The woes of living with my parents

I live a life that’s not really mine. My mother has been emotionally and physically abusing me since I was a young girl. My father left when I was only seven years old, and lives with his fancy girlfriend. He doesn’t care what happens in my life. I acheive high grades, I have friends, and I seem like a normal girl externally. Internally, I am forever suppressing an intense desire to put an end to my life. I only find comfort in dance, music, poetry, and for some strange reason, science. However, I dread every moment I spend at home with my mother. I live in the constant fear of being abused in my own home. My mother has planned my entire life; she will choose my major, my career, my friends, and eventually whomever I will marry. I have no way of expressing this to my friends and the only person who I have ever told any of this to broke my heart. There’s no way I can talk to him again.

When I was in elementary school, I had no friends. I was constanly bullied, and my peers used racist slurs in order to cause maximum damage. The message was clear: I would not be accepted. I am half Indian and half Caucasian. I was accepted by neither crowd during this time period.

My middle school career was equally, if not even more horrendous. I was constantly reviled by my mother for small things like getting a B+ on a test, or wearing “the wrong color shoes” with my shirts. She would throw glass plates at me for this. Needless to say, I became excellent in the sport of Dodgeball. My best- friend and her family died in a car accident and I was left alone to mourn her death. My mother didn’t even care that I was completely distraught. Her death left me fragmented and isolated.

During the close of my final year in Middle School, I tried to kill myself by drinking mouthwash (it contains propylene glycol, aka antifreeze) However, something within me wanted to cling on to this dastardly life, and my body rejected the contents of my stomach within a matter of minutes.

I decided to focus all my energy on dancing, choir, and studies. My greatest dream was to become a particle physicist, and, on the weekends, teach ballet (if research permitted). My mother disagreed with both. She wants me to become a doctor. I know I will never be successful. How can someone so wounded actually heal another person? I can’t even heal myself!

I switched schools and made lots of friends. I now have a full schedule: I am co- captain of dance team, teach ballet at my teacher’s dance school, I am treasurer on the Junior Class council, and am taking five AP courses along with interning at a local pharmaceutical company. I rarely see my mother. Over the last few years, I worked to get into my dream college (Duke), and have created a sufficient reserve of money which will help pay the deposits on my student loans.

If ever you need some faith, don’t ever forget these words, this poem I penned as a freshman has encouraged me through these years of toil and hardship:

I came to you as a blessing from above

You gave to me nothing but love

Times changed and you grew much hate

You neglected and left my life to fate

I’m not leaving until I’m finished

In my heart, hope isn’t deminished

My hate and my hope all stemmed from you

My days here are short, only left are a few

I will spread, and I will escape

Everyone who hate, in awe, shall gape