u/Ancient_Onion_3312

I'm an undergraduate student, and i feel like my entire schooling life, even before university, I have been struggling with issues bigger than academics which I resent because I always felt like it took up so much of my energy to overcome this generational trauma, that has prevented me from being a happy person, and reach my full potential. I was hoping someone would have some words of encouragement on my journey to break my family's generational trauma. It has to end here, it has to.

I've been through therapy with the school which has been amazing in helping me be more emotionally stable and I would say I'm rather strong now after 2+ years in. The CBT helped me so much that I'm even able to understand my own narcissistic mother's unhelpful thought patterns and toxic behaviours. As a result, I have become somewhat of a therapist for my own mother (without her realising), but it drains me. I want to be her kid, not her therapist. Often, our conversations are of her monologing about herself, then her ending off by saying she "really liked our bonding time" when it was just her talking about herself and not asking me a single question about myself.

To be honest, at one point, I was convinced that I was able to change her. Deep down, I believe everyone wants to be happy and also work against being a dreadful person. But as time goes on, I fear that the future I envisioned may never happen, and I'm not sure how to deal with that. The worst part, I fear, is that as an only child, I have always dreamt of being loved and I am scared deep down that the crazy in her might scare away my future partner. If anything, I had a good relationship going on but my partner got quite drained because of my mother's antics always making me break down.

I told my mother that she's allergic to happiness. And I've become more vocal in addressing my unhappiness towards her behaviour. To put into context, some things she has done include:

1. impersonating me on a social media platform (opening an account and pretending to be me). She posted videos and photos of me without my consent and was even replying men in the comment section heart emojis. She has lost her mind and didnt even apologise when I found out through a friend because the video came out on my friend's FYP. She denied everything, even when presented with the truth. It was then I realised that she saw me as an extension of herself, not as my own individual. Growing up, she always emphasised how bad people have bad mothers and the mothers are to blame for everything so I realise that she ties her identity very much with how I turn out to be.
2. rubbing salt in the wound when I try to come to her to feel better after having a rough patch in school/relationships etc. When I had my first breakup, she told me that boys like girls who are not fat and not dark skinned (I am average sized, and tan) and basically pinned the breakup on me. And when I was having troubles in school due to a late-diagnosed learning disability (ADD) which had signs all along, she didnt comfort me but instead told me to just drop out of school and was angry that I was struggling. BTW, I am in a top 10 global university and got top 10% in pre-university. I was just struggling with the executive dysfunction which I had to self-seek assistance for a condition I didnt even know the name of back then. It hurts me because no one in this house has ever addressed this core part of my identity despite me sharing about it.
3. purposely causing issues: she watched a video of a lady stealing food from a community fridge and told the whole family that the person has a mental problem and probably has ADHD. I asked her what ADHD has to do with stealing and she got into this huge fight with me. She loves fighting, and so does her family. My hypothesis (I am a biomedical student after all), is that she gets some sort of dopamine kick or adrenaline kick from stirring up fights.
4. she always.... talks about herself and her life. and she is somehow so obsessed with others' lives (be it social media news or a relative), over my own life. She seems to not care that she has tainted her relationship with me because in her eyes, as long as everyone else believes HER story, she doesnt care what I think. She posts me alot on her story but refuses to talk to me in real life. I told her im not confortable. She once picked me up from school, yelled at me in the car, then a few seconds later she asked me to smile for the camera - absolutely mental. And this is the emotional unpredictability I had to deal with growing up. She's in love with some romanticised version of me that she has created in her head.
5. insane childhood trauma. admittedly, I know there are far worse cases but her punishment never matched the extent of "wrongdoing". I was always given the most extreme form of punishment despite whatever wrongdoing I did. For example, when I did not get an A for my math paper, I came back from school to divorce papers littered on the table, and her telling me I would be the cause of the divorce if I didnt get an A for my next paper. She even signed it already. I remember being so traumatised. And I got hit very easily at home too. Hit on the head with hard objects, caned till I bled. I cried so much as a kid and had such severe anxiety that I was basically walking on eggshells 24/7, scared to make mistakes. Came to school crying enough times for people to notice.
6. she is obsessed with bad news. she is obsessed with death and accident news on social media and frequently consumes it. As a scientist, I have started quantifying the nature of her conversations with our family and it is about 70% negative talk. She enjoys talking about problems and its to the point when nothing bad is going on, she will create a fake scenario in her head to get her riled up then go on about it for days. And I have to remind her that she is getting riled up over a scenario that doesnt exist at all. I feel like I have to keep telling her that the only reason why shes the only one in the family with insane volumes of bad news on her feed is because the algorithm is identifying that she likes watching it and is feeding her more - it's an echochamber.
7. when i had to go to the ER due to a injury during my exhange programme, I was mildly concussed, had a hole pierced straight through my lip because my teeth cut through, and fainted twice on the beach, I called her to inform her first but it turned into me needed to comfort her. I told her im with many people and my friends were with me but she was so angry that I was not comforting her. It was my body, I was in pain and shock. And she expected me to comfort HER. She badmouthed me to the entire extended family and I literally told her that I was in no state to entertain her calls at all?! again, this just shows how she sees me as her belonging, not a person. i literally told her my head was spinning.

I always wished I could be the kind of girl who calls their parents whenever she needs a hug, or words of encouragement, but my parents dont know how to console, or have the right words to say. Heck I cant even think of a single word of enouragement from them. They somehow cant understand that love cant be bought, but rather earned. And no one in this household can handle confrontation.

The thing is, my mother had it much worse than me. But to what extent do I bite the bullet and excuse her for also being a victim of generational trauma? She doesnt come from this generation and is probably used to her own ways. I want to fix our relationship so I've grown to have the balls to confront her actions as she does it but she either goes silent or responds with "so im a bad mother" or cries and starts banging things, or shouts over me. In essence, in my entire life, she is the MOST DIFFICULT person I have had to deal with. I think after therapy, she cant separate action from identity so she takes everything personally. But she keeps saying that I'm difficult, but she only finds me difficult because I don't obey her anymore. She still cant accept that I am somewhat an adult now, but she bosses me around like a I'm a little kid and has no respect for my own schedule. She expects me to cancel whatever plans I have to serve her instead.

And my dad, well he's not a narcissist but clearly has suffered from my mom too and he himself has some antisocial issues. We got to have a heart to heart talk after he sent me for my exchange programme and I never realised he was suffering too from my mother. I resented him for the longest time but I think I had proven myself to not be like her so he started opening up. The sad thing is, he never asked about my life growing up, maybe he was also accepting that this hell on earth was his life. But to see myself invoke a change in our relationship dynamic for the better was heartening. We dont really talk when mom is around. But when we have our alone times, my dad likes to talk about himself. I tear up sometimes because no one, no one in this house wants to hear about me, their kid, how I'm doing, and have initiative as parents to take care of my emotional wellbeing. But for my dad, even if he doesnt ask about me, maybe my role in his life is to be the healer, so even if he wants to talk about his childhood and life without asking about me, he seems happy that someone finally takes interest in him.

Im so tired guys, those who managed to end the generational trauma, what was your mindset? I find myself accepting everyday that I may never get the parental love I dreamed of (one that is emotionally vulnerable, not financial in nature), and I feel lost. I dream to have a partner that can maybe lend me that love but as long as I am lost, I cannot attract a good person, and so I've been working to solidify my identity so I am ready to face the world.

I fear that when my parents are old and frail and are dependent on me to take care of them (we are asian, so no such thing as "abandoning" our parents as in some western cultures), I may feel angry and resentful. My therapist told me that I need to pick the mindset that gives me the most peace, so if anyone has any idea what that may be in the midst of ensuring that the generational trauma stops here, I'm all ears.

Thank you for reading, it was a weight much needed to be lifted off my chest before I break.