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Okay, so I've been having probems lately (actually, my entire life) with my parents, and I would really love advice/comments.... Just to warn you all, this is probably going to get incredibly lengthy and long-winded, and I don't know how to do one of those LJ cuts, so please bear with me. Oh and I'm probably cross-posting to other advice boards.
So... some background: I'm 18. I'm starting school in the Fall at the University of Michigan-Flint. And I have a TERRIBLE relationship with my parents. I don't even know how to describe my relationship with them, because I don't know if anyone will *ever* be able to understand what our relationship is like.
All I know is that my parents (more specifically, my mother) completely HATE me. And I have no idea why! To be perfectly honest, I am (and have been) the epitome of the "good kid" or the "nice girl" that people always talk about. During HS, I never went out and got drunk, I didn't sleep around, I didn't do any drugs, and I got good grades (graduated 25th out of a class of 200, which I'm actually pretty proud of). I bent over backwards trying to make them happy. I devoted so much of my time trying to please them by "behaving" myself and studying, that I'm sad to say I graduated without ever having any actual F-U-N.
And they STILL aren't happy. I don't think I will ever be what they want, because it seems no matter how hard I try, I'll always fall short. As long as I can remember, I have never ever ever been good enough for them. Looking back, I can remember sitting on our couch in the livingroom doing my homework, while my mother sat there and picked and picked and PICKED at me till I cried. Basically criticizing my clothes, the way I did my hair, the way I talked, my friends, the way I looked.
To make a long story short, my mother will never pass up the chance to tell me (or anyone else) just how unacceptable I am. She talks about me like that to everyone. And it makes me feel so bad, because I feel like I don't have any way to defend myself, like there's nothing I can do to change people's opinions of me, because the way that my mother parades around, acting like I'm her juvenile delinquent daugher who can't do anything right. And she goes around blatantly TELLING people just how horrible I am. Often, if I pass by her room while she's on the phone, she'll be talking to someone telling them how abnormal I am, how unmotivated, disrespectful, and stupid I turned out to be. And the thing is, I think it's had a pretty big effect on the way I relate to others. Automatically, when I see someone or meet someone in my town, my first reaction is "Okay, now I wonder what s/he heard about me from my mother?!", and it's just made me feel so defeated and helpless, like I'm not even worth somebody's time. Like my actions or words count for nothing. Like by publicly humiliating me and disrespecting me, she's making future relationships, future LIFE for me impossible.
And another thing is, I feel like she doesn't even know me. Every single thing she tells people about me is so untrue that it's not even funny. In a letter to my great-aunt in California, she described me as being "Rude, a loner, disrespectful, a social retard, cold, unfeeling..." Among many other things. And that's not who I am at all. I would do ANYTHING for anybody. I would literally give the shirt off my back to someone who needed it. I'm not a loner, by any means. I have an amazing group of friends who have helped more than I can even say... People have described me as being "sweet, even-tempered, good-natured, someone who has a good heart..." So I guess I just don't understand why she has this perception of me... She's called me a bitch to my face. She's told me that she "Couldn't wait for me to go away to college!" (The irony...) AND I JUST DON'T GET IT.
And obviously, when someone continues to do this to you on a daily basis, your self-confidence takes a pretty big beating. To say that I have low self-esteem would be an understatement.When I was younger, I used to think that I was bad and stupid and ugly and fat, because that's the way she made me feel, and like a dog, I thought I deserved it. But when I got older, I stopped taking it from her. I still heard the things she said to me, but I stopped letting them have a visible effect on me. I stopped crying (in front of her) when she yelled at me. I stopped talking to her, period.
And I haven't been happy living in this kind of environment. I've tried to lie, and tell myself that I'm happy, that I've always been happy, but I realized that I couldn't do that anymore, so I started making changes. The summer before my senior year, I started applying to some really good colleges, some in which admission was competitive. I figured that if I wasn't happy here, then maybe I should try something else, go somewhere where I felt they couldn't hurt me anymore. I got a $50,000 scholarship to a great school in Virginia (Hollins) that has a wonderful Creative Writing program, and other smaller scholarships as well to other colleges/universities. And during my senior year, the thought that I might be able to go away for college kept me going. NO LIE. But a week before the enroll deposit was due, my parents pretty much crushed my dream when they said that I WASN'T going to Hollins. That I "had no choice, it wasn't up to me.) They refused to co-sign on a loan(I couldn't get a loan on my own being 18 and not having any credit), my good behavior during HS wasn't enough to ensure that I wasn't going to run wild at college,they didn't think I had the street smarts to live in a dorm. (My question is, how am I ever going to learn street smarts if they never let me out on my own?!), and they just flat out refused to let me go. So now, I'm pretty much going to a really crummy college, and I feel like all my hard work was for absolutely nothing. I feel like I have nothing to look forward to because I'm stuck going to a school that I never intended on even applying to, and I feel like a prisoner in a house, living with people I hate.
So I guess, I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm at a really negative, unhealthy place in my life right now, and I WANT TO MOVE ON. I'm 18, and I don't want to waste any more of my life feeling terrible about myself. I believe that I deserve to be happy, but I feel trapped in a place where no one wants me to be happy. I'm so scared that my resentment for my parents is going to fester and build up, causing me to basically self-destruct.... I've tried talking to them about it, and she just laughs in my face... So what I'm really asking for is advice. Am I completely nuts to feel this way?
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