Trauma while growing up
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Hey, I’m 21F, currently in my final year of BTech. I’ll hopefully start working next year, and from the outside my life probably looks pretty normal. But I’ve been carrying a lot of things from my family for years, and I don’t really know how to process them.
I come from a very strict family. Since I was a girl, there were always restrictions on where I could go, what I could do, and who I could interact with. I never really got to experience the freedom that a lot of teenagers had.
My parents had an arranged marriage. My mother has a government job and my father worked as a mechanic. Their relationship was never very healthy. My father was very egoistic and often treated my mother badly. Then my mother had a miscarriage. She was already very emotional, and after that she struggled a lot.
Later, my brother was born.
My mother became extremely protective of him. She wouldn't let him play outside much, and whenever my father told him to do something, she would often stop him. He became the child everyone worried about.
Then I was born.
I was the "good girl." I didn't give them reasons to worry. I never did anything they could be ashamed of. I tried my best to help my mother and even tried talking to my father when things were bad.
But as I grew older, everything started falling apart.
My mother's brother borrowed money from her and several relatives to build a school. My mother asked my father multiple times about taking a loan, but he refused, and eventually she felt she had no choice but to give her brother money.
When my father found out, things became extremely bad.
I was in 12th grade at the time. My father tried to hang himself. I was studying for an exam while all of this was happening. Thankfully, he eventually stopped. I tried to talk to him afterward, but he screamed at me.
He then started posting on Facebook about how my mother had betrayed him.
My mother eventually ran away from the house. A relative found her on the way and stopped her, so she was safe.
After that, my father's elder brother threatened my mother's brother, saying he would shoot him if he didn't return the money.
The entire environment at home became horrible.
I fought with my father and eventually he told me things like, "Who is she to talk?" After that, he didn't speak to me for around six months.
He never asked which college I was going to. He never asked where I was staying. He never came to drop me at my hostel.
I was extremely anxious during my first year of college. I would literally vomit because of anxiety.
Because of some health issues, I had to stay with my cousins for a while. They were two girls who were extremely mean and rude to me, and being around them made my mental state even worse.
Eventually I moved into a PG with my school friends, and things slowly became better.
I don't vomit from anxiety anymore, but I still sometimes become so anxious that I can't even speak.
And then there's my brother.
He's older than me. He spent a lot of time playing PUBG until 12th, then got admission into BTech ECE. He apparently wanted another branch, but during COVID things didn't go well. He failed multiple times, and what should have been a four-year degree took him six years.
Now he's been unemployed for around two years.
My mother still supports him completely.
He knows that even if he doesn't do anything, she'll support him. He has also learned exactly how to use her weak point.
What hurts me isn't simply that she supports him.
It's that she seems to believe him more than she believes me.
Once, a classmate messaged me on Snapchat to wish me happy birthday. My brother saw it and told my mother. He told her that if I had nothing to hide, I should show her my phone to prove him wrong.
I didn't even feel guilty because I genuinely had nothing to hide.
But I felt hurt.
My mother knows me. She knows what kind of person I am. She knows everything I've done and how careful I've always been.
So why is it that when my brother says something about me, she believes him first?
I also have to beg my brother for help with the smallest things, like filling out an exam form. Yet whenever someone in the family needs advice or help, they come to me.
I feel useful when everyone needs something from me, but when I need someone, I feel completely alone.
And recently, my mother said something that really broke me.
She told me she doesn't want me to get a job before my brother because he is older and he won't feel good about it.
I'm trying to build my career. I'm trying to become independent. I'm finally going to have a chance to make something of my life.
And apparently even that has to wait because my brother might feel bad.
I know my mother loves me. I genuinely believe she does.
That's what makes this so confusing.
I don't think she hates me. I don't think my brother is some horrible person either. But I can't ignore how differently I feel treated.
Sometimes I even think about the miscarriage and wonder what my mother's relationship with me would have been like if she had never lost that baby and I had never been born.
I hate myself for thinking that.
My mother had a government job, family support and everything she needed, yet she never left my father despite everything. I've watched her tolerate things that I don't think I would be strong enough to tolerate.
And now I'm terrified of relationships.
I've never had a boyfriend. Love marriage isn't really an option in my family, and even the idea of trusting someone scares me.
I've watched my parents' relationship and I've seen what happens when someone depends on another person emotionally.
I'm scared that if I ever trust someone, they'll eventually hurt me, control me, abandon me, or use everything I've told them against me.
I know people often say that when someone grows up in an emotionally dysfunctional family, they look for love outside the family.
I didn't.
I was too scared to even start.
Sometimes I wonder whether I'm actually hard to love.
I've never really had that feeling of being someone's first choice.
I'm always the responsible daughter. The one who helps. The one who understands. The one who is expected to adjust.
But who chooses me?
I don't want my mother to love my brother less. I don't want him to suffer.
I just wish I didn't constantly feel like I have to be less so that he can be okay.
I'm 21. I'm trying to graduate, get a job next year, become financially independent and build a life outside all of this.
But emotionally, I still feel like that little girl who was trying to keep everyone happy while nobody noticed how scared she was.
If you've grown up in a family like this, how did you stop feeling like the second choice?
And how did you learn to trust people without being terrified that they'll eventually hurt you?