I've just realized I have never been supported or encouraged in this house. I have gainful employment in web design, but I am a writer of screenplays, and I write songs too. Never once has any of the skids expressed an iota of interest in any of my work. In fact they regard me with such using neglect that it should be criminal.

Back when I was heavier into writing screenplays, and even was having some considered by some agencies, OSS (21 now but around 17 or 18 at the time) , all of a sudden decided he was going to write a story too. Great, I was thinking. I wanted to encourage this, so I read his story, gave it praise, complimented his word choices, and.... It just never ended.  He would talk, or brainstorm with me for hour after hour after hour, until I realized with grim certainty that this boy's "writing" was an all consuming beast. He literally exhausted me mentally and spiritually with these marathon sessions of hearing his thoughts about how his story should go. His story never reached over 12 pages. He would spend hours explaining his story to me in every detail and facet and rabbit hole ventured into and not, until I'm like, "Got it, I know his story front to back. I know every character's name and each one's motivation and back history. I am signalling my support by memorizing these things. Awesome."

But, he would come back the next day telling a largely different story and all the characters would have different names. I'd be like, "I don't remember it going like that." He would say, quite dismissively, in my opinion, "Oh I changed that." I understand that writing is rewriting but he took it to amazing extremes, to the point that he kept changing this 12 pages every day! (He was supposedly writing a novel).  And I had to hear about his new, not-new, story EVERY day for HOURS. I kept telling him to settle on a version of the first 12 pages and build off of that, but he would say he just wants his story to be "perfect." I tried telling him he was crippling himself, but he just would not listen. This went on for months and months. It was sheer torture. I felt spent mentally and creatively because of this damn boy cornering me, and then, me in my dumb and dumber phase reasoned that even though it was draining me of everything, that it was good for building the relationship with SS.

He would come around with his hours long diatribes while I myself was trying to write! When he was finally done vomiting fantasy tropes at me, I was left staring in despair at a blank page. I had got no work done! Never once did OSS express interest in my own work, or ask about it. It was always about his ever changing 12 pages! Oh, and here's the nail in the coffin: when I finally took a step back from screenwriting, I never heard about his "novel" again! Except when his stupid World of Warcraft subscription is up. You see, apparently the music from that game is what inspires him to write. If he can't be on that game, he can't write. We get him back on the game and don't hear about writing again. Done with it!

YSS knows somewhere in his self serving brain that I like to write songs. One day, all of a sudden, he decides he's going to write songs and be a singer. I try to encourage that, and teach him about verses and hooks and Bridges and such, the structure of it, and even wrote him a song to sing in his school talent show. I spent untold amounts of time and creative energy on this boy. He decided to sing Bruno Mars, (and badly) at the talent show instead. He told me the reason for the last minute change was he couldn't learn the lyrics of my song. But, he didn't know the Bruno Mars song either.  The reality is he didn't prepare for any kind of performance. He hardly practiced his vocals and did NOT study any lyrics. I just wanted to tear all my hair out, I felt so used up and like I had wasted so much of myself on this lazy little narcissist in training.

Fast forward to recently: I just got a cute little red car with my own money, and I was very proud of it. It's an extension of my personality in a way. Not one SK said "nice car." YSS came out when I pulled up to the driveway with it, fresh euphoria from just picking it up from the dealership, and the only thing he said was, "Isn't it going to block the driveway for when SO wants to get out?" SD made fun of it. And OSS, when I went to pick him up from work in it (he had never seen it), did not acknowledge the car at all. Not even a, "So, you got a new car?"

It normally wouldn't be a big deal, but I see a pattern. They are such toxic haters. Anything I am involved in or that has to do with me, they are going to devalue, neglect, or try to sabotage by way of exhausting my spirit. They are vampires. They want the death of everything that is me.

How am I supposed to create anything from within such an abjectly negative and draining environment?