no matter how many times I try to run it through my head, my mind just wants to remind me how much I have stacked against me.

Dependin' on my own folks, havin' barely much to my name, no real particular skills as of yet but at the same time havin' the loomin' threat of just my parents losin' it on me, possibly kickin' me out or makin' my life a personal nightmare that I can't get away from. Even at this at this point of my life, I despise I have the same fears as I did back when I was a teenager, yet here it's just out of sheer unpreparedness of how I'd live in the world right now.

The ever dire reminder of how much more expensive things goin' to be, how even with what money I do have wouldn't even afford a space of my own for even a short stint of time, how even though I am constantly lookin' for work, I can't just kick in some business' door to hire me, as well as my own folks pressurin' me more and more to get a job that I cannot get them to even fathom understandin' how difficult it is these days to achieve even that.

I just feel like a part of me wants to just be done with it. Yet I keep shuttin' that voice out as much as I can cause, I do have people I care about, and I know they wouldn't want me gone. I can only really help myself in what ways I can now, even if its just a sisyphean task at the moment with how things are.

At this point, I'm always just feelin' like I'm sittin' on the cliff metaphorically speakin'. And these days I grow just weary sharin' that fact with people in that I worry I'll just frighten them away with my own worries and constant dreadin'.

It's to say that for why I'm so silent with so many these days besides those closest to me, or how often I feel I struggle to communicate with people when my facade falls away to how much I hate my current situation at hand. I try to bury it with talks of everythin' else but what's happenin' in my life cause at that rate I feel I'm forcin' someone into the therapist seat.

Not too dissimilar to how I feel I'm makin' the ones read this now feel seein' this. And I feel I should apologize for that. And owe an apology to all of those I haven't spoken or kept contact with recent, just how much I feel I have so little to offer that isn't just me wallowin' in my own anxieties on a constant, or feel I have to put on the show of bein' the goat in his glory at times to keep from devolvin' into that swamp. I know folks already got enough on their plates these days, and yet again, my anxiety just shrills on the thought of just bein' another problem of bein' a source of that negativity.

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And My Fears Ahead

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With what I've said above - leads to why I've made this journal.

For the first time in my life, bein' 33 years old, I'm actually somewhat terrified of what the next year holds for me.

I've always been uncertain, sometimes naively positive or just want to hold hope ahead for what's to come. But with how much is on my mind these days, I'm genuinely just afraid of what's to become of me in a sense of just, what the hell to do with myself.

Here I am anchored to my parents whims, livin' in fear of either sinkin' with them as they slowly get sucked down into a pit of bills or havin' them at my throat remindin' me of how much of a leech I am to them. Fearful of just upsettin' them further and drivin' myself closer to that cliff I'm sittin' on. All of my friends feel distant to me in a sense of how they could ever help me, and generally a sense of just isolation that I feel is of my own doin'.

I want to be free, and live without these sort of anxieties latchin' onto me. Even if that freedom came at the expense of whatever is to come. Somehow stickin' to my parents, cut them out of my life somehow and find just a dingy apartment or some small place.

Years ago when I struck out against my folks before, havin' left home to stay with a friend in Florida for 6 months, I had the bravery (albeit stupidity in a sense too) to do so out of the idea I had the contingency of a fall back, havin' someone there to catch me in the form of my friend (and forever grateful to my friend for it) and his family takin' me in, and at the time boyfriend (who in the end let me down) givin' me somethin' to escape to get away from them. But sadly that did result in my goin' back to my folks when that didn't work out.

And now, I sit here again wishin' I could get away from them, but I have no where to go this time. Nothin' to afford to get myself out of here nor any options to make money in any way to help supply that. So I feel just trapped. Trapped and under pressure of how much I just desire some kind of way out of this. It feels maddenin', it's like in order to help myself, I need to get away from the source of my anxiety, and yet that source of anxiety, my parents, are such an ever constant that it kills my momentum of wantin' to rebel.

I just don't know what more I can do at this point.

I can keep studyin' codin' as I wish, yet I know I have a metaphorical guillotine hangin' over my head still in the form of that god forsaken car, or in turn my parents holdin' that over me, and just bangin' at the walls of how much I need to work. I look ahead and know that I'll likely never be able to afford to live on my own at this rate. To even have the idea of a roommate I could share a space with is a comfortin' thought but I don't know anyone personally who'd be willin' to go through with that, and likely I still can't do that considerin' what fundin' I have left now.

And I should make it clear - Do I want to end my life? No. Do I hate my current existence? To a degree, yes.


The only thing that makes life worth livin' is thinkin' about my found family I've made in this community.

For every moment I've come to despise the majority of my family, there's so many memories and love I have for those I do call my family. Sentimental as it is, I view all my time I've spent online here with folks as far more important to me than the moments I spend in my real life, and maybe there is some tragedy in that in hindsight, but I don't personally care. The person that everyone sees here, knows me in voice for, over text and the likes.

That is me. That is truly who I am. The side that my parents, and most of the just real world has no chance of ever seein'.

I am forever grateful and adore the people I have met over the years here, in whatever iteration folks have come to know me for. Ever thankful for meetin' artists I've adored to becomin' friends with, and findin' what inspiration I can in the friends I look up to.

And it just saddens me that these days I feel so pressured these days that it's interferin' with my well bein' even away from real life. With how much I feel just, empty or have nothin' to bring to the table of discussion.

I just want folks to know that anythin', I just want to work. I want to move out, get the fuck away from my parents, rip them out of my life and just be free to be who I want to be. To rebel and just actually not live in ever constant anxiety and doubt of myself.


In conclusion - All I can do now is just burn away as much as I can at my studies, try to staunch what money I have left to my name and overall hope to gods I somehow get hired even at the barest of minimums.

I hate goin' into the new year with so much dread in my heart, but all I can do is just shut it out with buryin' myself in either my research or my own ideas. I just hope I don't become so isolated in my own head or eaten alive by my anxiety that the person folks know me is gone entirely.