hi all, i'm a 20 year old girl, who recently had my overbearing mother walk in on me and the girl i'm seeing as we were making out on my bed. this was a week ago. upon kicking the other girl out, my parents stayed in my room until 2am and said pretty much everything on the checklist of ignorant things. my parents have lived in north america since they were children, but still hold onto traditional asian values such as placing a huge emphasis on education. for some backstory, i used to be a high achiever at school. partway through high school i began to show very severe symptoms of depression that went undiagnosed until earlier this year, and my schoolwork has suffered greatly. they've been through a lot of heartache with me failing courses and wasting tuition fees, and they blame themselves for the way i've turned out. they were strongly opposed to me starting an antidepressant regimen, and frequently want me to just quit it cold turkey (despite being educated and knowing the havoc it could wreak on my neurochemical balances). my family is very close knit. as a child i wasn't allowed to go out or visit friends very often, unless it was part of an official family outing. they care about me and my younger sister, and still want to spend time together as a family despite not really having the healthiest marriage. recently with the antidepressants working to get me motivated, i've been doing well at summer school and have an active social life. this is how i met the girl i'm seeing. this past weekend i found out that she gave me herpes. it's pretty obviously all over my face. my mom took me to the er in the middle of the night to get a prescription for it. this weekend was a family trip we took for family time, since i blew off the last family outing last month to go on a trip with some friends, including the girl they now know i'm dating. my parents argued with each other very viciously, and spent a good portion of the trip yelling at me as well. i know i'm the cause for their discord and they've told me that their work performance has suffered as well because of all of this. we returned from the trip yesterday. i left the house a few hours later to visit a friend and to get some space from my parents. my mother took the day off work today and we planned a family movie night. i told her i would be going out with friends during the day and i would return for the movie. she got upset. she feels like i take our family and being able to spend time with them for granted and she just can't understand why i feel the need to "find myself" when i know what her "expectations" are and that they're heartbroken over wondering what they did wrong, for me to turn out like this. to a certain extent, it's true. this is the first time i have both the energy to go out and people to go out with, on top of desperately feeling the need to avoid ugly blowouts at home with my parents. i have trouble communicating with my parents. usually serious conversations are just one sided lectures and i sit there and let them yell at me, because the only other things i can say are sarcastic quips and those make it worse. they're planning on cancelling movie night tonight to have a conversation with me about everything. i told them they needed more time to think. i've had years and years to come to terms with my sexuality and my depression and having herpes just doesn't faze me very much for some reason. maybe it's because i know my parents are completely in the opposite direction. to them it's just all one after the other and it's overwhelming them. they're not okay with depression, or homosexuality, much less with stds. tonight they want me to tell them what i think they need to take time to consider and think about... but i don't even know. i just want them to lay off so i can focus on my mental and emotional states so i can do better at school they way both they and i want me to. any advice for me? my parents aren't the type to let things go. i've disappointed them so many times... i don't know how to handle this but everything i've done lately has been as though i'm a thirteen year old with a developing frontal lobe, and i just wish i knew how to not be so immature. sorry for the essay. :lol:
OMG. I'm super slow. I need to take a nap. I thought you were 20 initially, then I saw something that said you were 13 and then I realized you were making an analogy..blahhh..ANYWAYS.. advice on your situation. I think you should push them to let you get a place of your own.. in exchange for better school work. I think you should set a date for a family meeting of your OWN.. with them. And use that meeting to express how you're feeling and what you think a good resolution will be. I think you'd appreciate spending time with them a lot more if you were on your own for 6 days a week and use the 7th day to visit and/or call your family and be engaged with them. I mean, literally cut your phone off to the outside world and spend time with them since you know how much your parents value it. There just comes a time where it's hard for us to be cordial to our parents when we're living under the same roof. And when you do talk to them, you have to remember to be an adult about it and refrain from yelling at each other or in your case, being quiet and ineffective. You have to be strategic. I, too, have a mother that's a little overbearing and I have a really hard time saying what I feel while taking her feelings into consideration at the same time. The next time you guys sit down, refrain from being irrelevant with your parents.. say what you feel, respectfully.. and avoid the sarcastic responses or shoulder shrugging.. just be affirmative. Assure them you're fine even when you're not if you have to. Anything to get them off of the topics of the past, and onto how to handle the future with you. Good luck with everything!
