Nobody who is eaten up by jealousy can be a great artist. It means you're always working against a voice in your head that's feeding you rage and pain. To be really great, you have to be comfortable with being bad, with trying new things, with breaking moulds. You can't do that if you already think you're not good enough, so you won't dare becoming even worse.

You know, lots of artists are driven by the need for revenge: revenge for being overlooked, or snubbed or whatever. Why not trying ditching your reasonable approach to your feelings and just get mad about the way things turned out? And while you're in a stonking foul mood, sit down with a pencil and see what happens.

You just have to get out there and write, write, write and pitch, pitch, pitch.

But here's some bad news - I'm an editor and I wouldn't look at your application or give you a job. The mere fact that you haven't gone and got clips would trouble me. The first thing that a journalist needs is persistence. As a reporter, a lot of people will say 'no I don't want to talk to you'. How will you deal with all those 'Nos' if you haven't got the persistence to sit down, write a pitch or an article on spec and send it off?

There are lots of opportunities to get clips. Write for free street magazines. Pitch to crummy looking magazines that pay zip - they're easy to break into and when they say 'yes' you have your first clip. Act professionally and people will take you seriously. Buy Writer's Digest magazine and read it cover to cover. Create a professional blog full of articles, where you've gone out and interviewed people and done some research. If the piece is well written and well researched, it's a clip.

Nobody is going to give you a break. That's reality. But the good news is that people who can really deliver (who can get the story, cover the angles, dig deeper, write the results with flair and deliver on time) are few and far between. As soon as one of those people approaches me, I grab them and give them as much work as I can.

He's a typical, dumb-ass older man. Your situation describes to a 't' what I went through. My father was a wealthy man who remarried a much younger woman. When he died unexpectedly, I discovered there was nothing for me in the will. She had badgered him and badgered him until he changed his will in her favour, arguing that because I was a professional woman, unlike helpless her,I didn't need the money. Like you, I didn't like the woman, but figured it was dad's life and his choices. I didn't say a thing. Neither did his friends, who didn't like the woman.

But nothing can describe the rage and grief of discovering that your needs don't seem to count as much as those of some gold digger. Or that her child - who my dad didn't even like, calling him spoiled - will one day inherit everything my parents worked so hard for. Like everyone else, I always thought people who fought over wills because they were greedy. Now I realise they're fighting over the bits of love represented by those decisions. And now, I have a friend going through exactly the same thing, where her 65 year old father has married someone off the Internet who doesn't even speak English.

Don't let this go. Get into your father's accounts. If he's as helpless as you say, he won't object. Check things out and make a reckoning of where everything is. Find out who owes what, and what has been paid to whom. And don't be put off by emotional black mail. You sound like a decent intelligent person. Act like a forensic accountant.

And when it's all over, give them a piece of your mind. For no other reason than it will give you satisfaction.

But also know when to walk away. Don't get drawn into an expensive legal battle, as it will make you feel lots worse.

As to why men do this - they're not incompetent, suffering from Alzheimer's or anything other than stupid when it comes to younger, prettier women. Also, he was probably still grieving about your mom. That may also explain some of the passivity.

Best of luck, and no matter what other writers here suggest, you are not a bad person. You're another son or daughter who's been done over - but as Carey says, it's distressingly common.

Fenster

All the suggestions about joining groups or fighting for healthcare are good ones. Problem is, they're just going to be more energy draining things at the moment.

Sounds to me like the futility you're feeling is part realistic (things suck) and maybe partly a physical reaction to the illness. Depression is a normal response to the kind of assault on your body you've had. You may even need to sit around and do as little as possible for quite some time while your body goes its own way.

So, keep turning up to work, and mourning the loss of your colleagues etc and keep doing it until one day you feel well enough to make some decisions.

And, if the axe does fall, take that in your stride too. Might be a blessing to get you out of there.

My God, though, what a system that people's lives are ruined because they were sick.