LIFE SUCKS

Tired of struggling

I struggled my entire life. I am an openly gay man who came out to himself at 13, pushed it aside until I could no longer lie to myself at 19. I grew up in New Orleans, had positive and negative role models to choose from in the gay community there. I dove into relationship after relationship, meeting one bad partner choice after another (notice I am avoiding using the term "loser" as I could fit into that category right now) until I fell in love and formed a permanent relationship with my (now ex-) partner, let's call him Kale. He was 21 years older than me when we met. I was 29 and he turned 50 a few months later. I loved him with all of my heart. We were together 12 years. He could not drive, could not swim and smokes, drinks, and curses like the proverbial sailor, yet is the most senstive man I know. We "broke up" in January 2011, yet knew we couldn't say goodbye. The answer to that? We stayed living together. He co-habitate the way we always have yet live in separate bedrooms and have never had sex since. In fact, his lack of sex drive at all is partly responsible for breaking us up (at least for me). First he lost interest. Consequently I gained an enormous amount of weight. He refused to set boudaries with his friends and me, many of whom took extreme advantage of me, us, him, and our life together. Then, he lost the ability to maintain or even get an erection. We tried every pill on the market and while they work great on me (in fact after all this "I" now need Viagra to get it up), on him the side-effects took their toll. But that's not the breaker: the final straw came on the heels of 2 years of unemployment for BOTH of us. Did I mention we had to live with my mother for 5 months? What fucking losers the both of us had become. I love my mother to death but it came on the heels of "I told you so" for the last 20 years of my life. Forget that I had a successful career in TV news for 17 years while battling both working long hours, graveyard shifts, weekends, holidays and having to live 3,000 miles away from my nearest friends or relatives. All that and I suffered from depression (Surprise!). Now I'm living in my parents' hometown: my father will never step foot in this town again, Lake Charles, LA. And my mother, from whom he's been divorced now for nearly 30 years (they separated in my senior year of high school), my mother won't live anywhere else. Now all our "relatives" here are grown or dying. My cousins don't really care to deal with us at all. My mother is living in her parents' home -- for free -- since she has nothing else left. The old house is falling down around her ears. She sleeps all the time. She's been in the hospital 3 times this year, after my aunt who was her best friend died in January. She insists on working parttime as a hospice social worker even though they keep giving her these stressful "home health" cases which are too hard on her physically (imagine driving hundreds of miles a week in rural Louisiana and visiting people who are on disability and mentally deficient yet expect one 65-year-old social worker to solve all their problems in 5 minutes). I keep trying to get her to re-retire, since she misses a lot of work to sleep in when she's had a particularly stressful day. She won't quit in case she needs to financially "bail" me out again. How humiliating I am such a drain on her. And, she paid for my bankruptcy which has yet to be finished. Oh yeah, remember that 17-year career I had in broadcasting? Well, now I've been out of it so long the only job I could get after moving back to Louisiana is as a saleman at Best Buy. My past experience is ignored and I get humiliated like I don't know shit by people half my age who seem to outnumber me 99-to-one. After a year of suffering "part" time while working nearly 40 hours each week, I got "promoted" to full-time a month ago. I waited a month for upper management to get their shit together and finally "interview" me for the job everyone assumed I already had. They never got back to me as to whether the job paid more than I was already making, under $9/hour. I am overweight/obese so my feet, back and body hurt all the fucking time. I spend most of my time in bed or lying on the couch because it hurts so bad to walk after work. I had been exercising regularly by walking at least 3 miles a day and was getting trimmer before I started this job. However, the exhaustion of being fulltime (my benefits don't even kick in until January, so still no dentist or doctor's visits for me until then), I have lost any energy to exercise or do anything other than struggle to make something to eat before going to bed. I've been sleep deprived most of my life yet feel extremely guilty when I get more than 7 hours' sleep. I dont' get two days off in a-row, sometimes working 6 or 7-days straight. I have never been able to handle more than one job, couldn't imagine being able to handle two jobs like a lot of other people. I have no children because as a young gay man our community was against marriage and children, we called all straights "breeders". Now I live in a fucking society that's arguing over gay marriage and men are hiring surrogates and adopting children together. Where did these men find each other? I always secretly wanted to be a father but refused to ruin some woman's life hiding my gayness. I only get hit on online by married, "straight or bi" men who are either retired or cheating on their wives or both. I never meet any openly gay men since moving back to the South. Did I mention I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 13 years? That I've lived in Oklahoma City and Savannah, GA? What a strange life I have had. My time in California was magical, but I never made a single good friend I could call my own. All of my acquaintances outside of work were my ex-partner's friends. They leaned on both of us until we cracked emotionally. My ex's ex-partner is on meth of life it seems, he's the one who drove me to drive Kale and my family of multiple cats all the way to Georgia to get Kale and me away from him and his psychotic craziness. No matter how many people have told Kale how toxic and lost this guy is, HE STILL FUCKING TALKS TO HIM!!!!! Why am I still living with Kale? He doesn't drive and now lives permanently on disability checks (two years of unemployment, age discrimination and no job opportunities forced him to combine all his illnesses into one and get a government check), plus I only make a small amount and can't imagine living among some college kids to make ends meet, refuse to live with my mother 'cause I can't even jack off to gay porn without feeling guilty or like I'm gonna be caught at it at any moment. She found my anal douche bottle one time because I was careless enough not to take it with me after showering. How fucking humiliating is that for a 41-year-old gay man who's always lived on his own albeit with the usual lover. I can't seem to just live life alone. I have no friends here. My closest friend lives in Portland, Oregon with his lover and has little contact with me anymore because they're getting successful and happy. There are no fucking jobs for any college-educated people especially for those of us with Arts degrees, (a B.A. in Communications I found listed among the top ten most useless degrees online). None of my TV work translates to anything in the "real" world despite the fact I have some computer, writing and organizational skills which could literally revolutionalize some industry if any fucker in charge would reach out an give me a break. What do I do now? I use to want to kill myself when I was in my 20s and survived that only to be the most useless person I know. Exhausted, useless, alienated from my family, friends and seemingly the world... yet ask anyone who knows me. They all like me. No one seems to like me enough to care or be in the position to help a brother out. I have this endless parade of sex partners, married, gay, bi, but NONE of them wants a relationship with me. Not a single man will go to dinner and a movie with me. I am on like 20 dating sites yet can't get a single real date. I am in a wasteland of conservative red state bibie-belt 'isms which prevent me from meeting anyone of sophistication or who even wants the same things in life as me. So, I stick with my quiet life with Kale, jerk off every day almost compusively. Once a week we bring our laundry to her house (I have had my own washer/dryer twice in my entire life). I try to love my mother and be as patient with her as I can. Yet as much as we care for one another, she can't help but struggle to hide her contempt for the man I am, the life I lead, the job I do, and the mistakes I've made. She has now professed her love for Kale (as a friend, not romantic of course)... sure now that we've been "divorced" she loves him to death. We can't make a single decision without taking his picky needs into account. I can't spend time with her she doesn't ask where he is, how he's doing and is he lonely. I can't fucking win. My dad and I rarely speak. He moved back down South from New York and still won't deal with me. He doesn't even mind I'm gay. I'm just not very important to him as his wife's family is. They've been married 25 years now and I have never been invited for Thanksgiving or Christmas. He, too, won't extend an invitation to me without including Kale. Even though I tell everyone we're no longer "together."
Life fucking sucks. I know I am making huge mistakes and looking at this the entirely wrong way, yet can't seem to shake myself awake from this nightmare of a life I can't handle.