My step-father and his mean words to me

Earlier this afternoon, I went inside the chicken enclosure to give them some chia seeds I had, which had gone out of date. My step-father also came in after me to check their eggs (to see if they hatched any and to take them inside) and he immediately, upon seeing me with the packet tells me I am a "stupid idiot" for giving the chickens more food because "cant you see, they already have a lot". Yes I could see, but I was only giving them a handful, to see if they liked it.

He went out and left the enclosure door open and I said to him: "You know you left the door open and that means the chickens can get out. And you call me an idiot?" He told me to close it. He could see that I was busy and further away from the door than me, but he seems to think it's my responsibility to close doors he opens because he takes no responsibility for anything at all. So he came back and closed the door when I told him I couldn't do it, albeit complaining about me being "so lazy", as if it was my fault that the door was open anyway! There is something wrong with his mental state.

Later I went inside to the sun room with the cat who wanted to eat something (despite me telling them that they need to feed him only twice a day, they all over-feed him and so now he's getting a bit fat and always hungry), so instead I distracted the cat with a fly swatter, he was chasing it and trying to grab it from me. The cat got so hot and sweaty his paw pads were moist, just from a little bit of running around and that is because he's a little overweight.

Anyway, my step-father asked me to give him something to snack on and I went to the kitchen and brought back some hazelnut wafer wedges and gave him some. He wanted to eat more but I told him that he couldn't eat more as it was close to his dinner time and needed to have enough space for his dinner. He agreed with me.

A little while after that, he started a rant, which went basically like this:

Step-father: Why don't you find yourself a place to live somewhere else - there are plenty of flats here.
Me: There are not that many places as there is a housing crisis here and those apartment that are available are like $300 a week to rent and I cant afford it given that I don't work.
Step-father: Well get a job and you'll be able to afford it.
Me: Do you not realise that I am sick and that its difficult for me to find a job?
Step-father: You're always sick, you're not good for anyone, you're finished, you are finished, sleep all day and do nothing, you lazy bludger, you're no good for anyone or anything.

And on and on he continued in this manner, meanwhile laughing at me while I walked to my bedroom and locked the door so I couldn't hear him any more. He always mocks me, it seems to be his hobby to mock and degrade me.

My step-father simply does not know how to have a normal conversation with me. Every time we talk it always ends up with him saying something mean or nasty to me or mocking me in some way and of course he laughs at me thinking to himself how funny he is. I should know by now that he cannot be civil towards me, after years of this way that he behaves towards me. But for some reason, I am always eternally hopeful that one day he will do something to surprise me, to treat me with respect and decency. Always hopeful, but it never happens.  You would think I would learn, but no, I keep trying so hard, but alas only to fail every time.

My mother and her lies and put downs

I only realised late last night that I forgot to return a book (I saw this when I looked at my account online) and as I didn't get out of bed until 12.30pm and I was feeling unwell and as public transport runs only once an hour and because I don't feel that well, I hoped that since she was going to the same place, she could return them for me.

When I saw that my mother was going to the shops, I asked her if she would return two library books for me (she was going to the same place and it wasn't at all a convenience) but she told me she wouldn't do it as she was not going in the same vicinity. The conversations went basically like this:

Me: Are you going to the shops?
Mum: Yes I am, why?
Me: Can you please return some books to the library for me?
Mum: I am not going to those shops, I am going somewhere else. I am not going shopping.
Me: Why did you say you were going to the shops then? Where are you going?
Mum: It doesn't matter where I am going, so don't worry about it.
Me: Come on Mum, you're going to the shops here and it's not a big deal for you to return those books.
Mum: Why cant you return them?
Me: Because I only realised last night that they are late and if I catch public transport, it goes every hour so I have to wait there for an hour and I don't feel that well.
Mum: Well you should have thought of that when you decided not to pay for registration for the car.
Me: But it's not my car and I don't drive it much, so I shouldn't be responsible for registration.
Mum: Well you drive it so you have to pay for registration.
Me: It's not my car and I drive it like once a week, if that otherwise I catch the bus and only because I am sick.
Mum: Well if you paid for registration, you would have the car right now.
Me: Can you just tell me if you're going to take these books to the library? If not, then I have to find out what time the bus comes so I can go.
Mum: Okay, I'll take them, but this is the last time. I don't care if you're sick next time, take them yourself. And pay for registration so you can drive the car.

So you can see, she lies to me, tries to tell me it's my fault for not paying for registration for a car I don't use much and then begrudgingly takes the books as if she is doing me a huge favour and that I must do as she tells me. And she tells me its my responsibility to pay for the registration of a car that is not mine and that I don't own nor drive every day (my step-father drives it every day). If they just asked me for a small contribution, then that would be okay with me, but not to pay for the whole fee.

How stupid of me to ask her to do something so simple for me. She always acts so put upon whenever I ask her to do anything for me, as if I am asking for some huge favour that is going to take all of her energy and time to accomplish. She never behaves this way about anything anyone else ever asks her to do - just me. Maybe that's because she is always upset with me. Yet, whenever she asks me to do anything, she expects me to do it immediately and if I don't, she gets all upset with me.  It's just total unfairness. She just doesn't want to do anything for me, ever.

It's just so tiring having to deal with her.

Cleaning out the pantry to get rid of the moths

Yesterday afternoon I started to clean out the pantry which has a lot of pantry moth eggs, larvae and worms - basically a pantry moth infestation. It's ridiculous that this has been an issue and only because no-one else in the house does anything about it. Everyone else seems to leave the pantry door wide open to allow more of those moths to come inside. For a while there, every time you opened the pantry door, a few of those pantry moths would flutter out.

I cleaned out the pantry about two months ago and got rid of a whole heap of those pantry moths and also a great many packets of food which had been infected with the eggs of the moths, which were spoilt and no longer viable. It upset me that I had to throw out so much of my food - pasta, grains, nuts, seeds, rice - because of these moths and their eggs.

My mother got upset last time I cleared out, cleaned and re-organised the pantry because she "couldn't find anything". That is because I re-organised everything so that all like items were grouped together - all the pasta was together, all the rice together, all nuts together, all legumes together, all jams together, all pasta sauces together and so on. It was too organised for her.  She likes to dump things wherever there is a space, rather than to make sure everything is in the right place. I am really good at organising things so that the most amount of items fit into the smallest space possible, but in an organised, easy-to-find way. I even pack more things in my suitcases than other people I know because I know how to fill every space well.

The reason that I organise things that way is not because I am a neat freak, but rather because it just makes it easier to find the food you want when all the same types of things are placed together in the same area, so you don't have to search too much or too hard to find what you are looking for. Just common sense really.

Earlier in the day I found some empty glass jars with airtight lids, washed them and let them dry. Once they were dry, I used them to add my pasta, nuts, legumes, breakfast cereals and seeds which were still okay and uninfected with the moth eggs. I labelled everything and organised them in the pantry. First I cleaned all the sides and bench space in the pantry, found quite a few moth larvae in between cereals and on the walls that I had to get rid of. It was quite a job to do, but I felt quite accomplished and happy with my work when I finished it.

When I showed my mother how I organised the food in the pantry and where everything was, so that it I made it easy to find what you were looking for, she didn't complain about it.  I think maybe because I had to throw away a great deal of her food that had been infected with the moth eggs (like a 5kg bag of rice among other dry foods), she was a bit more subdued and realised that what I was doing was a good thing for ensuring the food is kept moth-free.

I still have a number of packets of my nuts in the fridge, where they are okay to stay, but I have to get some more glass jars tomorrow to store them in there.

LayZ boy is a mummy's boy

My mother and brother have a really close relationship - they always have. It's because he is so good at lying and manipulating her to get what he wants and I am not (well actually I could be good at it but I refuse to engage in such base behaviours as I think they're beneath me).

My mother calls my brother to see how he is every single day, on his mobile. No matter how much he upsets and hurts me (and it is on purpose), she calls him to say hello and to see how he is because she wont believe he would ever antagonise me on purpose, she wont believe her son is that vindictive.

With me, it's a different matter. She is completely oblivious to me. I have to fall down and be unconscious for her to notice that something might be wrong with me! Even the other night when we went to the club for dinner and my face turned white and I told her I would go home because I couldn't breathe properly, she didn't even take any notice of what I said and started talking about how excited she was about the desserts they had at the club and left the table to get some! She is really thoughtless. And then she gets defensive and offended when I tell that she was didn't even notice that I couldn't breathe.

She has always been like that with me - very thoughtless. And besides which, LayZ boy has always been her favourite child.

LayZ boy calls his mother "mummy" whenever he is calling out for her at home. He sounds very much like a baby when he says that, as he says it several times when he's calling out to her. He does it on purpose to sound like a baby, because he knows his mother loves it when he acts like a baby - the mummy's boy that he is! He also calls her "grandma" sometimes. He used to call her "old lady", as a joke, "hey, old lady" if he was addressing her, but she would get upset with him and he would cajole her until she saw his joke. If I did the same, she wouldn't talk to me for days!

I think my mother and brother are very similar in their characteristics, which really stands to reason, since she raised him and taught him everything he knows.

• Neither of them are good communicators - they cannot express how they feel about anything, ever
• They get angry if they cannot get their way
• They blame everyone else for all of their problems - nothing is ever their fault
• They both live in their fantasy delusions which are not based in reality
• They both lie to everyone about everything (except maybe each other, but not sure about that)
• They are both very uneducated and illiterate and don't like to read anything beyond magazines, if that
• They are both very stubborn and refuse to see any other point of view but their own
• They both behave very charmingly, nicely and quietly in front of most other people to create the illusion that they are lovely, warm human beings to other people, when that is so far from the truth

LayZ boy learnt rage and volatility in emotions from his father, his step-father and his mother.

The vulgarity and hypocrisy of my family

They really are awful people sometimes, really awful.

My mother gets so pissed off at me if I leave the hallway door open and rages and yells at me, but if my brother does the same thing, she says nothing to him and in fact when I remind her, she just makes excuses for him, just letting him do whatever he wants as usual, but having a different set of rules for me.

Always hypocritical. And when I tell her that it's not fair that she tells me off for doing something that he does, she tells me that it's different somehow for him and then gets into an argument with me, telling me that I should not have done it anyway. It's always like that. He gets her complete acquiescence for whatever he does (or does not) do and me, I am blamed for everything. If there are a few glasses on the sink or plates in the sink, she will tell me off for not washing them, even if they are mostly his dirty dishes and say, only one glass or one plate is mine, it doesn't matter. He is allowed to leave his dirty dishes in the sink and nothing is said to him because he doesn't need to wash anything. In fact, if he leaves dirty dishes both of my parents blame me for the dishes, they don't believe me when I tell them the dirty dishes are not even mine. It's infuriating, to say the least.

And to make it even worse, LayZ boy loves to spit in the kitchen sink, not in the hole in the sink, but anywhere in the sink, then he turns the tap on to get rid of his spit. When I inform my mother that he does this, she proceeds to tell me that because she has never seen him do it, therefore he does not do it, so I must be lying. And if she asks him about (because of course she doesn't believe me, but she will nicely ask him) he then gets upset that I told her and will antagonise me even more than usual, he'll say even more of his abusive crap to me because in his mind, I have dared to make him look bad in front of is mother and he wants her to continue to do what he wants. LayZ boy thinks he is above any consequences for his actions because his mummy taught him that. She taught him that he can do no wrong in her eyes. Great huh?

In addition to spitting in the kitchen sink, LayZ boy also spits on the ground wherever he happens to be walking. Every few minutes, he'll just spit. Yuck! He also snorts like a pig, inhaling his snot in his nose and swallowing it wherever he is, at home or out in public, every so often, really loudly.  Yuck,

And my mother, well of course she farts and burps really loudly at home and laughs about it, because to her it's a big joke to make noises come out of your body (she still acts like she is a child). She tries not to do it in public, but when she is at the shops with me, she sometimes lets out a big burp and acts all embarrassed, but laughing all the same. Obviously LayZ boy learnt all of his disgusting habits from our mother and from her not ever chastising him for his gross behaviour. Lovely family.

No wonder I have always felt like I never fitted in with them - that's because I don't!