I found this website by accident while trying to look up if I was valid or not for thinking I might have PTSD over something that (I perceive) is not PTSD-worthy. I'm not necessarily looking for a diagnosis by posting this. I think I'm just afraid to bring this up to my therapist because I don't want to get shut down, or judged for being so upset over something like this. Basically I want to vent and see if anyone thinks I should bring it up anyway.
To preface, I have been diagnosed with anxiety, ADHD, and severe depression since I was 11 (I'm 23 now). I do suffer from chronic suicidal ideation and I am currently being evaluated to see if I place on the autism spectrum. My parents are divorced. I currently live with my mom and my brother. My dad remarried to a woman with 3 kids from 2 previous partners (though they had to kick the oldest one out recently) and then had a baby last year. Also I'm transgender (female to male) but that isn't relevant until later.
My apologies if things seem to be out of order and incoherent. I'm quite upset. This is going to be a long ass post.
When I was a kid, I was bad at school. I struggled to complete assignments and do / turn in my homework. After my dad got home from his cushy 9 to 5 programming job, I vividly remember being forced to sit at the kitchen table while he set a timer on the microwave and told me that if I didn't finish my homework before it went off then I'd be in trouble (this was around.. 1st grade? Second?). Even if I didn't understand how to even do it. I had to ask him for help with math because it usually didn't make sense to me, and he'd always sigh and act like I was the most annoying thing to ever exist in his presence, his child that needed help with math homework. The more times I failed to get the problems right the angrier he'd become. It was the most humiliating thing to sit there, near tears, while he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Who could've thought that explaining the same thing over and over, with increasingly angrier tones, and not changing the way he explained it at all, would not help me understand how to solve the problem? For example, (though I was not this dumb) it's like if I didn't understand that 2 + 2 = 4 and the only way he would say it was, "What's 2 + 2? You know the answer. What's two plus two? What is it? *sigh* TWO plus TWO is?....." and so on and so forth. Eventually I stopped going to him for help because I hated the way it made me feel, even at the cost of my grades. Which I was also yelled at for. It was only after I cried about it that he finally understood the way it was hurting me. And, he did change the way he helped me, which was nice, but every single time I asked for help I was still so afraid I'd get yelled or sighed at. No matter how nicely he helped.
My grades stayed bad. My parents tried to entice me with money (being a middle schooler with no job), $20 for each A, $15 for a B, etc etc. This of course, only worked for a quarter or two. I just didn't care about anything except going home to play video games. It was my way to escape and sometimes bond with my dad and brother who are also avid gamers. My suicidal ideation got so bad that I was upset whenever I woke up in the morning, sad that I didn't die in my sleep like I had hoped. I would walk home from the bus stop every day praying that if I lingered too long in the street, a car would mow me down. I didn't talk about my feelings with my parents. We weren't a talking family. My mom had an oversharing mother, so with us she didn't talk feelings. I think my dad just didn't care enough. Sometimes I doubt that he ever loved me except in the way that he had to because he was my dad, if that makes sense? He makes me think of the phrase, "I love you because you're my kid, but I don't like you." My parents were also avid thinkers of, "He has everything he needs, food, water, shelter, he has no reason to be depressed!" So there's that.
Ever since I was a kid (this still happens) whenever I get in trouble or express my feelings, I cry. It's pretty much the only time I cry. I'm not doing it to incite pity or empathy or to manipulate anyone into doing what I want (like that would ever work). So when, after they divorced, I would try to talk about the issues I had with him dating my coworker, I always cried because I was so fed up of not being listened to and being left behind. And of course, because I was upset, I would get louder (but not to the point of actually yelling) even though he always got mad at me for yelling. My main issues were, not that he ever cared to listen (we would later figure out that he's very narcissistic.) that he wanted to date my COWORKER. who i only introduced to my dad because he was pathetic and lonely after my mom left him (for good reason ie not being a good husband or father, and the fact that he manipulated me into thinking SHE was the bad person because she wanted him to help out around the house without her asking him to and show that he loved her every once in a while other than providing the bare f*cking minimum. When they separated I lived with him mostly and only visited my mom sometimes because i was 17, almost 18, and they said that I could do whatever i wanted regarding visitation unlike my brother who had to do like, every other week or something.) it was after he had his new girlfriend and her kids move in with us in our moderately sized house (which was now too small) after literally knowing each other for only a few months, that i started talking to my mom more and more and began to realize that my dad is a f*cking asshole. Anyway the other main issue was that during the separation of my parents, my dad and i had a good, friendly relationship. We went to the store to get groceries together, sometimes went out to eat, and had good chats about random stuff. After his girlfriend moved in, he didn't want to spend time with me anymore. they would get groceries together and not invite me. which was the thing i loved to do with my dad. and that very much hurt my feelings.
when they moved into a bigger house (i unfortunately had to go with them because my mom's house wasn't big enough for her, my brother, and me) they were going to give me her chaise lounge (which i actually was excited to have) but for some reason they left it on the lawn because it wouldnt fit in the garage. i got home from work late (because i now lived almost an hour away from where i worked since they moved into the middle of nowhere!) and i still didn't have a key to the house for some reason (never got one either) or a code to the door lock (wouldn't get one for a while) so i had to sit and wait for my dad to open the garage door remotely and let me in. he finally did and i asked him about the lounge and he said not to try to bring it in by myself and i was like, ok. it was about 9pm at this point. 9:30 maybe. i sit down on my bed and wait for them to come home so they can help me move it. no idea when they're coming back. i end up falling asleep while waiting for them, shoes still on, door open, obviously im ready to move it. they get home at some point, 2 hours later than i did, don't bother waking me up and by the time i realized, they had gone to bed. so i still couldnt move it. and then in the morning he has the audacity to blame me?? because it sat outside in the rain overnight and they had to take it to the dump??? this is just the first of many "its your fault" that i heard because every time i tried to express my feelings they twisted it into that i hate his wife (i didnt) when i was trying to talk to my dad and she would BUTT IN? and DEFEND HIM until i got so mad i raised my voice at her too and then HE blew up at me and usually had me leave before i could even say what i wanted to say and every time i wondered aloud why he had said something so mean its because "well you were being an asshole."
when we moved into that house (september ish) they said that i wouldnt have to pay rent until the new year. i was like, ok, cool. arguing ensued later in the year. i get told, youre going to have to start paying rent if your attitude doesnt improve. (i was mad that, one night they wanted me to wash the dinner dishes even though i didnt even eat dinner with them and i was like ok. so i did, forgot the pots and pans on the stove because duh, go back to my room, dad texts me all mad that i didnt finish the dishes, f*cking sorry! i go wash the pots and pans, nobody puts the f*cking clean dishes away so im shoving things down the countertop. i go back to my room. he texts me AGAIN mad that i didnt wash the dishes from breakfast! if you wanted me to do ALL the f*cking dishes you shouldve said so! but he said DINNER DISHES! so incredibly pissed off i go back to finish the dishes AGAIN and when im finally done im so thouroughly pissed off i feel like i could eat a volcano. and then he gets mad at me again for huffing and puffing and wearing my headphones while i do the dishes because im "setting a bad example for the kids" like they don't let HER teenage son vape and swear in front of her young children???? ok lol.
anyway they said i was being an asshole so they said if i didnt find a place to stay theyd be kicking me out so i said ok, i doubled down and saved every dollar i earned to afford a uhaul and rent some random guy's room back near where we used to live. i tell them hey, im moving out. i have a place. kthanksbye. a week before the date i said id leave, my dad sits me down for a conversation. he wants to know why im being so difficult as if i havent tried to tell him. so i tell him again. he tells me, he can't be my rock anymore. he's tried his hardest to support me in my transition. (the confusion on my face was so palpable in this moment) he says that there's a hole in my heart that his love can't fill. and im sitting there like, wow. were you even listening? all i wanted was to spend time with him and him alone, not with her, because he's my DAD. then he says, "well, SHE convinced me to let you stay here if you pay us rent." and im like, dude... i leave in a week. i already told the guy im moving in and reserved a uhaul." i couldn't have stayed even if i wanted to and moving out of that godforsaken house was the best thing i've ever done. i hate the sound of children screaming and since my dad never played with me, he didn't play with them either (until after me and my brother had left) so they always wanted to play with ME. it was cute when we didn't live in the same house and i got to push them on the swings that i grew up on but if you bother me in MY room, MY corner of this hellhole, im gonna be super annoyed. he also got mad at me once because, while me and her kids were playing hide and seek, he and his gf decided to join without telling anyone, and hid on the porch, and i was tired of playing so i asked him if they went to the store or something because i DIDNT KNOW WHERE THEY WERE and he accused me of calling her a bad mother and leaving her kids behind without telling anyone and i was like ????????????????????????? and then i said well wherever yall are yall better come back cause i dont babysit for free. and he got even more mad because apparently its not babysitting worth paying for if they're your "siblings".
deepest apologies for the decline in grammar and punctuation. i can't be assed anymore. basically due to my shit father emotionally manipulating and gaslighting me for almost 3 years, my most frequent question to my bosses at work is, "are you mad at me?" im afraid every time someone calls for me, i cry every time im confronted with something that i did wrong, i still have suicidal ideation (it's gotten worse!) my mom wants me to forgive my dad for the way he treated me but its really hard because he doesnt even know that hes the reason why i was so upset and why i moved out because his wife kept butting in and i would argue with her instead of him and thats why they thought that i hate her because until i moved out i was literally not allowed to text either of them unless it was in the groupchat with both of them in it. how f*cking stupid is that? im not allowed to have a private conversation with my dad? because be so f*cking for real he'd just show her what i sent him in a private message anyway. she actually texted me late last year to use my employee discount for something and i had to tell her i didnt even work there anymore because i dont tell my dad anything anymore. he has no right to my private life. im still scared that somehow he'll show up at where i work and ill have to run and hide and pray they didnt see me. i dont want to forgive him. but im so tired.
and my mom constantly asks me how im doing and i can't tell her how im really doing because all she says is, "i get lifes tough but you gotta pull yourself up by the bootstraps" like im not addicted to shopping for the dopamine hit in this shit of a world and she just doesnt understand that i literally cannot make myself do the things i need to do (clean my room, get rid of stuff, etc) because my brain wont let me!! my brain wont let me escape the hell its made for me!!!
anyway dont forget to like and subscribe for more incoherent rambling and dont forget to comment on whether or not YOU think I have cptsd and potentially talk to my therapist or psychiatrist about it
To preface, I have been diagnosed with anxiety, ADHD, and severe depression since I was 11 (I'm 23 now). I do suffer from chronic suicidal ideation and I am currently being evaluated to see if I place on the autism spectrum. My parents are divorced. I currently live with my mom and my brother. My dad remarried to a woman with 3 kids from 2 previous partners (though they had to kick the oldest one out recently) and then had a baby last year. Also I'm transgender (female to male) but that isn't relevant until later.
My apologies if things seem to be out of order and incoherent. I'm quite upset. This is going to be a long ass post.
When I was a kid, I was bad at school. I struggled to complete assignments and do / turn in my homework. After my dad got home from his cushy 9 to 5 programming job, I vividly remember being forced to sit at the kitchen table while he set a timer on the microwave and told me that if I didn't finish my homework before it went off then I'd be in trouble (this was around.. 1st grade? Second?). Even if I didn't understand how to even do it. I had to ask him for help with math because it usually didn't make sense to me, and he'd always sigh and act like I was the most annoying thing to ever exist in his presence, his child that needed help with math homework. The more times I failed to get the problems right the angrier he'd become. It was the most humiliating thing to sit there, near tears, while he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Who could've thought that explaining the same thing over and over, with increasingly angrier tones, and not changing the way he explained it at all, would not help me understand how to solve the problem? For example, (though I was not this dumb) it's like if I didn't understand that 2 + 2 = 4 and the only way he would say it was, "What's 2 + 2? You know the answer. What's two plus two? What is it? *sigh* TWO plus TWO is?....." and so on and so forth. Eventually I stopped going to him for help because I hated the way it made me feel, even at the cost of my grades. Which I was also yelled at for. It was only after I cried about it that he finally understood the way it was hurting me. And, he did change the way he helped me, which was nice, but every single time I asked for help I was still so afraid I'd get yelled or sighed at. No matter how nicely he helped.
My grades stayed bad. My parents tried to entice me with money (being a middle schooler with no job), $20 for each A, $15 for a B, etc etc. This of course, only worked for a quarter or two. I just didn't care about anything except going home to play video games. It was my way to escape and sometimes bond with my dad and brother who are also avid gamers. My suicidal ideation got so bad that I was upset whenever I woke up in the morning, sad that I didn't die in my sleep like I had hoped. I would walk home from the bus stop every day praying that if I lingered too long in the street, a car would mow me down. I didn't talk about my feelings with my parents. We weren't a talking family. My mom had an oversharing mother, so with us she didn't talk feelings. I think my dad just didn't care enough. Sometimes I doubt that he ever loved me except in the way that he had to because he was my dad, if that makes sense? He makes me think of the phrase, "I love you because you're my kid, but I don't like you." My parents were also avid thinkers of, "He has everything he needs, food, water, shelter, he has no reason to be depressed!" So there's that.
Ever since I was a kid (this still happens) whenever I get in trouble or express my feelings, I cry. It's pretty much the only time I cry. I'm not doing it to incite pity or empathy or to manipulate anyone into doing what I want (like that would ever work). So when, after they divorced, I would try to talk about the issues I had with him dating my coworker, I always cried because I was so fed up of not being listened to and being left behind. And of course, because I was upset, I would get louder (but not to the point of actually yelling) even though he always got mad at me for yelling. My main issues were, not that he ever cared to listen (we would later figure out that he's very narcissistic.) that he wanted to date my COWORKER. who i only introduced to my dad because he was pathetic and lonely after my mom left him (for good reason ie not being a good husband or father, and the fact that he manipulated me into thinking SHE was the bad person because she wanted him to help out around the house without her asking him to and show that he loved her every once in a while other than providing the bare f*cking minimum. When they separated I lived with him mostly and only visited my mom sometimes because i was 17, almost 18, and they said that I could do whatever i wanted regarding visitation unlike my brother who had to do like, every other week or something.) it was after he had his new girlfriend and her kids move in with us in our moderately sized house (which was now too small) after literally knowing each other for only a few months, that i started talking to my mom more and more and began to realize that my dad is a f*cking asshole. Anyway the other main issue was that during the separation of my parents, my dad and i had a good, friendly relationship. We went to the store to get groceries together, sometimes went out to eat, and had good chats about random stuff. After his girlfriend moved in, he didn't want to spend time with me anymore. they would get groceries together and not invite me. which was the thing i loved to do with my dad. and that very much hurt my feelings.
when they moved into a bigger house (i unfortunately had to go with them because my mom's house wasn't big enough for her, my brother, and me) they were going to give me her chaise lounge (which i actually was excited to have) but for some reason they left it on the lawn because it wouldnt fit in the garage. i got home from work late (because i now lived almost an hour away from where i worked since they moved into the middle of nowhere!) and i still didn't have a key to the house for some reason (never got one either) or a code to the door lock (wouldn't get one for a while) so i had to sit and wait for my dad to open the garage door remotely and let me in. he finally did and i asked him about the lounge and he said not to try to bring it in by myself and i was like, ok. it was about 9pm at this point. 9:30 maybe. i sit down on my bed and wait for them to come home so they can help me move it. no idea when they're coming back. i end up falling asleep while waiting for them, shoes still on, door open, obviously im ready to move it. they get home at some point, 2 hours later than i did, don't bother waking me up and by the time i realized, they had gone to bed. so i still couldnt move it. and then in the morning he has the audacity to blame me?? because it sat outside in the rain overnight and they had to take it to the dump??? this is just the first of many "its your fault" that i heard because every time i tried to express my feelings they twisted it into that i hate his wife (i didnt) when i was trying to talk to my dad and she would BUTT IN? and DEFEND HIM until i got so mad i raised my voice at her too and then HE blew up at me and usually had me leave before i could even say what i wanted to say and every time i wondered aloud why he had said something so mean its because "well you were being an asshole."
when we moved into that house (september ish) they said that i wouldnt have to pay rent until the new year. i was like, ok, cool. arguing ensued later in the year. i get told, youre going to have to start paying rent if your attitude doesnt improve. (i was mad that, one night they wanted me to wash the dinner dishes even though i didnt even eat dinner with them and i was like ok. so i did, forgot the pots and pans on the stove because duh, go back to my room, dad texts me all mad that i didnt finish the dishes, f*cking sorry! i go wash the pots and pans, nobody puts the f*cking clean dishes away so im shoving things down the countertop. i go back to my room. he texts me AGAIN mad that i didnt wash the dishes from breakfast! if you wanted me to do ALL the f*cking dishes you shouldve said so! but he said DINNER DISHES! so incredibly pissed off i go back to finish the dishes AGAIN and when im finally done im so thouroughly pissed off i feel like i could eat a volcano. and then he gets mad at me again for huffing and puffing and wearing my headphones while i do the dishes because im "setting a bad example for the kids" like they don't let HER teenage son vape and swear in front of her young children???? ok lol.
anyway they said i was being an asshole so they said if i didnt find a place to stay theyd be kicking me out so i said ok, i doubled down and saved every dollar i earned to afford a uhaul and rent some random guy's room back near where we used to live. i tell them hey, im moving out. i have a place. kthanksbye. a week before the date i said id leave, my dad sits me down for a conversation. he wants to know why im being so difficult as if i havent tried to tell him. so i tell him again. he tells me, he can't be my rock anymore. he's tried his hardest to support me in my transition. (the confusion on my face was so palpable in this moment) he says that there's a hole in my heart that his love can't fill. and im sitting there like, wow. were you even listening? all i wanted was to spend time with him and him alone, not with her, because he's my DAD. then he says, "well, SHE convinced me to let you stay here if you pay us rent." and im like, dude... i leave in a week. i already told the guy im moving in and reserved a uhaul." i couldn't have stayed even if i wanted to and moving out of that godforsaken house was the best thing i've ever done. i hate the sound of children screaming and since my dad never played with me, he didn't play with them either (until after me and my brother had left) so they always wanted to play with ME. it was cute when we didn't live in the same house and i got to push them on the swings that i grew up on but if you bother me in MY room, MY corner of this hellhole, im gonna be super annoyed. he also got mad at me once because, while me and her kids were playing hide and seek, he and his gf decided to join without telling anyone, and hid on the porch, and i was tired of playing so i asked him if they went to the store or something because i DIDNT KNOW WHERE THEY WERE and he accused me of calling her a bad mother and leaving her kids behind without telling anyone and i was like ????????????????????????? and then i said well wherever yall are yall better come back cause i dont babysit for free. and he got even more mad because apparently its not babysitting worth paying for if they're your "siblings".
deepest apologies for the decline in grammar and punctuation. i can't be assed anymore. basically due to my shit father emotionally manipulating and gaslighting me for almost 3 years, my most frequent question to my bosses at work is, "are you mad at me?" im afraid every time someone calls for me, i cry every time im confronted with something that i did wrong, i still have suicidal ideation (it's gotten worse!) my mom wants me to forgive my dad for the way he treated me but its really hard because he doesnt even know that hes the reason why i was so upset and why i moved out because his wife kept butting in and i would argue with her instead of him and thats why they thought that i hate her because until i moved out i was literally not allowed to text either of them unless it was in the groupchat with both of them in it. how f*cking stupid is that? im not allowed to have a private conversation with my dad? because be so f*cking for real he'd just show her what i sent him in a private message anyway. she actually texted me late last year to use my employee discount for something and i had to tell her i didnt even work there anymore because i dont tell my dad anything anymore. he has no right to my private life. im still scared that somehow he'll show up at where i work and ill have to run and hide and pray they didnt see me. i dont want to forgive him. but im so tired.
and my mom constantly asks me how im doing and i can't tell her how im really doing because all she says is, "i get lifes tough but you gotta pull yourself up by the bootstraps" like im not addicted to shopping for the dopamine hit in this shit of a world and she just doesnt understand that i literally cannot make myself do the things i need to do (clean my room, get rid of stuff, etc) because my brain wont let me!! my brain wont let me escape the hell its made for me!!!
anyway dont forget to like and subscribe for more incoherent rambling and dont forget to comment on whether or not YOU think I have cptsd and potentially talk to my therapist or psychiatrist about it
