Hope. Loss. Exhaustion.

Hope is one of the cruelest feelings on earth. It tricks you into thinking that everything will get better, that the present isn’t as bad as it seems, and that those who made you feel like garbage have some redemption.

I really, really hate hope.

I thought my parents were beginning to understand me. I was more wrong about that than I have been about anything in my entire life.

My father wants the addresses of every single friend that I go see. He checks the mileage on my car to see how much I’ve been traveling and if it matches up with what I tell him. He comes to my workplace to make sure I’m there and not lying about being at work. He tries to come and pick me up from my friend’s houses if he thinks I’m not really there. He tells me he’s going to call my gym to see if I’ve really been going in at all. He’s also given me a curfew on 12am. Not really 12am. More like I have to be home before 12am, or else I get lectured. I’m 20. If this is what my parents think is going to cure my depression and suicidal tendencies, I have nothing to say to them.

My parents also say that they can’t sleep when I’m not home. So if I’m home later, they say that they need to stay up and wait for me, because “any normal parent wouldn’t be able to fall asleep with their child out of the house”. My mother also told me that she feels sick every day and dizzy because she doesn’t get enough sleep because of me. She says that she’s going to die younger than she should because of how much she worries about me. She says that she has “gone through the same thing as me” but that she was strong and “powered through it”, and didn’t have to see any doctors or be in a hospital or on medication.

They also told me that I should stop taking my medication unless I absolutely need it, because they don’t want me to depend on pills to be alright; they also claim they’re probably making me worse.

My mom insists I don’t need to see my therapist or psychiatrist unless my prescription runs out. I haven’t seen my therapist in almost 3 months; half of that is because I work so often, the other half is that every time I go to the therapist my parents will want the details of our conversation, while also berating me for going.

To add on to more ridiculous things my parents say and do, they also claim that I hate my family, and care about my friends more than them because I like to spend time with my friend after or before work a few days out of the week. It’s not like it’s summer and I’m slaving away at two jobs the entire time. Apparently, I’m not allowed to enjoy myself while I can. They’ve claimed that I have “too many friends” and that they believe I’m hanging out with dangerous people, even though my friends are the sort who could barely hurt a fly. The other night they wouldn’t even let me walk back to my car down the street alone.

My parents also told me I shouldn’t trust anybody. Except them, of course. Because they’re family. And family comes first. And education. Everything comes first before friends, to my parents.

I know your advice for me is probably along the lines of “move out”, “tell your parents how you really feel”, “just do what you want, you’re 20”, “you’re an adult, they can’t tell you what to do”, but the household and culture I live in is really complicated. I still do love my family, and my parents. But they make it so, so hard. I can never go to bed without thinking about killing myself. On my drives back home I constantly think about crashing my car. I’m always stuck between the feeling of immense guilt or justified rage.

It’s honestly tearing me apart and I’m at such a loss right now. A couple nights ago I was looking up ways to kill myself because I had been so upset that I felt convinced I should end my life that night. I ended up calling one of my friends (I was going to call the Suicide Hotline but didn’t want them to call an ambulance) and luckily they calmed me down. I still didn’t want to kill myself any less, but I knew it wasn’t worth it that night. I really don’t know what to do anymore.