u/cherche08

Hey everyone! This is a continuation from my last post. Thank you all so much for the support and advice I really appreciated it. It’s nice to hear from other people that I wasn’t crazy for thinking the way I’m living isn’t normal.

After I left I moved into a friends house for a week before moving into my university accommodation. After the first 5 hours of me leaving, I was called by the police as I was listed as a missing person. But I informed them that I was 18 and didn’t want my parents knowing where I am. And after that, i had the best week of my life: i went out with my friends the same evening i left, we went Ikea and shopping to get things for university a few days after, and i hung out at my best friends house TWO days in a row guilt-free before moving out, and i finally had my first sleep over and it was a WEEK long. If i told myself 10 years ago that this was going to happen i think she would’ve cried from fear.

Anyways a week after I moved into my accommodation, my best friend came over so we could celebrate her birthday. However I was informed that my mum’s friend found me walking around with her in the city centre and SNITCHED ON ME 🙆🏿‍♀️
But nothing really happened after, my mum was just fuming and is now convinced I only ran away so that I could “hang out with my friends”. Which I mean yeah that’s a bit of the reason but she clearly doesn’t see what she and my dad have done wrong.

Furthermore, my parents have been bothering this friend and her mum ever since the day I left; my mum is still calling her mum to this day!!! I feel so bad bcuz i feel like I’ve dragged her into this. Also she shouldn’t feel guilty for hanging out with her friend for her birthday that’s so stupid. We kind of saw it coming tho, my parents had always told me that when i start university i have to cut contact with her because she’s a “distraction“ and “bad influence”, which is ridiculous btw what an odd thing to say.

It has been around 30 days since I’ve spoken to my parents. It has been extremely tough. I’ve been receiving emails from them, such as, “if you come back we won’t force you to resit your a levels and ucat anymore” or “you’ll run out of money eventually so come back to us” or “don’t be like your brother”. Speaking of which, I have been speaking to my oldest brother a lot recently, which I’m happy about because we haven’t spoken this much since before 2020, so I’m glad we’re back in contact, despite this not being the way I hoped it would be.

There have also been a lot of secrets being revealed that has kind of caused the family to start falling apart. My oldest brother and my dad had an argument last week bcuz in one of my dads emails to me, he was dragging my brothers name even though he’s been trying to help my parents cope with my disappearance. So he ended up blocking my dad again. Then he told me some things about his past that I really don’t want to share on here. Then I told him some things about my past that I also don’t want to share on here. Trauma bonding i guess.

Then I start getting texts from my two brothers at home (I blocked them on WhatsApp but text them through other apps so we’re still in contact without my parents knowing) saying that my oldest brother is “evil” and “a bad guy” and he’s manipulating me. I’m guessing in the argument last week, my oldest brother mentioned things that nobody knows about my dad’s past so my dad assumed he was going to tell me about them and thought he might as well make himself look like the good guy to my other two brothers at home before they find out the truth too (I’m trying so hard not to make this confusing sorry😢) and it clearly worked bcuz now they’re telling me to come back home since my parents said “they aren’t angry at me”. Yeah right. As if the same brothers didn’t just tell me my mum was flipping out a few days before bro. did they get their memory wiped or something??? 😭😭

So after all this, and feeling like kms on top of that, i thought maybe i should get therapy. So I’m finally getting therapy some time this month. I really should’ve gotten it sooner but i only found out like a month ago that the life im living isn’t normal at all. Like i genuinely thought the stuff im going through wasn’t a big enough issue to be addressed you get what i mean??

But yeah that’s the first update! Not entirely free from family drama yet but we’re getting there. Thanks for tuning in 🙋🏿‍♀️

I (18F) have been known as the “child genius” since I was 8 years old. At the time, I enjoyed having that title. It made me look good in front of my relatives and family friends. But as time went on, Ive slowly started to realise that being known for being smart by too many people is the worst thing to ever happen to me.

Things to say before I begin: my parents are immigrants and moved here at a very young age. my dad graduated around 10 years ago and my mum has never been to uni bcuz she wanted to look after me and my brothers and make sure that I got into the university course she and my dad have always hoped I get into. she says she “refuses to start uni until I have started first year of medicine”. I love them very much for all they have done for us.

When I was 5 years old, my parents sat me and and my 2 other brothers down for a family meeting. We were given slips of paper with the question “what do you want to be” written on it followed by 4 options: doctor, teacher, nurse, and chef. Our parents told us to tick the one we wanted. So I ticked teacher. When I returned the slip, my parents simply crossed out what I ticked and said “no, you want to be a doctor”. So, as I was an oblivious 5 year old who did whatever my parents said, I said “ok I want to be a doctor”.

They have stuck with that for my entire life. When I was asked by others what I wanted to be, I always answered “doctor”. I remember I brought up the fact that my parents basically forced me to want to become a doctor to them, and they simply denied it ever happening. They said it was “my dream”, so I went along with it.

As time went on, my parents had two more children and now there are 5 of us (26M, 20M, 18F [me], 13M, and 9M). Now our family has a few problems. My oldest brother moved to wales for uni and dropped out behind our parents’ backs, we have not seen him since 2021 and his career isnt going very well since he doesn’t have a degree. And the second oldest and youngest are both autistic, with the youngest not being able to speak. So, in my father’s words, the saviours of the family are me and the second youngest as we are “the only ones left that have potential.”

It was about 4 years ago when I realised that I no longer wanted to do medicine at university. My parents had already pictured me going to Cambridge and graduating with a medical degree and moving on to become a neurosurgeon. So you can imagine how they reacted when I told them, “I dont think I want to do medicine.” Silly me thought it would be straightforward and they’d respond with “oh ok so let’s find something else you like” but no. They were furious. I was asked “ok so if you want to drop medicine what do u want to do instead?” I froze. u see I had a problem. My entire life, I had never been able to think about what I wanted to do. So I just sat there like bread, and never answered the question, because what DID I want to do? I didn’t know. So I had to carry on working towards what I realised wasn’t my dream.

Ive had to sit A-levels I don’t enjoy and miss out being with my friends because my parents were convinced that the reason I changed my mind so suddenly was because I was being “manipulated“ or “influenced”.

In the last two years, my grades haven’t been the best as I was doing a levels that I didn’t enjoy, and I also had my younger brother to look after. So I wasnt able to apply for Cambridge, which I was lowkey relieved about bcuz I never thought that uni was for me anyway. But I was still aiming for medicine. I was rejected by every single medical uni I applied for, but got an offer for biomedical science. The plan was to do a year in biomed and transfer to medicine second year. So the goal towards medicine was still on.

But then we hit another obstacle: I didn’t get the grades required to go to that uni as i was behind on revision and had lost a family member during the exam season. So I had to go through clearing and got into biomedical science at a different university. I didn’t mind, as long as I was moving out and doing agree that I might actually enjoy I was happy. However this university didn’t have a medical school. so my parents were going to make me decline the offer to take a gap year, resit my a levels, and resit the ucat which was in less than a month, so I didn’t even have time to revise.

I managed to convince them to let me go to the university as doing all this resitting would be a waste of time since I would just get a low score again on the UCAT; I had revised for 2 months before sitting it last year and got 1800, so it wouldn’t make sense to do it all over again with less than that time. So we agree that I can get my biomed degree and then move to medicine after that.

I was excited, I was moving out, I was going to have control over my own life, and do a degree that I think I might actually like—

Then, last Thursday, my dad says he found another university on the OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY that allows u to transfer from biomed to medicine after first year. Mind you, I’ve already got my accommodation booked for the uni that I’m already enrolled at and the contract is legally binding. when I tell my dad about this he says “nope, I’m right because I’ve been to uni before.” So he tells me to book the ucat and he tells the current uni over phone that I’m dropping out and moving somewhere else because “I’m interested in going to medical school”. ive been told to sit in my room and revise without a break for TWO WEEKS! Ive been in my room for a week now and I’ve been losing my mind. Even if I wanted to resit the uca, this method wouldnt work at all, my brain is melting.

The reason he changed his mind about the ucat is because of other people telling him that “they believe that I’ll be able to sit it and get a good score in that time” because I’m “not like average people”. the only reason this happened is bcuz my parents always lie and tell people that I’m doing better than I actually am, so everyone believes that I’m still that “child genius” because my parents want to look good. I’m being used as some sort of thing to show off to their friends. which is another reason why they want me to do medicine: they want the title of “parents of a neurosurgeon” and have never cared about how I feel. idk how it took me this long to realise, but I know now, and need to get out.

So I send emails to the uni saying not to listen to what my dad said through MY phone and everything he said was without my consent, and now I’m planning to pack up my stuff and go tomorrow afternoon. I’ve been having second thoughts as my mum will be really stressed especially since she has my other brothers to look after and I’m no longer there to help. But I’m so tired of not having control over my own life and not being able to do what I want because of someone else’s suffering. I’m 18 years old and have already gone through so much trauma and if I continue to do what they say the control will never end. My mum told me that when I go to the uni in Cambridge she will “ask for time off work to come and live with me for a bit and they will come visit me weekly”, which defeats the whole reason why I want to go: I want to be left alone for once.

I know she’s just trying to make sure I’m okay but I’m not a baby anymore. they’ve been overprotective my entire life and I never fully got experience the “teenage life” like everyone else did. me and my friends were able to go on a summer trip bcuz my parents were too scared I’d get kidnapped. They would bring up Madeline McCann every time I asked to scare me.

Me being around them seems to cause so much stress anyway so leaving is doing them a favour. I’m about to write my letters to them saying that I’m not coming back. So, am I the a-hole for simply wanting freedom?

P.S. my father has skinny shamed me since I was 6 years old, staying home is the last thing I wanna do.