Dear Paradoxy,

As a parent, they may have been obligated to take care of me, but they could have put me in an orphanage or something but they didn’t.

According to them, you should be grateful they didn’t leave you to starve, after choosing to have you. How kind and loving of them indeed.

I remember you talking about their “love”. Unfortunately, that wasn’t love, but they’ve brainwashed you to believe it was.

I know, I am not saying my parents are expecting me to pay them back or anything. I am saying that I will never really achieve true freedom cause the fact that they are my parents will overrule every desire that I have.

Yes, I understand. I didn’t even mean that they would expect you to pay them back financially, but by being obedient to them and doing whatever they require you to do.

Even if I become rich, they will still have some degree of control over me cause they have conditioned me to be obedient.

They’ve intimidated you into obedience by telling you that they want what’s best for you. While severely emotionally abusing  you and clipping your wings in the process.

Normally we would say that we shouldn’t care about other people’s opinion, but how can u ignore your own parents?

Well, you can start distancing yourself from their opinion if you realize they were/are toxic people who didn’t know how to raise a healthy child. That they don’t know what true love is. And that they don’t know what’s best for you.

I find that very difficult to do because at the end of the day, I only have them to turn to in the time of need any way. I have no real friends or anything. If there is anyone I can turn to for help, it would be God and my parents

I guess you can only turn to them if there is a financial/logistical/health problem. Any other problem is for them a non-issue. Emotional problem – God forbid. Your father tells you you are stupid for “whining” about some “non-issues”.

My parents are not intentionally chaining me. They just conditioned me into being an obedient dog without them even realizing it.

Your parents are and have been abusive. It doesn’t matter if they don’t understand how they are abusing you. What matters is that it is affecting you and has shaped your personality and your self-image as well. You have a very negative self-image, due to being raised by the people who are insensitive and lacking empathy.

They inadvertently created that mental prison in me and now I can’t do anything without fearing them, even though I am thousands of miles away from them.

You’d have to start changing your view of them. Because even if they were “well-meaning” and “loving” according to their own standards, they’ve harmed you. You’d need to realize they had wrong standards, and that their upbringing cannot be characterized as loving and caring. Meeting your physical needs – yes. But much more important needs – that are crucial for development of a healthy personality – no.

But in another way the chains suppressed most of my desires and now I am just a shell, a dog that just does what it is told.

Yes, their upbringing hasn’t nurtured the burgeoning spirit in you, i.e. your true self, but has crushed it instead. That’s why you now feel like a shell. The good news is that your true self still exists and can be restored. You can still heal from the consequences of their abuse. The question is – do you want to?

One time when my father was angry at me for playing video games, I asked him if he would rather expect me to work like a robot with no desires. And he said that is exactly what he wanted. Maybe he said it out of anger in the moment. But things like that have etched itself into my heart.

He didn’t even pretend to be kind and loving. He told you his real intention: to raise you like a robot who obeys his commands.

I was allowed to have my own goals and dreams, but the difference is that those goals and dreams were shaped by my parents’ wishes. So technically I am still fulfilling my goals and dreams, but they are based on the desires that my parents had for me.

They’ve intimidated you and manipulated you to into believing that their wishes are your own wishes. That they know what’s best for you, and you don’t. You’ve capitulated to that belief (and not surprisingly, after years of indoctrination).

I want to read your suggestions still. My soul is just tired of everything.

I am glad you are open to suggestions…

So my suggestion, or my assumption, is that your father might be narcissistic. Because I’ve come across a youtube video on self-righteous narcissists, and it describes how I imagine your father behaved or still behaves: hyper-moralistic and feeling superior to others due to upholding this “high moral standard”.

The title of the video is “The self-righteous narcissist“, and it can be found on the channel DoctorRamani.

Here are some excerpts from the video:

The self-righteous narcissist is a rigid personality who judges and sneers at everyone who is “imperfect” and doesn’t uphold the same perfectionist standard that they uphold. This type of person expects cold, robotic, military precision and compliance from other people. They devalue emotion, human frailty, mistakes and joy.

Self-righteous narcissists derive their narcissistic supply from being morally superior to other people and judging others for their supposed “imperfections”. They often live highly engineered, precise lives, with a strict routine. They pride themselves in being very disciplined and upholding a strict regimen (and judge others who don’t stick to such a regimen).

They can easily erupt in rage if their rules aren’t upheld to a tee.

They don’t talk to people – they “hold court”.

Living with such a person feels like living on a glacier: it’s cold, precarious, isolated and emotionless. But on the outside it appears fine, because everything seems to run smoothly.

Being in the presence of a self-righteous narcissist always feels like you are a scolded 10-yr old child.

They are very rigid and don’t believe they need to change. They sneer at the idea of therapy and view it as weakness and bad use of money.

(end of excerpts)

I believe the above fits very closely to how you’ve described your father. Let me know what you think?

Thankfully, there is a plenty of material out there about how to gradually free yourself from the legacy of such parenting. And I can point you at those too, if you are interested.

My soul is just tired of everything.

I understand you are tired – that your soul is tired – after having been raised like that. But things can change, although it won’t be easy. But still, there is a way out…