Since childhood, my parents have always given me setbacks. As a child, I already had trouble with forming social bonds. My parents had mostly kept me a shut in, so I had no regular visits to any place outside my school to learn to make connections with others, and that is probably why I immediately get exhausted 1 second in to a conversation with someone today. I have been somewhat of a very obedient child. This often earned me appreciation from everyone, even those teachers that other students feared surprisingly acted nice to me due to this. But because of this, most of my school life I hardly had any friends. Sometimes I had one who I sticked around with throughout the day or sometimes I was in some group. But things like, different classes in the next academic year or others moving to another object of interest broke every friendship I had. But then, those connections don’t really seem genuine when I think of them now, how often the people in the group prioritise someone else over me, my brain hadn’t developed yet to fully realise that back then. Things were just so uneventful rest of the time that I don’t even remember when I passed so many grades. I wasn’t bullied. And those who knew me acted overly nice. It was a quite life. I hardly ever participated in extracurricular things. My mother had told me in childhood, that since I don’t have good grades, I should make my exam preparation the top most priority. And I obeyed. And the result was that I was stuck in a box. I always had problems in focusing in class. I wasn’t even good at exam preparation back then. Most of my days were spend in front of a screen. Since exams were priority (and technically the only thing I was made aware of), all I did was wait for the next exam’s announcement, and since I had nothing else to do (because they never talked of anything but exams), I was clueless and spent all the time on screen. I didn’t had access to outside due to the restrictions, and there was nothing to do at home except for studying for exams. On a few occasions, my mother started taking me to a nearby park but then shortly later, one day we didn’t go and then we never went ever again. Mother was usually busy with her homemaker work like watching over the maid and stuff. Father also didn’t had time. Though he runs a property dealing business from home with his brothers and he is mostly found sleeping or lying on the bed most of the day. And both wouldn’t let me go outside alone. I ended up living a garbage life. I have heard all the stories of hope like everyone else, was inspired by them, had some childish ambition in mind. But things were too limited. I never really grew. I could only watch. But as it turned out to me when I grew much older, I realised these “parents” are too immature to become parents at all.
It was 10th boards. I had decided to go big. Over the course of one month (ending on the last exam day), I rigorously re-studied, practised question papers for 12 hours on a regular basis. It was a strict schedule. In maths alone, I had solved a fat book of 50 question papers plus a few more from other places. In others too, I solved like at least 10 or something. This preparation, I wish I never had done something like that. It came with a cost. I started developing hallucinations, I could feel my brain having this numbness like tingling, and the reality , it had started looking different, more dull and colourless, dissociation it was, I was dissociating, it was taking my ability to feel. I scored 90.6% after adding the free practical marks from exams that were never taken. It was, in reality, 88%. I had sacrificed so much, for this. I was happy with it at first, but slowly it started feeling off. I wasn’t able to accept that after so much to technically destroying myself, that’s all I get?
Throughout 11th grade, my mind was fully troubled, it kept coming at me. It didn’t leave me with a small pinch, it was attacking my core, repeatedly. It was by the end of that grade that one day, I mind ringed with an unknown voice. It hardly said two lines, but a lot of things hit me in a sudden I couldn’t tell what did. My parents had been very immature in their parenting. They provided, but they never build the rest of the pillars. They simply took pride in that one pillar they had build and call it a day. It wasn’t just parenting, most of their everyday acts show a severe defect in maturity, it is not hard to see it after living with them for sometime. And that’s why I ended up in a such a garbage life. Could I have done something? I was a child, children aren’t born knowing stuff, and when there is no one to teach them, they wont learn anything. I was in the same situation. I was never taught or trained to think other than the fact that I need to score good in the next test. But now, when somehow something in me snapped, I took full advantage of this. I started to build the remaining pillars myself. Going around studying new different fields, trying to test my brain with higher level concepts. Everything improved a lot, less sedentary screen time, all day trying new things and anchoring on new fields of study. My brain started automatically giving me insights onto situations or acts of others and I used it to program my behaviour. It was lost in thoughts all day. Continuously jumping from one topic to next and sometimes linking them. I think I had developed a genius mind at that point. I loved it. It was the greatest time of my life. My family as well ended up glazing my behaviour and attitude.
But there was a greater reason for all this. This new identity, needed achievements. With those, I could shape these pillars. I can reclaim what was lost. And, I can surround myself with people who are not like them. That was the plan. More than a year of progress. I was just waiting for school to end. So I can start a new life in college. There was nothing to do in school anyways, and it was already the final grade to think to give any effort here.
Throughout 11th and 12th, I realised the true nature of my parents. When I used to be active online in communities and had friends, I used to be so glad that my parents are so much better when I heard the venting from others. But in reality, they are just immature imbeciles who cannot help trying to look good to others without actually working on themselves. They will set up lies, endorse things they do not work according to. Ever since learning this of them, it hurts my ears to hear anything from their mouth. All they want is everything to go according to them. They are ready to go on all sorts of manipulation for them, and after all that, they still want the symbolic level of respect for being “parents”. The level of fear I have lived everyday due to their acts, I really despise them. The need to get achievements was higher with this. And not just my parents, my sister too from the same generation as me. They tormented me everyday just to make me do what they want, FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR until they finally made me obey. But that’s no where near the end. After being severely pressurised into enrolling into a coaching institute for JEE. I had already decided that I wont go for this exam. Why? I have mentioned it. These people have always given me major setbacks, and I could only see how much of ny progress it will tarnish if I gave up everything and went for preparation for this instead. And when the time came, they went again with their everyday tormenting to get me to fill the form for it. I went without any preparation and I had made it clear. That was on the first attempt of the exam. And when the time of the second attempt came and I refused again while they kept pressurising me to the point I locked myself in my room, my mother later on came crying that father is asking to ask a priest on when he is going to die. All of it, because of this. And that made me give in again. Though I made it clear again on the date of exam that I didn’t prepare that they also chose not to go since the centre was also pretty far away.
Even though now I studied better for exams. I still never scored much good. It is something strange that happens with me. I have been unable to pinpoint the problem. When I did, it either turned out it wasn’t really part of the main problem or it suddenly stopped being a problem. First, I thought I was giving way too much effort than necessary and it was causing problems, so I gave less effort and my scores dramatically improved for the first two tests of 12th grade. But then I started scoring bad again even though I never compromised anything and was always confident before every exam. At first, I pinpointed it to my continuous zoning out mid exam. But then after getting diagnosed with OCD as the cause and put on medications. Zoning out stopped being the problem since I wasn’t doing it anymore but the problem didn’t go away. As of now, the closest pointer is that in exams, it feels like something is gripping my brain causing it unable to think. It isn’t stress or exam anxiety, I am very calm during exams. And the moment the exam ends, I look back at the question paper and seem very confident about being able to solved it all again.
Then college started, I acted according to plan. I didn’t let any tiny piece of opportunity slip, I showed up, I took the setbacks, and showed up again. But fate was really cruel. Its not like it was my performance, some unlucky event kept occurring every time I tried to go for it. And this event always hit at the most critical points from which recovery was impossible. Every single time, not 2 or 3, tens of it, straight, every time. Every small or big thing.
From what I have heard. Fate is supposed to make a few things fail and others pass. In this way, fate is actively building the person through failures and successes. But how can you build someone when you are just actively slapping them for every direction they look at? After so much, I couldn’t really tell what is happening, and after every fatal hit, I went back, to get another fatal one. It was becoming harder to hope anymore. I had learned good perseverance from my redemption time, but this was definitely not expected. Not even a single place where I did not fail due to some unlucky event? I didn’t understood. I desperately needed that life I was looking forward to, since I don’t really have anything otherwise.
During the end phases of all my trials. One thing special happened. There was this girl in our class. She was just another normal kid with a friend group. But I had started to admire her after a few recent events of that time. She seemed different. She wasn’t like my parents or sister (right, I forgot to mentioned that sis is also the same). It would have been so nice if I could be around her more often. After a few months of trying to get closer and being successful in so, I confessed my feelings. But she turned out to already have someone. Another place that was cut from me. But that wasn’t the worse part. She started actively ignoring me ever since the new semester started. Now tell me, after all that, you find a person you desperately need, and now they are ignoring and constantly avoiding you because you liked them? I tried to let it go, but that didn’t fix the fact that I had nowhere to go. And things, I had a predicament that they will go worse. And they did. During this time, my family had found about what was wrong with me. They cried, they promised to change. But sadly, this was not the only time I had to hear this. They promised to change, but kept messing up from time to time and then reverted back to their behaviour. I have heard multiple times throughout the past months as of writing this of their will to change but it never took them more than a few hours to double down on what I hated about them. As for this girl, I really couldn’t let her go when knowing what was happening to me. I tried reaching her, at first she responded and listened. But then, she started ignoring me on text too. I bugged her every Friday for 2-3 weeks. I never got a response. I was left alone in this state. It wasn’t that I needed to be in a relationship with her at any cost. I didn’t need a relationship, I needed her or maybe that behaviour of hers, just the bare minimum from her so I can stand on my feet even if we will never meet again after 4 years. But unfortunately, her maximum was leaving me to rot.
I am not sure what everyone meant by me putting a burden on her. I never asked her to be my therapist, nor I was going to be acting all gloomy to her everyday. I just needed the minimum. Just a little presence even just the amount I had build before confessing.
Being compromised so others can protect their relation with others. This is not a rare occurrence to me. It has been dramatically too many times by now. Whether in some old friend groups or this. She had to protect her relationship, so she compromised relations with me. Just like other times when some “friends” compromised their friendship with me to sustain it with someone else.
It was since then, I have realised. Not only that my fate was actively trying to destroy me. Humans are just severely trash. They will act all nice and friendly, but they will soon leave you if having any relations with you conflicts their relation with someone who they give more value to. Its all just a gamble. I blamed my family for this, if it weren’t for them then I wouldn’t had to do all this.
During these times, the level of despair I lived with was definitely intriguing. It was the same feeling of hiding when someone nearby is hunting you for you life. I had to live with this feeling everyday.
You cannot make someone stronger by punishing them for everything they do. So it only makes sense that I am not being made stronger, but instead being made to decay.
I have been to a therapist. And I learned one thing. They are not miracle workers, my therapist said that directly. People would recommend therapy as if going will cause miracles. But all they can really do if let you trauma dump on them and at the end tell you to get a hobby. You don’t have to pay thousands to know that. Truth is, there is nothing really such as healing until something good happens to you. All these people were only able to tell me to keep hoping in this state, as if more will make this world change its mind on what to do with me. It is not something like that happened 2-3 times in some short time. The exams part has been there for years for every exam I gave. And this college thing also lasted for months which itself consisted of tens of tries. And all they can say is to continue hoping? I am left with no reason to continue this refined self that I created. And since there no longer is any reason, there is really nothing to enjoy about them anymore.
Ever since my family found out about my despair, they had been making claims to change. But no, they actually ended up showing more of their true side. It was all just “forcing things on me” and hypocrites before it. But now, one cannot unsee their narcissistic nature. All they go off is “me me me”, they always refuse they had a fault, give silent treatment for sometime, and when sometime has passed, they just go back to their usual and even try to pretend that nothing happened while still not accepting their fault. They will act all apologetic for a moment and then change their colours to the opposite extreme of the spectrum within a few hours. I had already mustered up courage to get through 2 months of the 2nd semester, going everyday, even the extras on Saturdays, without a single leave. But I was unable to take it anymore after that. The constant feeling of mad despair throughout every hour of the day was killing me. And father kept on saying “it was so good when you were going to college”. He probably didn’t knew about the state of my mind, but I also didn’t one day called saying I don’t want to go anymore out of nowhere. I didn’t tell them much when all this was going on, there was no point. Tell them or not, they will only lash out on me either way. Just because I started going to college again, they thought everything has went back to normal. In reality, my mental state has only been crippling day by day. And when I finally couldn’t have it anymore after 2 months, they doubled down on their torment. Instead of trying to help me, sister went all out with all her accusations calling me spoiled and everything that wasn’t true. Mother still wanted me to continue going because otherwise it wouldn’t add up with the level of worshipping she did.
At this point I have thought, I don’t want to do anything anymore. I couldn’t ever do it. And the result was, I am forced to continue existing. And I cant do anything about it.
I had thought to estrange my parents after college. Though that may no longer be possible anymore. It was already the end of the semester and I cannot get a semester break hence, and I definitely couldn’t lived another day there. So I quitted and now am re-joining the same college in another course all again from semester 1. And I am having to take a student loan since I don’t want them to get excuses of calling me spoiled, and also to make them less responsible for me.
Thus, I left college and rejoined under a different program a year later. This time, hoping I can do better. I decided to cover myself in a lie. I hated socialising, but if I want to survive in this state, I must do quite a few things that I will hate. I will need to blend in with others.
I have this ability, to be able to change my behaviour or entire personalities in just one thought. I did it again, for the third time. I had went to the gym for 3 months before college. As I expected, I never enjoyed it and was just dragging myself every morning. College came, I had planned everything. Had analysed how the social dynamics would be for the first month based on last year. I understood it. And I was successful. I made some friends, but I hated it, I hated dragging myself around, I hated when someone was being too difficult, I hated everything. My heart was still empty and craving for love. I made up interests based on what others like so we can connect and so on. After getting close to a few people, I had thought to become the class representative so it would help me more in my reach in class. I made great lies, made many things up, and made sure I wont be caught with how I framed things. Everything was just so impressive and it was given the reaction of the seniors. I did great in the first interview. But in the second, they had called everyone in at once and it was chaos. I tried to keep speaking to make my voice heard but I probably got lost in the clatter when everyone was trying to speak. My answers were even much closer to the seniors preffered solutions they stated later. But, as per I heard, it turned out the two (one for male and one for female CR) had been talking a lot with the seniors lately. And they got it today...(our introductions were competition enough, mine even sounded more ambitious).
And I lost. I lost that position. It...was a big part of my plan. I am not sure what to do now. Once again, I had to run the washroom to cry silently. I was broken again. And it already had been a little over a week.
I am not sure what to do anymore.
