Medically Induced Chaos Exacerbated by Parental Conflict Syndrome

Well, after arguing with my parents before and during this entire semester, trying to convince them I should be taking the semester off due to the massive amount of medical issues I've been dealing with, it finally happened. I was confirmed to have sleep apnea, and I'm going to have to go into surgery at the beginning of Spring Break, and wouldn't be able to go back to my classes until 2 weeks later. Since you can't miss anymore than 3 classes per semster, I obviously won't be able to stay, and will have to drop out early. My Dad is going to have me plead with the school to get our money back for the entire semester's tuition (I also made mention of how much money we'd lose if I had to drop out early to my parents) which I can with pretty great certainty guarantee that they won't do for any reason.

So after I have surgery for my sleep apnea, in anywhere from 2 months to 8 months, depending on my insurance and other factors, I'll have to have gastric bypass surgery so I won't develop cirrhosis of my liver. Never had a drink in my entire life, and yet somehow I have the liver of an alcoholic from weight I gained from my past brain surguries.

The worst part about all of this isn't any of the medical issues. I can handle those for the most part (being in college is enough to push me over the edge though). But the way my parents have been treating me and handling the situation really has been unbearable. My Mom in particular is causing me a tremendous amount of anxiety and stress. While she occasionally says she wants to support me and be there for me, she constantly is telling me that I'm just having a bad day and to suck it up. Now, don't get me wrong, I'd understand if I were acting as if the world was over whenever I recieved any sort of bad news, but the fact is I'm not. She seems to think that I'm overacting by saying I can't handle dealing with all my doctors, insurance companies, pharmacies, surgeries, dealing with being exhausted 24/7 from sleep apnea and going to college at the same time.

From the first time I mentioned taking the semester off, my parents have thrown up there arms and said with an aggrivated and somwehat angered tone "Fine.  Just quit school then." My mother said she was giving me solutions to my problems (before finding out I needed sleep apnea surgery but still dealing with my liver problems) by telling me that I "should drop out of school or just deal with it." Nothing I do seems to be right to them and they get mad at me for just about everything that happens. They don't say it to me, they don't have to. Every time they speak to me the just bark at me to do something, or yell at me for any reason whatsoever.

One of the things that aggrivates me most is how my Mom treats me. She attempts to make her life seem just as bad as or worse than my own. I'm not trying to outdo her or make my issues seem more important than anyone elses. But she always tries to make it a competition when I go to her about a problem I'm having. Her favorites are saying how hard her job is and that "she feels like quitting sometimes too", pretending again like I'm giving up on ever going back to college rather than taking a semseter off to get healthy and take care of myself. I frequently have paperwork that needs to be filled out for my doctors or therapists, sometimes requiring information about my health as a baby, or information regarding things like when I first learned to talk, things that I wouldn't know or be able to remember. Most recently I have a packet nearly 20 pages long, about 5 or 6 pages of which require my Mom's help in filling out (my Dad says he doesn't know the information). So when I called my Mom the other night from my dorm room to go over the information with me, she picked up the phone and said that she too busy (my Mom plays solitaire for hours every night on the computer after work, and although I admit I don't know for sure in my opinion that's what she was doing). She said she'd call me the first thing the next morning and go over it with me. Next morning comes, no call. I wasn't able to give the packet to my doctor, and it's been almost a week now and she still has avoided and refused to sit down for 10 minutes with me and fill the packet out.

I could rant and rave for hours about this, but the truth is, I just want my family to be understanding and be there for me, rather than making me feel like crap all the time. It seems to me they consider me more of a burden then a son. I know they love me, but they sure don't do a very good job of helping me through extremely stressful and difficult medical issues that I've had so far has been and most likely will continue to encounter for the rest of my life. It's hard enough to just deal with all the issues, but when friends and doctors are more compassionate and understanding than your own parents and family members, it can make a guy feel pretty darn miserable...