i used to be kind of worried about not feeling attached to my family when everyone else seems so loving. i'd talk about how other people say things about their family lovingly, or just think about their family a lot, or get homesick, whereas i'm kind of just...
i just don't think about my family? they exist, the end. i don't think, "oh, that's their favourite cake, i'll buy some for them" or "oh i wonder how they'd think about this thing". i thought i might have something wrong with me or something.
well, tonight just cleared all that up. who cares if i've got something wrong with me? this family isn't something worth the attachment or the worry that comes with the lack of attachment.
honestly. i'll just say it:
- my brother is too proud, self-deluding, and utter crap at understanding anything emotional. his talent seems to be just making himself unlikeable.
- my father is just... he'd rather have short-term mediocrity than put his foot down for long-term success, and to top it off he's bad with emotions too, so that makes for all sorts of wonderful problems. anyway, after tonight, i just feel ashamed of him.
- how do i even talk about my mother? she's a joke. when she gets angry, all sorts of stupid crazy shit comes out of her mouth, and she gets violent like she can't even control herself. i used to be scared of the irresponsible shit that she said when she was angry. do you even know how crazy that is? that i, a child, used to worry that my mother would be reported to the police by our neighbours for the REALLY crazy shit she would just scream.
okay. okay, so i've talked about:
- how my brother is violent
- how my brother would hit people
- how my brother would hit me
- then i would get angry
- and i'd demand an apology
- and he wouldn't give it
- so i'd get angrier
- but i didn't want to fight with him
- so i'd try to get my parents to do something
- and they'd either ask me to go away while they deal with it, or just not do anything
- which would make me real fucking angry
- i just want a halfway sincere apology??
- but then they'd get angry with me, for being angry that i got hit and didn't get an apology
- so most of the times it'd end with me getting scolded or hit
- then i'd go into my room because i was sick of all this shit
- and i'd hear them being perfectly amicable with my brother
it always turns out this way, so mostly i just don't bother with my brother. at all.
but today my dad was trying to help my brother with his PSLE oral stuff, and my brother was, as usual, being completely obtuse. i.e. he's reading the passage in his faux-american accent, and slurring all the important bits that the examiners actually look out for. like ss versus shh. he can't produce clean sounds or articulation, but come on. he should at least
- know what he's being graded on
- attempt to do well in those categories.
seriously, an attempt is good enough. am i asking for a lot?? i don't think so, but given how terrible everyone is at fulfilling even what i think are basic requirements, i'm starting to think that i'm in some goddamn parallel world where "please try to be polite" is on the same level as asking for her majesty the queen to personally visit my house.
i get irritated at how inept they are at studying. i go over, kind of angry, because they're studying but not studying SMART, which makes all the difference. do you have the rubrics, i ask my brother. take them out!! google them!!
my dad, who, after raising 2 kids to PSLE age, has no idea what exam rubrics are. which is yet another ridiculous thing, but let's move on. he googles it, skims it, complains that there are no rubrics (THERE ARE!!). i get mad, because i'm real sick of my dad skimming things and then asking me about the exact goddamn thing that is written down in front of him.
he says it's all right, asks me to read the passage for my brother. i'm like, what for?? he's not going to learn anything. he has no idea which pronunciations bits to look out for, and he's not going to remember any of this. JUST FIND THE DAMN RUBRICS SO YOU CAN STUDY SMART.
i start feeling like i'm in the twilight zone again. am i wrong? is studying smart not a good thing? i even start to question everything i've heard in the past about studying smart.
well, you know the rest. everyone gets angry. i tell my brother "if you're not going to put in any work then why study?" he kicks me.
rinse and repeat the whole routine, except this time my dad wants to apologise on my brother's behalf. which is crazy and stupid and ridiculous, but i play along just in case he doesn't realise it's CRAZY AND STUPID AND RIDICULOUS.
me: i'll accept your apology since my brother's a child now and you're the adult responsible for him. but what happens next time i get hurt because of his actions?
which is apparently something completely out of the ballpark. apparently i should just accept an insincere apology, shut up, and go away. fuck that. no one is going to get the better of any bit of me unless i want them to or they deserve to.
where does accepting insincere apologies get you? fucking nowhere, you footstool. and i'm not about to accept the apology just as insincerely and then plan devastating revenge, because i don't actually want to devastate this family!!
me: what if next time someone wants him (my brother) to kneel and apologise? are you (my dad) going to kneel?
(so in chinese culture prostrating yourself is incredibly shameful. it's like saying "i'm so wrong that i'm no longer human. i have no pride. i'm at the level of a dog/an animal. step on me as you will.")
he doesn't say anything. can't look me in the eye.
then i get mad and sad. i get really really sad.
me: i don't want your meaningless, worthless apology. what kind of person are you if you just apologise on his behalf for everything? what kind of person are you to bow your head so easily? if my brother goes to jail, are you going to go to jail on his behalf too? (which is a rhetorical question, but now i'm not so sure if they understood this point) so you apologising on his (my brother's) behalf is worthless. the apology is worthless. and if your apology is worthless, what's are you, as a person, worth?
he doesn't say anything. still can't look me in the eye.
me: this makes me ashamed to have you as my father. what kind of father are you?
he doesn't say anything. still can't look me in the eye. rinse and repeat the rest of the 16 points.
i've asked him "what kind of father are you?" with the implied "if you can't even do this (teach your son to apologise)?" but this was the first time that i was ashamed of him for being this way.
it really upset me. i thought, doesn't my father have any pride in himself as a person? is he no better than a carpet? how can i respect someone like this?
so yeah, i'm done with this family.
--
on another note, i did look up why i might feel so unattached to my family, but i only came up with attachment disorder. which fits a little, but sounds totally overblown for my hopeless but in an ordinary way family.
my guess is that i just developed into a very different person than the rest of my family, which leaves us with very little common ground. so little that we had basically nothing to bond over. and it wasn't like they were very emotional people from the start, so i didn't have any strong lingering, purely emotional bonds.
at this point all my family does is pay for my stuff. which i think is fair, because i'm not spending an extortionate amount nor putting a financial burden on them (except for uni, maybe, but i could pay that off myself if it really came down to it). plus, they gave birth to me, so that's kind of their responsibility. also, the last point: i'm going to take care of them when they're old anyway.
in any case, i'm not the most easygoing person. i'm very critical, but like, if you're not going to think about something before doing it and botching it up, then you're basically asking to be criticised?? what did you think was going to happen anyway? things don't turn out well just because you hope they will. they turn out well because you make adequate preparations.
which turns into me having a lack of empathy for others, thinking others are untrustworthy, and hence wanting to be self-reliant almost compulsively. which also means i feel like i'm pretending in a lot of interactions with others. like, i have to pretend to care, because it's impolite to say "you brought that upon yourself".
but i guess that doesn't really mean i've got anything wrong with me. all it really means is that i've got an exhausting life ahead and should invest in anger management therapy.
--
so i reiterate: tonight i'm finally totally fine with how unattached i am to my family. it's a relief to finally have a good grasp of how i feel and why i feel this way, and it's really a load off my emotional chest.
it's still really frustrating for people not to understand what i'm saying or feeling, but i'm just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. i'm sure a lot more twilight zone moments are in my future, where i'll think how can our values be so absurdly different? how can your values be so absurdly misguided and wrong? but... i give up, i can't really do anything about that.
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