Jealousy

[psm45]

Am I an asshole for getting upset after reading this that I saw on facebook?:

At age 13, I lost my grandmother to heart disease who was the sole caretaker of me at the time, I never knew my dad, and my mother was a drug addict.

After my grandmother died, my sisters and I were living in my mom's house with no water, heat, or electricity for months due to her drug use. We ran out of the house when she tried to murder us one night with a meat cleaver.

My sisters and I were separated when some of them joined their father’s side of the family while I ended up homeless sleeping in cars and homeless shelters in Washington, D.C. My aunts tried to take care of me but could not. One tried to hit me with a frying pan because she was always stressed out. The other was an alcoholic who threw my clothes out of her apartment and threw my birth certificate and social security card in my face. I then began living with strangers who were a family of 13 that lived in a two-bedroom Section 8 apartment in southeast Washington, D.C. They would not allow me to get food from the refrigerator at times and when I found out that they were getting food stamps and welfare benefits using my name, I was beat up and kicked out of the house. I had no choice but to go back to the homeless shelter.

I wanted to go to high school so bad but could not because I needed to feed and clothe myself at such a young age so I enrolled into a G.E.D. program at age 16 so that I can have time to work at Starbucks during the day and Ruby Tuesdays during the night and still go to school. After I earned my G.E.D., I stayed up until three and four in the morning teaching myself algebra, trigonometry, logarithms, functions, and geometry on the computer from watching YouTube videos and had tutors come out to the shelter to help me prepare for the SAT/ACT’s. In 2008, I got accepted into college and spent 4-6 hours a day in the library studying ahead of the syllabi and earned a 4.0 GPA my freshmen year.

I interned for the Mayor of Washington, D.C., Adrian Fenty, where he and President Obama performed several initiatives together which I was able to see first-hand and served as a guest speaker at the British Embassy. The United States of America recognized me and 14 other homeless students in America for our courageous efforts of drafting a Homeless Youth Act to Congress before receiving awards from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. I was inducted into the Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society and Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society and was on the President’s and Dean's List since freshmen year. Out of all political science majors at my University, I won the department award. I served three years in the Student Government Association and was elected Student Body President of the college my junior year.

On May 5th 2013, I graduated with Great Honors (Magna Cum Laude), in the top percentile of my graduating class, and I am now aspiring to become a Lawyer. PLEASE SUPPORT ME BY PURCHASING A COPY OF MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY, "Homeless at Age 13 to a College Graduate" on Amazon for $8. Thank you and I love you guys! #TBT

Whoopdi damn doo. It was attach of the guy picture of him smiling with his graduation cap. I feel like shit because my story is similar but not a bad therefore I FEEL LIKE i am making excuses for my inactivity. Struggling with a addiction and bipolar doesnt help either. I'm always comparing myself to others, ,my parents used to do it to me. I compare myself to people in better and worst conditions than me...I may be a narcissist

[manuel_moe_g]

Hello psm45.

You are not an asshole. "Human interest story of the day" is a kind of bullshit if it cannot give us concrete steps to improve our own situation, if all it does is make us feel shitty.

Take care, you are being too hard on yourself. We here are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow.

[The_Hero_of_Time]

I feel the same way. I look at others who are in similar situations like me and whenever I ask how they cope they just say "work through it." WTF does that even mean how do you work through it?