I just felt you on all of fucking that. I remember Id join all these clubs in elementary: track, cheer, office duties, library duties, swimming, math competitions. Literally everything because I just wanted them to tell me once that they were happy to have conceived me. I remember getting a 93% average in high school but instead of being proud, they ended up complaining for 4 months because I hadn’t gotten an entrance scholarship. Turns out 4 months later the faculty had decided my grades warranted a $2,000 scholarship and then they shut up for a week only to yell at me about my non-4.0 average and threaten me with arranged marriage. It’s just so hard man because you will never be enough for them. I’m sorry you never felt like enough and it makes me so mad that they got physical with you and you had to cope with the pain with drugs and violence. You’re not the only one who feels like this and honestly, abuse never gets better with age.

But you can make certain parts of your life better. After dealing with a history of abuse and fighting and violence, I decided to actually start dating and making more friends. After leaving a lot of toxic relationships, I ended up finding someone who really changed my life. Meeting their family and being accepted into it gave me some normalcy and made me come to terms with the fact that my parents had NPD and they were sick. I wasn’t the thing that was wrong. It wasn’t my fault. Hearing someone else tell me that I wasn’t overreacting and that it wasn’t going to be like this forever helped me a lot. If you can’t leave that toxic place, start busying yourself with work and funnelling money into a separate bank account. Start making new friends and dating. Workout. I know, I know, it sounds like the typical self care pamphlet but...I think being busy let’s me distract myself from what’s going on at home and having people online or in real life to talk to is super valuable.

Maybe after accruing enough cash, you could find a place or just get out of the country to gain some perspective. My plan is to make it for two more years in this hell hole and scrounge up enough money to go volunteer in Cambodia or Bali. I want to do something good for the world and remind myself that I’m good. I’m not a mistake. I don’t regret my birth.

If you feel like you can’t hang on, get some student loans and move out. You can always hit pause on your education, take a year off, earn some money, go to therapy and get your head back in the game. Our Nparents raised us to think that everything has a time limit and if you didn’t meet it, you’d fail and be thrown away. But life isn’t like that. I don’t know if your college has a fresh start program but you should talk something about with a course advisor or career counsellor.

Either way, you aren’t alone and this isn’t forever.