Letters to the Editor
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girl got married at 19.
Weird for a jewish girl, right?
LW -- to address the job situation --
EVERYONE takes a long time to get a job. You need a job. You need your own money and you need to get out of the house.
For fuck's sake, no wonder you're going crazy.
It took me a year and a half to get a job. I went to a "top tier" university in a big city, and it still took a year.
Getting a job takes alot of persistence!! I would enlist the help of a nanny and get a part-time gig dog-walking or something similarly autonomous.
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IF you were an artist.....
.......you'd be out there doing your art. And, if you're an artist, why are you whingeing about the job market? Don'tcha know, society expects artists to be poor and unhealthy (!), but DOING their art? What is your art, anyway? Oh, so easy to call your-self an artist, but so very very very very hard to BE ONE. Also, most tech writers that I know started out doing editing. I'll just bet that you want the entire apple cart right away. Also, the math says you've been married since you were 19; now you've seen the light at the end of the education tunnel, the exigencies of real life are hitting you, and you just don't want to have to fulfill others' needs or expectations any more. Not uncommon. Growing pains, fear of the future. We all gravitate toward our own particular escape mechanism. Alcohol, being legal, is the "easy" escape. Get this: people generally are of two drunk "types"---mean or hilarious. You've ID'd your type, don't like who you are when drunk [sounds like you don't like yourself sober, either, BTW], and have recognized some fairly large personal and familial issues. Get some help before you warp your kid the way (it seems) you were. Also, just a stray thought, but it sounds like you've outgrown the husband. You don't provide details about his passive-aggressive thing, but, if you get all mean and repulsive on him, perhaps that is the only way he can reach you at all. Hmmmm? And please remember, when you're tossing out the word 'artist'---people really in the arts DO their art, come hell or high water, weird husbands, bad 2nd jobs, not enough money, because without it life would be unbearable. I don't think you've got what it takes, but-----you surely do whine well.
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The truth?
You are an alcoholic. Get help.
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Misaligning the mental health system
First off, frothing hoards, the community mental health system in most places isn't some mustache twirling, butterfly net waving, style villains. I worked in that system for years. If she called up some professionals, and said just what she said in that letter, she would probably get some help. Getting hospitalized, especially when poor, is a nigh impossible task. Even if you say you hear voices. Fie on all you people who paint such a horrid picture. They don't just strap people down and shock their brains out. Don't be ignorant.
Secondly, I feel empathy for you. I know many a young woman like you. Your husband is probably an immature twat, your mother a hag who ruined her life, and you have just managed to scrape through something you probably thought you would have finished 5 years ago. Now you drink and blow up. That happens.
I think you should figure out what you want. You want the husband to shut up. Tell him. What has he done that is so great? Why do you have to listen to him? I would tell him he seriously needs to shut up. It's okay to really tell someone to just shut up, sometimes people need to hear that. So many of my early married friends have weird, overbearing husbands.
Hang up on your mom. Just stop talking to her for awhile. Give yourself some space. Let her leave a message. Make hubby watch the kid, go read alone in your bedroom. With the door shut and locked. Sometimes people need to see that you physically don't want to be with them.
Keep looking for a job. Get a decent friend to tell you if you are sabotaging yourself somehow. (Not clean enough, crappy resume, bringing up fucked up things at inappropriate times)
If you are really that poor, go talk to whatever your state's equivalent of welfare/FIA is. You probably qualify if you are dependent on your man's job.
Quit drinking, journal some, figure our where you're at. You can do it.
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You need space
I've been there ( well not the drinking part ) but the suffocating by everyone around me part.I suspect the drinking part may be your way to buy some private space and also to put yourself back as the star of your own ME show. If you're an introvert space and solitude are not optional - its like air, you can't live without it. You are clawing at everyone who you perceive to be blocking your access to this necessary oxygen just like a person drowning. I used to go window shopping for hours , trying on clothes I couldn't afford to buy, just for the blissful anonyminity. I've noticed a lot of women return to school as soon as the baby's born - they can't take the 24 hr bondage, Unfortunately it just makes life even more complicated and the child gets the short end of the stick.
Having a child is a shocker, to be so constantly at someone ele's demand,never to actually ever get to sit down and read a book , finish a cup of tea, look out the window and watch the leaves tremble,without an interruption. YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO DO THIS. And you begin to hate yourself because at the same time you love these people desperately .Slow down, cut down on your obligations,give your child 35 minutes of uninterrupted FULL attention every day, it cuts down on their demands and your guilt.Likewise with your spouse, he is not your enemy - your own demands of perfection are. You'd be surprised how far men are willing to go to make their women happy, if they are given love and attention . .Your job as an adult is to discover how to maintain YOUR balance, don't be afraid or ashamed to make the path you need to flourish, your whole family will be happier for it.