@anita Hi, to answer your question, I do tend to think alot about people even if they have no positive value in my life. For example, I still think about my middle school bully occasionally and wonder what his life is like right now. Obviously I don’t like him, but if it’s someone that I know and interact with for a long period of time, I will think about them. If a person has ever triggered some sort of strong emotion in my brain, I will remember and think about them. Sometimes I get giddy on the thought that I no longer have to be associated with my family, but sometimes, I get an image in my head of my mother’s face looking sad and I think to myself that maybe I won’t be as giddy and happy as I thought I would be. I still stand by my decision, I just need to get these thoughts out there somewhere.

I feel sorry for my family. I want them to be well and happy, maybe death would be better. I wish that they could just die painlessly and swiftly so at least I don’t have to worry about their future. I don’t mean like I want them dead in a vengeful way, I jsut feel that it would be in their best interest (and mine) if they were to die. Is this turning into something else? haha

Sorry for the super super late reply, sometimes I get emotional and went online to rant then I would forget all about it, sort of like a blackout.

@VJ : Thanks for your insight, I don’t like to get too comfortable as I’ve experienced my bubbles being busted before. I think that I understand what you mean when you’re talking about these energy being formed. Not quite like “karma”, but something like “cause and effect”. I’ve thought about these things before too but I’ve also wondered whether everything is just coincidental. Some people have crappy lives just because, and some people have amazing luck just because.

@anita : Hi anita, it’s nice to hear from you. It’s amazing that you’re able to remember the things that I (and hundreds of others) have told you. I have decided to cut ties with my family, that decision still stands. They have agreed to move out by June this year. They’re looking into buying a house or an apartment in the mean time. I realize that although we may not be on the same boat, but I do feel grateful for the things that they’ve done for me and I would like to return the favor by giving them time to get their situation in order. I’m thinking of giving them my small house as a gift and move somewhere else because frankly, I would prefer they not know where I live. I’ve worked hard to buy that house, but I never really cared much for money. I’ve talked to them about it and they don’t want to have my house and insist that I stay here while they move away. Either way, I will be moving somewhere else. I won’t be having any contact with them after I move away.

I actually don’t feel proud about this, it just feels long overdue. I don’t feel happy or sad about it, I just feel like it was only necessary. If you’re able to reply, i have a question that I would like to ask you. I know that after I move away, I will be thinking about them from time to time for the rest of my life. I will be wondering how they’re doing, if they’re happy, if they’re sad. I will be reminiscing about the good times that we had. What does this mean? Does this mean that I’m regretting? Does this mean that having these thoughts are only natural? What would you call these emotions? Are they even emotions? Thank you.

@Jake: It’s weird because reading your comment, I’m actually remembering how I used to think as a kid. I wanted to be a rich and famous surgeon. I wanted all the girls to desire me. I wanted everyone to accept me as superior to them. Overall, I wanted to continue being in the same social class that I was born into (my parents are surgeons and my family is well respected in my home country). Typically in my culture, being a doctor has got to be one of the most respected jobs. Even the richest guy in my country had came to our family to extend respect to my parents after my mom saved his daughter. I used to look down on people who work “labor jobs”, like dishwashers, cooks, severs, cashiers, movers etc. Not look down, but I never thought that today I would be working one of these labor jobs, and enjoying it. If I were to tell my 18 year old self that I would be a cook in the future, my 18 year old self would have been greatly disappointed. I guess the younger me wouldn’t have considered my life right now as “lucky”.

@anita Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been busy with work these past few days.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I’ve decided to do some meditation and self reflection like you suggested. I think I’m not very sure myself about letting them go either. I would like to clear my head first and really objectively look at this whole situation and decide what I should do. Cutting ties is a thought that has been in the back of my mind for a very long time, even since I was a little kid. I knew that I wanted them out of my life, but I never wanted it badly enough until now.

I think my parents have many traits of a narcissistic personality. It’s very weird because I can sense that their actions are manipulative, but emotionally, I feel like they’re good people who are just misunderstood. Thank you for your advice and suggestions. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time but now I’m going to actually seriously consider leaving them. I used to ask this question when my urges got too strong, but after a few days, I would tell myself that maybe it’s not necessary. But I can see that this thought keeps popping up and I need to deal with it once and for all. Otherwise, nothing will change.

Also, I believe that my brother genuinely love our parents. I’ve talked to him about me leaving before and he urged me not to do it. He always has nice things to say about them. I would say that my brother and my parents are very alike in many ways. They just seem to get along with each other very well without any effort. Maybe he’s just faking it, that could be true. If he’s faking this, then he’s a really good actor.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Leocube.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Leocube.

@anita Thank you for clarifying to me. I didn’t mention before, but my parents have became more bearable to endure comparing to my school years. Which is why this is complicated for me. They weren’t very understanding when I was a small kid, but since I have expressed my disdain for them at 18 before moving to another country, I think they’ve changed and became more flexible in how they treat me. This is how I feel when I think about this subject. They have treated me badly as a kid, but all because of our culture and what they thought was the right thing, I expressed my feelings to them (I hate this family and I’m moving to a different country), they’ve changed. Seeing this, to me, it means that they’re not bad people. But because they treated me badly in the past, I’m now who I am because of that and I don’t know how to change otherwise, so my solution is to sever all ties.

I can focus on my feelings, but at the same time, I know that they are not bad people and I can’t leave them without feeling like maybe this isn’t justified. If they were bad people, this would have been very easy for me and I wouldn’t have asked for any help, but they’re not bad people and that’s why it’s hard for me. What should I do if focusing on my feelings alone is not enough?

@anita Thank you for your advice. I will familiarize my brain with the images of my family being hurt. Would it help to quicken the process if I also try to focus on all the insensitive things that they did to me when I was a kid? Or would this lead me to the wrong mindset? I don’t want to hate them, I just want to get rid of the emotional attachment that I have for them.

@anita Sometimes I feel like the things that happened to me in my childhood shaped who I am today. However, there are also times when I feel like I was just being a little kid, and little kids cry, little kids fantasize about going on adventures, and how my parents treated me was like how other parents would treat their kids. I came from a different culture where these things are pretty normal. I have been beaten as a kid by my parents, and so were all of my friends. I was teased by my parents and so were all of my friends, it was “Normal” in my culture. My first impression of my home was that it was stressful because my parents (especially my father) were very strict about school. However, there were also times where I genuinely felt happy to be in that family, mostly when we would go on vacations, or when they bought me things.

I’m very attached to my doll because I can be myself around it. That, you are right. I was a shy kid and never had anyone I felt like I could open up to emotionally, and my doll was the only person/thing that I’ve always been close with. I would murder anyone who tries to harm my doll. What I don’t know is whether I was just a sensitive kid that got affected by the smallest things, or whether my childhood was actually as lonely as I felt like it was. I feel like I’m just sensitive

@Peter  You are right about that. I used to watch national geographic and wolves are indeed pack animals. I guess I used the wrong term to describe how I feel. This is a rant so I just said whatever comes to mind. As you could see, my post wasn’t that coherent, there were several thoughts that are all over the place.

@PearceHawk It would be better to not dwell much on the “Lone wolf” analogy. I misused it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want any attachment, at least not to the people that I didn’t choose to have that attachment (my family). If I were to have an attachment to someone, it would be an attachment that I chose to create (like with my doll), not one where I was forced and brainwashed into (with my family). Keep in mind that I’m an extreme person, so how I feel may not accurately represent reality. I want to be emotionally free from my family, whom I don’t particularly care for as people, but somehow there is a part of me that is attached to them. I would pity them if I leave, and I would be miserable if I stay.

I don’t know what my personality is. I can look back on experiences and predict how I would react in a situation, and I call that my personality. I can truly be free (live in the moment) when I’m with my doll. Whenever I interact with people, I always put up a front, doesn’t matter who. The thing is that when I put up a front around outsiders (caring, generous, personal), I feel ok, but when I put up a different front around my family (tough, non emotional, jaded), I get kind of pissed off. As if I’m thinking “why the hell are you in my life? why can’t I get rid of you?”. I could choose to feed the kind wolf, I could choose to be happy with my family, I just don’t want to. It’s like if you hate a certain food, and you’re being fed that food everysingle day, your reaction would be to get away from that situation, not wanting to embrace it.

Yes, counselling is  maybe out of the question. The thought of paying someone to be your friend is ridiculous to me. I could get opinions from people who have had much more life experiences, instead of paying someone to try to read me and ticking a checklist in the DSM to see which mental illness I may be having, if any of them is real at all.

@Sheya I can’t do that. I can say how I feel online because it’s anonymous. I can’t place trust in an actual human being, that’s just too much risk for me.

@quackingphilosopher Doing what I want is what I desperately want to do. However, emotions are complicated and I’m trying to find a way to make it simple. I wish to just be able to do what I feel like, and not having to worry about how it would affect other people.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Leocube.