I was happy when I made my last entry but my mood has darkened yet again. I'm 22 now…or rather I will be in approxiately 13 hours…but it's occurred to me that this is one of the loneliest times of my life. I used to not have anyone, no friends, no boyfriend, nothing. Now I have my boyfriend and I'm glad that he puts up with me but he's 3000 miles away.

It's my birthday today and we're going to the county fair. I'm not in the mood to go and I feel so disgusting, I can't even stand looking at myself, I'm so horribly out of shape. I'm just waiting for someone I know to see me and talk about me behind my back. But going isn't about me, it's about Mom.

I wanted to go see a movie at the nice movie theater but my Mom doesn't want to drive an hour away. And my brother is so addicted to games like Fallout 3 and World of Warcraft that he can't even spare me a minute or two of his time without having an attitude. My Dad probably has no idea that it's my birthday at all…

I know that as you get older, birthdays tend to get duller but this is symptomatic of a much larger problem. The males on my Dad's side of the family aren't "right"… My Dad, his uncle, and my brother are, quite possibly, the goofiest, most anti-social, emotionless people I know. If you talk to them, they'll either just say "yeah" or "ah", you almost never get a real response. They don't usually look you in the eyes and they talk in a monotone. They have no time for anyone else, it's all about me, me, me, me.

Knowing what I do about them, I have no idea why I continue to try and befriend my brother or even seek my Dad's approval. I keep berating myself for helping my brother or even talking to him. I just gotta stop. The world does not revolve around him or any of the other screwed up males in my family. If he wants someone to talk to about any of his war games, he can go make guy friends, asuming he can find anyone to put up with him. And I really kinda want my old iPod back, if he needs an Authenticator for his WoW account that's fine but why should I give him a $200 piece of equipment just to save him a few bucks? He's been babied his entire damn life and I'm really getting sick of the princess routine.

Everyone always says that I'm so spoiled because I have some nice things but they're all I have. My Dad's poor behavior made my childhood into nothing more than a complete wreck and everyone is so selfish that no one does anything for or with one another. The nice gifts were my Mom's way of trying to make up for all the other crap and I also think they were to keep us busy so that we never actually had to spend family time together. We are very much divided in almost every possible way.

I just need to make it through all the crap, I know. Hold my breath and hope nothing bad happens. I still feel very much trapped and bullied by my Dad and he isn't the kind of guy who makes good decisions in life. And even when he's making bad ones for me, I can't say anything about it. Ideally, I could say, "I'm an adult now and I will not stand for this! I'm going to take care of myself!" Buuuut that doesn't work when you have no college degree, are in debt, technically don't own a car, and are broke and stuck in an economically stagnant area… If I can somehow pull out of this okay, I can try to reshape my life. Please, please just let me make it out okay…