@anita I feel like what you’re saying makes sense to me, but I can’t think of concrete evidence that they rejected my true self. I can think of a few small examples of my family making me feel bad, but I also think every family is like that. You’ve commented on my post long time before and I feel like your relationship with your mother is stemmed from an actual “abusive” POV. I just don’t think my family is abusive towards me.

I can remember a few keystone occasions that made me permanently pulled back from my family in some aspect. For example, in elementary school, we had several maid/babysitter that came and went. I was close to all of them so when each of them were fired, I always cried a lot. Not until 5th grade when another maid was fired and I cried, that was when my parents made some light hearted joke like “aw, you’re crying, that’s so cute” or “It’s ok you can cry”. I felt insulted for some reason and I never cried again.

If I’m not just making narratives up in my head, I think from that point on, I felt like I need to disassociate from people so I don’t feel sad if they happen to be gone again. I know my parents didn’t mean to make me feel bad, but for some reason I just did. I think not crying also led to other things like I couldn’t act compassionate, or caring for people I care about.

But I just don’t think this is everything. Since I was a kid, I’ve had fantasy of my parents getting into car accident so I could live by myself (dumb, I know), but this also means that it is not entirely their fault, but also my fault for having a low key desire for them to be gone. I don’t know If I’m just piercing together non related pieces to fit a narrative, or if this is the root of the problem.