It’s been a long time since I wrote about anything, but I wanted to, just to make sure I’ll be okay for a while longer, just until I have to let everything out again. I don’t know where to start. I’ve been scared to touch the journal despite the peace it gave me, and I’m unsure why that is. I think even writing about my feelings is hard, because talking about them is impossible, but I know it’s necessary for my peace. Sometimes I feel like my thoughts and my problems are coming up my throat and I’m going to vomit it all, but then I just swallow it back down until it comes back up, stronger, faster, and each time more painful. But I forget everyday. Every time I wake up, it’s a new day, but not in a metaphorical, hopeful way. It’s actually really scary, because every time I sleep I forget about the day before. My issues start feeling completely numb, even though I know there’s a part of me deep down that really cares and feels hurt. I don’t recognize myself sometimes. I don’t recognize the person from the day before, because it’s not me. It almost feels like I’m on autopilot, living but not surviving. I know there’s a reason why I feel so strange in my mind, like it doesn’t belong to me. Maybe my mind is protecting me from something, or from myself.
It was supposed to be a good summer. I needed rest from my stressful life at school, a life I couldn’t tell you about now, because I don’t remember. It’s pathetic and really painful. I don’t feel in control. The stress never left. I thought the stress would leave with school, but now I understand I always feel this way, unconsciously. Unsure. Anxious. Sad. Unmotivated. This combination of feelings lives in the deepest layer of my skin. I carry it with me. And I don’t remember why I feel this way, or when I started feeling this way, but it never leaves. It lives inside me. Why can’t I remember? Every day I’m a new person, based on who I’m surrounded with. I don’t know why I’m like this. It’s like every happy memory is just a very foggy one. So I thought I’d find out, if I wrote out what I’ve been doing and what I’ve been feeling.
First, work. My mom sent me to work. I don’t hate it there, but sometimes I wake up late and my mom screams at me. I also don’t love it, because I feel obligated to go every weekday, even when it feels like something I don’t want to do. I’m mostly on autopilot at my job too, sorting documents, checking receipts. It’s all so repetitive, and I don’t like repetitive. It reminds me of what I do every day, every time the sun sets: wake up on a clean slate, do whatever I have to do on autopilot, then go back home and finally lie on my bed and sleep. Then I wake up, shower, brush my teeth, wash my face, do my skincare routine, and go back to sleep. I feel so incredibly disconnected from this world. I crave so much to feel alive in my body. None of this feels real.
Second, my mom. I’m not sure what’s going on with her, or what I did wrong. Lately she’s been really mad at me, and everything she says is a punch, even to my numb persona. It’s like filling an empty, hollow stomach with acid. My stomach sometimes has acid in it, but I can flush that out, just not hers. It feels like every time she talks to me she’s judging or insulting me, and because of how little I remember about myself every day, I feel guilty for it. My two lobe piercings, having long nails and painting them colors other than pink or white, heels, skirts, and dyed hair are all things my mother doesn’t want to see on me. She doesn’t say anything, she just stares and judges. I just want to feel pretty. She pens up what she wants to say, and it turns into resentment, anger, and comparison. It’s hurtful.
I know my mother speaks badly about me to my father. I’ve seen their messages talking about how I can be the sweetest girl one moment and a rude brat the next. I don’t know how to feel about it, other than hurt. I’ve tried changing. I try never to let anyone get to me, and when I feel mad I try to regulate my emotions. But nobody sees that. I think it’s especially hurtful because it’s my dad and my mom who made me this way.
My dad lived with me until I was 8 or 9. He’s an aggressive, impatient person. I couldn’t ask for help with math homework without getting yelled at. Any noise would set him off. If I stepped on the wrong eggshell I would get yelled at and then ignored. He was always so mad, and I couldn’t understand why. Mad at the world. Mad at me. My mother told me I used to be so scared of him that I peed the bed, because he yelled at me every day. I cried so much every day that my grandmother took me to her house. When he left our house I felt relieved, even before I heard this, and I never understood why, and I felt guilty. I inherited his anger, because I thought it was the only way I could defend myself from people like him, from situations like that. But I’ve been conscious of it and actively trying to change, because I don’t want to be like him. I was actually proud of myself for not getting mad anymore, until my mom made me feel like my progress wasn’t worth what I thought it was. It’s kind of exhausting. It feels like I can’t do anything right. Sometimes I try to joke with her and I step on the wrong eggshell, and she explodes and calls me bratty and rude. Or sometimes I just speak to her and a comment slips out of nowhere. But it’s always some sort of bad quality she thinks I possess. When that’s the only thing you hear from your parents, it’s hard to believe otherwise. It’s really hard to talk to my mom, because she can be happy and then suddenly get really mad and snappy. But it’s just another thing I push down.
Third, my dad. I don’t know what we have in common. I honestly don’t know what to talk about with him. I feel like any second he’ll explode. I clutch my seat when a car cuts him off, because that means he’ll curse and drive excessively fast. I don’t want to cross him. This Saturday I was sitting with my grandma in her living room. He sat down. I made a joke about him not taking me to the movies with him. He said, “I don’t know when you came back from your trip, and etiquette states that when you come back from a trip you have to call to say you’re back home,” but I had told him when I was leaving and coming back. He never does that. Sometimes I don’t know when he’s gone, and I only find out from my grandma that he’s not in the country. It felt like another one of my useless efforts to do things right. I asked him if he wanted anything from my trip. He said he just wanted photos and texts. I sent him photos, and I sent him texts. I was the only one of my two sisters who decided to do that, not just because my dad asked, but because I feel really bad for him. He lives alone. He doesn’t have a job. He only sees us on Saturdays. Sometimes, when I’m at his house, I catch him checking his email, even if it’s junk, or checking his messages to see if someone wrote to him. Craving human connection. He’s lonely. Sometimes he writes to people and they don’t write back. I can’t imagine how lonely he must actually feel. But I didn’t appreciate his comment, because I care and I try, and it feels like he does want to connect with others, just not me. As much as he says he misses us, he never texts me. But he gets mad when I don’t text him. He then said that no matter how well parents raise a child, they always turn out “bad”, in front of everyone. I don’t know if he was just mad, or if he actually feels that way about me. I really do feel bad for him, but I don’t know how to help, because he seriously seems to think of me as a bad kid he failed to raise, and is just annoyed by my presence.
To be honest, I don’t reach out to anyone. Not because I don’t care about anyone, I just have nothing to say, nothing to talk about. I understand why that can be seen as rude. I don’t crave connection. I crave peace. When I sense danger, I go back into my shell. I always sense danger. There’s no one I can trust.
Fourth, my grandma. I know she’s hurting because my grandpa is really sick. She takes care of him day and night. I don’t know what it’s been like since he got sick, but I know my grandpa always used to insult my grandma. He called her fat, useless, ugly, and always remarked that she talked too much. He used to say the same thing to me, just the “fat” part. He drank a lot. He used to wash his pills down with limoncello. He never believed doctors or their recommendations, and thought they were stupid. He was also very disloyal to my grandma. My dad hates him because of all this. I’m not sure if my grandpa was an angry person when my dad was younger, but he isn’t now, and neither is my uncle, so I don’t know where my dad got his aggressive tendencies. My grandma is a very loving person who believes in God and is really sweet. But I think when you’re surrounded by hate, it’s impossible not to be consumed by it a little, so sometimes she judges people and speaks badly about them. I’d say that’s about it, though, she’s doing really well, considering she has my grandpa and my dad in her life. I really love her. I hope I don’t end up marrying the wrong person.
I’d say it’s kind of ironic that my dad hates my grandpa, because he’s just like him, if not worse. He was disloyal to my mom. He gambled and was jobless. He always asked my mom for more money. He insulted her. He was ashamed of her. He hid her away. He was aggressive and manipulative. He told her she was only useful for making money. They got divorced because of it. My mom got really depressed. She never stopped loving him, but he just loved her money. She’s on antidepressants. She used to hide in her office to avoid coming home to my dad. She was also upset because, after a long day at work, she’d come home to find my dad sleeping. She’s still affected by it. I’ve seen messages of hers saying she’s anxious and depressed and thinks about killing herself. It hurts me.
I feel like the women in my family accept being treated as so much less than they are. There’s my other grandma, who is married to a man who never strived for more and made his five children survive on only the bare necessities, because he never worked. He was never present. My grandma wasn’t either, who knows where they were. My mom was the oldest child. She took care of her siblings. My grandpa is also aggressive and hit all of them. My grandma didn’t intervene. My aunt “C” found p*** on my grandpa’s computer once when she was young. He isn’t unfaithful, just perverse. When I hit puberty, he started making comments that made me uncomfortable about my body. My grandpa’s brother was perverse too, but a lot worse, he was a jobless drug addict who lived with his mother, and when my aunt “N” was young, he s******* assaulted her whenever she came over. When my aunt “N” told my grandparents, they hired a therapist and left it at that. My grandpa never said anything to his brother, and just pretended nothing had happened. When my grandpa’s brother died, his mother cried in joy, thanked God for taking him, and said now she could die in peace. She died a few hours after her son.
I know my aunts, my uncle, and even my mother resent their parents a lot. My aunt “M” says she’s upset they never gave them any gifts or new things. My aunt “C” said she was upset that my grandpa always called her fat and said her face looked like a plate. When I was still young and losing my baby fat, my grandparents made similar comments about me. They compared me to my sister, who is naturally skinny. I would always cry. I would lash out. I would restrict my eating. It got so bad I would eat a bowl of broccoli a day, and I would vomit if I ate anything else. I felt insecure. I wouldn’t drink water, because the number on the scale would go up. It got so bad my blood pressure dropped a lot one day at school. I told my mother what was happening when she picked me up. I told her the comments were hurtful. She dismissed it. She blamed my older sister for influencing me. I didn’t know she was going through the same thing. I looked for my sister and hugged her tight. It got so bad I can’t fully remember it anymore. It got so bad I can’t go back to it, even if I wanted to.
I changed schools. I was better, but still anxious. People thought I was cute because I always twirled my hair, but it was a nervous tic. I was always anxious. It’s been three years. Now when I’m anxious, I walk in my backyard with my AirPods. I disconnect from reality for a while and feel less anxiety. I also walk for health, and sometimes I complete my activity ring. But if my mom asks, I tell her I walk so I’m more tired and can sleep a full night without nightmares. Really, all the walking is mostly for peace, though.
I have really bad nightmares. Melatonin doesn’t help. The first time I took it, I stayed up all night having sleep paralysis. All that helped was sleeping next to my mom after a bad nightmare, then I could fall asleep. I slept with her very often when I was still in school, but this summer I haven’t had any nightmares, which is good, because I hate nightmares.