I don't know what to do. I'm just so tired of struggling, and I can't even feel okay with feeling bad about it because I know I sound like I'm throwing myself one big pity party but fuck man I've been trying and failing at life for so long now.
I'm from a family of eight kids. I'm the only non-conservative, non-religious one in the family. I live in a big-time MAGA state. And out of eight siblings I am also the biggest failure. They're all succeeding at their careers and in their marriages and their lives in general. And they all have the bootstrapper attitude so it's my own fault I can't get it together like them.
I've been in and out of low-paying jobs despite having a bachelor's degree and I'm in my early forties with kids. I've made bad financial decisions like career changes that I got excited about at the time and end up thousands of dollars deeper in the hole instead because for various reasons I find out I can't do those jobs. I married someone with unresolved childhood trauma and things go bad and we divorce with two kids. I buy a house by myself and get back on my feet and meet a much better partner and get married again, but my younger child turns out to have ADHD and Autism and Encopresis and causes so many problems with my wife and step daughter that I had to move out with just my boy and me, taking advantage of the kindness of my only friend by staying at an unoccupied place his wife owns, which I feel terrible about because I can't even offer them any rent. I can barely cover the electric bill for them, because I'm still sending most of my paychecks to my wife to help pay the mortgage on the place we bought together, and we want to stay married even though my wife is pretty sure she could never live with my 9 year old again. And I can't make him go live with his biological mother because she moved away and is begging her baby-daddy's relatives (she had another kid post-divorce) to let her stay with them, and she's also very against giving him medication for his ADHD or anything else so even if she could take care of him (she can barely take care of herself), I know it will fuck his life to live with somebody like her with those beliefs and in her situation.
Yesterday my wife gave me the news that we have to sell the house because she won't be getting child support anymore. Her ex husband lost his job again, he relapses with drug addiction sometimes so he's not the most stable person. He makes good money but NEVER sees his kids even though she keeps asking him to see them.
So now we're making plans on what to do. She been hunting for apartments because her credit is messed up (long story there) but the most she can afford is a place with one fewer bedroom than we have now, and that's another long story as to why that's a problem that maybe I'll explain later because it might need its own little wall of text.
On school days I have to use my entire 1-hour lunchbreak to drive home when my son is off the bus, drive him and my teenage daughter to the place that my son and I are staying at, and then hurry back to work, so my wife and step daughter don't have to be around him when I'm not there. And then drive my daughter back home to her step-mom after work because she's a lot happier there and I have no furniture for her anyway except our mattress that she doesn't want to lay on.
Meanwhile my car engine is burning oil and shaking and may break down soon, and I don't know what I'll do if it gives out before I'm able to buy a new one which would probably be after tax season at the earliest. My son is constantly coming home with a conduct sheet full of bad marks refusing to do classwork and throwing tantrums in school because nothing I try in terms of rewards or consequences at home seems to have any affect on his behavior. He's a 4th grader with the handwriting of a preschooler because he can't seem to get any better at that either and struggles with it, and his Encoprisis and ADHD seem to be making his potty accidents get even worse lately instead of better. There had been times where he went months without an accident, but over the past two weeks he shits his pants literally every single day now and I don't know why it's happening or how to stop it. He's also constantly making messes and won't clean up after himself, I get off work and see the place a wreck despite having just cleaned it and I'm too tired and depressed to do it again.
And he won't stop asking me to buy him things. I've explained my money situation to him hundreds of times, but something in his brain just won't let him understand or retain the information, so several times a day he's showing me some toy or other thing he found online and asking me to buy it for him. It doesn't matter if I just told him I only have $7 left in my account and have to figure out how to make that cover both food AND gas for the next eight days, because five minutes later he's asking me to buy him a watch or something from Amazon and it stresses me out so much and depresses me that I'm repeatedly having to tell him no I'm sorry I can't get that for you right now, because damn it I wish I could buy him everything.
The last few text exchanges with my wife seemed kind of glib and cold and short. I saw her earlier today and gave her a hug she was barely receptive to because she seemed kind of standoffish. And I can't blame her, yesterday she just had to ask her 70-something year old parents for help and they had to take out a loan to help her.
It's just getting to be one thing after another after another after another, so much so that there are likely several other problems I'm dealing with that I haven't listed here because they're just getting to be so many. I got health problems now, like a heart condition and two root canals in just the last three months. I'm trying my best to be frugal and pay down my debts but I keep having to add to them instead because of medical bills. Lately I can't even make my co-pays at doctor visits and just ask them to bill me, and I don't know how long they will keep letting me do that because I can't make payments on the bills. I've tried talking to therapists before, I've spoken to at least five different ones at this point, but it never helps. They're all good at what they do, but I'm just not receptive to it and can never seem to open up to any of them in a meaningful way.
I'm just so stuck. And lately the depression gets even worse at night. Today I started out in a decent mood despite yesterday's bad news, then as the day progressed I got more and more depressed as time went by. I'm not suicidal by any means but I still want so badly just to lay down and give up. I don't want to do all of this anymore. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do about life anymore. I'm just broken and things are never going to get any better. They just keep getting worse. I don't know what to do.
