Feeling Pressured

You should organize your problems by priority. I think your chronic pain is the most important. If you injure your body, you can’t work and life will get even worse. So I’d strongly advise to just take a week or two off to get better. I used to have severe back pain occasionally and the only thing that solved it was resting (and of course take meds, gentle stretching after a week of rest) for a couple of weeks. The body needs time to heal or it’ll get worse.

Given all the major issues with your family, I think you’d be much better off living alone. Or if you have a family member that you like and trust, you can both find another place to live. I find it’s much easier if there are at least 2 people living together, in case one gets sick the other can help out.

I’ve also had some really hard times in my life, esp when I wasn’t working but the key is to keep going, keep working when you are healthy enough and solve each problem one at a time. I needed to move out of a really bad apt more than 5 yrs ago but it was very hard to find a new one, still, I went out on the weekends, whenever I found time to look. It took about 6-8 months of searching till I finally found a place I liked and it was totally worth it.

As for the cat, either leave it with someone you trust or take it with you. Once your family is out of the picture then the cat will be much easier to look after. It’s all the other problems taken together that make it seem overwhelming.