Got a comment from someone and although it's very real that it could just be a troll or something, I'd like to give everyone the full story on my situation so you all know what's been going on.
I don't like being a sob story teenager, and to be honest it took years to gather the courage to talk about these things about me. I often times got comments like "It's not that bad", "It'll always get worse so you don't have a right to complain", or "boohoo" basically, so it's taken time for me to come out about everything. At the same time, I've also gotten wonderful and encouraging comments, and the support you people have brought me have been enough for me to keep fighting on and get over the past.
Currently, to me, the past is the past. It doesn't bother me anymore for the most part, and I don't worry about anything that has happened before. I'm also way less dramatic about it then when I was 14, haha... but lets move on. Im only gonna summarize, so if you want full detail... its probably been posted on a journal or on my tumblr under /personal at some point.
As a toddler/young girl, I think I had a pretty decent life. Maybe even spoiled. Dad had an online business that was doing pretty well... all of our bills were pretty secure. No stress, no financial issues, and my parents actually seemed pretty happy. But my dad's business had done so well... well enough for bigger companies to offer money in the millions to buy it from him. I believe the offer was at 1mil, when he decided to wait for higher offers. Then.. 9/11 happened, and people withdrew their offers. My dad's business also began to decline.
Somewhere in between then and about a year's time (I was about 5/6 years old) things started to get really awry. My parents gained circles under their eyes, and sometimes we didn't have running water / electricity / food. I didn't understand, and I thought it was normal. What I didn't find normal, however, was that my dad never wanted to play with me anymore. He always had a beer in his hand. My parents didn't seem so happy anymore.
Things escalated. They got to borderline abuse... to where it was enough to make me panic and fear for my life, but never enough to qualify as something bad enough like you see on the TVs. After my second sister was born, and mom had a job (when dad stayed at home), things got even darker.
Before then, I had been a pretty good student. I don't say this to brag, but I was a top student of my grade. I was getting awards for fourth grade students in second grade. I loved math and science and I loved going to school. I was getting honor rolls every single time possible. I got "principal's honor rolls", which I'm unsure if they have those everywhere or if it was just my school, but those are for students who get straight A's. This lasted until I was about 8 years old.
Before this sort of decline, it seemed like I was my dad's favorite child. I was the first, the oldest, and the one he seemed closest to. After his drinking went crazy, it seemed that I was his favorite child to torture instead. By 8 years old, I responsible for almost all of the chores, save mowing the lawn and cooking dinner. I did all of the cleaning, the laundry, dishes, taking care of the dog, babysitting my sisters and changing their diapers. I am not complaining about these chores, but how he threw them on me. I did my best. I worked my hardest. Nothing, nothing was good enough for him. I can't seem to sweep good enough, I can't do the laundry fast enough, and if I am ever playing/sitting on the couch watching TV, I am irresponsible and lazy. This was the same with my grades. I would walk in with a 98%, and think "Okay.. he'll definitely be proud of me now!!", and after showing him, he literally told me "You can do better". No, I am not Asian. stereotypes are bad you guys. It doesn't end there, either.. it was constant yelling, cussing, throwing objects at me. I thought it was all normal, until I noticed my sisters didn't get the same treatment as me. On rare occasion that he asked my younger sister to do something, he would turn around and give her $5 for doing the same exact job as she did. I started getting dark circles under my eyes, too.
I started losing interest in things I once loved to do. I started feeling like the energy was being drained out of me. My grades started slipping. I started crying. I used to question if there really was a god out there, and why he would create me just to be a burden of a human life. At 8 years old I began running suicide through my mind.
There's a lot more that went on, but I don't want to go too much into detail and keep moving forward. My parents and I, obviously, have had a very terrible relationship. Mom didn't know what went on when she wasn't home, and sided with my dad at all times. But I had a worse relationship with my dad. With some of the things they've said and indicated, I would be terrified to get out of bed every day. I would be too scared to ride in a car alone with dad at night (if he drove a different direction than normal) because I was scared he'd drop us off somewhere to abandon us. There had been many times I was scared and felt like crying, but I still had two little sisters, so I always kept my head up as much as I could for them. I always tried to find ways to make them laugh (getting past the typical fights sisters have, haha).
Going into middle school with things at home still escalating, my home life started to reflect on my physical appearance. I was bone thin, dark circles under eyes, had no energy, and became an instant outcast to everyone. My family had trained me to be a slave to society; I was too scared to interact with people unless spoken too, and I cared entirely too much about pleasing people. At 13, I felt absolutely, impossibly, alone. I didn't even have a best friend. All I had where my doodles and the sob story of a person I was.
From here on out is a little less of my family situation and more of my own personal struggles. All of this past crap, despite me not wanting to admit it, left little threads tied around my legs to be plucked at random moments. Still, after things started to get better, those little bitty bits of insults from the past still bothered me.
By 8th grade, I had moved and it felt like everything had become a clean slate. It hadn't. I was still the emotional ball of stress I had been before.. still possible to improve, but wasn't quite there yet. I had pretty terrible grades. I still didn't have the motivation to do anything at this time. I wouldn't even think of the next day ahead of me, let alone the future. Every day felt like it dragged on, and the only thing that kept me afloat was my drawings. Every time a teacher got pissed, I only drew more. I'll admit it, I was a little shit, but I didn't quite get that at the time. I didn't realize the importance of school (and lost all sight of goals and a future. I literally doubted I'd live to see 18).
This point is like in those story books where it builds up to the climax- things started getting a little intense. I finally built up courage to not only make friends, but voice myself. I felt like I had been a shut in bottle for so long, and finally felt like a bit of a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I also felt strong enough to challenge my parents- and by that I mean call them out on the things they had done in the past.
I won't go into detail about that because it is its own story on its own, but I think a MAJOR argument I had with my parents (when I was 18) was a very important moment in my life and a big step of moving on. The conversation ended in "Fuck you's" from my parents to me, but regardless, I realized that I had wasted so much time in being a people pleaser when it got me no where. Trying to make them proud was like whipping a dead horse. I needed to please myself.
Before that argument and leaving high school, things had been pretty... not-so-great. I made many new friends and MENTALLY felt happy, but I had no idea depression was an illness and can effect more than your mood. In the past five years, I've been battling things from anemia to malnutrition to hypothyroidism, and always not realizing that those where real problems -- WITH SOLUTIONS. I had been incredibly weak and worked really, really hard to get better. I didn't notice a problem until my sophomore year, where I was missing atleast 3 out of the 5 day week on average. It was hard to get out of bed, hard to get dressed, hard to get focused. I often felt sick or just weird (its so hard to explain, but I guess I'd describe it like fatigue, I would just feel drained and feel like passing out for no reason). I missed a lot of sleep, sometimes on purpose and others on accident, and I was just a huge mess. Thanks to growing up with hardships on food, my eating habits where terrible and I never questioned it until later on. Whenever I had an issue, I was told EAT. DRINK. SLEEP. MORE MORE MORE. It got to the point where whenever I feel wrong at all, I instantly eat, drink some water, etc.
Sophomore year, I dropped out to catch up on my health and get myself back on my feet. I returned junior year way more serious about my education (finally, after years) however, I still missed a lot of school. My health had gotten better but wasn't enough.
Senior year, still a bit better than the year before but not good enough, my sister had gotten sick twice in one month which got her two weekends out of the month, but somehow got me bedridden for three weeks. I lost a lot of weight during that time, and of course it had fallen conveniently before the end of the school year. I couldn't catch up with the credits in time to graduate high school normally.
The next summer had been filled with a lot of self-hate. I cried a lot. I would flip through the senior book and bawl my eyes out at all of the things I missed out on. I hated myself for not being able to do the most simple things. I especially hated that I could let the insults/torment of my parents beat me up so much. I didn't want those things to get to me, and I was so FED UP with it, that I had my breaking point
I decided, it's time.
It's time to get my shit together because if I can't do it myself now, I never will.
Through trail and error, I got my GED and passed it with accelerated scores. I got three jobs, I busted my ass at all of them, and I worked hard for a year (more trail and error) to get accepted into SCAD and start getting my life moving.
A lot of the time, I do a lot of complaining, but thats only to you guys / venting on the internet. I am not actually this way irl and on a constant, I just describe the extremes to you guys to vent or to joke.
However, not being able to afford college was the worst step out of all of this. I can take an emotional beating from my parents, work hard for it to all fall out in the end and if it's my fault, I don't care. However, when you finally have dreams and goals, and work so hard towards your health and happiness and come so far, for them to break on you is horrifying.
I never expected this hurdle. Apparently, if I had asked my mom 2 days prior, I could have gotten those loans. It's all chance and luck, sometimes, and life isn't always fair.
But I'm not going to give up. I'm not putting up with that. No. I'm sick of being a burden. I'm sick of being a deadweight waste of space. I'm ready to get my damn feet in the world and live my life. I've already been a vegetable of a teen and I don't want it anymore.
My current decision... is to save up and move out of my family's place. I plan on staying in the state so I can lower tuition, as well as try to attend a community college in the meanwhile if possible. I'm going to be giving my art a go to see how well that does on it's own, as well.
I know things are difficult, I know life isn't made to constantly rub you the right way, you don't have to tell me twice. I know. But at the same time, life can be very wonderful. Throughout all of the trail and error, the tears, the hurt and disappointment, I can still smile, and that's enough for me. Human kindness and life alone is a gift in itself. And I'm not trying to sound like those stereotypical posters hung up in elementary classrooms.
For those of you with easy going lives, stuff just basically handed to you, to live day by day happy, don't ever.. ever take that for granted. You are so lucky. You are of course allowed to have a bad day or be upset, its human and I won't judge you, but I really encourage you all to live up your life while you still can. They say you don't live long, and we're all young, so we might as well do it smiling instead of moping, right?
Thank you for every single one of you who have supported me, said encouraging things to me or tried to help me throughout the years I've been on here. Even if I don't respond or don't seem to care, I read every single comment and carefully think about every single one. You all have made me very happy.
I also, despite the brighter colors in my artworks, can see some of the restriction I had. I don't create original works or more inspirational stuff anymore. Its all fanart or very limited works, and although ive pushed myself in some aspects, there have been many things I havent really done what I can with yet, and soon I'd like to do my best and show you all what I can do
Thanks again for following me, everyone
I'll do even better than before
Sorry about my sob stories
I'll keep getting better
