Diary of the Family Disgrace

March 15th, 2020 (Day 10 of therapy, 300 days till I leave home)

I guess I'll do as the doc instructed and give this a go but I think the only reason why she suggested this was because she didn't want to listen to me anymore. That's what people always do; they suggest I talk to someone else, someone more "experienced". Someone who "knows more on the matter".  It started with my friend suggesting I talk to my mother, and my mother throwing me in the car ,fast enough so the neighbors wouldn't see, and driving me to the "looney bin"

That's just a load of horse shit if you ask me.

Or wait.

I suppose you are me.

Damn this writing thing is strange.

I guess I guess I should start from the beginning. Of why I started seeing the doc and why she suggested I take up keeping a daily journal.

My family holds pride in having the appearance of being perfect in society.

My father is the vice president of his company and takes his family on expensive vacations to Disneyworld and Mexico and buys his girls gold jewelry for birthdays. My mother is a hardworking teacher who carries expensive bags and drives a red Mercedes. My sister is the valedictorian of her class and driven in holding a career as a lawyer.

We are "not-expected-but expected" to be perfect children. No drinking or drug use, nothing below a 4.0 on every single progress report. No showing unique spirit., No expressing yourself beyond the classic cliche "1950's perfect american household type standard".  Extra curricular activities are extremely encouraged.

Dating is allowed but no touching, kissing, or hanging out at one's house for too long and if one has sex before marriage then they are "obviously" a "whore" or disgrace to their family.

You are not to point out their parenting flaws or prove either one of them wrogn ever, even if it is bluntly obvious they are wrong.

If you spend too much time away from them and doing things your friends are doing, you are constantly suspicious and are 'up to something".

Their parenting style is best described as passive aggressively strict.

Failing to follow any of these rules always results in a complete mental putdown which consists of and never excludes slut shaming, idiotizing, being labelled as abnormal, weirdo, psychotic, and a lunatic, and being the family disgrace. (Oh and which all occurs by all three against just you the individual.

This has happened to my sister...once?

Wait no scratch that. Never. It's never happened to her, their perfect princess.

I didn't try to get depressed but like...does anyone?

I wish I could have become a brick of solitude that lacked emotions and was able to take their bashing and put downs and not be bothered by them.

Or better yet, I wish I could have been their perfect child too.

If I didn't enjoy the company of friends and like to go on dries with boys just a year or two older and convinced myself I wanted to be a doctor and tried even harder to raise my B to an A in mathematics and fuck. Maybe if I stuck with the band then my father would stop constantly calling me a bitch.

No.

No, I choose my life and I don't regret it. My band director was a pompous asshat and mathematics is hard. I cannot wait to st

udy art in college and I won't be in school as long as I was to have chosen to be a doctor as they wanted. No, they do not have control over my life and I have a right to feel I've made the right choices in my life. I am happy with who I am and I have fun with my friends and art makes me happy, not politics or medicine.

I may not be valedictorian but I am smart. I can write and distinct every anatomical system of the body. I work hard and am good at saving my money for my dreams of art school and I don't ever clock in late and I pick up after myself and don't take their belongings.

I don't do drugs and I don't smoke and I wouldn't dream of sipping a single drink after living with my borderline alcoholic father for the last three years of my life.

I may not be perfect to them and they might shame me but I'm not the crazy one.

They are. They are the psychotic control freaks that can't stand the fact I am my own individual self and I hold different beliefs and interests and values than they do.

I respect them of course. Their morals for a good work ethic has driven me for years and I appreciate their guidance in that. In addition to the fact that they have always been able to provide for me and..."love me".

I apologize to them for not being who they were expecting me to be and for me harming myself and risking our reputation as a "put together" family.

Doc said I shouldn't feel guilty about these things but it's hard for me.  It's hard to believe that their ways, the ways I grew up under and forced into, aren't normal and my reactions are more or less understandable...but not okay.

I got too obsessed with being their version of perfect and what would make them happy and please them, but I wasn't happy. I wasn't pleased and I was hurting myself.

And then I hurt myself more.

And I thought it helped...but it was only a temporary relief which left my arms not so perfect.

That one warm day of May when I was dumb enough to wear a my sleeves slightly rolled up revealed  I was not so perfect.

I remember how Jayden noticed the white, pinkish streaks on my arms. She convinced me that I should talk to my mother at least about how their high standards and expectations were harming me, but I knew I wouldn't receive any leeway in life by telling her.

And I was right.

I went home that day and tried to sit down with my mother to talk to her and the usual mental manipulation occurred.

Three against one, remarks of "selfish bitch", "what a disgrace", "you did it for attention".

They took me to the clinic and I remember how my mom made an effort to talk to the neighbor in the most casual way possible to avoid "suspicion".

There, I was diagnosed and forced into therapy. 

It hasn't been all bad though I suppose. The doc is nice I guess and I guess she was smart to suggest I keep a journal on how I'm feeling and whatnot (and Im'm feeling as of right now...fine? I guess?)

We'll...I'll see how this goes.

Maybe this will be found one day in the distant future and some stranger will publish it because it's just so emotionally sickening. I doubt that person would ever be my father, like Anne Frank's, Otto Frank, had after the Holocaust; I'll probably talk loads of trash of him in here.

Till tomorrow, I suppose.