I hate my parents for raising me to be a lazy scumbag. I’m a 22 year old bisexual, atheist male. I still live with my parents, I’ve never been employed, I don’t have a driver’s license, everything is driving me crazy, and the Internet and my friends are my only saviors.

The story doesn’t truly start until when I was about 7 or 8, but some background is necessary. My mother, “M,” and my father “J,” got married and eventually made me. For the first couple of years in my life, J was in the Navy as a naval technician, so we never saw each other until I was about 3. During that time, M was living with my grandmother and was working in the state government as an accountant. Eventually J came home, they rented a house that my uncle owned, and we were one big happy family, somewhat.

When I was younger, I didn’t really take on any responsibilities. I grew up as a child with Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a condition similar to autism, effectively making me almost half autistic. I wasn’t interested in any extracurricular activities when I was in school, I didn’t really have any friends, and my parents did most, if not all, of the work around the house. I didn’t do anything other than go to school, read, and watch TV. Outside of all of that, there were two things that were routine. One of those things were going to a catholic church every Sunday, being slowly indoctrinated into the Christian faith. Another one of those thing was talking with a child psychologist with M. When I was about ready to exit my preteen years, I was slowly taking on responsibilities, but my parents still did most of the work. They didn’t want me screwing anything up. I didn’t start mowing my own lawn until I was about 15 because my parents really didn’t want me messing things up. All I had to do was get good grades in school and make mommy and daddy happy.

I couldn’t even do those things. Before middle school, I was a straight A student. When I got into middle school, my grades started slipping. I don’t know what was going on in my head, but I was starting to get lazy. Instead of going through math problems with ease, I soon needed tutoring to get those math equations in my head. I wasn’t as bright as I used to be. My parents were concerned, of course, but no amount of help could get me off this slippery slope of failure in school. I barely got my high school degree. I got a near-perfect score in any class that involved a lot of creative thinking and writing but tanked everything else. I was suffering from a severe lack of interest in most classes. I didn’t turn things in on time and I put the least amount of effort into that class to barely pass.

I haven’t even talked about outside of school during this time. My friends were getting jobs and getting driver’s licenses. I’ve been driven everywhere when I was younger and to think that I’d be driving a vehicle and getting “freedom” never caught onto me. I didn’t want to get a job. I don’t know why I never wanted these things when I was younger. Probably because that required more effort than I wanted to put in. Most of my effort was trying to “find myself.” It may seem like a highly cliched and nonsensical reason, but I was going through an internal crisis that went way out of control and almost costed my life. And it was about God and my s********.

I met “B” online from a friend of a friend. He seemed like a pretty nice guy when I was talking to him. Almost the complete opposite of me, he grew up in a broken home, failed throughout most of his school as a result, and got himself caught up in a slew of poisonous relationships. I saw pictures of him. I don’t know what it was about him, but he seemed so gentle and calm. He seemed… attractive. And that’s where the problems started.

Being in a Christian household, it was drilled into my head that gay marriage was wrong somehow and that they were rebelling against God. I never believed that myself, I believed that God wouldn’t have made them the way they were if it wasn’t for a reason. If that were it, that would’ve been the end of that and life would go on. But then I started actually reading the Bible. I never took an interest in it as excerpts were being read to me and the congregation every weekend, but there was a nagging feeling inside me that wanted to go further. What does God really say about things? I’ve never read the Bible before, I might learn something new. I did learn something during this time, and it wasn’t what I wanted to read. My reading and research gave birth to my atheism and I eventually felt really depressed and suicidal at one point. Thanks to some counselling and medication, I’m a lot better.

I was too scared to tell my parents why I was so depressed for a while. I had a huge fear that they wouldn’t understand what I was feeling, so I fed them lies, just like they’ve been feeding me lies. As I was recovering, my fears were confirmed. I didn’t find this out directly, however. I watched their mannerisms as I was talking to them about several subjects. There was nothing there but disgust and the feeling was definitely mutual for different reasons. I usually skipped out on going to church. They didn’t really seem to mind. Eventually I just stopped going altogether. They haven’t asked about it. My Christian family members also noticed this, but haven’t confronted me about it. I think they don’t want to know the answer.

The relationship with B became sour after several years of talking. I didn’t take it too well. He was using my emotions as a means to get money and various other things. I figured this out myself and terminated the relationship immediately. It was already too late anyway, I gave him about $1000 worth of various electronics and other things and haven’t really noticed until I ended it. Either way, I was bisexual and atheist and my family was never going to know. Never. Even to this day, they don’t know.

I want to get out of this personal hell of mine as soon as possible. I’ve been desperately looking for a job ever since I got out of high school, but I haven’t gotten any results. As of right now, I am still probably unemployed and desperately seeking work so I can get out of parent’s roof as soon as possible. I don’t really know why I’m unemployed. I guess employers aren’t really satisfied when someone doesn’t have previous job experience. I’ve never had a job interview before but hopefully my persistence will get me somewhere. I don’t care how I get out of here with my sanity, but I will.