Venting While I Wait

Hello @ChatG and were to the forums.

I'm so sorry to hear what you have gone through. I know it wouldn't have been an easy decision to make and i can hear that it's really haunting you now. I'm glad you have an appointment with headspace next month and I really hope that you can get the support you need.

I partly understand how you are feeling, i didn't have to terminate a pregnancy but I did have to give up the rights to my child 2 of them actually, one was 6 months old at the time the other was just 4 hours old. To this day I hate myself for the decisions I made but when I was in court and they told me to relinquish my rights and to sign here, I had no idea what it meant. It changed my life and their lives forever and there is no undoing that.

I can hear how much you question your decision and I know it hurts so much. Please know that you are not alone, we hear you. Please don't give up on yourself, you are allowed to feel this way, you can grieve over the loss, you deserve to be supported to get through this. I hope you can find yourself again and that you can learn to forgive yourself.

Please take care of yourself. Sending lots of love and strength your way ♥️.

I'm so sorry about what you went through. Having worked in postnatal units and being in the area of healthcare that I'm studying in, I've cared for people in somewhat similar situations and it's always absolutely heartbreaking.

I think my resentment and reservations for me comes from a place of feeling like it wasn't my decision (though, I am aware it was and that it had to be for me to have been able to go through with it). To put it simply, if I were single/living alone and had fallen pregnant, I wouldn't have gone through with a termination. Which sounds very backwards, but that's exactly why I'm so bothered by this all. My partner and I are in our mid-to-late 20's. I'm an unemployed full time university student (I do pay my equal portion of rent, bills, etc, through getting $700 a fortnight through government student payments), and my partner works full-time. He's worked his a** off to get to where he has in his work over the last couple of years (and I couldn't be more in awe, he's really worked hard), going from an average earner of about $80-$90k a year, to now earning I believe just under or on $200k a year (I don't know his exact earnings, and I don't associate myself with it either, it's his money).

One housemate doesn't have a typical job (income is from online streaming/posting videos online), and the other housemate is working a 2-3 days a week while receiving government payments for "unemployment". Despite the housemates being home more often than I am, I have a bulk of the responsibilities. If I don't clean, simply nothing but dishes occasionally gets done. I keep on top of communication with real estates, make sure household bills are paid on time, and communal groceries are kept stocked; I effectively manage everything at home with some support from my partner (but he works 10-hour days, often 6 days per week, so I don't expect him to do anything in the home). One of our housemates spent 14 weeks unemployed and even during this time, I still had no help in the home, much less we all needed to pay for the difference for him no longer putting in for rent/bills/groceries/etc. When it comes to rental inspections, I get very little/no help.

While I was still pregnant at the beginning of this year, we all had to move suburbs for my partner's work, I was the only person going back to our old house before the end of lease to clean it, I ended up with a significant subchorionic haemorrhage, and I was hospitalised. While in hospital, I gave the 2 housemates a short list of things I needed them to get done to finalise the other house, and one of them still wouldn't do it, my partner had to take the time out to do it. And unfortunately, one of our housemates is the type of person you can't bring up any issues to because he's immediately aggressively defensive, flips it on you for "being mean" (no matter how gently it is brought up to him), and he gets insulting. You would think we're a household of teenagers, but we're all in our mid-to-late 20's, I'm the youngest person in the home. To put it very basically, the other day he told me unprompted that I "look like a fish", I pretty calmly said "I'm fairly sure if I told any of you boys that you looked like a fish, you wouldn't be very happy about it", to which he got mad and responded by saying "well f* you, you smell like a fish". Even when they were all arguing recently (over keeping Christmas decorations, and I wasn't part of the argument) and I lightheartedly stated "I'm not a fan of the energy in this house lately", he stood up and said "f* off, I don't like your energy in this house" and stormed away to his bedroom for the rest of the night. It's quite literally like having a child. And there's no way to talk to him about the impact of his behaviour with it having a positive, productive or painless outcome.

When my partner and I were still heavy in the phase of discussing what to do about our situation, I commented on how my life would be no different with a child, I'd just have a better reason to be doing everything that I do now, which really stuck out to him.

A big part of why I went through with the termination was out of fear of how it would be received and managed by this housemate, because my partner held the strong opinion that if we were to go ahead with keeping it, we would move out together. Neither of our housemate's have the income to be able to live in a rental without the input of my partner and myself, so it would have meant putting them in a position of possibly not having somewhere to live. One of our housemates would have many options available of where to move to, but the "angry" housemate we have doesn't have anywhere else he could go (close friends often joke to us that they don't know how we still live here with how he behaves). And it terrified me (honestly probably heightened emotions with the hormones) having to look him in the face and say he needs to find alternative accommodation, because I knew it would be made out to be "my fault" and the level of conflict and stress it would cause was something I wasn't equipped to manage.

But I suppose in that, I've just put myself into another situation I'm even more so not equipped to deal with, and because the housemates aren't aware of what happened, I haven't had a moment to stop and process anything. Even on February 1st when I took the medication, I was still on and off the phone with real estates, writing emails, etc. But realistically, even if they knew, it would honestly probably be worse. One of our housemates (not the angry one), holds very strong opinions against termination, and would probably not hold back on being insulting if he knew.

I'm glad I have the opportunity soon to have counselling through HeadSpace, but I suppose there's part of me that feels stuck that nothing can change until I leave this house. And my partner is pretty set on staying with the boys until he saves for a house deposit, no matter how painful and tedious it can get living here. So I'm tossing up about throwing in the towel on my studies so I can work and move out on my own. I spent 7 years working towards getting into the double degree that I'm in, and I absolutely love what I do (I've never done something in my life that has felt so comfortable and so "right"), but I don't think living here for much longer is sustainable for my mental health, much less including what my original post was about. It's difficult.

@ChatG just wanted to let you know that I've read your post. I'm just at the shops so I will reply once I get back home.

@ChatG at least you have cared for people, i was pushed out that same day. But anyway enough about that part of my life. It's something I try hard to not think about as it's incredibly upsetting.

Even though it was your decision that's still going to weigh heavily on you regardless of the reasons it was done. It's great that your partner has worked hard to get where he is, it sounds like he is very committed to his work.

It's not fair that you are doing everything around the house, i can understand your partner not doing as much being that he works full time. But the housemates really should be doing more to help out, many hands make light work.

I'm sorry that you ended up in hospital after having to do so much. You'd think human compassion would be to step in and help you out as much as possible. I hear how you can't really talk to this housemate being that they get defensively aggressive, that's quite concerning in itself.

It really sounds like looking after children and it shouldn't be your place to have to especially when they aren't pulling their weight and helping with household chores. I'm not sure what to really suggest, i mean if i was in that situation I'd be getting help to get out of it, so you and your partner finding a place together and having someone help you with approaching this housemate to let them know that they need to find somewhere else (obviously this is only if you and your partner decide you want to just move out together).

I guess it's something that really needs to be discussed with your partner. Moving out alone is an option but I'd be worried more about the affects it could have on your mental health having to give up your study when it's something you enjoy so much. Is it possible to sit down all together (the 4 of you) to discuss what needs to happen in order for living together to remain a possibility? I know it's a tough situation and I'm sorry you are going through it.

I really hope headspace will help you to have that opportunity to share what you've gone through cos not being able to really talk about it is hard and won't help with the healing process.