My dad was a true beta b1tchboy to the core of his being, very controlling, with lots of bitterness toward alphas. My mom was probably above average-looking for a Chinese woman, and the ONLY reason he got her was because she had never dated another man in her life before.
They met through a blind date set up by a mutual friend, of course. My dad was infatuated instantly from the first day. He called her every single day, multiple times a day, suffocated her with try-hard gifts and dates, constantly sought her attention. He won a pretty damn prestigious mathematics award, and what did he do with the trophy? He gifted it to her. She lost that fwcking thing in a couple months. A year after they started dating, he went for a kiss for the first time. She rejected him, and he almost broke down in tears. A couple years later he asked her to marry him; she wasn't sure if she was allowed to for work purposes, and he broke down crying right in front of her. Last year when my mom went back to visit China, she took a picture with some old (male) friend where his arm was around her shoulder. When my dad saw the pic he was so visibly jealous and yelled out that that man deserved to be SHOT (he wasn't kidding.)
I loathed my dad all of my childhood. All of my earlier memories of him are filled with anger and hate. I've never been a violent person, but the one moment in my life where I wanted to hurt someone bad and beat them to a literal pulp more than anything else in the world was when I was 11 years old. I had trained really hard for a competition in my sport. After I performed poorly, my dad told me to lie facedown on the bed so I did. Then right in front of my sister who was in elementary school at the time, he backhanded me repeatedly until tears welled up in my eyes and called me a bunch of profanities in Chinese. I had never wanted to kill someone so bad ever in my life, and my sister later told me the look on my face scared the sh1t out of her.
My mom was a psychopathic b1tch who acted like the sweetest, most timid helpless lady in public yet was a total cvnt at home especially to my dad. She often threw things and shattered things, making a big mess, and refused to clean them up, demanding that my dad do it because it was his fault. To this day my sister and I ponder whether or not she's "all there". When I was 14 I had many conversations with my dad in which I kept trying to convince him to divorce her, but he couldn't do it.
I grew up assuming that everyone hated their parents. I thought it was normal. When I went over to friends' houses and their parents were so sweet to me they treated me like I was baby jesus himself, I would be like "Wow your parents are really good actors I can't see them yelling at you." It wasn't until my late teens that I realized parents are supposed to be your role models. I recently read my best friend's personal statement for his grad school application where he mentioned his father being his ultimate role model in life. It seriously made me do a reality check, made me go "Wha???"
They never, ever made a point to teach me character or put any importance on it. The only thing they seemed to care about was being "better than" other people or "saving face" (for anyone who has studied Chinese culture). I vividly remember the first time I read in a magazine about how these two parents were glad their kid could go to an academy yet they could still be his moral guidance I flipped the fwck out when I suddenly realized that that's what most parents do, they care about their kids' character. I was at least 16 when I realized that most parents serve as moral guidance for their kids. My parents never, ever, explicitly or implicitly, stressed any values except "work hard".
The mental abuse from both parents was the worst, MUCH worse than any way they could have harmed me physically. I mean my dad would hit my little sister so hard when she was 8 years old that he left bruises, and then the next day buy her a popsicle and say "I'm sorry, I love you." Every day they would tell us how worthless we were, how we didn't put enough effort into everything, how all the other children were so perfect...but in PUBLIC they would brag so shamelessly (to the point where my dad would OUTRIGHT LIE sometimes) about us that I couldn't bear to look anywhere but the ground. I constantly wished that my parents would just fwcking HIT me more and harder so I had some ground to stand on. I WANTED them to leave marks on me so I could show someone, hey this is real. Nobody understood. Anytime I complained to someone they would tell me "parents yell at you and put you down all the time, it's normal" or if they'd met my parents they'd be like "no way, you're parents are the sweetest people I've met! there's no way they're that bad!" Sometimes in public I would try to provoke my dad so that he would hit me or something but it never worked, he was always "loving proud dad" in public. I wanted so badly for some other family to see the truth and save me.
I was so sick of empty threats they would make ALL the time. My dad would tell me I performed so poorly that he was going to kill himself out of shame. Then the next day he'd make a HUGE scene in front of me thanking my mom for talking him out of plunging a knife into his heart. He'd constantly threaten my mom that he'd divorce her, he'd threaten me that he'd destroy all of my sports equipment, he'd threaten to my sister that he would kill our dog...I got so sick of it that one day when I was 14, mom and dad were fighting, fists were being exchanged, and my dad threatened to call the police on her...I rolled my eyes and was like "FWCK you dad how about you do something you say for once" so I picked up the phone, called 911, and told them my parents were beating each other up. When they showed up, I was HOPING TO GOD that someone would get arrested so they would realize how fwcking stupid and annoying their empty threats were. Much to my dismay, the cops came in, saw that there was no alcohol involved, saw two unintimidating asian adults living in a shingled suburban house, and concluded that there was nothing to worry about.
My sister and I responded in very different ways. She directed all the negative feelings inward and truly believed what my parents said when they told her every day that she was worthless. She was always a cute, sweet child who EVERYONE adored, she was always surrounded by friends, yet by age 11 she started slitting her wrists (unbeknownst to me) and became obsessed with the themes of death and pain. After that, she eventually sunk into full-fledged depression and attempted suicide multiple times. She currently takes meds, goes to a special school for teens with mood disorders, is "dating" a 24 year old, and will have to do 5 years of high school despite being one of the smartest kids in her entire school who could get 95%'s on tests for AP classes that she never showed up to. I, on the other hand, responded by directing my anger outward. I blamed my parents and the world around me for everything negative in my life, even when it wasn't true. I constantly told myself that if my parents died, I would laugh. I consciously dissociated myself from my family and reminded myself all the time that I had NOTHING to do with "those people" and never will. This even included my sister, who was a pretty darn good sister and never did me any wrong. By the time she opened up to me about her depression, I had already severed my bonds so much so that although I consciously reassured her and sought professional help for her, I knew that in my heart I didn't give a sh1t about her. This carried through both times she tried to kill herself (that I know of). The second time, when I saw blood seeping out of these horrid looking knife wounds on her wrists, the bathtub and bathroom filled with her blood like a fwcking crime scene on TV, I felt nothing. Seriously, I didn't care. I drove her and my mom to the hospital. Months later she told me she saw how I behaved and knew I didn't give a sh1t.
It wasn't until rather recently in my life that I found out what daddy issues were and realized that I had them. It was a nice realization that explained why I had always been obsessed with male role models, fictional or real (don't worry, I no longer am. I, myself, am my own and only role model). I was searching for a father figure. Most recently is my college coach in my sport. Although I'm over it now, the first two years I literally treated the guy like he was my father. No matter how stupid or insensitive what he did or said was, I stuck by his word and would have defended him to the death. It p1ssed the hell out of me whenever my teammates ever spoke a word of criticism about him or even made a joke about him in good fun, so much to the point hwere they just wouldn't share those thoughts with me because they knew I'd just defend him.
I've lived on my own long enough now tho that I'm far removed from those times and I've managed to forgive my parents and move on from my mommy and daddy issues. The stuff I typed out I would pretty much never say in person, but it felt good to revisit the dark path behind for a little while and let loose in an online anonymous forum.
