Broken but not Destroyed

it's always about the car

It's been weeks since my last argument with my father. Months since my last argument with my mother. Years since my last argument with my sister, and that was all it took to crumble and shred every ounce of self-worth and motivation I had towards improving myself. And it all started, when my mother mentioned "the car".

It's some uncanny coincidence that most arguments, if not all, have somehow revolved around this damn car. My argument with my mother months ago was because she implanted the perception that I'm so entitled each time I ask to use the car, and bound an implicit contract of sending my grandmother to all her functions if I were to even hint at using that darn old scrap of moving metal. Another argument with my mother was when she insisted on sending me to school and we had an argument, and she dumped me randomly in the pouring rain. Today, was about me not sending my sister to school, when we both had class at the same time and she had told me just as I was about to leave that she would like a ride. I simply said that she should tell me earlier as I had already planned to leave at a certain time.

Somehow, this triggered my sister to act in a way that my mum would've lashed out at me and call "entitled" (gosh, how I love that word). Yet, she got away with speaking to me in that manner and I got frustrated at how I was trying to have a conversation with her yet she was reacting in that way. Of course, every time I get emotional, somehow it becomes me who's the problem and I shouldn't be that way. And she then has the audacity to say that I blame my family for having to go for therapy, and if that is so, why is it I'm the one that is in therapy and not them? Why is it that I'm the one that has to change if I'm always right and everyone is wrong? Why is it that I'm working so hard, to change my ways, to manage myself so I don't fucking break down each time this happens?

I don't know which is worse, someone knowing that they are toxic but trying to hide it or someone not knowing that they are toxic and therefore can't change?

"Don't air our dirty laundry in front of 3 strangers!" My mother shouted at me when I answered her question as to why I think our family is toxic.

What did you expect me to say mother? Our family is toxic, dysfunctional, hypocritical and emotionally illiterate. Emotions are too much for anyone and perhaps that's the toxic culture that we've been brought up in but does that excuse it? How is it not toxic when my father talks shit about my mother to us, my mother talks shit about my father to us, and now, my sister and mother side against me and talk shit about me, or my mother and father talking shit about me? I can't trust anyone and I thought I at least had my sister, my supposed "best friend", but this ideology shattered after being pierced with the words: "Why must you always win?", "Why must I always agree with you?", "You always talk bad about mummy and I have to agree".

All I've ever done for her was try to be the best older sister and cover for her each time she screws things up for herself. Always seen as the golden child, the most talented in tennis, the wittiest one and smartest one in the family. She threw all that away by not working hard and giving up, and I protected her from my parents' wrath as much as I could. I'm not a perfect sister or person, and I would go back and change how I did things when I was younger. But I can't change the past and am trying to change the future.

In the past it probably came off as me always wanting to be right. But actually, I know realize that I never asked anyone to agree with me. I don't want people to agree with me. I've learned that I can't win, I can't make people like me, I can't make people agree with me. All I want, is someone who listens. Who tries to understand my intentions, who I am. Someone who can validate me and my emotions. That I'm not some horrible crazy human being each time I open my mouth. There's something called the "Self-fulfilling Prophecy" and it's when you treat people the way you see them, they start to act in that way, and you think you are right. So if my family just thinks I'm such a shit person all the time and treat me that way, how am I to change at all? When every single time I open my mouth I get told to shut up, while my sister can be dripping with venom and devilishness which they laugh off as sarcasm and wittiness. That's her character and personality which they adore while for me it's a flaw and attitude. Well I'm done changing myself for my family, trying to prove my worth to them when obviously, it doesn't matter at all and nobody in this damn family ever bothers to communicate and resolve our issues. Everyone is too cowardly to even address anything after the fight and just ignore each other till the feelings go away and pretend it never happened, but etches it in their mind and will bring it up again as another issue that I started in a few months or years.

So this isn't about the car. It's more than that. Nobody else in this family cares enough to clear the broken eggshells that we've walked on, except for me. But it's endless and I can't keep doing this forever. I'm trying my best but it's not enough and it will never be.