I’m smart. I like to solve problems. My family is the one problem I’d give anything to solve, but I can’t.

When I was 17, I remember laying in bed feeling so sad that my heart hurt. The one thing that gave me hope was the idea that I could fix everything wrong with my family. It was naive and delusional but I care too much.

I knew from my older brother that our dad was doing really poorly financially. He had amassed an insane amount of debt, the kind that no regular person could pay back. He’s completely unable to learn from his mistakes so he starts business after business even though he already has a six figure full time job as a public servant? Because of these failed business ventures, he has so much debt.

So there I was at 17, a senior in high school, trying to convince my dad to file for bankruptcy…I shouldn’t have had to do that.

He asked me if I knew that filing for bankruptcy means you can’t take out a loan for seven years. I said yes, I do know that. He told me he was about to break even with his current business and asked me if I knew what breaking even meant. I said yes, I do.

He never did file for bankruptcy and I don’t know how bad things are now. I see the mail from loan companies coming in and I don’t say anything anymore.

I tried getting my parents to see that they neglect my younger brother. They were simply offended by that and proceeded to act like they do nothing wrong. My parents sat my younger brother in front of a tv during the most formative years of his brain development and didn’t potty train him until my older siblings and I told them enough was enough.

Why did I, as a nine year old, have to tell them to do that?

I’m 22 now and I’m going to be moving out this year. I have great career prospects lined up and multiple mentors have told me that I can expect to make a really good amount of money starting out. There’s a chance I could even out-earn my dad.

I won’t tell my parents how much money I’ll make because I know they’d leech off of me. I will help my younger siblings as much as I can but my parents played stupid games and it’s only fair that they win a stupid prize.