Family?

Hello. I just joined, mostly because I’ve been looking on this site for a few days now and had some things I wanted to say or get opinions on. this was one of the things at the top of my list, and I’m finally feeling “good” enough to make myself actually write it.

So, I know a lot of people on this site have family issues, and I suppose you could say I do too, but since I only have 1 family, I’m not sure exactly where my family issues would fall in terms of how awful they are. Although, to be honest, my family problems could be pretty normal, not that I’d know. I’ll basically format this into my family members, write a little about them, and then if they have any bad/strained relationships with anyone in my family. Well, that’s the plan anyway. Alright, time to stop rambling.

So first off is my dad. When I think about it, he came from a pretty good family. He was the son in a family of 4, and has one sibling, his older sister. He went through school in the gifted program, which I’d explain in full detail, but I don’t really know too much detail about it. He was athletic, if I go by his and my aunt’s stories, and was on the rugby team in high school. He later went to the University of Toronto, then after that went to McGill for more schooling.

If I were to describe my dad’s personality in one word, I’d say judgmental. Of course, I took after him a lot personality-wise, so I can’t really talk. My dad is generally pretty kind and sociable, but when people aren’t there he says a lot of harsh things, and makes some cruel jokes.

I’m really close with my dad, since I’ve always been “daddy’s little girl” and he spoiled me when I was younger. He and my mom fight, but not extremely often and not badly, in my opinion. He sometimes has trouble understanding us and can be forceful, but overall he does a better job of understanding us when it counts.

Next is my mom. My mom was from Vietnam, she immigrated to Canada over 35 years ago when she was 13. She had it pretty rough when she was younger, so I can understand her bitterness at times, but she doesn’t help to make our house the most loving environment.

My mom is pretty prickly. She yells at us a lot, not that I blame her, most of us are sucked up in the computer or our own world’s too often to pay much attention to cleaning our rooms, or going downstairs for dinner, or helping out in general. Not to mention that she also works full-time supporting our entire family because my dad isn’t working.

She yells at all of us, but her “favourite” is my younger brother, since he’s the baby of the family. She spoiled him rotten, and still does. Her relationship with my sister is really strained, because both of them have this my way or the highway type of yelling at each other and it doesn’t usually work out too well for the both of them. Also my mom and I have fights pretty often because I’m generally pretty sarcastic, and it doesn’t go over well if I comment on something and she doesn’t like my tone, but I guess that’s pretty normal.

Then there’s my older brother. He had friends, and seemed pretty happy before we moved, but after we moved, he lost touch with his friends and started smoking, eventually starting to skip school often. Later, I found out that he felt invisible at his new school, and that he didn’t have any friends. Now, he’s completing his high school courses online, and he doesn’t leave the house often, it’s more of a once a month type thing.

My older brother is hard to explain. Sometimes, he’s really just, big-brother-ish, and he just acts like you’d expect an older brother would. But sometimes he’s upset or angry for no apparent reason, and he can get pretty scary. He was gifted and was tested to be smarter than 99.99% of his classmates, so he’s pretty much at genius level, except he’s really anti-social. As I stated earlier, he rarely leaves the house, and he’s on medications, but my parents don’t let the rest of the family know anything about it, so all I know about what’s going on with him is second-hand info from our therapist, who he hasn’t seen in at least 2 years.

I don’t have much to say with relationships. Sometimes, we were really close, but other times, you could barely tell we were siblings with the way we avoided each other, but recently, it’s usually the former.

Now there’s my sister (older than me, but I didn’t feel the need to specify since I only have 1 sister). She is gifted as well, but unlike my older brother, she went to the gifted program at a different school than me and my younger brother when she was in grade 4. She always was the less social type, partially because she’s gifted. When she went to high school, my sister was in the gifted-cluster program, but she still went to class with the normal students. She had a falling out with all of her friends in grade 9, and then apparently found new friends, not that I’d know if she’s lying or not. Recently, she wouldn’t go to school, and was insisting on quitting school because she hated the school system. She fought with my mom  every night for weeks, and at one point my mom even threatened to leave, not that my sister was being a great help when she offered to help her pack. Eventually, she was convinced to at least go and take her exams so she could get the credits for her first term, then they could see about alternate schooling and such, but she just ended up going to the same school anyways. She plans to go to my high school next year though, which completely ruins my plans.

My sister is very opinionated and stubborn, and very, very passionate. She usually doesn’t take other people’s opinions into account, if killing seals is wrong, it’s wrong, there is absolutely no benefit to it, no matter what. Sometimes, it’s hard to share my opinion with her, but I got used to it, so it’s okay now.

My sister is probably closest to me, since our age gap is pretty small and we’re both girls. She still has a bad relationship with my mom, as I explained earlier, and the way she acts around our brother’s and dad changes depending on her mood usually.

Now there’s me, the info here is probably going to be a lot more thorough than the others, since I know myself better than anyone else.

When I was younger, I had some emotional control issues. When I got angry/upset/annoyed, I’d deal with it badly, stomping my feet and crying and screaming. Ever since then I’ve been really sensitive about other people’s criticism, good or bad, and have taken things with a, twisted mindset. Anyways I was also gifted, like my older sister and brother, but to a lesser degree. Since my older siblings had both been gifted, and also my dad, in grade 3 when they did the testing, I kind of expected to get into the gifted program. So I went through, and I got into the program, and went to a different school in grade 4 just like my sister. At the new school I had a lot of problems with the workload, since they really piled it high. I started to procrastinate heavily, relying on my absolute fear of not getting the work done and getting yelled at to motivate me to get it done in an unreasonable amount of time. Later on, after we moved, I went to yet another gifted program, but unlike the other school, where nearly all the students were gifted and there were a few normal classes in each grade, in this school, they had all the gifted students in grades 4-8 separated into 2 classes. My friends at this school were just as, if not more judgmental than my dad, so some of the things they said may have helped to cause me to have depression, not that I’m blaming them. I started cutting in grade 8, this year. Neither of my older siblings had cut, even though they both had their problems, so when I ended up telling a teacher my parents were shocked, but that story is for another time. When I got into grade 8, I really hated the gifted program, and the idea of it still makes me burn with rage, I’ll probably rant about it at some time or another, I usually get pretty worked up just thinking about it. So I hated it, and I decided that I wouldn’t go to the gifted program in high school, partially because I didn’t want my sister to be in the same high school as me, since she can get pretty clingy when I’m with friends, and it gets awkward. So after a lot of drama with me cutting and skipping school, and seeing a psychiatrist, I am finally going to school normally now, at a new school.

So, I always have been pretty social, not extremely, but more so than either of my older siblings, that much is for sure. And I’m really sensitive to others opinions of me, and get insecure easily. To be honest, I don’t know what to write here, so I’ll leave the rest blank, it’s not like you need to know too too much about me in order to analyze my family.

Finally, there’s my little brother, the baby of the family. He was spoiled rotten, and still is. He is a little on the chubby side, but he has friends and is generally just a whole lot more normal than all of us (me, my sister, and my older brother). First of all, he’s not gifted, apparently, depending on the situation he was being tested in, he could have made it into the program, but he didn’t pass when my parents went to get him tested, and he didn’t want to go for the program anyway. Also, he’s a lot more social than any of us. He has probably around 6 or 7 people in his group of friends, who he talks to and plays games with everyday, not the ideal friendship, but better than the rest of us.

My little brother is pretty kind, he’s really spoiled though, and it’s pretty obvious. He makes my parents spend a lot of money on games, and Xbox deals and things like that, not that I care, not too much anyway. He’s normal, really I don’t have much to say about him, he doesn’t stand out in any way, he’s just normal.

My little brother is really close with my mom, and when there was a big fight when we were on vacation, my little brother apologized to my mom almost immediately and took her side in every argument after that. I’ll probably tell about the big vacation fight later (wow, everything is for later with me…).  I guess we were pretty close when we were younger, but we’ve drifted apart since I’m a girl and got interested in different things than him. He was also never close with my older brother since they have a 7 year age gap, so they weren’t ever too interested in the same things at the same time, and my little brother and older brother have really different personalities.

So, from what I said here, exactly how normal is my family? I’d ask friends, but I don’t know my new friends too well yet, and they don’t even know that I’m depressed yet, and I kind of broke it off with my old friends in a messy way.