Trouble in Paradise

This is the story of me and my family--myself, my mother, and my father. We are not a perfect family by any means, nor are we a dysfunctional one. But even happy families have problems, and they’re not always happy. I feel like my family has been growing more and more distant--more and more hostile and disdainful--in the past few years. This is not the fault of just one of us, but all three of us to one degree or another. I Skyped them earlier in the week of me writing this, so I could talk to them about some of the issues we’re having, and discuss some of our strengths and weaknesses; things we’re good at and things we need to improve on. I hope that in me taking on this little writing project and writing about it, myself and others who read this can find some hope and encouragement to change for the better of the family.

Mid-December, 2017

It is 7:30pm. I am sitting at the island in the center of the kitchen, eating dinner. It’s rice and chicken. My mother is walking around doing...whatever she does. Cleaning counters, doing dishes long before the meal ends, putting stuff away, sorting through coupons, and whatever else that woman does when she has nothing to do. As usual, she is stressed out and overworked. My father is a little miffed about something that happened at work earlier, but he doesn’t let that show too much aside from in little groans and sighs of exasperation at this thing or that thing one of us does. He then makes some light off handed comment about how she doesn’t need to be doing all that stuff. She turns to him, rage and hurt in her eyes. She snaps at him, accusing him of not appreciating what she does, telling him that she does it because he is too busy or tired to help her, and I am too lazy and uncaring to offer my help. He tries to explain that he didn’t mean anything by it, but the damage is already done. She goes upstairs and hides out in the computer room for the rest of the night, playing solitaire to ease her sensitive nerves. Why is she always so sensitive? I wonder, as I silently and awkwardly keep eating my food.

Mid-January, 2018

It is 4:00pm. I am laying on my bed in my room on my laptop, writing one of my stories. My mother comes in. “Have you done the Ladders for Leaders thing?” I sigh and roll my eyes. “I already tried. I don’t know what to submit where. I gave up on it.” She scowls at me, hands on her hips. “Well try again.” She storms out of the room, irked at my lazy behavior. I didn’t want to do it, simply because it was too much work and I had already stressed about it last year but got no response and I was still too messed up from a traumatic incident earlier that month to care about getting a job when I needed to get my mind together. But I at least did some of the work to appease this woman who only wanted the best for me, who only wanted me to succeed. Two hours later she comes back in to check on me. Nothing has changed. She glares at me. “Did you do the Ladders for Leaders thing?” I groan and roll my eyes, flopping sideways onto the bed. “No. I didn’t.” She lets out a frustrated grunt. “You never do what I tell you!” She walks out angrily, very obviously upset. Painfully obviously upset. I feel a dull ache in my chest. Why didn’t I just do it?

Mid-March, 2018

It is 8:00pm. I lay in my bed at home on my phone, typing away. I am roleplaying with some friends on a social media app for communities: Amino. Earlier tonight my father expressed a desire to eat with me around 8:00. I hear him calling me to come downstairs. I ignore him and keep typing. He comes upstairs to yell at me for not coming down. I just stare at him blankly as if I don’t care. Why don’t I care? I ask myself. Why can’t I just put the phone down and go eat? He leaves my room looking upset and hurt. An hour later I am crying my eyes out, once again typing away on Amino, telling a bunch of my online friends how horrible of a daughter I am. I nearly delete the app out of frustration and self-punishment. Later he comes back into my room to both apologize and ask why I didn’t come down to eat with him. I stare at him blankly to keep myself from breaking down. I have no answer for him. I have no answer for myself.

My family is not perfect. We aren’t dysfunctional, but there is still something not right with us. We have our fair share of laughs and joke exchanges and sweet moments, but underneath all of that is an atmosphere of tension, animosity, and disdain.

I partially blame myself. My parents seem to not have changed that much in the past 15 years of my life I can easily recall. I, on the other hand, have been growing and changing as a person. My changes have been slow--far too slow for me to have noticed until it was too late. I went from being a smart and hardworking and ambitious little girl to a lazy and sometimes irresponsible little girl in the body of a 20-year-old. I’ve become far less obedient, far more attached to my devices, far more willing to listen to people my age and sometimes younger than me who are hundreds or even thousands of miles away than to my parents who raised me and are three feet in front of me. I often silently berate myself for being a bad daughter. I wonder: What went wrong?, Why did I turn out this way?, How I can change back?. Sometimes I blame the stress of college, the fact that I spend months away from Mommy and Daddy, the ADHD that keeps me from focusing on what really matters, the need to be free and to be with friends. But deep down inside I know--or at least I think--that there’s simply something wrong with me. I’m just a bad daughter.

But my parents aren’t perfect, either. My father is rather blunt and sometimes a bit strict. He yells sometimes. But he means well. He simply wants the best for his only daughter. He works hard, often doing overtime so he can make money for his family. But sometimes he snaps too easily, and speaks before he thinks. My mother is overly sensitive, sometimes overbearing, and she nags a lot. But she, too, means well. She just wants her daughter to be safe and hardworking and successful. But sometimes she hovers and does stuff for me when I don’t need it, then turns around and expects me to take on responsibilities at the snap of a finger. Both of them admit to these faults.

My mother and I have always butted heads. We’re too alike. We’re both stubborn and emotional, and we think we’re in the right even when we’re not. The problem with me is that I try to use logic to explain things, but she gets emotional way too fast; also, I tend to be lazy when she really needs me to help her, resulting in frustration from her followed by guilt from me.

A few years ago, my mother and I were arguing so often that we decided to go to a sort of family counseling thing with a woman named Kathy. We would talk about the issues that have arisen lately, and explain our points of view in the hopes of understanding each other a little better and learning how to deal with each other more efficiently. The sessions helped a little...at least for a while. But eventually we just went back to being the way we were, albeit to a lesser extent. The only change I really noticed was that we at least were more aware of how the other felt at times, and did make an effort to change how we acted around each other. But again, it only helped a little, and only for a little while. In the long run, it didn’t help much at all.

I used to be very close to my father. We have similar senses of humor, and we often went out to the paddle ball courts on Sundays. But now we barely talk unless he’s lecturing me about this or that or I’m calling home from college. That distance is very much felt. He tries to eat with me when I’m home on breaks, but I’m either busy or not hungry or simply don’t want to. He feels hurt, which I notice, but do nothing about. But on the flip side of things, sometimes he doesn’t notice when certain things are taking a mental and emotional toll on me. He expects me to be my best and do my best all the time, but with the stress of college sometimes my best in that moment isn’t my absolute best I could be. He sees that as me not trying hard enough, when in reality it is simply a sign of me struggling to balance my mental health with my academic success...and probably failing.

In an attempt to explain to my parents some of what I was feeling--stress and anxiety--and experiencing--suicidal thoughts and self-loathing--and doing--eating and sleeping badly and procrastinating--I wrote a letter to the two of them that detailed all of these things. The second night of Spring break, I read the letter to them with shaky hands and a shaky voice. I looked up from the paper and expected sympathy, a sense of understanding and realization. All I got was my father accusing me of making excuses and not trying hard enough to change myself and be better to myself. It was the exact opposite of what I needed. My mother tried to pacify him and make him understand that I was going through a lot, but by then the damage was done. I wanted to be a better person, but I didn’t know how, and the two people I trusted to help me the most were being the least helpful. I threw the pages down and ran away to my room crying.

Later he came in to apologize to me for yelling at me and putting me down even more. He admitted that, as usual, he spoke before thinking. I accepted his apology. I understood. But it did nothing to ease my worries that I was just a broken person who could not change for my own sake or for the sake of the family.

To write this piece, I Skyped my parents and asked them to detail some of the strengths and flaws in each other and in our relationship.

My mother was very perceptive of both strengths and flaws in the household, including herself.

Mom: “I care about the family, I care a lot about you, and I try to shield and protect too much. My flaw is that I try to protect too much, I argue too much, and I nag too much. Sometimes I think I don't give you enough space or give you enough credit, and I treat you like a child. It’s because I love you. I want to help you and shield you. But I guess instead of helping you I make things a little worse.”

Mom: “When it comes to you, I don’t feel you respect me. You disrespect me a lot. And that hurts. Sometimes I feel like you don’t care. You yell at me, get mad at me when I try to help, I feel useless because I try to instill good habits in you but they’re not heeded, they’re not accepted. When I ask you to do things you say you’re gonna do them but then you don’t, which upsets me, and then I get angry. You don’t help me when I need help. I can’t do things by myself. I’m getting old and sometimes I need help. I shouldn't have to tell you to do things. Especially your room and your bed.”

Mom: “Your strengths...you do good in school. You’re smart. Very smart, sometimes too smart for your bridges. You’re a beautiful child. You need to go to work but you don't wanna go to work. … I don’t feel like you care much. Because you don’t call for a long, long time. You’re too busy doing other things to deal with us. Me especially. I’m worried about you. But you’re not worried about us. Mother and daughter are supposed to be close, but we’re not.”

Mom: “Your father’s a very strong man. He has to be to put up with me. Because I can be overbearing, I know. He’s tall dark and handsome. He works hard for us. Sometimes he doesn’t think before he speaks. And by the time I get mad it’s too late to take it back. I know your father means well, but I feel like he’s too hard on you. But he does it to teach you. It would be nicer if you were a lot closer than you are now. It doesn’t seem like we’re close at all.”

Mom: “We don’t talk talk to each other correctly. We talk at each other. There’s no respect. We should go out more as a family but we don’t. When we go out, you don’t wanna go out with us, you wanna stay. It would be nice to go out as a family.”

My father was a bit more on the negative side of things, but still made many good points.

Dad: “Work ethic is my strongest suit. I’m committed to making sure my family has everything we need. My biggest flaw is my addictive personality. TV. Food. Drinking and smoking. I can be indifferent toward other people, toward other people’s problems. I tend to become distant and uncaring unless it directly affects me and my family. I can be too honest, blunt, and unfiltered when I’m talking. I have no censor, I will tell you what I’m thinking. So don’t ask me for my opinion unless you wanna hear the truth.”

Dad: “Your mother...she’s too caring for other people’s issues. She’ll talk to anyone and anything in the street and ask them how they’re feeling. Strength and flaw. She nags and is overbearing. To both of us. Tends to be oversensitive. Anything she doesn’t like, she gets upset about. Even the most innocent thing. I say it to her, she blows up.”

Dad: “Now you...you don’t know how to cope with the real world. I worry that you won’t be able to take care of yourself without me or your mother around. Things don’t go exactly perfect, you freak out. You can’t deal with adversity. And you are also very selfish. You don't seem to grasp what I’m talking about or try to grasp the point that I'm making. You give me that look. ‘What is this old man talking about? Leave me alone.’ That's the look I don’t wanna see anymore. “

Dad: “There’s a lack of respect on your own end. Selfishness. Your mom does not want me to hurt your feelings. When I yell, when I make my points, all I’m trying to do is give you tough love. I don't mean to hurt your feelings. You run away, just like your mother does, and think that everything is gonna be better in the morning, everything is gonna be better the next day. Everything is all lovey-dovey until the next incident. I’m gonna talk to you plain and simple and truthful. I am not gonna bullshit you, I am not gonna lovey-dovey you, or anyone else.”

A lot of this was stuff I already knew. For years I’ve been struggling to not just hear my parents, but actually listen to them and do as they tell me to do, to do as they need me to do. It’ll probably be a long and arduous process, but I am willing to put the effort into changing myself for the sake of the family. It definitely won’t be easy, but I am willing to try. My only worry is that I won’t be able to change, and that things will stay the same, or even get worse.

I suggested that the three of us try to have talks like this more often. My father suggested we do them once a month or once a week, so we can touch base with each other about how things are doing and what’s on our mind. My mother agreed, since it would mean we at least spend more time with each other. My father, earlier, had remarked that this was the longest conversation we’d had in four years.

I have a sliver of hope for myself and my family. Through the writing of this piece, I now see not just the fault in my actions, but also the urgency of the situation that just might motivate me to start changing myself for the better. Of course, it’s not just myself that needs to change. But perhaps if I start changing, my parents will follow suit.

Dad: “When you’re out on your own, Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to come running. Once you get out of school, I have to focus on retirement, and paying the bills, so I can enjoy my retirement. I’ve been working to long and too hard. We also have to figure out what we’re gonna do with the house. We might not be able to afford the house anymore. Once you get out of school, you have to figure out what you’re gonna do for a living. Your life is just beginning.”