"But those are your parents." You need to stop blaming others." "Stop making excuses for your actions."
That's what people would tell me. Especially when I talk about my childhood trauma and how I was brought up.
The holidays is what makes me the saddest. That that's the day we pretend like everything's okay when it isn't. That's also when I like to get the drunkest. I don't remember and I don't want to remember.
Don't get me wrong, I love my mother but she's a narcissist. I've always had a toxic relationship with her. My father has always been absent and used to feed me empty promises he'll never keep.
That's probably why I have attachment and abandonment issues. I never got to be a child and my inner child has never fully healed. I was a second parent to my siblings before I was a child, first. I was my mothers punching bag before I was her child. Others may think I'm a miracle because I was my other fathers child he didn't know about and tried to force my mother to abort.
People tell me I'm a strong person but I wouldn't be a strong person if I was never mentally, emotionally and psychologically abused. I wouldn't be a strong person if I was never traumatized first.
I was love bombed, gaslit and bullied by my mother first. Ironic isn't it? The first people who was supposed to love you first never gave you real unconditional love. Anyone can be a mom but not everyone can be a mother. And you can't be a good mother without being a good person first. My mother gave me life but she also drained me out of having and living mine. Yet she continues to blame me for who I've become and who I couldn't be or strive to be, sooner.
Asian family dynamics. As if I was never there for her at all. I didn't have much of a choice. The person I love, isn't chosen. I was traumabonded into a toxic cycle with my mother. A woman who never truly healed from her own childhood—projects the kind of life she wants me to feel—more than to undertand. What is the norm anyway? Being manipulated into thinking and believing I wasn't and will never be enough? Nothing I say or do will be enough. I paused my life so many times just to be there. Took time off school and work. Before I was ever in college or even moved out.
Translating, doctor appointments, court dates and pregnancies. I was there every fucking time. I don't want the credit or acknowledgment. No one ever appreciates anything I do, they blame me when I start having enough courage to have boundaries for myself. Being put down when something goes wrong, even because of someone else. I somehow become someone to blame.
When it comes to me, who can I count on? Who can comfort me? Who can be there for me? Not my mother. Not my father. Not anyone. Instead they gossip about me to other relatives, victimizing themselves as if they raised me at all. I raised myself, taught myself the route to life. I guided myself. I don't remember having a healthy relationship with my mother. All I remember is she'd always yell at me for any decision I made. She never even tried to be happy for any of my accomplishments. The certificates, diploma, recognition(s).
Even when I moved out like she wanted me to. Instead until this day, she blames me for leaving. Saying I could've been done with school and I could've bought her a house by now if I didn't move out. If I didn't take gap years in school. Even when I speak in her native tongue, she still doesn't understand. My mother doesn't understand that she is the reason I left. She and I both know that we were never compatible. If I didn't want to argue and ignored her, she'd yelled louder. She would stand outside my bedroom door to yell at me for something I don't even know what for.
If I didn't do what she asked or said no, she would victimize herself and make me look and feel like satan sent from hell himself. That I was the worst person and daughter she regret of having until I said yes. Then I would be rewarded with love or materialistic things.
Throughout her pregnancies, and my siblings. I was left with my brother at the age of four and his uncle. Who was disabled. I learned how to make formula and change diapers at the age of four. His father worked and so did my mother. I have always been a caregiver before I was cared for myself. Then at twelve, she was pregnant with my twin sisters. Their dad was longer in the picture. I spent months taking care of her, even when she gave birth. I slept downstairs in the living room with her. Waking up throughout the nights to change their diapers with her and to feed them milk bottles. When I was only in sixth grade. When I was sixteen, she had my baby brother. I took care of him as well when she was resting and my step dad worked. And look, I'm grateful for my mother and my siblings. I did question why she'd get pregnant again if she didn't really take care of us. To this day, I still feel ashamed and guilt. If you know me personally and met my baby brother, you'd see he's the mirror of me but happier. I picked and gave him, his name and it suits him perfectly.
He's my last project, my last love. He's a better reflection of who I couldn't be. I was older when he was born, I was more experienced in true love. For the longest time, I was able to feel pure happiness and serenity again. I remember leaving again at twenty one, holding and hugging him one day. Telling him to face the mirror while I faced the opposite direction crying. I remember telling Isaiah to smile at himself in the mirror to always remember to be happy, patient and kind. And no matter what anyone says, he'll always be happy. He'll always be happy with who he is and who he will become one day. Regardless of what people say, always remain kind and happy. In his eyes, I am his definition of happiness even though I'm deeply depressed and diagnosed bipolar.
I am the character in his mindcraft of a girl with blonde hair and a huge smile across my canvas face.
All I can do now, is continue on with life in autopilot, not really wanting to live but having to because I don't want to feel like a burden when I decide to kill myself. I just won't yet because it'll make my siblings sad and it'll confuse them thinking why they weren't enough for to live on. And if I do kill myself, that would, well, be just rude.
I think that's why I've spent so many years of my teenage years in therapy, so many lives loving the wrong people. I was trying to fill the void of absent LOVE. Not bits and pieces but all of it. If it's not all, then what is the point? That's why for so many years, I was looking for love in the wrong friends and wrong partners. My first real relationship, I was head over heels for a narcissist. At the age of thirteen until fifteen. I took years to rebuild myself. I've had a few more relationships and friendships that didn't last. I promised myself I would never let my standards and expectations be that low ever again. And I left before I could be broken again or be a narcissists supply again. I didn't expect I would feel that way again, ten years later, now.
That inner child that never healed fell back into a toxic cycle again. I can't wait to take my power back one day again. Maybe those moments of happiness or what I thought was, was never truly happiness. It was just a pause. I spent my early twenties being single. For a long time, I wasn't mentally or emotionally okay. Until I was. I wasn't happy, I was still depressed and even more suicidal. I tried more times than I can count, it was my own inner sick joke with myself. To kill myself one day, out of nowhere without crying wolf or reaching out for help. Countless times in the emergency room, even jail and the loony bin. I just couldn't die. It's a Tina thing, testing life's limit and still somehow I'm still here writing this for you to read. Whoever you are.
People say suicide is selfish, people can play devils advocate in being a mental health advocate all they want. In reality, people tell you to reach out, even reach out for help. But it makes them extremely uncomfortable or the simplicity of it is, they just don't want to hear it! People think mental health is just the basics but it's all disorders into one. Scientifically or in other words, your brain is deteriorating and just eating itself until it can't anymore. Then you're left without any thoughts, memory loss. Not only do you forget who everyone was, but also who you were. Then your body gives out without any neuro mobility.
Being depressed isn't a fancy word for being bummed out. It's literally feelings the walls caving in. Sleeping for days and weeks and still being tired. Laying in your own filth, not showering, not eating. Not talking to anyone, drowning your sorrows in substances, waiting for Gods call. That's the side of the stigma no one wants to hear or talk about.
Maybe you've read "Daddy's Girl" on here already, maybe not. It'll make more sense if you have. To always be second or last choice. I don't talk about his other daughters really. My other sisters. A man who wasn't capable of being loyal to his woman will never be loyal to his children. My father is a womanizer. He's cheated on his wife many times throughout my childhood. He also had a drinking issue, maybe still does. He used to yell at me when I would spend the night at his house with my grandparents. Not in person but on the phone because I interrupted his time. I've met his countless girlfriends or you can call them mistresses. And that's why at one point in my life, my uncle, his brother took me in as his own. I think he must've felt bad for me. If it wasn't the other issues, I would've stayed. My uncle just thought that my mother had too many children to even really provide for me or give me what I need but they didn't help raise me neither did she.
Also my father was always and have been absent.
My father wasn't there when I was born. Even when I gotten older, sometimes on a blue moon, he'd take me school shopping or give me some play, sorry money then just go into the abyss. When I had braces in elementary school, he'd take me, complain, give me twenty bucks then I wouldn't see him for awhile. However he took me to the emergency room when I was fifthteen because no one else could and I almost died. For awhile, he pretended to care because he then found out I was on antidepressants... but then he kind of just disappeared again. When I switched schools and he had to take me to school because I couldn't drive; he would be upset and angry at me just for being there. Then I started skipping school, he had to go to the school meeting, he was upset. Not because I wasn't going but because the school called him in and it wasted his time. How was I supposed to go to school without transportation or having a bus that can take me there? When I graduated high school, he showed up, and tried to show out. Basically claiming me as his daughter, . I am my fathers child. Maybe that's why I tend to disappear and drink my problems away for so long.
How could he tell me he's disappointed in me so many times when it should be I that should be disappointed in him? For never taking responsibility or accountability of being a real father?
People in my generation talk about deadbeat fathers a lot. Look at mine. A child doesn't really need a father who picks and choose when to be there out of convenience. A child doesn't need to be born at all.
This isn't even it.
Because I have narcissistic mother and an absent father, I never thought about having kids like that. Yeah, I tell myself and sometimes I bring up the fact that I want two kids. But I never craved of having them.
Here's why: a lot of people have kids because they have a lot of love to give or want to break generational curses or they want a reason to keep going, or to even live. That to me, is selfish. Is it not? Sure you can have children but can you give them more than the bare minimum? Can you really take care of them beyond eighteen years or do you want them to be out of your house and out from under your roof? Will you be able to accept and love your children beyond your measures and expectations? Will you complain if you end up being a single parent on social media? Can you ensure you can take care of your child and/or children without child support or threatening the other parent? Can you ensure that you won't let your emotions and feelings dictate the relationship your child should have with their other parent? Or let the bitterness get to you? No, that's not a guarantee. I refuse to bring a child into this world without being able to give them more than life itself. I don't have a solid reason to have children any time soon anyway.
I want to establish my career, my own healing, growth and relationship with myself first. That reason, I find not to be selfish. I don't want to be in the haze of thinking I'm in love and make a mistake by bringing a child into a dangerous and dark world so soon. Maybe I will have children when I have the right partner. And that child and/or children become the celebration of true eternity love. Even then, I don't think is a reason to have children.
My mother gave me the choice to decide if I wanted to know my father. For who he is. I found closure. I know who he was, who he is and who he forever chooses to be. She never spoke negatively or down on him besides the fact that one day when I'm older, I'll understand. Cliche. I know. I wasn't brainwashed nor did she gossip or went on social media to knock his character.
I'm very capable of love. I am the definition of love. One day, I'll be able to share the celebration of that love with someone heaven sent. A person who shares the same passion, kindness, patience, values and morality as me. Until that day I will not be celebrating love out of a child.
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