How can I be forceful but tactful about how I feel about my life?
Some background stuff;
I lived with my parents and younger brother until the age of 6. My parents divorced and I had to move into one room, with my mother & brother, in my maternal grandparents’ home. I lived there for a year before we were granted a rental property in the town near my grandparents. After about two years we were evicted as another family was willing to pay more rent, and we lived in the same room at my grandparents’ again for a few months.
We were then granted another rental property (in the middle of nowhere) where my mum remarried, and had a daughter. So now there is 5 of us. We were later evicted again when the company who owned our house, went bust, and had to sell on.
Back in with the grandparents, luckily by this time, the guest room had been re-plastered and was actually inhabitable, so me and my brother were put in this room. My mother and sister were in the smaller room, my step-father lived in a flat, in a nearby town.
After another few months of this we were given a house in a village, again, in the middle of nowhere. The house had no carpet, no proper wallpaper/paint, the shower was broken, the garden was a dirt patch, and all kinds of other stuff.
Now onto my life with my father. He moved to a town in the Midlands, 80 miles away. He lived in a tiny flat alone, until he met a woman, and they started dating. After this he lived with his parents for a couple of months, before buying a house in the same town, still, 80 miles away. Me and my brother, still talked to him every night on the phone, and visited him once a week.
In 2003, two months before his 35th birthday, my dad was crushed to death in a motorcycle accident. The funeral was held shortly afterwards, and I took only 3 days off school because of it.
A year later, my mother had a fourth child, I had another brother.
Soon after that, my step-father started shouting at me for the ‘little things’ I did. And later began verbally abusing me because I didn’t do what he told me to do, for example, I’d wash dishes a different way, or say something in a manner he found inappropriate. When I was 14, he punched me. He did this about once a month, for a year and a half. He also threatened to kill me twice, pulled me by my leg down the stairs, held me against a wall by my throat while screaming in my face, and punched in a door trying to get at me. My mother guilt-tripped me into 1. Not calling the police/childline and 2. Not leaving the house sooner.
When I was 15, I discovered I was gay. My step-dad found out from reading my emails, and told my mother. They both gave me silent treatment for at least a month.
A year later, a good friend asked me out (we’re still together now), and after explaining this whole story to his mother, she said I could move in with them (his father had also passed away, the year before mine) until University started, in the next year. After two months of living there, she started to passive aggressively abuse me. She would make comments about my behaviour, regulate how I spoke in the house, and generally treated me as a lesser being. After making arrangements with the regional youth associations, she evicted me, and I now live alone, in a house with 6 other people.
I have my own room opposite the kitchen, and next to the shower room. I was given a bed & mattress, a sink, a chest of draws, a fridge and a tiny wardrobe. I have to live off of £30 a week, which has had to pay for all of my food, my school equipment, rent, entertainment etc.
I have depression, anxiety & paranoia which culminate in me frequently thinking of killing myself, just to stop all this "pain", thinking everyone is an enemy (including my family, friends and partner) and generally feeling crap all the time.
Now, after all of this has happened, I have everyone around me tell me, "What a great position I’m in"
So I ask you, how can one be tasteful, while giving a big middle finger to anyone who thinks my life is great?
