Dear Anita, I hope you’ve had a great week.

Yes, I shouldn’t take the fact that I don’t feel guilty, at least rationally, granted. I can feel guilty for not helping, being a slave to him but I know that’s not rational. So I try to correct that feeling. And being abused for years and so on, mom tries to help me in that regard. She told me that I was a good kid, with no problems they had to deal with and no drama. I was living my teenage years silently, so they didn’t have to make so much effort like they did with my big sister. As they always tell, my big sister was a suffocatingly hard child. I was the opposite.

I am getting a better understanding today of how much your father hurt and harmed you.

I am too! I’ve actually always known this, but I am acting like it now. Before, I ignored all of it because I knew how hard he was brought up, as far as I know, he was never loved in a genuine way and always praised for external status. He was brought up to be a narcissist and also my sister was like that because his mother also took care of her when mom worked. They didn’t took care of me, I was mostly with my mom’s mom or at some child schools. And now I see that I was doing more than what I had to do by being so understanding. A child shouldn’t be that much understanding to their parents, maybe. A side of me thinks that everyone should be that understanding, to everyone. And I see not-understanding, intolerant people a bit selfish. But maybe that’s wrong. I am at a phase where I question this, and maybe since I tried to correct my boundaries, my parent-understanding behavior has also affected by that. When I think about how some parents behave, and how some teachers neglect or behave badly to some children, I remember my own memories. And I feel angry towards them, especially to the teachers.

so he didn’t get to the arguing and making them feel bad stage because of time constraints

I have a different point of view here, I think he wouldn’t dare to jeopardize the persona by behaving students badly. I see narcissistic features all over him, and he was an idealistic teacher. He was the best, they all loved him. Everyone that knew him outside of school knew that he was kind of hard, but he was the best in his job. Everybody thought that he was one of the most intelligent, intellectual man around. But at home, he owned us. He especially owned my mother, and even though he loved her and wanted to have her before their marriage, afterwards he just behaved her like a furniture. Over the years, he was afraid of losing her so he acted bad, weirdly enough, he lost her.

I’ll mention something really personal but since this is in another language, I trust the anonymity. My mom had to get 5 abortions before me, and this was all my dad’s fault. And one day, my mom getting scared again because of the operation, told my dad to get a vasectomy since it’s much more easier and with no risk. My dad refused, told that “nothing is definite, if I get that operation, who knows what would happen?”. Mom complained, “but you’re making me have a much riskier operation for several times?”. Dad refused, and replied, “it’s not the same.” I cannot imagine how rejected and worthless my mom might have felt. I also have that “worthless” feeling inside of me when I am behaved badly. After all those years, dad got sick. And he had to have 10+ operations around the bladder and so on and it makes me think, he refused to have that tiny operation around his penis and then he had to suffer a dozen on the same area. Although, if he didn’t refuse to have vasectomy, I wouldn’t be here writing these words.

– as a child, you experienced so little compassion- almost none (?)- from anyone. Instead, you experienced anger, rejection and misunderstanding. You were misunderstood.

All the compassion I’ve received was from my mom, and from some teachers, I guess 1 or 2. I always loved my teachers, but I was afraid to communicate so I always knew my ground and didn’t ask for much. I got used to staying on the right place, respecting the other person’s boundary silently and not asking for much thanks to my dad. And now I am trying to overgrow out of that habit. And as for “misunderstood”, I feel like I wasn’t understood at all. Cause I didn’t know how to express what I want, I got scared and I felt like I didn’t have the right to ask for more. I should be okay with what I have. I am still, today, afraid to ask for more.

seems to me that he treated his students well because they were the reason he got paid as a teacher, they were hissource of money while you and your mother took money away from him. This is another reason why he treated them well, but not you or your mother. What do you think?

He got a weird relationship with money. He liked to act like he had none, but he always cared for his car, his own needs only. He didn’t like giving it to us, we had to act very economical and we did so. Although my sister refused that, she wasteful at times and I’ve seen that. I’ve seen how hard mom tried to support her after the divorce and that’s why I got more economical and started earning some money around high school cause I had to help mom. I knew how stingy was dad, but mom always tried to tolerate him. I was a normal kid with normal working parents, but I lived like a poor child a bit.

And your second post was the most positive respond I got from you, and I felt even more encouraged after reading it. Thank you for appreciating me Anita! Thank you!

As I write these in a cafe, I got emotional at some parts but I kept myself and my eyes still, I received an email from the migration office. Migration office accepted the company’s request and now they will wait for me to apply for work permit. It may be approved, it may be rejected. But either way, this is a big step and over the past few months, I realized I want to do this. But I want to do this to prove myself to everyone, this is the feeling I get. In my child, teenage and now working years, I’ve always seen other people getting to places they don’t work enough for. And I waited and waited, now I have this chance to prove myself to them. I am not sure if this is right for me to feel, sounds a bit like rivalry. Although I have to accept it and apply, that’s the final decision. However, I feel incredibly scared towards my relationship. I am very dependent, again. And since I know he is a bit hesitant to “distant-relationships”, I feel even more discouraged. But I have to tell him at some point. I wish there was a way to make him try hard for us like I would do.

I even talked with my boss to discuss how often I can visit my country and I would be able to work hard for a month and then visit here every other month, maybe work remotely for a week or so. That way, I would be able to be with him and handle my business here apart from that company as well. Dreaming, thinking, planning.. Not sure if it’ll work. Going to do more yoga to relax my mind and if I cannot take it and feel that desperate, I’ll go speak with the fortuneteller lady again.