A living paradox

I cannot tell you how many times ever since roughly around high school that I’ve had thoughts about killing myself. And yet, after all those thoughts, I’ve managed to stay alive to the age of 23 on March 17th. How I managed to stay alive for so long? Reminding myself that I have a purpose in this crazy world of ours. Yet after continuously reminding myself of that idea, I underwent possibly my worst breakdown that I’ve had for the longest time about a creative way to erase my existence because of a conversation with my parents, specifically my father, that I’ve heard dozens of times before.

I’m sorry. I should have started at the beginning of my spiral into self-deprecation and loathing. I guess the beginning of everything started when I was just a kid. I was socially awkward as hell to the point where I barely made any friends. At all. Though I do suppose that is my fault in the first place I will admit. However, another argument comes into mind when you realize that it’s your parents that are supposed to be the ones to encourage those social skills in the first place. My parents were often working when I was a kid leaving my grandparents and other relatives to look after me and my sister growing up. I didn’t help that I come from a Chinese background and, what I’ve been told, I spoke fluent Chinese as a child, meaning I literally didn’t know what to say around others my age in plain English. To add salt on the wound, as I grew older, my ability to speak and understand Chinese decreased, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

It was around early middle school that I had my first major breakdown and the revelation that I had no friends. Luckily, a fellow classmate pulled me out of the pits of despair and told me that I did have friends, albeit in a unique and different way. Bless her heart, I’ll call her K. K became my first crush, but as you can imagine with my lack of social skills, I never got the chance nor nerve to tell her how I’d felt, even after we went to different high schools and met her at least once more during one of my high school orientations.

Speaking of high school, I guess that was the point where all of my problems really started. I forget the exact details but I do distinctly remember that around my freshman year my father and I had an argument involving my behavior in one of my classes. I actually got angry with my father. At that point in life, I was one of those people you’d least likely expect to get angry whatsoever. Hell, in middle school I’d attended an anger management class to teach others how to control their anger. Yet here I was, yelling at my father about how to act in public when no one really taught me how to do so. I didn’t help matters that I got angry earlier in the school year over a fellow classmate after hearing that they’ve gotten my last name wrong.

After the fateful argument, my father and I barely spoke to each other, even to this day. However, when we do speak, he usually portrays me in a negative light with my mother occasionally chiming in herself. Throughout high school, I discovered many things about myself including my creative side and I eventually grew to accept them.

After high school, I attended community college and things took a turn for probably the worse. Throughout my education, I always worked hard on my assignments and nothing else, thanks to my lack of social interaction. I barely slacked off, cut classes, or ignored what the teacher was telling me. In community college, I did those exact things fairly frequently. It also didn’t help that around this time the recession kicked in making it difficult to find new work. In other words, I was practically a starving, misunderstood artist. Luckily, I didn’t have to endure the starving part as much since I was still living with my parents and grandparents. Unfortunately, this gave more negative feedback for my father and sometimes mother to bring up whenever he talks to me. It also didn’t help that I barely understood what they was talking about anymore due to my decline in speaking and understanding the language of the country where I originated from.

Now, I’m still living with my family and haven’t had a job for around 3 years now and am thinking/planning on going to a technical school. My father, and sometimes mother, complain that I have no job, should be living by myself at this age, about the status of my other relatives my age compared to mine, about the idea that I have no clue how to take care of myself, I’m stupid, which to me, is the worst, and other miscellaneous minor bits and details involving those “facts” that they’ve gathered about me. My grandparents though only every once in a while that I have no traditional friends, which I don’t know should be good or bad. My younger sister has managed to avoid my fate, which I’m simultaneously glad and jealous of. What’s worse is even though I know the “facts” that my parents complain about me aren’t true, I know they are true deep down inside, except for the stupid one.

I’m glad I took the path in life that I took, yet I regret it. I can take care of myself yet I can’t. I have friends thanks to K’s words, and yet I don’t. I know how to help myself become a better person, yet I don’t. I’ve had thoughts of suicide, yet I’m afraid of death and don’t immediately react to them. I’m a freaking living paradox of emotions. I need help. Badly.