I Couldn't Stop Crying While Writing This

(Note - I'm not sure what brought this rant on, just generally feeling annoyed at the world I guess, but I'd just like to point out, before I get started, that I love my father very much. Really, he's wonderful. The vast majority of the time.)

I'd like to tell you a story about my father, as I've never really had the chance to vent about him before and the anonymity of this blog is so darned attractive to me.

Now, when my father was 18, he was a little short of money. He took out a loan of £5,000. Not for university, you understand; it wasn't a student loan, he just wanted to move out of his mother's house and...well...buy a lot of alcohol and drugs. He managed the second part quite well, at least. He got married at 21, still living at his mom's and still spending all of his disposable income on mind-altering substances. He moved out, at his wife's insistence, when she got pregnant, taking out another loan in the process. Had a kid at 22 (my sister) and another at 23 (me), moving through about 5 different houses in that time and still spending most of his income on alcohol and drugs and leaving his wife at home to look after the kids while he was at work and then out drinking in the evenings. He cheated on his wife, a lot, was found out when he was 24 (I think) and they got divorced. She kept the kids, obviously, as he didn't want the responsibility and at the time she seemed capable of it*. He promised to send money for the kids and to come visit them every weekend. He managed neither, but still came to visit when he was sober enough (once every 2 or 3 weeks, roughly).

Anyhow, at this point he's taken out about £10,000 in loans, paid minimum payments for interest and spent the rest of his money on alcohol and drugs. So not even a tiny dent's been made in that debt. But now he has to pay child support as well as rent and everything, and he starts buying things on credit cards as he doesn't have the income to cover those expenses on top of his drug and alcohol habits. For some reason, despite never paying back loans, the banks still think it's a good idea to give him credit cards.

He maxes out credit cards, gets more credit cards to cover them, constantly switching for that 0% interest for the first few months. Takes out more loans to pay back the first loans so they'll stop chasing him. Debt continues to build.

Ex-wife's craziness kicks in. Won't go into detail but kids are basically living in poverty with their mother, being clothed and fed by their maternal grandmother as much as she can, but she's living on a small pension. He sees this, takes out another loan, gives money to crazy ex-wife for the kids. She spends it on ridiculous things.

He continues taking out loans to pay off loans, switching credit cards, and slowly building up debt. He also keeps moving house as he keeps being evicted for not paying rent. Kids never know where he's living at any given time and don't know when they're going to see him next but he continues to visit as regularly as possible and they adore him as, well, they don't know any better, he hides his drug and alcohol habits, and he's certainly better than a crazy mother.

He also goes through many girlfriends, all of which crazy in their own unique way (maybe he has a thing for the crazy chicks?) and most of them liking expensive things, as crazy chicks do. Debt continues to mount.

Kids grow up a bit, reach 16, can legally leave home. Get the fuck away from their crazy mother as soon as they can. Don't really have anywhere to live as he still doesn't have a stable home. Live off the kindness of friend's (me) and boyfriend's (sister) mothers who let them live with them for reduced rent. Can't afford to go to college or uni as they have to go into full-time jobs to pay that rent. Government won't give them any benefits as they're under 18 and not living at home**.

Unfortunately, kindness of friend's family doesn't really stretch all that far and after six months or so they get kicked out as there's too many people in the house (me) or because they broke up with their boyfriend (sister). My sister gave in and moved back in with the crazy mother for a full month before she couldn't stand it anymore and moved in with a cousin. I decided to take my father's offer of living in his back room*** for £100 a week all utilities and food included. Oh yes, he'd just bought a house at this point. Banks decided it was a good idea to give him a mortgage, despite him being in about £25,000 debt at that point. So now he has £25,000 debt and an £80,000 mortgage. I'm 17, still ineligible for benefits as I'm not technically living at home as even though I'm living with my father, my mother had custody of me and I grew up living with her. I don't really understand it. I get the feeling I probably could have pressed the matter and resolved it but I was young and naive and suffering with undiagnosed EDS and a lot of mental problems from living with the crazy mother. Wasn't capable of pressing anything.

Takes me about three months of living with him before I can get a job, applying at hundreds, literally hundreds of places, but with barely any experience and bad GCSE results it's difficult (social anxiety doesn't help with the interview process). Finally manage to get a part-time job, that pays £100 a week. Exactly enough to pay my rent, but not to pay off the £1300 debt I've built up by living with him these past few months and not paying rent.

Rambo, who I'd only been with for 6 or 7 months at this point (since just before I moved into my dad's), sees how frustrating and painful this situation is for me, talks his mom into letting me live with them for a rent of £40 a month for the both of us (He was 20, she wasn't charging him rent before that but because he was over 18 he was getting £50 a week Jobseeker's Allowance so could afford that easily).

Anyway, back to my dad. The girlfriend he'd bought this house with (and is still with today) is one of the worst of his girlfriend's for expensive taste. Once a year or so she gets bored with a room in the house, spends fuckloads redecorating. Buys gigantic plasma TVs and every games console and starts a collection of DVDs that could rival any Blockbuster's. All on credit, of course.

Between the two of them, they rack up a debt of £50,000 plus their £80,000 mortgage. Living in the lap of luxury, never wanting for a thing. New cars every year. Always have the latest gadgets and technologies. Never paying off any of their debt.

Earlier this year, they declare bankruptcy. All debt written off, except the mortgage. Lose no assets whatsoever. Continue living in luxury as they now have all that disposable income that used to be spent on debt interest. Buy the nicest foods, always have alcohol and drugs in the house, etc etc.

Which brings me to the point where I started getting annoyed and began writing this. I have never bought anything on credit. Never bought anything I couldn't afford. Always been good with money. Always worked as hard as I could, before my medical problems got so bad that I literally couldn't (and for a good while before that as I refused to admit how bad it was). Yet I've never had that kind of disposable income. I've never been able to buy nice foods and not worry about it. I allow myself luxuries now and then, but I'm always very aware of how luxurious they are and they always make me feel guilty for buying them. I buy alcohol for Rambo on rare occasions, as a treat, and I can never afford drugs. I don't even want them for recreational purposes. I just want working painkillers and I can't afford them. But my father always has a good stock in his house, that I'm not allowed, unless I can afford to buy it off him.

Yet he, even now, even being supposedly bankrupt, never worries about money. He has never lived off a tiny income. Has never lived off ramen noodles and toast and asda smartprice soup at 19p a can because it's all he can afford for groceries.

It's just...it's not fair. I know, he works, and he's good at his job. But I've worked, and in every job I've ever done I've done a helluva fucking good job of it, enough for people to comment on it and tell me how awesome I am and how much better I am than the other people before me, enough for people to ask me to come back when I leave, despite all my problems and all of the sick days I had to take. I am a damned fucking amazing woman and I deserve better than this. Fuck, at my age, my father was being a degenerate irresponsible bastard. At my age he was stealing cars and doing drugs and alcohol. How the hell does he get it so easy?

I want a job again. I want to be able to work and be told how awesome I am all the time, again. I want to be able to earn my money, not jump through hoops for the government just to get a measly amount of benefit that can barely pay my bills and buy me food. I want to know that this isn't forever, that things will get easier, that this is just a small part of my life that everyone goes through when they're young.

I can't have that. I know that. I've mostly resigned myself to it, even if I do give in every now and then and desperately hunt for jobs that might, maybe, be suitable for me. I never find any. I don't think they exist.

I just...I wish people didn't throw it in my face so much. I'm constantly being told that because other people work they're better than me, as they contribute to society, and they have a right to be exhausted when they get home and I should immediately jump up and get them drinks and food because I've just been sat on my arse all day, being useless. No matter how much I actually have done that day. If it doesn't earn money, it doesn't count as work and I have no right to complain. About anything. Ever.

And people are always asking me why I don't buy this or that as it might help me, or telling me off for being 'cheap' when I buy things from charity shops or don't buy name-brand things (or, God forbid, buy cheap food; that's apparently the source of all my IBS problems), or getting annoyed with me for not travelling around the country to visit them or go off on holiday with them or go out to pubs with them etc etc etc. Seriously, guys. I would love to do all that. I really would. But I'm doing the best I can with what little I have.

...Most of all, though, I wish that Rambo didn't have to be dragged down with me. He works for a living. He should be able to have a bit of disposable income. He should be able to buy himself luxuries and go out drinking with his friends. He shouldn't have to deal with all of this shit. I know I shouldn't feel guilty about dragging him down with me, but I do. So fucking much. It's NOT FAIR. He deserves better.






*More on that later, if I can really bring myself to dredge up traumatic childhood memories.

**Seriously. I was told, at 16, that if I was living at home and not working or studying, I'd be eligible for benefits, but as I'd moved out (and therefore needed the money) I couldn't have any.

***Back room is not the same as a spare room, by any account. It was a tiny box room that you couldn't fit a bed into. I had an air bed and a sleeping bag on the floor and suffered horribly with back pain for it.