I have a 4.2 GPA. I am on the varsity swim team. I am an honors student right now and there’s not a single class that I’m taking that isn’t advanced. I have a good amount of friends and my teachers like me. I live in a good stable family it looks like with two parents that are still together along with a brother and a sister. My family can afford to go to the beach in the summer for the weekend and allow me and my siblings to have out own rooms. I have a seasonal job that paid really good this year and have a lot of things set up for me. I’m really privileged and people say that they want my life. But I hate it.
I don’t mean a petty hate. My dad says things that get me down to the core and goes home too tired to say a thing to any of us sometimes and expresses his emotions too strongly. My mom reminds me constantly of what I must live up to. The colleges I must get into and the majors I must focus on. I snap constantly alone because of the pressure of my classes but no one knows I do. My friends don’t care about me and I know it. I try to talk to them about real things and they wave it off and continue talking about themselves. I try to pay attention and help their problems but my own are becoming unbearable.
Nothing I do is good enough. When I told my dad the news about me being on varsity (which I was proud of) he asked me when I was going to be committed to my diet and start losing weight and pull my 89 and 87 in geometry and biology up to a 93 or higher. When I told my mom about the 100 I made on the test she asks when I’m going to make that grade on all my tests and be committed to a high college. When I’m by myself they ask if I was productive. Every ounce of my time in their eyes must be put in to me being the perfect child. I’m not perfect. I’m doing my best and it’s not good enough ever.
I feel my grades slowly starting to drop and their expectations slowly climbing higher. They say they have best interest in me but when I say that I’m getting depressed again and it’s worse this time they wave it off as nothing and ask me about when I’m going to focus on running so I’ll be varsity on cross country as well as swim team. When I say that maybe I don’t want to be an engineer or a dentist or doctor they say “well sure you do it pays so well”. They have no idea how close I came to dying some nights, and it’s almost laughable. I’m the trophy kid and I know it. I’m just not a big enough trophy for their tastes.
If I could chose I would be best friends with the athletic people at my school and be perfect. I would chose to have a 4.7 GPA and be varsity in almost every sport imaginable. I would be taking AP classes and not just honors. I would have a perfect personality and be committed to my diet and be thirty pounds lighter as recommended by not my doctor who says I’m healthy but my dad who says that I’m too fat. I’m completely worthless and I don’t know why I ever was born if I’m not good enough for them or anyone. I can’t live up to expectation and I’m so ready to just die. Just typing and thinking of it takes some weight on my shoulders while putting more on. What’s wrong with me.
1 comment
Your parents are crazy. Thats what’s wrong with you. They’ve pressured you your whole life and never acknowledged your achievements.
They know how competitive the world can be, and that there are not nearly enough places in society that allow someone a decent existence, and they think they are pushing you in the right direction, but really they are making what they want to happen more remote.
I think you should stop trying to find any kind of validation from them. They’re never going to give it.
Its all you can do.
Live your life, you might as well get that good job since you’re smart and well connected, you might as well, and the pieces will fall together for you sooner or later.
You’re a smart guy with a lot of talent. You have a good chance to make something decent for yourself in life. A lot of people don’t.
There are people on here who have real problems. The kind that make it impossible to go on. They have no family, no achievements at school, no good job prospects, homeless in some cases, and they have all the depression and anxiety you that have plus ten times more to boot.
You’ve got to realize that your parents are just shallow people who have never opened their minds, and they are stuck in a conditioned mindset, and it’s grating on you. You have to realize that’s just where they are on the inside, and they are not going to ever understand what your going through.