TL;DR- I’m swinging up and down because I don’t feel like I belong to the family I once knew, and my parents are sending me weird facebook reels.

I’m so exhausted. It’s hard to not be depressed or find myself thrown into a hypomanic state when I’m getting absolutely wild messages from my parents.

I love my family, and I will never disown them, but it can be rough when I know I can’t talk about my identity, my friends, my work, or what I’m doing with my life now that I moved halfway across the US. Sometimes I’m financially struggling, but I’m also kinda dumb in that I keep gigging and creating events and shows that give me spikes in pay. I’m a musician and I think I’m taking off, but it’s always hard to see that in the moment. I just remind myself that it will all make sense one day. I’m very different from my family- I really don’t belong anywhere. Frankly it’s a miracle I can pay rent doing what I do.

For a while in 2020, things were really rough. My mom and sister are very much TERFS, and my dad has been sliding more and more into the manosphere. What’s strange is how my dad, who has always been the conservative wing of the family, was also the only one who told me he loved me when I came out at 16. My mom, who would always talk about her hippy days and how she doesn’t like the GOP, was the one who wouldn’t talk to me for 3 weeks after I came out, and when she finally did, she asked if I still was bi and I had to say no so I could have a mom. My sister was the one I thought I could talk to about it- but she was the one who told my parents. So I guess I didn’t come out, I was forced out by the person I trusted the most. That said there were other times I could see them trying to be more accepting of my differences, but it just never felt authentic.

Recently my dad sent me an obviously Ai generated video showing a rabbi talking to the camera giving financial advice saying “jewish dads are better at raising their kids because they don’t let them hang with poor friends” or “jewish dads tell their kids not to follow their passions” etc. He has become more and more “your wealth is your worth” and “greed is good”.

As a bipolar kid who is living the full time artists struggle, it’s hard not to sit with a feeling that my parents think I’m worthless. When my bipolar diagnosis happened, they treated me like a freak, and it was hard not to just cut them off. But I just can’t do that- they are still the people who raised me. My dad is still the dad who can make me laugh harder than anyone. Before all of this, my dad was my best friend, I was moms little guy, and my sister was my partner in crime… but then it got weird.

It really showed in 2020 when the BLM protests happened. I went to 2 protests and didn’t tell my family because that’s when they were saying how BLM is a terrorist organization. When I moved home that year, I remember feeling I had a duty to talk to them about their views, but all it did was make them see me as “the woke left” and not their son. I know it’s false, they love me and see me as their son, but I just felt so alien.

I ask myself all the time “Who are these people? Have they changed, or were they always this way and I’m seeing it more and more? Do they still think of me as family?”

I’ve been told that I need to practice self acceptance, but when the people who I consider closest to me won’t accept who I am, I just don’t know how I can do the same. Everytime I call crying because of something I did or my shame they always seem to speak with hesitation, trying to be kind but I can hear the judgement in the silence.

I’ve been creating more and more projects, sleeping less and less, and a lot of it has to do with the anxiety of being seen as a loser. I know I’m not a loser, but my body still feels like it is. I’ve been taking meds, but also medicating myself more.

I feel lost and alone.