I feel like my life has become so damaged beyond repair or sense of control (A Rant)

This will kinda be a long post so forgive me for this as i have been mustering the courage to write this sort of post ever since i join EC. I honestly felt that during my first 4-5 years of my childhood was one of the most happiest moments in my life before my family immigrated to Australia.

After that, as i grew older, i found that my parents never seemed to give me much support of any kind (emotional, physical, my dream career etc.) my quick-tempered father constantly went on business trips (almost every week with each business trip lasting 2-3 weeks at one time) and when he was actually around, he never really would ask how i have been and rather scold at me for "not having the decency to ask about his difficulties in life" and typically beats me up over this, avoid me when i was emotionally distress (in fact we never actually did simple father/son bonding in all my life) and never actually bid me farewell during the time i went off for college.

He became so stubbornly self-righteously bigoted towards anything he viewed as "unnatural" in his life (comparing homosexuality with bestiality, homosexuality is a choice, viewing all people with mental illnesses as "dysfunctional" in society and wishing they them all away in an asylum, believing that children are always wrong and parents are always right with every argument [Rather traditional chinese values that not even my friends believe in] ), they will supposedly "force" me to marry someone if i don't do so by the time i'm thirty, its okay for parents to beat up their children to reinforce the parents are right/children are wrong notion etc.

The final straw came when he considered the whole "I love you" and "I hate you" concepts as 'childish to the point moronic" which cemented my dislike against him and i would typically only contact him for professional reasons.

Now for my mother, she was a generally loving mother during my first few childhood years and actually cared for my well-being even up until now. Ever since she was diagnosed with Bipolar when i was around 13-14 years old, her habits and behaviors took a deep dive and i was in charge of taking care of her since my two sisters were in college or working. She suffered insomnia almost every night and chose to sleep almost throughout the day. Whenever we had an argument during times when she was having one of her episodes, she became shrill, beat me up and threaten to kill me or kill myself with a kitchen knife.

In 2008, when we adopted two dogs, i noticed she started referring to them as son and daughter and became more dismissive of me (more like she would kill herself if i ever got a B+ mentality) to the point she would always be defensive to the dogs if they did something naughty (poop all over the house, investigating garbage bins or they got into fights). She also flooded my thoughts with more negativity when i was concerned about life in college when she told me not to trust anyone, don't go to professors for advice on your studies since they back stab and you can only trust self-preseverence to get good grades

I ultimately feel it becomes so tiresome whenever i have to take the initiative to be responsible for her health when she wouldn't even take responsibility for her own health (especially since she constantly 'forgets' to take her meds the past few days). He also mentioned he would 'deter' me from university if he found i was hanging around anyone remotely gay, that i will get 'arrested' and they won't bail me out and make sure i spend every waking moment in gay reparative therapy.

Her views often seem contradictory to one another, at one point she views homosexual people were born that way (not a choice as opposed to my fathers views) and is rather accepting and supportive of a secretly gay couple we know (even helping one of the them when he suffers a panic attack because of harsh discrimination he experiences from others) and yet refuses to believe "the family is contaminated with XYY gay gene" (a bit of a facepalm moment in her understanding of biological genetics) and expects me to change to straight or else she would kill herself to make me 'happy'. Like my father, she almost follows my father's ideology of parents are always right and children are always wrong mentality and i would typically have to apologize to her for the sake of her mental health.

After all this, as of recently my parents consider themselves the best parents in the world and i should be very grateful i grew up under their supervision otherwise my childhood can much worse . I didn't really make much of a comment other than "if you insist" seeing as there's no point in trying to give my opinion unless i want to get into an argument and get beaten up again. It kinda saddens me to say i only ever contact them whenever they ask me to contact them in the first place (every 1-2 months or so) and this goes to show how emotionally distant i have gotten away from them. As a positive effect i have actually gotten better grades in college and actually feel determined in wanting to live an independent life away from them seeing as i now know they were never accepting of who i was and it is questionable whether they truly loved me for who i am.

As for my eldest sister who is 30 years old now, she has always been the brainiac in the whole family (getting straight As all through high school, becoming valedictorian in her high school graduation class gotten first class honours for her undergraduate and masters study) and actually gotten a stable job rising up the corporate ladder and recently got engaged.

She also constantly shoves her life's achievement down my throat (seeing as i do occasionally score a mix of As and Bs for most of my grades) as she consistently believes herself to be "perfect role model" to me and thinks of me not as comparatively as intelligent anyone else in the family and she often forgets a lot of things i've told her countless number of times (where i'm currently living and that my major is electrical engineering not IT) and she does talk bad things behind my back to my mother (Like why can't i just be like her, why didn't he choose a better major like me, why can't i be as responsible and independent as her etc.). She occasionally does become very chatty when it comes to her life in the office and i give her some advice, but would tell me to "deal with it or stop complaining and be grateful" with my problems. I'm not entirely sure whether our huge age gap (Almost a decade apart) explains why we can't get along

As for my 2nd oldest sister, we generally do get along better and we do have conversations about each other's lives and well-being even though we sometimes do get into petty arguments but generally speaking i think i don't see any outward problems with our relationship. She does ask me to contact her if i experience any depressive thoughts or really need someone to talk to.

All my life i have suffered so much psychological trauma such as friend diagnosed with aspergers, another friend's suicide, multiple friends cutting me off, my mother's bipolar and what i did to experience the limits of my pain (slashing my arm with a bread knife, fracturing my hand against a door, burning my head or scalding it (explaining a patch of hair baldness at the back of my head) but i grew out of that phase by the time i was 7-8 years old.

As for me, now that i'm 21 i've always was an introvert, felt unwanted/undesirable, lack true ambition in what i want to do in life, felt unintelligent, am constantly suicidal and always hung out by myself and never really made much friends until the last 4 months (Changed a new leaf becoming more gradually outgoing and made new meaningful friends, discovered this wonderful forum , stop my gaming addiction and becoming more determined to get good grades). However, i've still have felt depressed on occasion about my sexuality and my ongoing family problems and the fact that i still feel self-conscious about myself even in University about others judging me in a negative fashion even if their not.

For the first time i actually discussed some of these problems with a friend of mine yesterday (even though family forbid me and i omitted the parts about the beatings and such). He told me that he think i still deeply care about my family and even though it may not be necessarily possible to change their close mindedness, he told me it is my choice to live my life the way i want and that i choose live happily and fruitfully and i try to make them understand my point of view (even though i have tried countless number of times unsuccessfully)

I still honestly feel sometimes, the world changes constantly but it feels like since some changes occur so slowly, it might as well feel like everything remains the same/Nothing will ever change and i would remain in this constant state of bleakness and depression no matter how hard i try revert those feelings and i lack any control on my life, my personality, my family, my career, my friends, my education, my goals and my love life. In more ways than one, i feel like i've become such an emotional trainwreck to the point i do ponder through my dreams "What happens 50 years from now to society?" and "What if i had lived a happier childhood with a loving family?". I'm sure other people have their own stories of their own dysfunctional family so i just want to emphasize a fact that i'm not saying my story is any unique from the others.

As of these past four months, i find that i've become more and more empathetic, opinionated, liberal and support every fight and cause such as gay rights, environmental rights, democratic rights etc. and have developed a strong stance that people really should treat each other as their equals (without the existence of superiority and inferiority) which would result in a more peaceful world without bigotry, discrimination, prejudice etc. As a result i've suppressed my own personal depression/desires by focusing and concentrating on putting more efforts and resources on making society more happy by making things right.

The reason why i'm posting all this now is because in three days time, first is i really feel needed to let out all of my emotional baggage in one go and second i have to fly back to see my parents and i honestly feel so nervous to see with my heart pounding non-stop and wanted to know if there's any advice anyone can give me or any activity i can do to give myself pre-occupied since i would be staying in Shanghai until approximately start of January (btw China bans all social media websites and youtube so i cant do those) :bang: and also ask you whether it truly gets better? (in life and other aspects etc.) and whether i have the strength/will to keep going until the end? :icon_sad:

Thanks for taking the time to read this extremely long essay even if i may ramble on sometimes and it may seem i'm suicidal right now but i'm not but honestly needed to rant everything i had emotionally bottled up all these years and i have officially classified myself as deeply damaged :eusa_clap:icon_bigg:icon_bigg

 

Re: I feel like my life has become so damaged beyond repair or sense of control (A Ra

Thanks Aeva. I'll be sure to message you

yeah i also forgot to mention my parents also put the notion in my head that going to therapy is the same as saying you're pathetic in life and you will be forced to go into so much meds you might develop a drug addiction to it instead of helping you (i'm guessing my mother's mental illnesses has made them judge harshly against mentally challenged people since i have to tolerate them saying "don't walk/act/move like a retard" often)

i should be still be able to post here when i'm in China (unless China also bans this website) just that i can't use any social media or video sharing sites for nearly a month.

 

Re: I feel like my life has become so damaged beyond repair or sense of control (A Ra

Thanks so much for your replies. Another thing I wanted to ask was is therapy expensive?
　

 

Re: I feel like my life has become so damaged beyond repair or sense of control (A Ra

Thanks so much. Oh by the way, i feel way better as opposed to a few months back when i was deeply depressed and suicidal (currently those feelings have passed) but i really feel like i need to see a therapist to vent about my family.

I really hope therapist don't judge harshly even if my opinions can seem shallow (specifically to my sister's strained relationship)

 

Re: I feel like my life has become so damaged beyond repair or sense of control (A Ra

Still haven't really gotten any advice when i confront my parents seeing as i will be seeing them tomorrow

 

Re: I feel like my life has become so damaged beyond repair or sense of control (A Ra

sigh i'm kinda saddened to see a lot of people just merely lurk here

i was really hoping i can at least some advice (no matter how big or small it is)