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A few weeks ago, I got into an argument with my mother and dad. They were telling me to go get a bandaid and put it on a pimple that popped, but because we were about to watch s movie I told them I'll do it later. My dad got a little irritated and but said to just leave me alone and that if I get an acne scar that it's going to be my fault. My mother, however, saw me as disobeying them and immediately started screaming at me to go get a bandaid. As if I'd get an everlasting acne scar if I didn't do it right that moment. I'm a little bit stubborn and have a 'strong' attitude, so I just kept telling them that I'd get it later. My dad got frustrated and went upstairs, and my mother berated me, eventually turning off the lights and going upstairs. I didn't move, because I was afraid that if I got up and turned the lights back on, she'd come back, tell me I didn't deserve light, that I was wasting electricity, and that everything's my fault. She's the kind to do so. I sat in complete darkness for 7 minutes, until I decided that it was safe to turn the lights back on. Eventually, my dad came back down and told me to just get a bandaid and get it over with. I have a better relationship with my dad (because he doesn't scream at me like my mother), so I reluctantly did so. My mother came back down and asked him how he got me to do it, and he said, "She just did it on her own". My mother rolled her eyes, insulted me, and we began to watch the movie.
This is another thing with my mother. She's always pissed at me because my father favors me as the youngest and the only daughter, and whenever my dad goes on buisness/family trips (we live in the U.S. but have family in the Philippines), she takes advantage of it and makes me do all the chores. I remember her screaming at me while my dad was gone, she said "Your dad can't save you now". My brother had to intervene because she was on the verge of beating me. I remember my brother pushing her away while she screamed "This brat thinks her dad will always save her, but she deserves a hundred beatings" or something similar. Afterwards she whipped me with a belt.
A few days after the movie night incident, we were invited to a party. My brother was hanging out with some friends, so I had to go with my parents. We got back late (around 1:00) and my room had poor insulation and got cold at night, so I decided to sleep in my brother's room. My mother was still mad at me, and I remember dragging my sleeping bag and a blanket to my brother's room while crying. He was already sleeping and I didn't want to wake him, so I just crawled into the sleeping bag and curled into a ball and started crying. My mother called my name, but I didn't move because I was pretending to be asleep. She opened the door to my brother's room, saw me on the floor and gave me a little push with her foot. She knew I can't fall asleep that fast, and kept pushing me. Eventually, I crawled out and pretended to have just woken up. She told me my toilet was broken and that I needed to fix it. I had only used it once before going to bed; I flushed it, and the toilet bowl kept filling up because something was wrong with the tank. Of course, I didn't know that then, so I said I didn't know what was wrong with it and couldn't fix it. My mother started raising her voice and slapping me, saying stuff like I was stupid if I couldn't figure it out, and that if I didn't know how to use and fix things properly, then I shouldn't use them. In other words, she was saying I was too stupid to use a toilet. I was sleepy and started getting irritated, saying how should I know how to fix a toilet, to stop hitting me and that I wasn't a plumber and it was past midnight. She started screaming at me, telling me to shut up, stop having attitude, and to do what I'm told. She was hitting me harder now, punching and slapping my arms. At that point I was sobbing and screaming back, and my dad came upstairs and started yelling at me too. They both told me I was stupid and retarded, that everything that goes wrong is my fault, that I was a waste of time and money, that I was just like my oldest brother. I was sitting on the floor and crying while my dad started fiddling with the tank and valve, while my mother continued to scream and beat me. It didn't hurt, because they beat me a lot when I was younger, but she was slapping and punching harder than ever. I struggled back to my brother's bedroom and crawled into my sleeping bag, curling into another ball and sobbing quietly. He woke up and carried me to his bed, and said it doesn't matter how wrong they are, that I just had to listen to stay out of trouble. That only made me sob harder, because it meant I was powerless until I was 18 or I just ended everything.
He was an obedient brother, so my parents liked him better, but occasionally he also had breakdowns from school and our parents, and would lock himself in his room and cry. He was depressed. All of us were. My aforementioned oldest brother went to an army training camp that summer. He said it was what he wanted to do, but I know part of it was because our parents constantly screamed at him for getting average grades in college. That was something else with our parents. An enormous part of the pressure they put on us was academics-related. They made me consider suicide at age 10. I remember my parents screaming at me because I had a B as a final grade. They said I'd never make it out in the real world, that what if I couldn't handle things in the U.S, I'd never achieve anything. Another thing: my parents constanty compared our circumstances to the Philippines. If one of us complained about something, my mother/ dad usually would lecture us, saying that it was nothing compared to what they've been through. It almost seemed like they had blamed us for their being born in the Philippines. Like it was our (my) fault that they were born into poverty in a third-world country. And beating your child was a common custom in the Philippines, if not a tradition. The parents were always right, never the child. A big part of 'Respect your parents' there was 'They can beat you when they feel like it, and you have to endure it'.
The next day was a cleaning day. We stayed inside the house, putting back all the clothes from our vacation we'd just arrived back from, but my mother told me to wash the dishes. I agreed because I was trying to follow my brother's advice. While washing the dishes, my mother started insulting and berating me. She said something like 'You really ought to stop acting like that'. I replied something like "You just decided I acted like that so you can blame me for everything". She promptly began hitting me and screaming at me to stop talking back, though not hitting as hard. I immediately began crying and yelling at her to stop, and my father soon came into the kitchen and joined in the yelling. After that, he told me to stop being a brat and ruin everyone's day, and left the kitchen. My mother stayed, and continued to berate me. She said she couldn't wait for me to move out. As I washed the dishes, I fantasized about hitting her back. Not killing her, but just throwing a punch and seeing her hurt and humiliated, just like she'd done to me. I think it was then that I started to get a little insane because of everything. I started believing her a little, thinking maybe I was the evil child she'd accused me to be. Because of all those violent fantasies. I started to think I could actually pull it off, fighting back or to just off myself. There's pots and pans right there. Just whack her a bit when she's not looking or All the knives are right in that drawer. A little slit in your neck won't hurt you. I considered suicide a lot during those days. Maybe she'd regret everything she'd done to me. Maybe she'd realize that everything was her fault, not mine. I'd want to see her face when she found me. Would it be one of shock? Sadness? Anger? Anger was plausible. She'd probably be angry because I'd killed me before she gotten her chance to.
Those days of anger continued. I decided I wouldn't be the one to apologize. That I hadn't done anything wrong compared to what she'd done. I'd do what she told me to, and I'd complete her impossible standards of what was the right way to do chores. Eventually, my dad told me that my mother was sad because I wasn't talking to her and I'd avoid her when we were in the house, and that I needed to apologize. It was all BS, of course. I stood frozen, rooted to the ground, while he yelled at me to apologize. He had to pick me up and carry me to where my mother was. And I said sorry, although I guess she could tell I wasn't feeling it because she continued to talk to me in a stern voice. She had forgiven me, but the damage was already done. I still avoided her and only spoke to her when she asked me something.
This is another thing with my mother. She's always pissed at me because my father favors me as the youngest and the only daughter, and whenever my dad goes on buisness/family trips (we live in the U.S. but have family in the Philippines), she takes advantage of it and makes me do all the chores. I remember her screaming at me while my dad was gone, she said "Your dad can't save you now". My brother had to intervene because she was on the verge of beating me. I remember my brother pushing her away while she screamed "This brat thinks her dad will always save her, but she deserves a hundred beatings" or something similar. Afterwards she whipped me with a belt.
A few days after the movie night incident, we were invited to a party. My brother was hanging out with some friends, so I had to go with my parents. We got back late (around 1:00) and my room had poor insulation and got cold at night, so I decided to sleep in my brother's room. My mother was still mad at me, and I remember dragging my sleeping bag and a blanket to my brother's room while crying. He was already sleeping and I didn't want to wake him, so I just crawled into the sleeping bag and curled into a ball and started crying. My mother called my name, but I didn't move because I was pretending to be asleep. She opened the door to my brother's room, saw me on the floor and gave me a little push with her foot. She knew I can't fall asleep that fast, and kept pushing me. Eventually, I crawled out and pretended to have just woken up. She told me my toilet was broken and that I needed to fix it. I had only used it once before going to bed; I flushed it, and the toilet bowl kept filling up because something was wrong with the tank. Of course, I didn't know that then, so I said I didn't know what was wrong with it and couldn't fix it. My mother started raising her voice and slapping me, saying stuff like I was stupid if I couldn't figure it out, and that if I didn't know how to use and fix things properly, then I shouldn't use them. In other words, she was saying I was too stupid to use a toilet. I was sleepy and started getting irritated, saying how should I know how to fix a toilet, to stop hitting me and that I wasn't a plumber and it was past midnight. She started screaming at me, telling me to shut up, stop having attitude, and to do what I'm told. She was hitting me harder now, punching and slapping my arms. At that point I was sobbing and screaming back, and my dad came upstairs and started yelling at me too. They both told me I was stupid and retarded, that everything that goes wrong is my fault, that I was a waste of time and money, that I was just like my oldest brother. I was sitting on the floor and crying while my dad started fiddling with the tank and valve, while my mother continued to scream and beat me. It didn't hurt, because they beat me a lot when I was younger, but she was slapping and punching harder than ever. I struggled back to my brother's bedroom and crawled into my sleeping bag, curling into another ball and sobbing quietly. He woke up and carried me to his bed, and said it doesn't matter how wrong they are, that I just had to listen to stay out of trouble. That only made me sob harder, because it meant I was powerless until I was 18 or I just ended everything.
He was an obedient brother, so my parents liked him better, but occasionally he also had breakdowns from school and our parents, and would lock himself in his room and cry. He was depressed. All of us were. My aforementioned oldest brother went to an army training camp that summer. He said it was what he wanted to do, but I know part of it was because our parents constantly screamed at him for getting average grades in college. That was something else with our parents. An enormous part of the pressure they put on us was academics-related. They made me consider suicide at age 10. I remember my parents screaming at me because I had a B as a final grade. They said I'd never make it out in the real world, that what if I couldn't handle things in the U.S, I'd never achieve anything. Another thing: my parents constanty compared our circumstances to the Philippines. If one of us complained about something, my mother/ dad usually would lecture us, saying that it was nothing compared to what they've been through. It almost seemed like they had blamed us for their being born in the Philippines. Like it was our (my) fault that they were born into poverty in a third-world country. And beating your child was a common custom in the Philippines, if not a tradition. The parents were always right, never the child. A big part of 'Respect your parents' there was 'They can beat you when they feel like it, and you have to endure it'.
The next day was a cleaning day. We stayed inside the house, putting back all the clothes from our vacation we'd just arrived back from, but my mother told me to wash the dishes. I agreed because I was trying to follow my brother's advice. While washing the dishes, my mother started insulting and berating me. She said something like 'You really ought to stop acting like that'. I replied something like "You just decided I acted like that so you can blame me for everything". She promptly began hitting me and screaming at me to stop talking back, though not hitting as hard. I immediately began crying and yelling at her to stop, and my father soon came into the kitchen and joined in the yelling. After that, he told me to stop being a brat and ruin everyone's day, and left the kitchen. My mother stayed, and continued to berate me. She said she couldn't wait for me to move out. As I washed the dishes, I fantasized about hitting her back. Not killing her, but just throwing a punch and seeing her hurt and humiliated, just like she'd done to me. I think it was then that I started to get a little insane because of everything. I started believing her a little, thinking maybe I was the evil child she'd accused me to be. Because of all those violent fantasies. I started to think I could actually pull it off, fighting back or to just off myself. There's pots and pans right there. Just whack her a bit when she's not looking or All the knives are right in that drawer. A little slit in your neck won't hurt you. I considered suicide a lot during those days. Maybe she'd regret everything she'd done to me. Maybe she'd realize that everything was her fault, not mine. I'd want to see her face when she found me. Would it be one of shock? Sadness? Anger? Anger was plausible. She'd probably be angry because I'd killed me before she gotten her chance to.
Those days of anger continued. I decided I wouldn't be the one to apologize. That I hadn't done anything wrong compared to what she'd done. I'd do what she told me to, and I'd complete her impossible standards of what was the right way to do chores. Eventually, my dad told me that my mother was sad because I wasn't talking to her and I'd avoid her when we were in the house, and that I needed to apologize. It was all BS, of course. I stood frozen, rooted to the ground, while he yelled at me to apologize. He had to pick me up and carry me to where my mother was. And I said sorry, although I guess she could tell I wasn't feeling it because she continued to talk to me in a stern voice. She had forgiven me, but the damage was already done. I still avoided her and only spoke to her when she asked me something.
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