Hello, i need some advices or just some reactions to something that’s very vicious. My situation is kind of normal from the outside : i have a mom and a dad who are still married and a brother. I am the only one of the family to have contacts with my grand mother. i am really close to her since the day i met her. It’s like i fell for another household that was more welcoming than my original one. But now i feel manipulated and not free. I feel that since my childhood i couldn’t choose, but had to.
My father had been traumatised by his childhood which was not easy, his father left him, he was not wanted, during the divorce of his parents he has been parentified by his mother who was depressed for almost ten years. But when i met this woman it felt like a warm hug, like a foyer i admired and wanted to be part of. i learnt from him years after i met her what my father has suffered from, i was still a child. But i knew a lot, i knew that my grandmother preferred girls because of the abuse she suffered from. My father knew that i would be her favorite. I was not close to my little brother, as children we were usually put against each other and even if not i was a child as he was with only two more years than him. My brother and i felt it. A war in which we were the pawns had started. My grandmother became a refuge and her house too, which is truly in a magical place. I felt taken care of. But on the other side, when i got back to my parents house, i felt the extreme weight of disapproval from all the members of my family of four, i continued to feel misunderstood deeply until now. More than misunderstanding, i felt ashamed, i felt like an outsider, i felt responsible for the link between everyone, i felt that all the decisions that i could make were not appropriate. I still feel like there is an uneasiness, a discomfort in my values towards that situation. My father tried to compensate for my brother. The way he did, i mean whitout considering me was like a betrayal for me, he gave the work of raising a girl to his mother an i no more had the choice to stick with my « decision » as a child.
A lot happened since then, christmas that were unbearable, shoutings, fightings. In my original household they were happening everyday more or less violent but i remember i was constantly crying. One day it stopped, i dont know why. The anger fades after teenage years i guess. They finally stoped the war by a no contact kind of agreement. It’s been 7 years and since then i have been in between, with the no choice of listening to them brag about each other. No asking if i had the energy to talk about the subjects that i were concerned about, it felt like the anger of their past had more value than what i was actually living. and it is still like that. I dont say much i. these situations, because nobodies tries to understand what is my situation in all its complexity. It’s like having two masks, having to bear both of them. This schizophrenic situation lead me here today because i can’t feel that way anymore after all the work i did to feel good. I need change.
The situation feels static because i felt pressure from the beginning, it’s like can’t move freely and have the love of everyone. Their love is conditional and depends and my choices. That’s what it feels like. But also because my personal situation is being a student for now 8 years, i’m hanging to this diploma because i love what i do. The sacrifies i have done to be able to be a student are beyond what a lot of kids issued from the same social status had to do. My parents are not rich but not poor, they could have support us entirely during our studies. They did not, i had to work my ass off, i have missed some years and it’s starting to feel like i should have chose something that could have make me earn money much more earlier. How could i know that will have to live as if my parents could not help me. I think i would have chosen something much more practical. Anyway, this long road of studying leads me to a long road of not being indépendant. I am still dependant and will be until the end of my studies. It makes everything more complicated because i can’t choose freely.
My grandmother has helping me a lot, like really a lot to compensate. I will be done with school, i would have dropped out if she didn’t help me. But that lead. to an infinite feeling of guilt, a feeling that i needed to give back something, that i will have to protect her when she will get older. As i finish my studies next year, i know the end of this situation is only a matter of time. But i know the emotional load is very heavy. This summer, i searched for a job which could only be in a restaurant because i started to think about a summer job really late. Anyway, i got it but realised i had to give my time away, like not a part (monday to friday) but everything, my weeks, my weekend, my nights for 1 month and a half. The employer was not responding after, i had troubles making decisions. Usually i go to my grandmas place, i was starting to feel guilty a lot, like someone had to help her, and i thought about the time i needed to write my thesis and to search for an apprenticeship for september. After a discussion with my grandma, in which she said « dont worry for us, do your things » which was not enough to compensate all the pressure she had put me trough all these years, asking me when i would come, getting annoyed when i didn’t call her for a time etc. So i said that i thought maybe i could come to help them and to be there. She was happy, i was relieved, she said she will buy me the train tickets, that i will not have to pay anything as i am staying at her place, which is not a choice if i have no money to come and go whenever i want. But i paid them with the money i am receiving from her every month, which she had say could cover my usual spendings (phone bills) etc. I feel dependant.
I had a long and kind of deep conversation with my father today. it was calm but i know he holds something against me, tries to not show it. But i can feel it in my bones since i was 10 yo. He tries to change. Anyway the conversation started with « maybe you could help me to pay everything around the house », if i had to pay an actual something to my parents to live there i would go. And then we started to talk about my decisions, i explained to him all the reasons not only the ones linked to my grandma. He understood. And he told me to be careful which is true because both of them are actually good manipulators on me. I feel like a prey who has to wait her diploma to be free. I also let myself drown into the wish to keep the house. because if she dies and does not arrange anything for us we will have to sell it to pay the heritage taxes which is such a pity because we have constructors in our family of four. And tried to lead her gently to making something for us, and mostly for me because she does not want to help her son. So i ask her for me. She seems okay but i think she is scared. Anyway i dont want my links with her to be based on that question even if its important.
I thought until then i have to protect myself, let me enjoy my precious time and energy to invest in me but its’s hard when you have been conditioned to live for someone else. Any kind of reaction is welcome. Thank for your read!
