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Thursday, September 24, 2009

What Am I Becoming?

Anyone who bothers to get to know me knows that I have problems with my family. What people often refuse to believe or don't understand is just how bad it is. You see, my parents seem to live in a state of denial. Despite my best efforts to pull the veil from over their eyes; no positive results have come of it. For years it was petty bickering between my siblings and I, me being the one who was always wrong. I don't know why, but for whatever reason my parents would yell at my siblings, thinking that a good shouting-match would solve the problem. When I came to them and complained about my siblings they would tell me that I needed to just deal with it and that it was apart of growing up. They were wrong.

My parents think they know, they'd like to think they know me because they know what I need and want but can't afford. They buy me things from time to time, as if I hadn't made it abundantly clear that while monetary gifts and gifts of such nature are kind gestures, they speak love to me about as much as Vogon poetry. What I've communicated to them, but perhaps not successfully, is that if they want to express Love to me, then they have to listen to me. My dad can sit in a chair at 10:30 at night and listen to me sob and cry about how much I'm hurting and after a quick little "feel-good" prayer, I go off to bed feeling emotionally drained. In later years I came to the realization that as soon as I woke up the problems would be there and nothing I said accomplished anything except to let me cry a little. What a rip-off, thanks Dad! And honestly, when I try to go to my mother she just freaks out and says, "I can't deal with this right now!" then tells me to shut up and whoever else is involved to shut up as well.

Now a days, I find myself confined to my room when my siblings are home. During the summer that meant most of my day was in my room, and if I left for any reason I was sure to be insulted for one thing or another. Despite trying to make it stop, despite my pleas to my parents for change; nothing was ever accomplished. With school started, I have the majority of the day to myself, thankfully, but it is very lonely here and the only things to talk to that are even vaguely aware that I'm trying to communicate with them are my dog and my sister's cat. My dog is a loyal one, but incredibly unintelligent and spends most of her day chewing up napkins or toilet paper. My sister's cat is an abomination that should be curb stomped, because that thing spends his time running around aimlessly; scratching up the wallpaper, whining, trying to get into places he shouldn't be, and most of all just getting in my way. Once in a blue moon, my brother from another mother will come over and we'll talk a little, but as of late we don't seem to have a whole lot to talk about. We've kind of become a bit more distant in the past few years.

Lately I've noticed a change in myself, and my little brother was trying to point it out, but I only proved him right by blowing up in his face about it. I'm becoming just like my siblings. I can't seem to say anything nice about my siblings anymore. I even cussed out my little brother, which is something I'm not accustomed to doing. What is wrong with me? Why am I doing this? I feel more like an animal, just as I've always thought of my siblings more like animals than humans the way they treat me, and yet now I'm becoming the same. This is not who I am, but yet I'm behaving like an insecure little teeny-bopper. What is that all about? Perhaps the strain of living in a home that is not a safe environment without much in the way of outside support is finally causing me to snap, but I thought that I was better than that.

The thing is, I don't know how much more of this life I'm living I can take. Outside of my house, the real me flourishes. I express myself without fear of being mocked or told I'm wrong. I even break free of the serious-self that everyone assumes me to be, and embrace some silliness. Yes, I can be a bit melodramatic, but what's the fun in living life in mediocrity? Outside of my house, I feel safe enough to express the big heart that I hide away from the scary monsters in my house. People who saw me at home, who only knew me from one setting or another outside of my house, would not recognize me. In my home, I'm a scared, dejected, and rejected little child who eats, sleeps, and does the chores his mother assigns him. I can't seem to escape the darkness that clouds this house and even on days that appear to be good, something goes horribly wrong and the day, like every other, becomes rather gloomy and hopeless.

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