I hate my family and my life. Any advice to reconcile a broken life?

The reason why I hate my family is because they ruined my life. The reason why I hate my life is because my family ruined it. I was born to black parents in a first world country in North America, but since my parents were born and raised in a third world shithole before coming here, they had neither money nor knowledge to pass down to me. On top of that, I was born with ASD and circumcised shortly after birth. (For those who don't know, infant circumcision will reduce penile sensitivity and possibly penis size due to having less skin, which means less room to grow. Also, if there is too little skin it makes masturbation and sex uncomfortable) My ASD seems to impact my ability to learn and socialize with others. I grew up with my mom and my brother, who is 5 years older. My brother gave me a bad head injury when I was a toddler. This likely made my ability to learn and socialize even worse. My mom was too careless to take me to a doctor. My brother ruthlessly bullied me multiple times per week (sometimes on a daily basis) until I was about 15 years old. -------------------- About Mom: Because my mom grew up in a third world shithole, she likely could not eat enough for her brain to completely develop, so she is stupid and careless in many ways, yet she also thinks that she knows best, even to this day. She also does drugs on a somewhat regular basis (the only drugs I know she takes are tobacco and alcohol). She likely did some of these drugs while pregnant with me and my brother. She also never learned how to cook good food, so me and my brother grew up on crappy food, lacking in many essential nutrients. She also never learned how to properly budget, do her taxes, or properly keep track of her expenses. So despite getting a decent career before her kids were born, our family remained poor and uneducated. Over the years she has racked up tens of thousands of dollars of debt, and essentially made a surprised Pikachu face when she found out. Because of various reasons (mostly mom's fault), we had to change homes at least 4 times while I was growing up. I had to change schools at least 3 times between middle school and high school (not including the change from middle school to high school). Because of that, it became increasingly more difficult to socialize and make friends. It also didn't help that everywhere we moved and every school change came with a completely different culture to deal with. At one point I switched to a school where most of the student's were bilingual and preferred using their cultural language in social situations. School and home changes after that weren't as bad with the language barrier, but was still an issue. Because she never learned how to use a FUCKING computer (despite owning her own computer before I was born), she got scammed for $100,000,000 in Bitcoin. All she had to do was withdraw it to her bank account, but she's so stupid that she didn't even bother learning the basics of crypto and online banking despite making that investment years before she was scammed. The actual scam happened just a couple of years ago. | Don't get me wrong, I don't victim blame people who have been scammed. The problem is that she deliberately left herself vulnerable. She made an investment into something she knew NOTHING about, and chose not to learn anything about it over the course of years. The kicker is that when I was a teenager (about 11 years ago), I asked her to help me get into Bitcoin (LONG before Bitcoin blew up). I was learning about it and I could have just mined the stuff for free with a good computer. She chose not to help me despite being able to. We would have been BILLIONAIRES by now if she did. Instead we are living in a dying home. One more opportunity lost, due to an incompetent parent. My mom is one of the most kind people I know. She loves her family and tries to help everyone in her life whenever she can. She might be one of the most decent people, but that's only what you see on the surface. When you get to know her, she is a very stupid person. My life was ruined in large part due to her stupidity and carelessness. She didn't even get me the proper help I needed for ASD despite being diagnosed shortly after I became a teenager. I didn't even know for certain that I had ASD until I became smart enough to interpret the report myself. By then it was too late. But those aren't the only consequences of her carelessness. ---------------------- About Brother: My brother's brain was broken for as long as I can remember. I don't know if he has any mental disabilities, but there was always something wrong with him. He was never able to control his anger and threw tantrums on a regular basis, often taking it out on me because I was younger (again, he's 5 years older). he's in his mid 30s now, and he still throws childish tantrums occasionally. When I was about 9-10 years old, my brother started hanging out with thug-looking kids around his age, and exploring drugs. Mostly weed at the time (if you're reading this in the future, weed was illegal during that time). By the time I was around 11, he was actively selling weed on a daily basis, and bringing multiple of his thug friends to the house every single day. I'm not exaggerating, one of the ways my brother is broken is that he for some reason just can't bear being alone. He seems to have this desperate need to always be around others. Most days he came home after school he would bring at least two of his thugs with him. They would blast loud gangster rap, and smoke heavily in the house. There were many times when he'd bring over 7 people to the house to do these things. I assume my brother has a deep seeded need to always have some degree of control over others, which is why most of the time he would bring those people to our home instead of going to their home, despite the fact that our home was never that great, and not big either. I call these people thugs, but most of them weren't actual thugs. Some of them just had thuggish behavior. Maybe it was just to fit in, or maybe they were only a little bit like that. Regardless, I was put in a situation where between the ages of 11-16 years old, I had to deal with 2-7+ gangster wannabes, and sometimes actual gangsters coming into the home everyday, blasting gangster music, smoking, talking about how many people they want to kill, or some other type of killing, and getting knives or guns, ETC. There were a number of times when they almost brought gun violence into the house. Even I was almost either killed or taken hostage at one point. Where was mom during all of this? She was working and partying. Basking in her willful ignorance while her oldest son was destroying our lives. So when I was about 16 years old, my brother moved to the basement and took most of his nonsense down there too. That was roughly 14 years ago. The basement has NEVER been cleaned since before he moved down there. NOT ONCE has the basement been cleaned since he has moved down there. It is a complete and disgusting shithole with barely any space to walk around, and these days every single day he brings 3-10 people over to throw a party. Due to his tantrums over the years, he has punched holes in every wall, destroyed every door, and all of the furniture down there. Even the bathroom doesn't have a door on it. | He got a dog about 4-5 years ago. Not long after first getting the dog, for about 7 months he let the dog piss and shit all over the floor down there because he's too lazy to take his dog on walks. Back then he would just leave the piss and shit on the floor, bring his friends over and tell everyone to walk around the piss and shit when they need to pass by it. | These days sometimes the dog has to pee a little bit when he holds it too long, and my brother just lets the pee dry up on the floor instead of cleaning it. And still he can bring 3-10 people home every day for a party. On top of that, he's too lazy to do laundry or organize things so most of the time he just throws his laundry all over the floor. There is so much junk piled up in the basement that you cannot even walk straight through it. You have to walk around things and step over things. I still have to go down there to do laundry. He doesn't even take good care of his dog. These days it looks like he doesn't even let the dog outside for more than 10-30 minutes per day. He doesn't have the money to take the dog to the vet, and the dog often drinks out of the toilet, so he might not be giving enough water either. The dog has broken teeth and ears from attacking cages with other dogs in it. Seems like when there used to be another dog over, due to neglect, my brother's dog would lash out at the other dog and attack its cage since the other dog was in the cage. These days he isn't as involved as much in the dumb gangster crap as he used to be, but I'm not sure things are significantly better either. ------------------------ About Me: I was extremely stupid until about a few years ago. Again, I was born with ASD and had a childhood head injury. I'm still very stupid, but I'm on track to having kind of a normal level of intelligence eventually. But let's not get too far head yet. So when I was a young kid I just didn't know any better. I don't remember thinking that my mom was stupid, or thinking that my brother should not be treating me the way he was, and that he should be disciplined for it. At least I didn't think about those things until some time after my mid-teens. I do remember I thought about killing him more than a few times, I don't think I thought much about it beyond surface level. School was always difficult for me. I'm capable of learning things but it's harder than it is for most other people. Due to that and family influences, I never had any ambition or motivation to go through school growing up. I couldn't even imagine living beyond my school years. I just had no concept of what that would be like. I didn't know any better than to look up to a brother who was much older than me. Someone who should have cared about me and been a good example. As I started to progress through middle school, It was easier for me to understand that doing drugs simply wasn't a good idea. After watching people get drunk and high hundreds of times, it was obvious that they just turn into idiots. They lose the ability to talk or move around properly, they can't play video games or do much of anything that is actually fun. While other kids are enjoying their youth because they were born into better families, I was forced to spend my days observing a bunch of dipshits. Since my family is broke, I didn't have much else to do back then. I didn't have any friends by that time either. | I explained this before, but my idiot brother turned our home into a drug house when I was in my last year of middle school (13 years old). Because of his obsession with bringing his friends over to the house, he and 2-6 other people were over at the house almost all of the time that we weren't at school. They would blast really loud gangster rap, smoke, and talk about all kinds of unsavory things. Things like killing people, beating people up, weapons, drugs, ETC. | I was not like that. I didn't want anything to do with that. My ability to socialize is negatively affected by my ASD. On top of that, the constant moving around and changing schools in my early life also made it more difficult for me to socialize. So the fact that my house was now (at the time) a drug house filled with gangsters would make it nearly impossible for me to socialize, make friends, and hang out with friends at my place. Sure I may have the option of going to their place instead, but that would require having friends to begin with. I would not have wanted to be associated with any of the nonsense that my brother was up to. I had the opportunity to get a girlfriend a few times. When I was 15 years old, a girl asked to come over to my place. I really wanted to bring her over, but I chose not to specifically because of the crap that my brother does in the house. My dumb brother moved to the basement when I was around 16, but back then there were still a lot of his thugs coming around. Even though they were mostly in the basement and didn't come up to my area, the problem was still inside of the house. By then it was too late anyway. I pretty much stopped trying to socialize with others and became very defensive in social engagements. After I got my own computer it was easier to just stay inside, play video games and watch anime. | I probably had about average attractiveness to begin with. Gaining weight just made things worse. I was not only very fat, but I was ugly, weak, stupid, poor, mentally disabled, circumcised, unsociable, and boring. Who would want anything to do with such a horrible creature? A creature who is simply a victim of his family's choices. Everyone else was having a blast. I would go to school and see everyone else living wonderful, normal lives. Nice families, nice siblings, lots of money, properly functioning brains, ETC. It must be so nice to be able to make friends and live a normal childhood. I guess what I wanted more than anything was romance. Just imagine it. Meeting a nice girl, getting to know her, falling in love, having sex. I desperately wanted the experience of sharing part of my life with someone special. Especially if we would both be relatively new to the experience. | But instead, girls would look at me and say "ew". Sometimes they would hate me, sometimes they would pity me. It was easy to see that my life was trash just by being around me for a while. Why would they want to be anywhere near such a worthless, disgusting piece of garbage like myself? I guess I can't really blame them. Maybe I have some bigotry in me as well. I could go on with writing some sappy unrequited love stories, but I don't really feel like it, even though it would probably benefit this thread. I guess the main thing I had in life back then was living vicariously through anime. When most people look back on their youth, they can experience a spectrum of memories and feelings that are worth having. When I look back, there are only bad things. I was truly alone. For some time during high school, there were a few people at school I could talk to sometimes. We weren't exactly friends. We kinda just talked sometimes at school, but I got the impression they did not want to hang around me much. They just clearly weren't interested in engaging with me more than a little bit. | I started skipping classes, and then skipping school on a regular basis. Because my mom was an idiot, all she could do was shout at me for skipping class. She never had the sense to treat me as an actual person and try to find out why I wasn't going to school. I had no ambitions, no aspirations, no inspiration, no motivation, no friends, and no love. All I had was my computer. | Eventually everyone went on with their lives. Obviously they did. They were born into better families. Families that could make sure they would move on and enjoy life. Families that could buy braces for them, pay for their their driver's licenses and new cars on their birthday, pay for their post-secondary education, high end computers, laptops, smartphones, ETC. Oh how easy it was for most other people to be born better than me. There were many times I wish I could just kill myself. Even in the past few years There have been numerous times I wish I could kill myself. Even just the past few weeks. Despite everything, I could never actually become suicidal. Nothing has ever pushed me to the point of actually making efforts to commit suicide. Sometimes I really wish I could, since it would have been easier not to have gone through this much of life. I don't know if there is any actual worth in the fact that I'm still here, but I at least have a plan now. I'm in my 30s now and I have absolutely nothing to show for it. The only option I have is to start a new life. Doing that is impossible without money. The best way to get enough money is to get a job that pays higher than average. The best way to get a job that pays higher than average is to learn the skills to get a job like that. I'll skip over a lot of the details since this is running a bit long. Earlier I said I was ugly, weak, stupid, poor, mentally disabled, circumcised, unsociable, and boring. Over the past year I've been working on a lot of these problems. I'm going to become a software engineer. I learned enough of a programming language to quality for an entry level position. The only problem now is that my math is too weak. Even if I somehow manage pass an interview and get a job, the actual work will probably be too difficult due to my math weakness. It's so bad that the average 14 year old probably knows more math than I do. I've been working on improving my math skills, but it's been extremely difficult so far. This math problem has been my most recent source of near suicidal depression. I'm tired of wasting my life, and getting burnt out on studying in this shithole of a house. If my moronic mom wasn't doing drugs when she was pregnant with me, and my asshole brother didn't give me a childhood head injury, learning math would be significantly easier. Heck, I may not have had to deal with even half of the shit I've been through because of them. As soon as I can get out of here, I'm disowning them both. Honestly, I feel like this house is a ticking time bomb. My mom is in her 60s and she doesn't have any healthy lifestyle habits. She barely eats anything, she barely eats anything HEALTHY, she doesn't exercise, she doesn't educate herself, ETC. And of course she also does drugs. There is a fair chance that she will be dead in less than 5 years. My brother is not capable of living outside of her house because he is also broke. Also with his lifestyle, no one would allow him to rent a room or apartment. | So when mom dies, there's a chance my brother will eventually become homeless. These people have ruined my life, but I don't really want bad things to happen to them. Every week that goes by, I care less and less about how bad things might become for them after I leave. By the time I can actually cut them out of my life, I may be entirely indifferent. ----------------------- But then there are still some issues. I still have to live with the fact that the first 30 years of my life was hell. I will have no friends, no family, and no love life. I'll never have anyone I can reminisce with. I'll won't have anyone I can know is trustworthy simply because they've been in my life for a very long time. I won't have any past dating or relationship experience I can use for future dating and relationship experiences. There is a hole inside of me filled with the pain of a broken heart, loneliness, the regret that I can never change that past, and the anger I feel when I think that I'll never know what it's like to have a good upbringing and enjoy my youth. I fear I will die before I can turn my life around and experience a good life. This means that I was born only to suffer and die. Equally worrying is if I continue living, but through living I realize that I am not capable of living the kind of life I want; that instead the only purpose my crappy life has is for it to be a stepping stone so that someone else can live a better life (having kids). What should I do to reconcile these issues so I can move on in life?

Hello Resojin: Did I understand correctly: your mother had, at one point, 100 million dollars to her name ("she got scammed for $100,000,000 in Bitcoin")? Aime

Wow, that's a lot to unpack. I'll tackle one sensitive issue first: the majority of men in North America are circumcised. Most women I know (I'm in my sixties) have never seen an uncircumcised penis. Culturally, you're in the majority at the moment, though there is a push now to be more mindful about this choice. I don't know a single man who found sex uncomfortable, and I personally know exactly one man who is uncircumcised. There might be more, but it isn't something that comes up in general conversation. While smoking and drinking can be expensive forms of entertainment, they are legal. If your mother has remained employed, she may be a functional alcoholic. You don't mention abuse, maybe some ineffective parenting. (Interestingly, you have zero blame for your father who was apparently entirely absent in your upbringing.) You write very clearly. You have the ability to see what challenges you face and seem to know how to start overcoming them. Growing up in North America, even with very little money, puts you at a better situation than poor people in second- and third world countries. Some people who move a lot develop excellent friend-making skills: for example, the children of servicemen and -women who move every three years because their parents are assigned a differnt duty location. It's not something that is easy for everyone, even people who attended the same school system for 12 years. Some people have a natural ability to make friends, and some don't, and that's true of people who aren't diagnosed with ASD. Nobody has any dating experience until they start dating. I was rather plain, flat-chested, near-sighted and socially awkward in high school. I had maybe (Not minimizing here) *maybe* five or six dates in high school, and no boyfriends. My first boyfriend which I had at 22 was certainly a disaster. That was because I let a man treat me poorly, and when he dumped me I was so insecure I kept trying to *make it work*. Don't do that. Math comes hard to me, too. If you do these things on a daily basis, it should come a little more easily. I honestly don't think it is too late for you to make your life what you want it to be. You have more intelligence (from what you've demonstrated here) than a lot of your peers. You have an idea of what you need to work on. You have a profession in mind that you wish to work toward. You can continue to dwell on your past (admittedly not great) or you can set your sites on the future.

@AMIE MASQUE That was a mistake on my part. It was not 100 million. It was $100,000.00. 100k. It wasn't exactly 100k, but I rounded it because it was close enough.

@OLDMAINER You've given me a lot of perspective. I looked at some stats about male circumcision rate from different countries. It's surprising to me that a lot of countries have over 90% circumcision rate. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't too many men who have discomfort during sex and masturbation. The discomfort would only happen if too much skin was cut off during the circumcision. In this case there would not be enough skin to stroke the penis without moisturizer and the lack of skin would cause more friction during actual sex. I didn't write anything about my dad because I think that if I provide a relevant amount of information about him I'd accidentally be sharing more personal details than I intended. Then on the off chance that someone who knows me reads this, it's possible they would figure out who I am. But in hind sight I guess I was being too cautious since very few people know anything about me anyway. Also I could just be careful to avoid providing information that would give away personal details. | My dad has always been present in my life, but when I was very young my parents broke up. Fortunately I never felt too bad about them breaking up. These days I can understand why he couldn't deal with mom anymore. He always tried his best to help me and to do what was best for me. If custody for me was given to him, I strongly believe my life would have been significantly better. My brother wouldn't have been an issue either. If it wasn't for his influence I probably would have turned out a lot more like my mom and brother, though probably not nearly as bad. | I spent a lot of time with him while I was growing up, but unfortunately not enough. If I had to guess, I probably spent 20% of my time with my dad after my parents broke up, and before I became an adult. It's because of my dad that I know things like what good healthy food is like, what a good home is like, the difference between a good environment and a bad environment, the difference between good influences and bad influences, ETC. He's still alive but my parents had me when they were in their 30s, and dad is older than mom. He tried to help me with my studies so much when I was going through school, but I was too stupid and too much affected by the negative influences around me. I wish I did better back then, or that he was younger so he could have more time to watch me win at life. He has often told me that he's proud of me, but I've never really done anything to be proud of. I haven't achieved anything. Not even basic things like having a job and living on my own. | When I watched the final episode of Supernatural (spoilers), it made me cry because they had a time skip showing one of the main characters as an old man on his death bed, with his son watching him die. It reminded me that my dad is getting really old and I might have to go through something similar sooner than I could expect. I don't want my dad to die, and especially not while I'm still a loser. I ended up typing a lot of stuff. Well, I pretty much agree with the rest of your post. To be honest, if I wasn't too scared of rejection and making myself look dumb, I would have tried socializing a lot more. Then I would probably be a lot better at it and actually have friends. I guess that would work with relationships as well. A big reason for why I'm a loner is because over time I became too defensive in social situations which made it difficult for me to open up to others. I value the future more than the past. I think it's easy for me to obsess over the past because I'm still not living a good life, and stuck in situations I've been in for a long time. It's like, every month that goes by is another month I've lost. These months keep turning into years and I'm still stuck here. Maybe my opening post was a bit dramatic since I'm almost at the end of my current troubles. I just need to learn more math and I'm set. Sometimes it's just hard to remain patient. Thanks.

Hello again, Resojin: You shared a whole lot. This is some of what you shared: when you were very young, your parents broke up and your mother had custody of you and of your older brother. When you were a young teenager, you were diagnosed with ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder). You are now in your very early 30s, unemployed, living with your mother and brother somewhere in North America. You plan on becoming a software engineer and had "earned enough programming language to qualify for an entry level position", but you are very discouraged by your poor math skills, and your career future, given these poor math skills. You wrote that your mother is stupid ("my mom grew up in a third world shithole, she likely could not eat enough for her brain to completely develop, so she is stupid"), "she never learned how to use a F***** computer", yet she had "a decent career before her kids were born" (she got married in her 30s), had enough credit to "rack up tens of thousands of dollars of debt", and had 100 thousand dollars invested in Bitcoin, money that she lost 2 years ago. From the time you were 11 to the time you were 16, your brother (aged 16 to 21) used to bring home his thug or thuggish friends, "blasting gangster music, smoking (pot), talking about how many people they want to kill", etc., unsupervised by your mother who was "working and partying. Basking in her willful ignorance". When you turned 16, your brother moved to the basement where he (in his mid-30s)still lives and parties in very filthy and crowded conditions. Growing up in these conditions, "the only thing (you) had in life back then was living vicariously through anime". "I'm in my 30s now and I have absolutely nothing to show for it"- lots and lots of people don't have anything in term of career, money etc., to show (show to whom..?) at your age and older. If you compare yourself to others, compare yourself not only to people who are doing better than you.. make it a more balanced/ true comparison. "I still have to live with the fact that the first 30 years of my life was hell"- I learned to live with all the massive waste and dysfunction in my life. I thought that I will never be at peace with it, but I am. What if you can learn to be at peace as well...? And then, live a different life, a financially independent life with friends, and a healthy enough romantic relationship..? "If my moronic mom wasn't doing drugs when she was pregnant with me, and my asshole brother didn't give me a childhood head injury, learning math would be significantly easier"- sincerely, your ease with language, your quick, witty transition from idea to idea, the intelligence that comes through your writing SURVIVED the drugs your mother took while pregnant AND that head injury. "As soon as I can get out of here, I'm disowning them both"- good plan. Disown them and OWN yourself: make your life NO LONGER a consequence of conditions you were born into, conditions out of your control. Make your life what you want it to be, best you can: you will not have a 100% success, but a success of 5-10% per year is a good beginning, isn't it (...doing the math)? Amie

"sincerely, your ease with language, your quick, witty transition from idea to idea, the intelligence that comes through your writing SURVIVED the drugs your mother took while pregnant AND that head injury. " SNAP! Right from the off, I was thinking - Mate, your problem isn't that you're stupid, it's that you're TOO INTELLIGENT and with no-where big enough to take it to put it! You've virtually self-parented, you've self-EVERYTHING! You maybe should be an entrepeneur? Surely there are jobs that require computer skills and NOT Maths?...while you're learning Maths in your spare time?...until you're ready to seek a promotion/new job? Mate, you REEK of intelligence - INCLUDING emotional intelligence - you really do! You blew me away! You can do ANYTHING. But start with Baby Steps. And realise that the reason WHY you're that pumped, mentally AND emotionally, is (drum-roll...) ENTIRELY owed to the fact of your (hah!) childhood upbringing. You were neglected (moreover - save for your dad). Neglect is a form of abuse. Doesn't have to be intentional, can just be because everyone was in too much of an emotional-psychological mess from their own traumas and aftermaths to function properly or as they should. SO YOU HAD TO HELP YOURSELF, BECAME A PARENT/GROWN-UP BEFORE YOUR TIME, BASICALLY GOT A FULL-TIME BRAIN-GYM AND LOOK AT YOU NOW! A lot of women find brains like yours, veeeery sexy. (Ever heard of Woody Allen?) So do a lot of certain employers! You're HIGHLY employable if you ask me. Including as a writer or journalist/reporter. Talk about capable of holding a whole chain of thoughts in your head at-once whereby you can get them in perfect order! Brains like yours - with just enough ASD to make them really special? - I can tell you'll definitely get there, but I think you're running out of patience and want the rest of your life to start now-now-now. Keep talking with Amie and OM. Talking things out really does work to rebalance you, including up your confidence. :) (LOL - 'doing the math'. Did you get that, Rosojin? :D)

Here - Why was 6 scared of 7? Because 7 8 9. That's about the size of MY Maths. I did enjoy it at school but unfortunately the same can't be said for my teachers....I was constantly putting my hand up - "I know, Sir/Miss, I know!" / "No....you dooon't" / "No, but I really do this time, honestly!" / "Nooooo..., you still doooon't".... It's true, I didn't. Wiped the floor with the entire year when it came to code-cracking, though - namely Algebra. I'm not a block-builder, I'm a tangled ball of wool-unplucker. (Careful how you say it.) Don't know any algebra jokes, though. Could try making one up?... What is the value of X? Who? Oh him. Still nothing. (Haha, not bad, even though I say so meself) (Carry on...no need to call Matron, I'm just in a good mood (for a bleedin change lately))