im so confused.
to preface, im sitting here feeling like im victimizing myself. i feel as though im being irrational.
i am 19 years old and i am my parents first and only daughter if it matters to any of you.
i feel as though ive been burdened w/ taking care of my mother's emotional needs instead of the other way around. she's thrown massive tantrums and i end up being the one apologizing for upsetting her. one time i had an anxiety attack and needed to be left alone and in response my mom sat on my bed crying and hollering shit like "GOD TAKE AWAY THESE DEMONS THAT INSTILL FEAR IN MY DAUGHTER". more recently, she screamed and cried and insulted me bc i didnt want to go to the store w/ her first thing in the morning. it was like 7 am and i had barely just woken up when she started.
i have to be the one to tell
her that the way my dad behaves isnt reasonable. she was never there for me when my dad would say awful things to me. if i ever talked back to him bc he was being ridiculous, she'd side w/ him.
now for my dad. he'll throw a temper tantrum over anything. he lost his belt? temper tantrum. i happen to already be in the bathroom when he needs to use it? temper tantrum. i asked him to turn the record player down at 9 o'clock at night bc i was trying to sleep? temper tantrum. i confront him for picking me up from school 30 minutes late every fucking day even though he damn well knows when i get out? temper tantrum. and any time that i ever express any emotion he gets mad. he'd yell at me when i'd cry, especially when i was a kid. i hardly have to say or do anything before he goes off the rails. he says the worst things to me if he so much as
senses that i have an attitude. he's been a
little bit more tame recently but that's only bc
i ODed on my anxiety meds and spent a week in a mental institution abt a year and a half ago. yeah, that's what it took for him to learn
some empathy.
i feel like i never got to be a kid because i was tiptoeing around these two emotionally unstable adults my whole life. ive never been a trouble maker. ive never instigated something w/ my parents bc i hate getting yelled at. naturally, as i entered my teen years, i became more defiant, but it only seemed to make things worse. they didn't like being called-out. and it took me a really fucking long time to realize that
maybe the way they behave isn't normal, especially my dad.
i was always met w/ "you're just feeling sorry for yourself" "we've never done you wrong" "i've never done anything to hurt you" and still, for the most part, am whenever i try to express my concerns to them. they like to point out how they've provided me w/ food and shelter and how i'm not entitled to anything beyond that.
my mom calls me selfish and inconsiderate but it really feels like im just looking out for myself bc no one else has or will.
im so fucking confused. am i just a bad kid? did i make them this way? is this my fault? did i do something to deserve this? and now here i am a year after graduating high school still living w/ this mess bc i needed a break from school. they remind me almost everyday that i should be out of this house by now. not to mention that ever since elementary school they've drilled it into my head that they're passing the responsibility of paying for college unto me and that i'll need to get a scholarship to go anywhere.
am i just ungrateful? i don't know. i don't know, man. i'm tired of feeling sorry for myself and feeling like im not allowed to feel sorry for myself. can anyone help me?
