A financial worst case scenario, with the works

I'm in a worst case scenario, financially, and perhaps in everything else. That, or I'm pessimistic. Maybe both. This is my story of an extremely bad situation, which starts over 25 years ago...

Actually, it encompasses much more than finance. This is basically half of my life story.

Before placing it here, I emailed this story to Trent, from The Simple Dollar. He also responded on his blog. This version has a few additional details as a result.

My scenario isn't limited to just myself, but my whole family.

My parents are immigrants/refugees from Vietnam. When they arrived here in Australia, they both took jobs and lived an extremely frugal lifestyle, sending all savings to my mother's side of the family, who still remained in Vietnam. Before butchers realised that some people actually eat stuff other people may discard, they sold these "scraps" for an extremely low cost. So, they lived on broths and stews made from stuff like chicken feet. (Instant ramen was probably more expensive at the time.)

This was in the 1980's. My sister was born in the early 80's, my brother, late 80's.

In 1990, I was born, and my mother's side of the family immigrated to here shortly before my birth. Upon my brother's birth and mine, my mother left work to take care of us.

Throughout my younger life, this is pretty much all the detail I knew about my family's time before my birth, chicken feet and all.

Before my enlightenment on finance, I didn't think about it much, but for most of my life you could say that I was spoilt. It was done for my benefit, so I could get a good education. Both of my parents didn't get very far in school.

We still only have one source of income, and that's my father. My sister moved out, and my brother and I do not have jobs, as well as my mother.

We always had and we still get a fair amount of stuff. Several computers, game consoles, many games and DVDs, 5 or 6 TVs, 3 surround sound systems and several DVD players, double beds.. it just goes on. And it's been going for probably over 12 years. All on credit cards. We took out another home loan to paint the house. (I objected to this, due to money, and this house containing a few unique properties..)

My dad repairs extra cars on the weekend for some extra cash, which is spent on food. After living a poor childhood and super-frugal life in a new country full of opportunity, who can blame him?

My mother's side of the family aren't very good with finance, either. After they immigrated here, they never helped us, and they still occasionally ask for money. (we always refuse.) They're not exactly good at finance either. They took out a home loan and threw the money around. We clearly sponsored the wrong side of the family to move over.

I'm about to finish/fail Year 12, and hit with depression. I'm currently not trying to find a job, nor am I interested. I'm not sure on which path of education to follow.. I have tons of dreams I wish to fufill, but it all conflicts with the financial situation, so I sit here confused and lost, going nowhere. I'm quite sensitive to discouragement, so I have discarded a fair number of pursuits.

Next year, this should all ease up a little, when my mother takes up a job and if my sister moves back in. But where does that leave me? How do I save everyone?

You could say most of my family is stubborn, and I am as well, in some areas. I don't want to live an empty life, and have an empty job. But there is a great amount of weight, pushing me down. I feel helpless. My mother won't use any money if I send any to them, which makes me worry somewhat..

I'm pretty much stuck between selfish desires and selfless ones. Go to school and do something my parents never got, or go by myself and follow my dreams. I need to help earn money to help my parents, but I have to go to school for the same reason, and then my personal feelings and beliefs get in the way.
I just want to get away from it all for a while, but I can't, I try to look at other paths but the arrows all point to the exact same one. roughly ten years of emptiness, earning money and repaying debts..

It's all so confusing. I can't leave one alone, but I can't get it all.