I tried posting before, but my post got deleted somehow. Trying again.

I'm a 37-year old artist and musician. I live at home with my parents, because I've never earned enough to support myself, work, etc. on the outside, despite my efforts and good business sense. Every year for the past 20 years, I've hoped that *this* year would be different, that *this* year, I would attract the right opportunities whereby I could improve my conditions. But, it never happened. I couldn't further my music career while trying to meet the demands of a full-time job, nor could I sustain a full-time job at the expense of furthering my music career. The one landed me in financial destitution. The other landed me in the hospital and therapist's office with physical and emotional problems. My life became of cycle of trying, crashing, recovering, and trying again. A repetitive cycle.

That my family is disassociative, blocks attempts at communication, and speaks about me in the third person doesn't help. Though I've lived in their house since about age 5, I've been emotionally on my own for about as long. I've long since accepted the fact that I wasn't wanted, and am okay with that. What is frustrating is that since the time I was a child, they've shirked responsibility for providing me with the tools needed to get along as an adult. The school system only made it worse by enrolling me in the gifted program. It basically amounted to experimental education for intelligent and talented kids. There were few restrictions and no real mentoring. So, by the time I graduated from high school, I knew how to work independently on my own things, in my own way, at my own pace, but not how to relate to others, function as part of a group, or deal with external restrictions. Worse, I believed that I was superior to everybody else, because I was "gifted". This made employment and personal relationships impossible. My history with both has been one failure after another.

Two years ago, I consulted a therapist about all this. The diagnosis: PTSD. She surmised that I had effectively been trying to survive in a hostile environment since early childhood, without help, not unlike a soldier, who'd seen action in war-time. She also advised me to accept my intelligence, creative gifts, and independent nature as it was, and to avoid "normal" jobs where these would be attacked or suppressed. She recommended self-employment and to keep pursuing my music career and to apply myself as if it were a source of gainful employment, with the attitude that it *would* bear fruit.

Based on this, I decided to stop trying to make it at a "regular" job and go into freelance work, since my trade skill is graphic design. This has been tolerable from a mental standpoint and has allowed me the time and energy to pursue my music goals. However, I still have yet to sustain enough work or earn enough money from it to leave my parent's house and get into a space of my own. And, the conditions at home have continued to worsen. My parents are not only delusional and disassociate themselves from me, but also sabotage my efforts. It's difficult to explain in a brief post, but their fantasies about me and their lives with respect to me are very complex, and they engage in behaviors that undermine my efforts, yet they justify these behaviors as "love" or "support". When I've confronted them about some of things that they've done, which has included moving my car and tampering with my mail and possessions, they've become very defensive and said things like, "this is *our* house" and "you should be grateful we *let* you live here". Okay, I get that, but it doesn't address or justify tampering with my property. If I go so far as to make that point, my mother flies into a dramatic fit, drags her husband into the drama to champion her against me, then shuts me out completely and threatens me with being thrown out into the street.

I know that anybody reading this would say, "Why don't you just stay with a friend?" I've already asked what few friends I have if I could. None can, and even so, my financial situation is such that I couldn't guarantee that the money would be there all the time to contribute to expenses. Some months I get work and thus money. Some months I don't. It all depends on the market and if clients respond. There are also technology needs. Both my client work and music work depend upon me having a high-end computer workstation, fiber-optic internet, and soundproofed or relatively quiet work environment. Nobody I know can provide a fiber connection AND a silent or near-silent workspace. Since the phone company won't install fiber, cable, or even DSL in non-suburban areas where there is generally less people, traffic, and noise, it's a virtually impossibly find.

As I read what I've written, I realize that what I probably need is more of a "crisis solutions" expert than a "stress management" one, but I don't know where to turn. I don't have a lot of money, and I don't have access to health care or anything like that. I'm at a point of desperation and have begun to consider suicide as a logical alternative to continuing to try to survive conditions like this. I'm an extremely logical person. If a strategy can be presented to me by which my goals can be realized, I'll apply myself. But, if not, or if people are just going to blow sunshine up my ass, then I'll look for an exit, even if that means exiting my own body and third density consciousness.

Can anybody help with this?

Thank you.