Did anyone else feel extremely guilty or embarrassed as a kid around their friends because you were mute? This was something I always felt during my elementary/middle school days and I'm just wondering if it's common. Since I was always mute during school, sometimes my friends had to ask the teacher for me if I wanted to use the restroom or anything, or I had to scribble down what I needed on a whiteboard/paper card.
For context, I developed an extreme case of social anxiety when I was a kid (as young as preschool, I believe), it was so extreme that I refused to speak in spaces such as school. I wouldn‘t speak to anyone or ask anyone for anything verbally like, ever. I was usually accompanied with a whiteboard to write down what I needed or what I was thinking, but other than that, it was hell. Of course, this immediately caught my parent’s attention as a multitude of my teachers always pointed out my mute nature.. if you assumed that they took me to therapy and tried their best to accommodate to me, you are horrifically wrong. Well, they did take me to therapy but of course, none of it worked. Instead, my parents made sure to remind me everyday that I was the core of their “stress” and “suffering” via emotional torture methods.
I once drew a picture for my mom on mother’s day and I drew her as a superhero saving the city and shit like batman and she looked at it, looked at me dead in the eye, and said “I would be a hero if you were normal.” Wow bro sick burn😹 Safe to say, she never got a personal gift like fucking ever again. Well, except for that one trinket I bought for her with my own money in middle school during a mother’s day sale and she called it useless right to my face because apparently adults are too cool to accept meaningful gifts from their children.
my parents would always refer to me as “abnormal”, “special”, “unique” etc etc. I remember this specific moment in the car that has been engraved deep into my brain.
Mom: “You know, you’re… special.” Dad: “Don’t tell her that, special usually means good.”
Ahahha #Roasted 😹 Yeah, I have a shit load of self esteem issues now. I can only assume that was one of their many attempts to snap me out of my disorder or something. They’ve said a lot more but my memory is blurry.
Now I’m too lazy to categorize my traumatic memories, but my parents also went to church often despite my mother claiming she wasnt really religious and all that..? idk. She told all her church friends about me and my disorder and you’d think they try to step in to help me… nah. I remember when I was at a church friend’s house and her mom straight up told me that it was my fault my mother was stressing out because I wasn’t socializing normally, I don’t exactly remember how old I was but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t even a teen yet. I was holding back tears while coloring in a colorbook while staring outside the window because what the fuck??😹😹😹 Basically, I was always blamed for not being able to socialize normally and that led to extreme pressure and anxiety and my selective mutism also led me to get taken advantaged of and stuff.
Anyways, thats all I’m willing to type :p
I honestly can’t even bring myself to call him my “dad” because he so clearly doesn’t deserve that title. It’s been 17 years with his childish and immature nonsense. And why the hell doesn’t anyone care?
I’m suspecting my dad is a hardcore narcissistic. With the way he throws a tantrum when things don’t go his way, the way he continues to berate and yell at us without any remorse in his eyes, the way he refuses to see any wrongdoing caused by him. It seems like nobody cares either.
A little over a year ago, my mother visited the pastor from the church we attend. She told him about my father, how he’s been affecting our family, and especially how he’s been tearing her down. His response? Don’t divorce, it goes against the bible’s principles, oh, and don’t forget to donate to the church or else satan will curse you!
For context, my parents were married in a mass marriage regarding the unification church. What was supposed to be a blessing turned out to be a nightmare. This wasn’t her first time ranting about my father. But, every-time, he said the same fucking thing. “Stay together”, do you have any humanity?
I hate my father. It’s his fault that she’s so stressed, it’s his fault that she ended up trauma dumping on me and my siblings when we were just kids, it’s his fault my mother had a miscarriage, it’s his fault we ended up with all these mental issues. He just yells at her for no reason.
I was always confused and jealous as a little girl when I’d notice the other fathers in the church would treat their daughters gently and play with them, I had figured that they also yelled at them in private too, that maybe this was normal within the community. No child should ever think that. He had always compared me to the other girls my age. I don’t know. I would’ve been the perfect daughter you dreamt of so much if you were competent for once in your life.
I didn’t really realize how much of an impact he had on me until freshman year of high school when my friend offered to drive me after a school trip. It was her father that came to pick us up, and not gonna lie, a huge wave of depression and jealousy hit me when I saw how he didn’t groan, grumble, or protest in any way when she asked him to drive us. How he asked her how the trip was with a genuine tone of kindness. How easily she was able to laugh with him. Is it really that easy? Is it really that easy to be a good father, I mean.
Shut up, don’t act like you care about my performance in school. My little sister is failing all her subjects but god forbid I skip a day of school. You act like you care when we attend school, you groan and complain about grades, but have you ever put in the effort to help us? Mind you, you’re home all day because your lazy bum is unemployed but not once have you offered to teach us anything.
I don’t know. I just want to be normal, to feel normal. I’ve been thinking of telling my school counselor about my dad’s behavior, I know he’d probably call cps or something but honestly, I’m kind of scared of them, neither do I believe they’re gonna do much.